¶ Math Should Be Cool, Then We Will Have More Mathematicians
Wednesday, May 14, 2008, 12:40pm
Many students and undergraduates seem to think of mathematicians as old, white, middle-class men who are obsessed with their subject, lack social skills and have no personal life outside maths. The student's views of maths itself included narrow and inaccurate images that are often limited to numbers and basic arithmetic.
The research revealed that many of the clichéd perceptions which it identified are linked to the way in which mathematics and mathematicians are presented in popular culture. Although there has been an increase since 2006, the number of people in England and Wales choosing to study maths has been in decline in the last decade. The subject's negative portrayal in popular culture contributes to this lack of interest. The research went on to suggest using popular culture as one way to promote a more positive view of maths.
I thought the TV show, Numb3rs, was doing just that.
¶ Liberal Geeks Out To Get Redstate
Wednesday, January 9, 2008, 10:17am
When we started RedState in May of 2004, we used a website program called Scoop — the same program a lot of similar sites on the left used. But, as the number of visitors to our site grew, Scoop kept crashing on us.
If we’d been a liberal website, we would have been able to fix the problem quickly and relatively cheaply. The online left loves Scoop. Unfortunately, there weren’t really any conservative Scoop developers out there to help us. We kept crashing and were out of money. We had to close down or take drastic action.
Well, we didn’t close down. We ditched Scoop and moved to the best alternative at the time, a program called Drupal. But, in accomplishing the switch, budget constraints forced us to sacrifice some popular site features in order to alleviate the strain on our overused servers.
It's no secret that the more educated one is, usually the more left of center (whatever that is) one leans. It also isn't surprising that geeks who choose to spend their time on open source software also tend to lean left.
What is surprising is that Redstate can't find any help, especially considering there is a forum specifically for paid Drupal help.
But I hate even more to imagine what America will be like if someone like Hillary Clinton or Barack Hussein Obama wins the presidency in November. RedState can help prevent that nightmare from coming true – but only if we’re offering the best possible web experience to the widest possible audience.
You've got to be kidding me.
