Big Helping of Potpourri

The good and diverse mathy stuff just keeps on comin'... ICYM any of these:

1)  First, this wonderful, ranging interview with fascinating polymath Eric Weinstein ought not be missed:
http://tinyurl.com/q4mt2c7

2)  Interesting interview with Caltech's Xinwen Zhu (former student of Edward Frenkel), who works on the Langlands program:
http://www.caltech.edu/news/prime-numbers-quantum-fields-and-donuts-interview-xinwen-zhu-45000

3)  The Bayesian/frequentist debate goes on:
http://tinyurl.com/nkjs273

4)  A bunch of "puzzles and starters" from Stephen Cavadino here:
https://cavmaths.wordpress.com/puzzles-and-starters/

OR, if you need a stronger challenge here are some 2014 Putnam problems:
https://mathproblems123.wordpress.com/2014/12/08/putnam-2014-problems/

5)  A topic that will be increasingly crucial to newer generations... Teaching kids coding/programming as part of literacy:
http://www.davidketcheson.info/2014/12/09/teaching_kids_to_program.html

6)  More math and music/noise from Evelyn Lamb:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/roots-of-unity/2014/12/09/missing-fundamental-telephone-integers/

7)  Some mathematical commentary on increasingly-pervasive personal genetic testing:
http://plus.maths.org/content/23-and-maths

8)  Princeton University Press has sent along this short list of some upcoming spring/summer offerings in popular math:
http://blog.press.princeton.edu/wp-content/uploads/PR/Spring15Math.pdf

9)  I'm not sure it's even possible for Fawn Nguyen to write anything that doesn't leave you with a tear in your eye before the end:
http://fawnnguyen.com/four-square-and-other-questions/

10)  Keith Devlin's latest on math learning and math learning apps:
http://tinyurl.com/o5jeas2

11)  Andrew Gelman isn't the first, and won't be the last, to write about "the fallacy of placing confidence in confidence intervals":
http://andrewgelman.com/2014/12/11/fallacy-placing-confidence-confidence-intervals/

12)  The always-hard-to-predict Vi Hart was back this week (as probably everyone knows) with a lesson on our social/collective behavior via a mathematical game, "Parable of the Polygons":
http://ncase.me/polygons/

13)  The 117th Carnival of Mathematics is out now:
http://plus.maths.org/content/carnival-mathematics-117

14)  And per usual, check out MikesMathPage to see what Mike Lawler and the boys have been up to this week:  http://mikesmathpage.wordpress.com/

....there, that should hold you through the weekend.