Advanced Mad Libs

"Judging by the teams creating and trying to sell this stuff, I’m surmising we may see bursts of *regional* augmented reality. Like Augmented Singaporean Reality, Augmented Korean Reality, Augmented Dutch Reality and Augmented Austrian Reality. The USA is going to specialize in the monetizable stuff, like fan movie tie-ins and augmented diaper ads."

"This is the main blog page for the "Deterministic way to find primes" project, which is currently fairly active already, and should be formally launched within a few weeks.
The main aim of the project is to resolve the following conjecture:
(Strong) conjecture. There exists deterministic algorithm which, when given an integer k, is guaranteed to find a prime of at least k digits in length of time polynomial in k. You may assume as many standard conjectures in number theory (e.g. the generalised Riemann hypothesis) as necessary, but avoid powerful conjectures in complexity theory (e.g. P=BPP) if possible."

"Oddly enough we would usually prefer a probabilistic over the deterministic method to find primes. Otherwise the adversary can use the same deterministic procedure and factor your number as easily as you put it together."

"Sornette goes on to identify a number of data sets showing power laws with outliers that he says are the result of positive feedback mechanisms that make them much larger than their peers. He calls these events dragon kings. What's interesting about them is that they are entirely unaccounted for by a current understanding of power laws, from which Nassim Nicholas Taleb built the idea of black swans.

The special characteristic of dragon kings is that a positive feedback mechanism creates faster-than-exponential growth making them larger than expected."

"I saw today on the blog of Lauren Nassef, one of my favorite illustrators, a post alerting people to a woman by the name of Samantha Beeston, whose online portfolio was comprised almost entirely of work traced/copied from Nassef. In July 2009 Beeston even won an award (which included a cash prize of £750) for work blatantly traced/copied from drawings by Nassef."

"I love it. The AP realizes it’s made a mistake trying to assert copyright over words it didn’t write and doesn’t own, but it can’t even bring itself to admit it. No, they’re saying they’ve “revoked” the license, as though it were their choice whether to allow me to quote Jefferson in the first place. How about this, AP? Why don’t you buy a “license” from me that allows you not to be such dunderheads when it comes to copyright? I’m willing to give it to you for free if you’re interested—but somehow I don’t think you are."

"I've seen "feral" used to describe dogs, cats, even goats. But I have wondered if it couldn't also be used to describe certain houses in Detroit. Abandoned houses are really no big deal here. Some estimate that there are as many as 10,000 abandoned structures at any given time, and that seems conservative. But for a few beautiful months during the summer, some of these houses become "feral" in every sense: they disappear behind ivy or the untended shrubs and trees planted generations ago to decorate their yards. The wood that framed the rooms gets crushed by trees rooted still in the earth. The burnt lime, sand, gravel, and plaster slowly erode into dust, encouraged by ivy spreading tentacles in its endless search for more sunlight."