Conrad Wolfram, Friday Potpourri, and...

1) "The central change in real-world maths of the last 50 or so years is that we automated the hell out of calculating." That's Conrad Wolfram in the course of espousing his view of digital reform for British math education (and singing the praises of Estonia for adopting a more computer-based math education system):

http://tinyurl.com/kyp8yto
(...not surprisingly, he gets some push-back in the comments)

2) Several science bloggers do regular end-of-week linkfests to articles they found interesting over the prior week. I've been doing little "potpourri" posts haphazardly here at Math-Frolic from time to time to direct readers to pieces that I don't care to write a whole post on. I'll now try (as an experiment) to do a once-per-week "potpourri" offering over at MathTango (probably on Fri. or Sat.) of all the extra stories I want to take note of... a sort of weekly mini-math carnival solely of my own picks-of-interest.
Check MathTango tomorrow for the first one! (And then on Sun. or Mon. the next Math-Frolic interview will be up over at MathTango as well.)

3) Speaking of interviews... Frederick at White Group Mathematics recently interviewed yours truly for his blog (...wherein you learn that I'm waiting for a call from Taylor Swift ;-):

http://www.whitegroupmaths.com/2014/02/exclusive-interview-with-creator-of.html