Dave's Archives

AI-generated (stable diffusion) ge of "cyclon writing with a pen".

The sporadic blog of David J A Cooper. I write sci-fi, teach software engineering, and occasionally say related (or not related) things.

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  • The Bayesian rabbit hole

    You may recall previous rants about my theoretical framework. The recent evolution of my thought processes (much like all other times) has been something like this: hurrah, done… except… [ponder]… I should see if I can fix this little problem… [ponder]… How the hell is this supposed to work?… [ponder]… Damn, the library doesn’t have…

  • Sucks to be me

    After [intlink id=”300″ type=”post”]speculating about the stimulus package[/intlink], and then [intlink id=”524″ type=”post”]speculating about whether I’d receive a piece of it[/intlink], it looks like I’ve fallen through the cracks. According to Julia Gillard, postgraduate students must be full-time and receiving an APA scholarship, or an equivalent “qualifying” scholarship, in order to be eligible for the…

  • Bike helmet laws

    According to New Scientist, an Australian academic has determined (using a mathematical model) that the costs of mandatory bike helmet laws may outweigh the benefits. This relies on the notion that fewer people cycle if forced to wear a helmet, and so do not receive the health benefits of cycling. However, there is some debate…

  • Keeping score

    It seems 300 names have been added to the original list of 400 “prominent scientists” who dispute things about climate change. If you follow that link there are a couple of good examples of the calibre of debate on the issue. I [intlink id=”515″ type=”post”]posted a few days ago[/intlink] about attempts to rubbish the scientific…

  • Talking about refugees

    The Liberal Party has reminded me in no uncertain terms why I (at least) voted it out at the last election. John Howard was a competent leader, and his government can take the credit for several good deeds. However, these cannot make up for an (almost) complete lack of conscience regarding refugee policy. I can…

  • Talking about racism

    The combination of Israel’s consummate paranoia and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s pursuit of some grubby nationalistic agenda has done the world a great disservice, from what I can tell. If Ahmadinejad knew that his anti-Israel rant would turn the UN’s Durban Review into a circus – and surely we can credit him with a modicum of intelligence…

  • Climate control

    For someone who rails so vehemently against global warming “alarmism”*, Andrew Bolt sure seems to be alarmed about hypothetical fatalities attributed to air conditioning failure during blackouts. Bolt states: “Just how many died because power blackouts knocked out their airconditioning is not known.” It’s not known, of course, because nobody has reported it happening, not…

  • Unstimulated

    The ATO’s tax bonus eligibility calculator informs me that I’m not, after all, eligible to receive the $900 tax bonus. I was above the tax-free threshold in 2007-08, but my tax was erased by offsets. It’s not clear whether I’m eligible to receive the $950 “training and learning” bonus either. I’m unknown to Centrelink and…

  • Temporal malfunction

    You may have noticed that Dave’s Archives, in a fit of celebratory humour, temporarily reverted to a two-week old version on Good Friday. So did my inbox, and for a while I thought I’d lost all my emails and blog posts since March 26. Email isn’t a problem, because I have a convoluted forwarding scheme…

  • The doomsday argument

    This has recently been the source of much frustration for some of my friends, as I’ve attempted to casually plow through a probabilistic argument that most people would instinctively recoil at. So, I thought, it might work better when written down. Of course, plenty of others have also written it down, including Brandon Carter –…