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newyorker:

In this week’s issue: George Packer on the McChrystal debacle; Ken Auletta on Afghanistan’s first media mogul; Tad Friend on Steve Carell; Charlayne Hunter-Gault on Jacob Zuma; Rebecca Mead on playgrounds; James Surowiecki on financial illiteracy; Sasha Frere-Jones on Robyn; James Wood on David Mitchell; Peter Schjeldahl on Charles Burchfield; David Denby on “Knight and Day” and “Winter’s Bone”; fiction by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum; and more: http://www.newyorker.com/
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Microwave ovens use a particular microwave frequency to excite molecules of water. Since water is present in lots of food and drink, this means that microwaves heat up lots of useful stuff – and they do it quickly. The fact that microwaves are now readily available to most of us in the western world and they are only a few centimetres in length, means that you can measure the speed of light in your very own home.

Measure the Speed of Light Using Your Microwave | Orbiting Frog

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This is a list of some of the main tutorials I use

Useful tutorials / books:

Packages I use regularly. There are others, but these are the things I always install:

  • IPython: much-improved shell. Gives you tab-to-completion, and lets you record sessions.
  • numpy: fast numerical arrays. You might want to get used to just doing things using lists first. After that, numpy all the way!
  • SciPy: scientific computing in python.
  • matplotlib: plotting tool that integrates nicely with the above-three tools. It also does 3D plots. I don’t use this as much anymore; I mostly do my plotting in the ggplot2 R package.