The ideal of certainty in mathematical proof is crumbling, says Brian Hayes. I tend to agree, but then again, I'm a weirdo left-wing postmodernist.

This article is long, but I think it's worth reading. The opening sentence - "I was a teenage angle trisector" - is genius.

Jim Henley on torture and hypothetical scenarios:

What if the suspect demands you fix the World Series and this was your team’s best chance at a championship in 50 years? What if he says he’ll tell you where the bomb is if someone will explain the proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem, in words he can understand? What if he’ll make sure the bomb doesn’t go off in exchange for a ride on the space shuttle? Hey—it could happen.

A reader (incidentally also a cartoonist) points me to this article about the Canadian with no pulse. In some sense this is my field of research bearing fruit. They've been using these left-ventricular assist devices for a while; what's new is that here it's pretty much a complete heart replacement rather than just an assist device. The group I work with a little is trying to make a right-ventricular assist device. There are limitations to these things, which is why I have a job, but it's still pretty amazing stuff.

Tax carbon emissions, sell permits so that polluters can buy and sell carbon credits, or do nothing. Ronald Bailey discusses three approaches to dealing with global warming.

What your waiter thinks of you when you order your martini shaken, not stirred.

It's that time of year, so Daniel Solove is offering all of us in academia a detailed guide, complete with figures, of how to grade exams. I'm not a TA this term, but when I was, this was pretty much the method I used.

Muhammad Yunus gives himself a pat on the back for microcredit. If anybody deserves it, it's him.

Seed gets on the "shared space", make streets more dangerous to make them safer, bandwagon:

Researchers replaced road signs and white lane dividers with a variety of urban design elements: red bricks were used to make the road narrower, and trees, shrubs and street furniture were placed directly in the right of way.

I'd be curious to see what street furniture placed "directly in the right of way" looks like, exactly. I've mentioned this kind of thing before, and I am becoming even more convinced.

Virginia Postrel has an interesting piece in the Atlantic about chain stores and what it means to have local color:

Chains make a large range of choices available in more places. They increase local variety, even as they reduce the differences from place to place. People who mostly stay put get to have experiences once available only to frequent travelers, and this loss of exclusivity is one reason why frequent travelers are the ones who complain.

Richard Cohen says that algebra has no value. He obviously hasn't read this paper, which applies game theory to discuss the efficiency and equilibrium of various toilet seat strategies.

John Derbyshire (a mathematician, incidentally) is yelling about how stupid educational theory is. His rant ranges from the offensive

Girls are encouraged to act like boys by taking up advanced science, math, and strenuous sports, which few of them have any liking or aptitude for.

to the possibly offensive but also thought-provoking

American parents are now all resigned to the fact that they must beggar themselves to purchase college diplomas for their offspring, so that said offspring can get low-paid outsource-able office jobs, instead of having to descend to high-paid, un-outsource-able work like plumbing, carpentry, or electrical installation.

The New Scientist has a feature where a bunch of "brilliant minds" try to predict the future. I haven't read many of the contributors, and there are a lot, so let me know if any of them are particularly worth reading.