Br-r-rimming-over Potpourri

Biggest potpourri I've yet done for your weekend catching-up, if you missed many of these:

1)  Nice extended (and fun) discussion of correlation and causation here:
http://statswithcats.wordpress.com/2015/01/01/how-to-tell-if-correlation-implies-causation/
(HT to Patrick Honner for this one, and a blog that was new to me)

2)  I suspect every long-time teacher out there has a story to tell similar to Fawn Nguyen's in "Let's Not." I just don't know if they can tell it as well as she does:
http://fawnnguyen.com/lets-not/
...and in another post she challenges her students to go beyond the book:
http://fawnnguyen.com/rigid-transformations/

3)  An interesting entry from Jeremy Kun looking at math authenticity in the entertainment industry... and thusly, finding for himself, a niche business opportunity!:
http://j2kun.svbtle.com/authenticity-of-background-math

4)  Interesting and fun first-of-year posting from "Gödel's Lost Letter" on the Breakthrough Prizes, a new book, and yearly predictions:
http://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2015/01/04/mathematics-its-about-the-future/

5)  No younguns (or video) in this one, as Mike Lawler explains how financial bonds can yield a surprisingly high return in a falling interest environment:
http://mikesmathpage.wordpress.com/2015/01/05/an-interesting-math-example-coming-from-finance/
(And as usual there is still more interesting stuff up at Mike's page from the week.)

6)  A basic introduction to prime numbers (with plenty of basic links) from "Solve My Maths" here:
http://solvemymaths.com/2015/01/04/complements-4-prime-numbers/

7)  Another (transcribed) Ed Frenkel interview, on AI, math education, and the future:
https://math.berkeley.edu/~frenkel/interview-VEJA.pdf

8)  John Baez has an interesting, if pessimistic, piece about Google giving up on their search for cheap renewable energy (the comments are as interesting as the post):
http://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2015/01/05/why-google-gave-up/

9)  I've previously pointed out this long, rich Lior Pachter post on mathematics and biology, and was a bit surprised it didn't draw even more comments than the ~30+ it had at last check -- but perhaps it's so long and complex that it scared readers off!? Anyway, I did recently discover (h/t to Gerald Thurman) a lot of additional comments, or at least chatter, over at this aggregator site, for anyone wanting to peruse more discussion:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8819811

10)  In his latest piece for Huffington Post, Keith Devlin asks, "How badly do we want 21st-century, relevant, first-class education for the nation's children?," and offers an update on what's happening with educational technology in K-12:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-keith-devlin/edtech-investment-is-at-record-levels_b_6405226.html
In the end he says that "revolutionizing K-12 education within a decade requires a transformative, national, public-private initiative, perhaps reminiscent of, but much less expensive than, the NASA Apollo Project to put a man on the Moon"!

11)  If you thought donuts were just for breakfast, you were wrong -- donuts are for math class (and fun blog posts):
http://lifethroughamathematicianseyes.wordpress.com/2015/01/06/donuts-make-it-better/
(...perhaps, best to read this with a nice hot cube of coffee!)

12)  Ben Orlin has started a series of posts addressing 'thinking in math class' -- the introductory one is here:
http://mathwithbaddrawings.com/2015/01/07/how-to-avoid-thinking-in-math-class/

13)  "MathTechbook" from Discovery Education (for online math learning) is coming. Read about it here:
  http://tinyurl.com/menyjqt and http://tinyurl.com/mwxm9hw

14)  Dana Ernst on IBL (inquiry based learning)... must-reading if you're a teacher and not already familiar with IBL:
http://maamathedmatters.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-twin-pillars-of-ibl.html

15)  Another little geometry beauty from Futility Closet; and it falls under the equally-beautiful heading of "sangaku":
http://www.futilitycloset.com/2015/01/08/cutting-up/

16)  Interesting New Scientist update on frustrations surrounding Shinichi Mochizuki's "proof" of the ABC conjecture:
http://tinyurl.com/ofhv9br

17) Princeton University Press has put up a pdf of their current math-related offerings, including several forthcoming works:
http://press.princeton.edu/catalogs/math15.pdf

18)  Lastly, just this morning I've posted over at Math-Frolic James Tanton's first video offering in support of Common Core. Must-viewing for all involved in that debate.

Happy weekend everyone!

(as always, let me know of any broken or misdirected links ASAP)