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Some writings worth reading[free ebook] "Life insurance sayings" (1895) https://archive.org/download/lifeinsurancesay… by James T. Phelps"Population with English as 1st official language spoken in the region of Montreal, QC" http://statcan.gc.ca/pub/89-642-x/…"Agloe, the Paper Town Stronger than Fiction" http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/643…Andy Field's Glossary of http://uk.sagepub.com/field4e/  is awesome (or just purely insane)"The Vice of Gambling and the Virtue of Insurance" http://unz.org/Pub/NewmanJames… by George Bernard Shaw"Do PhD supervisors make the grade?" http://timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/…"A summary of curators and social media hashtags for academics" http://raulpacheco.org/2013/09/… (and old - but interesting - post by @raulpacheco)Footnotes are always interesting http://moodle.cesa10.k12.wi.us/pluginfile.php/260643/… ht @GeluleMD see"What happens to privacy?" http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2014… by @thisissethsblog"Big Data Doesn’t Have to Mean Big Brother" http://recode.net/2014/03/09… by @InaFried"How Big Is Big Data?" http://businessweek.com/articles… see"When should you buy your airline ticket? " http://cheapair.com/blog/travel-tips… (similar to https://freakonometrics.hypotheses.org/1980 , in French)"it is a great time to do science but a terrible time to be a scientist" http://anothersb.blogspot.fr/2014/02/…"whatever quest drives you, abandon it" http://xkcd.com/1334/ Map of French railways, 1850-1870-1930-2010 (via @visionscarto)[free ebooks] The Digital Comic Museum http://digitalcomicmuseum.org/  15,000 comics"The Internet isn’t nearly as damaging to teenagers as Mom and Dad think" http://bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/…"Olivetti factories - 1966-71" http://flickr.com/photos/jean-paul-margnac… great pictures, ht @recifs see e.g."Investigating Why People Vote" http://conversableeconomist.blogspot.ca/2014/03/… by @TimothyTTaylor ht @econoclaste"A Brief History of Databases" http://vvvnt.com/media/…"The intersection of behavioral economics and machine learning to understand Big Data" http://robotenomics.com/2014/02/25… by @robotenomics"Our Inequality: An Introduction" http://dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/…"A Top-Heavy Focus on Income Inequality" http://nytimes.com/2014/03/09/…interesting http://elitedaily.com/news/technology/this … "This Insane New App Will Allow You To Read Novels In Under 90 Minutes" ht @DavidCornDCthe slow versionand the fast one"Silence Is Now a Luxury Product" http://newrepublic.com/article/116846/…European population’s satisfaction with their respective city, http://dft.ba/-855i  ht @ilovecharts"it is very hard to find a PhD economist whose academic ancestor thrice removed, was not a mathematician" http://theoryclass.wordpress.com/2014/…"How to save the US" http://ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/2b9a41a … "The solution to America’s problems is obvious – it should model itself on its military..."In two recent columns I explained how to save France and the UK. Now that’s done, it’s time to save America. The solution is obvious. The US needs to model itself on its most sanctified institution: the military. I speak from experience. In 2007 and 2008 I spent time on a US military base in a southern state, giving seminars to officers. Being a typical pinko anti-war European, I’d expected to hate the place. Instead I found it idyllic, intellectual and safe. Pottering about the base, I saw several things that the US could learn from its military:1. Build socialism. Life in the US military is much like life in Sweden (unless you’re off in Afghanistan spreading democracy). The officers in my seminars spent a quarter of their careers in education, because the US military believes in life-long learning. The military also provides socialised healthcare, subsidised childcare, early pensions etc. I’ve never seen a socialist paradise like it, and I grew up in the Netherlands in the 1970s. Most of the military’s entitlements will survive the budget cuts now being proposed by Chuck Hagel, the defence secretary.2. Ban guns. I was surrounded by fearsome warriors yet I felt perfectly safe, partly because hardly anyone is allowed to carry guns on US military bases. The “right to bear arms” just doesn’t apply there.3. Believe in science. Any institution that spends its time firing drones from Nevada at pedestrians in Yemen is going to be pro-science. The Pentagon frets about climate change, and the army aims to be “net zero energy” by 2030. The superhero-like Navy Seals are already fuelled partly by solar power. [read more...]"Why do we listen to our favourite music over and over again?" http://aeon.co/magazine/…"Statistics: A subject which most statisticians find difficult but in which nearly all physicians are expert" (via http://johndcook.com/blog/2014/03/06/… )"The Secret to Entropy’s role in Statistics" http://entsophy.net/blog/?p=245 "I have demonstrated that just knowing how to pronounce "quinoa" extends your life expectancy by 12 years" http://theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/mar/05/… ht @senseaboutsci"Slopegraphs" http://edwardtufte.com/bboard/q… (ht @visionscarto ) see"How Academia and Publishing are Destroying Scientific Innovation" http://kingsreview.co.uk/magazine/blog/… "A Conversation with Sydney Brenner""Why do academics work so much?" http://insidehighered.com/advice/2014/03/03…“Nothing makes exploitation go down easier than convincing workers that they are doing what they love.” https://jacobinmag.com/2014/01/…"Beyond a boundary" http://musicfordeckchairs.wordpress.com/2013/12/… another interesting post via @philnel's http://insidehighered.com/advice/…"Economics: the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on the world?" http://pieria.co.uk/articles/e…"What Good Are Children?" http://voxeu.org/article/… (you’d have to be an economist to ask that question; and here is an economist’s answer)"playing with algebraic and calculus concepts—rather than doing arithmetic drills—may be a better way to introduce math" http://theatlantic.com/education/a…et un peu de lecture en français"Mépriser les hackers est une erreur stratégique" http://ragemag.fr/filiol… par @efiliol ht @AdrienneAlix"Malaise à l’Université" http://supautonome.com/upload/1572…"Les Européens sont aussi nuls en science que les Américains" http://slate.fr/life/84303/… (un peu angoissant quand on voit les questions...)"La linguistique est-elle soluble dans la statistique ?" http://rsl.revues.org/402  (ht @visionscarto)"Avec la mondialisation, on a fabriqué un monde bancal, qui créé un système parasitaire" http://lerideau.fr/marcel-gauchet/…Did I miss something?