About me
I am a graduate of Grinnell College with a degree in Biological Chemistry. The name of this blog is derived from the name I use in Chinese, 孟柏民 (Mèng Bómín).
I can be reached by email at:
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Category Archives: Musings
A look at the Aral Sea
SpaceGizmo points to this lovely image of the South Aral Sea basin taken by NASA’s Landsat 5 satellite. The white areas are sort of a “bathtub ring” of salt indicating the area that was once covered by this sea, which … Continue reading
Atheism and agnosticism
In a follow-up to my brief series on the Pew Religious Knowledge Survey, I thought I’d put up a post on my views on atheism and agnosticism as someone who identifies primarily as an atheist when it comes to theological … Continue reading
Two interesting points
I left a comment on Eric Fischer’s photoset laying out some of my thoughts on the coloring of his urban racial/ethnic distribution maps, to which he had the following response: Thanks for trying out some other colors! To my (red-green-colorblind) … Continue reading
Musings on map coloration
While checking my feed reader for the day, I noticed that Andrew Gelman had come across the same set of maps by Eric Fischer that I referenced in the previous post. Intrigued, I checked the comments. At the time, the … Continue reading
Posted in Maps, Musings
Tagged Andrew Gelman, Asian, Bill Rankin, black, Chicago, Eric Fischer, Hispanic, race, Steve Sailer, white
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Should we fear alien invasion?
Stephen Hawking has created a new Discovery Channel show called Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking, which covers some of the possibilities of life beyond our own home world. A few excerpts from the British press have lit a storm … Continue reading
A one-way trip to Mars?
In contrast to my post last week about some recently uncovered qualities of lunar craters that will likely make any plans to settle or develop the Moon much more difficult, I am going to focus on Mars and the challenges … Continue reading
Posted in Astronomy, Musings, Opinions, Science
Tagged Lawrence Krauss, Mars, VASIMR
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The UK election—theoretical problems with single member district plurality systems
On May 6, the UK will be holding a general election, which will determine the composition of the House of Commons in Parliament going forward. This election is particularly interesting, since it highlights one of the major quirks of the … Continue reading
Posted in Current events, Musings, Politics
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The libertarian moral outlook
Will Wilkinson points to one of Jonathan Haidt’s recent papers, looking particularly at the findings with regard to self-described libertarians’ views on morality, describing them as supporting one of his propositions that “libertarians are liberals who like markets”. For more … Continue reading
Posted in Musings, Politics
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Myriads
In a post today celebrating a political victory against homeopathy in the UK, Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy used the phrase “Myriads of…”, which drew the following remark from a commenter: [pedantry]Myriad is an adjective, not a noun. So that’s … Continue reading
World’s tallest artificial shadow
SpaceWeather.com posts a picture taken by Brian Whittaker of the shadow cast by Burj Dubai, the tallest skyscraper in the world, which opens today. Update: Apparently, the tower was renamed from برج دبي (Burj Dubai) to برج خليفة (Burj Khalifa) … Continue reading
Posted in Current events, Musings
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