Math Bits From the Week

Potpourri... incoming:

1)  "Math Rising" blog looked at the topic of consciousness in non-humans this week:
http://mathrising.com/?p=1313

2)  If you're interested in programming you'll probably want to read this piece from American Scientist about 'probabilistic programming language':
http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/2015/5/programs-and-probability/99999

3)  Bill Gasarch tries to bring us up-to-date a bit on P vs. NP:
http://blog.computationalcomplexity.org/2015/08/have-we-made-progress-on-p-vs-np.html

4)  A GREAT, long piece on surreal numbers and more, passed along (tweeted out) this week by Jordan Ellenberg:
https://mathenchant.wordpress.com/2015/08/12/the-life-of-games/

...and, though I don't usually re-mention posts here that I've already linked to during the week, I'll make an exception for Scott Aaronson's long, mind-stretching post on "common knowledge":
http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2410

5)  NY Times piece on skepticism around health studies:
http://tinyurl.com/osaxa8y

6)  Presh Talwalkar uses a joke police poster to lead into a discussion of game theory:
http://tinyurl.com/nwnhqwo

7)  Quantum computing... hard to fathom:
http://ideas.ted.com/the-jaw-dropping-promise-and-brain-twisting-challenge-of-quantum-computing/

8)  As if there haven't already been enough popular math books out this year, mathemagician Arthur Benjamin has a new one due in a couple of weeks:
http://basicbooks.tumblr.com/post/126918423579/qa-with-arthur-benjamin-mathemagician-and

9)  I don't think it's even possible for Ben Orlin to not be entertaining... and instructive... at the same time:
http://mathwithbaddrawings.com/2015/08/19/the-smartest-dumb-error-in-the-great-state-of-colorado/

10)  Algorithms are saying a lot about us... and lo-and-behold they ain't always accurate (nor accountable):
http://aeon.co/magazine/technology/judge-jury-and-executioner-the-unaccountable-algorithm/

11)  Related to the above, Kaiser Fung with a bit about management practices and big data:
http://junkcharts.typepad.com/numbersruleyourworld/2015/08/dumbing-by-numbers.html 

12)  I hope you already saw my review from last weekend of Gary Smith's take on statistical shenanigans, "Standard Deviations":
http://mathtango.blogspot.com/2015/08/still-legal-torturing-data.html

13)  Speaking of which... I've been saying for 40+ years that good science is extremely difficult to do, and finally others are making the same point:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/science-isnt-broken/

14)  Allen Downey tells us about something called "the inspection paradox":
http://allendowney.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/the-inspection-paradox-is-everywhere.html

15)  And when he's not following Ultimate Frisbee games, Mike Lawler occasionally has math blog posts here:
https://mikesmathpage.wordpress.com/


Potpourri BONUS! (extra NON-mathematical links of interest):

1)  If you're an animal lover you won't want to miss Krista Tippett's interview last week with Katy Payne on her work with elephants and whales:
http://www.onbeing.org/program/katy-payne-in-the-presence-of-elephants-and-whales/241

2)  This is several months old, but if you've never heard Dave Isay's TEDTalk (23 min.) about his StoryCorps Project, well, you should make time for it:
https://www.ted.com/talks/dave_isay_everyone_around_you_has_a_story_the_world_needs_to_hear