2 For the Price of 1 Today

 2 completely unrelated links today....


1)  If Quanta Magazine was to start a monthly puzzle column, you just know it would be good... well, they have, and it is!:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/20150707-can-information-rise-from-randomness/

Give it a whirl....
(I actually covered this particular first puzzle some time ago here on the blog.)
Anyway, can't say enough for the quality that Quanta keeps delivering to us!


2)  And Eugenia Cheng (author of "How To Bake Pi") nails it, in my opinion, in this piece for Medium, where she writes,

"I’m happy if I can be a helpful female role model, but I’ll be happiest when we don’t need female role models any more."

https://medium.com/bright/why-i-don-t-like-being-a-female-role-model-10055873ea97

Before closing, she concludes, "The world shouldn’t need female role models, but I have become gradually resigned to the fact that it does."

I agree, progress will truly be made when we can finally quit slicing-and-dicing people into categories (often binary ones), that only serve to reinforce the very differences and prejudices folks claim to oppose. For now I'm 'resigned' that prejudices exist not simply against females and minorities, but against the obese, handicapped, red-haired, old, transsexual, bald, short, freckled, homeless, atheist, disabled, blue-collar, and on and on... plenty to go around for all of us. And then there is the group we routinely oppress... by far... the most:  other sentient species.