World wind map

Check out the full version here.

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“Antebellum Islam”

That is the title of this intriguing paper by Khaled Beydoun, a law professor at Barry University. Here is an excerpt from Professor Beydoun’s abstract:

America’s first Muslims were slaves. Social scientists estimate that 15 to 30 percent of the Africans enslaved in the Antebellum South practiced Islam. Research indicates that the Muslim slave population could have been as high as 1.2 million. Despite their considerable presence in the Antebellum South, the history of Muslim slaves has been largely neglected within legal scholarship.

For anyone interested in North American legal history, this paper is definitely worth a read. Props to Prof. Alfred Brophy for the pointer.

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Feliz Navidad!

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World-historical volcano map

This nifty volcano map is based on a dataset of 10,734 known volcanic eruptions from 1,562 individual volcanoes, going back in time 12,000 years, and was prepared by James R. A. Davenport, a PhD candidate in Astronomy at the University of Washington. Check out his excellent website “If we assume.”

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A solution to Newcomb’s problem

Although “it’s not entirely clear that [Newcomb’s paradox] is well-posed” (see video at 8:11), Professor NJ Wildberger presents an elegant mathematical solution to this probabilistic problem in the video above.

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Piano-shelf

Is this art or a wasteful prank? Hat tip to Weikardzaena (via reddit) for the pic.

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Broken y-axis controversy

Read more about this little statistical dust-up here (via Justin Fox). Addendum (31 Dec. 2014): Here is another take on this controversy.

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Agricultural map of Cuba (circa 1949)

Click on the map for a larger version. Hat tip to BrotherSeamus!

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“Visualizing Probabilistic Proof”

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Our latest theoretical paper (“Visualizing Probabilistic Proof” — click on the image above to see our abstract) has just been published in volume 7 of the Wash U Jurisprudence Review, along with an interesting Note by Krista C. McCormack titled “Ethos, Pathos, and Logos: The Benefits of Aristotelian Rhetoric in the Courtroom.” Ms McCormack, who helped us edit our proof paper, is a 3L at Wash U Law School. We wish her well!

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Los Angeles Bay (circa 3014 A.D.)?

Bay of LA

Major props to Jeffrey Linn for creating this series of future sea rise maps. Also, check out his whimsical website spatialities.com.

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