There’s something unnerving about unifying physics. The two theories that need to be unified, quantum field theory and Einstein’s general theory of relativity, are both highly successful. Both make predictions good to as many decimal places as experimentalists can manage. Both are grounded in compelling principles. Both do have flaws — including an unfortunate tendency to produce the number ∞ — but those flaws remain safely behind the scenes, never undermining the theories’ empirical successes.

And yet, if the theories are incompatible, something has to give. That is what makes unification so hard. In conferences, I see physicists go down the list of assumptions that underpin their theories. Each, it seems, is rock solid. But they can’t all be right. Maybe one will, on closer inspection, prove to be not like the others. Or maybe physicists have left the culprit off their list because it is so deeply embedded in their way of thinking that they don’t even recognize as an assumption. As economist John Maynard Keynes wrote, “The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify… into every corner of our minds.”

var warning = 'You have unsaved edits.';

window.onbeforeunload = function warn() {
var hack = /irefox/([4-9]|1d+)/.test(navigator.userAgent);
if (hack) alert( warning + 'nn(Pardon the double dialogs '
+ 'caused by Firefox bug 588292.)');
return warning;
};

window.onbeforeunload = function (e) {
e = e || window.event;

// For IE<8 and Firefox prior to version 4
if (e) {
e.returnValue = 'Any string';
}

// For Chrome, Safari, IE8+ and Opera 12+
return 'Any string';
};

Lack of clarity. Infographics should ease and speed the consumption of information. If you take something you can express in 25 words and turn it into 1000 x 3000 pixels of eye-watering garbage, it’s not an infographic. It’s a waste of paper.
Lack of data. Infographics used to communicate data. Like this. Now, apparently, I can turn a fax machine manual into a poster and get it posted to 55 different infographics directories. Retch.
Low information density. An infographic is more effective than words describing the same subject. Otherwise it’s art. Which is cool and all. But it’s not an infographic.
Lack of flow. An infographic should lead me from introduction to conclusion, somehow. It should help me solve or understand a problem. If it doesn’t, it’s a graphic, minus the info. This Visually piece is a great example of infographic flow.
Flatland (read Edward Tufte’s work for the full description). It’s a two-dimensional drawing that describes two dimensions of data. Look at this chart showing Napoleon’s army as the Russian winter destroys it. How many different dimensions are there? I counted at least four.
Chartjunk (again, read Tufte): Extra crap that doesn’t help me understand the data.
Yeck. It’s as visually appealing as a spit wad.
You stole your data. Infographics cite their sources. If you didn’t cite, it’s a stash, not an infographic.
It’s pointless. Just go read Mark Mapstone’s post. You’ll see what he means.
Terrible writing. ‘Graphic’ doesn’t mean ‘you have permission to write drivel.’ The writing has to be extraordinary. It can’t be awful.
Someone who can’t even use Excel told a room full of people, “Let’s create an infographic!” and everyone nodded sagely. You might get lucky, I guess, and still create something worthwhile. It’s more likely, though, that the result will have all of the above problems.
A colored background, a few stick drawi

After quite a lot of thought and some attention to some of the issues that surround web apps that use hashbang URLs I’ve come to conclusion that it most definitely is about the hashbangs. This technique, on its own, is destructive to the web. The implementation is inappropriate, even as a temporary measure or as a downgrade experience.

Einhorn lets you spin up any number of worker processes (the number can be adjusted on the fly) each possessing one or more shared sockets. Einhorn can spawn a new pool of workers and gracefully kill off the old ones, allowing seamless upgrades to new versions of your code.

TextTemplatingFilePreprocessor

var headers = new DataTable();
headers.Columns.Add("OrderId", typeof(int));
headers.Columns.Add("CustomerId", typeof(int));
headers.Columns.Add("OrderedAt", typeof(DateTime));

var details = new DataTable();
details.Columns.Add("OrderId", typeof(int));
details.Columns.Add("LineNumber", typeof(int));
details.Columns.Add("ProductId", typeof(int));
details.Columns.Add("Quantity", typeof(decimal));
details.Columns.Add("Price", typeof(int));

headers.Rows.Add(new object[] { 6, 51, DateTime.Today });
details.Rows.Add(new object[] { 6, 1, 12, 2, 15.95m });
details.Rows.Add(new object[] { 6, 2, 57, 1, 59.99m });
details.Rows.Add(new object[] { 6, 3, 36, 10, 8.50m });

headers.Rows.Add(new object[] { 7, 51, DateTime.Today });
details.Rows.Add(new object[] { 7, 1, 23, 2, 79.50m });
details.Rows.Add(new object[] { 7, 2, 78, 1, 3.25m });

using (var conn = new SqlConnection("Data Source=.;Initial Catalog=MyDb;Integrated Security=True;"))
{
conn.Open();
using (var cmd = new SqlCommand("InsertOrders", conn))
{
cmd.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure;

var headersParam = cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@OrderHeaders", headers);
var detailsParam = cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@OrderDetails", details);

headersParam.SqlDbType = SqlDbType.Structured;
detailsParam.SqlDbType = SqlDbType.Structured;

cmd.ExecuteNonQuery();
}
conn.Close();
}

Making the situation much, much worse to solve the problem is unfortunately unavoidable during the transition period.

The CSIRO (Australia) has calculated in a 2010 study that the amount of time wasted annually by the estimated six million professional software developers world-wide due to inconsistent standard library naming is equal to the GDP of Portugal [citation needed].

BaGoMa - A script to Backup Google Mail.
bAgOmA - A script to backup a bag o' mail.

One of the factors they identified in turning middle-schoolers onto math is self-efficacy: students’ sense that they are competent and able enough to solve mathematical problems. To foster and encourage this in kids, Martin recommends that teachers and parents “restructure learning so as to maximize opportunities for success” by building on skills that students have already mastered, for example, and helping kids set challenging but realistic goals.

A second element critical to switching students onto math is the value they attach to the subject. Parents and teachers can foster the sense that math is an important and relevant body of knowledge by demonstrating the usefulness of math in the real world, and by making themselves positive role models for valuing math. In fact, parents’ own interest in math is another important component Martin and his coauthors identified.

Another simple but powerful trigger: Students’ own love math was a strong predictor of their engagement with the subject. Parents and teachers can foster the enjoyment by creating what psychologists call good conditions for “flow”: a challenge that’s well-matched to the child’s skill level, with clear goals and unambiguous feedback.

How do kids get turned off to math? Very simply, the absence of all of the above. Students who feel little self-efficacy in math, who fail to see the usefulness of the subject, whose parents evince a lack of interest and who don’t enjoy doing math are the ones who will turn off and shut down.