Chatter:
Pardon me, while I go off on a rant. Since I came to work for Google, I have a pretty long commute. Most of the time, I don't really mind it. It's all by train - first commuter rail...
Posted on May 1, 2008 11:50 AM • 47 Comments •
I was recently fortunate enough to get a review copy of Cory Doctorow's new book, Little Brother">"Little Brother". I've never read Doctorow before, but the book was edited by Patrick Neilsen Hayden, who I think is the best editor...
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Posted on April 30, 2008 9:35 PM • 21 Comments •
Like the rest of the skeptical blogosphere, I've been watching the uproar around Ben Stein's new movie with a lot of amusement, but also with a lot of disgust. There's one thing that I feel compelled to comment on...
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Posted on April 14, 2008 3:26 PM • 111 Comments •
I know better than to attempt to write an april fools day post that really tries to fool anyone. I'm not a good enough writer to carry that kind of thing off in a genuinely amusing way. On the...
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Posted on April 1, 2008 10:55 AM • 16 Comments •
Here at ScienceBlogs, we have a back-channel where the bloggers can get together and chat. In one of our threads, I was telling a story about work, and an interesting question came up. What's the collective noun for a...
Posted on December 18, 2007 8:13 AM • 113 Comments •
There's been some talk among the sciencebloggers about the idea of intellectual property, and Bora over at "A Blog Around the Clock" asked me to convert my thoughts into a post. It's a serious topic, which is worth giving...
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Posted on December 2, 2007 9:52 PM • 43 Comments •
I've now uploaded nearly all of the Yellowstone pictures. There are two additional photo albums on Picasa: one for the Mammoth Hot Springs area, and one for the Yellowstone canyon. Here are the links: Yellowstone Vacation, Mammoth Hot Springs area...
Posted on September 2, 2007 7:27 PM • 2 Comments •
I'm back from vacation! There was no network access in Yellowstone, and virtually no cellphone service. Anyway, a bunch of people asked me to post photos. I've got three sets of photographs, for the three main areas of the park...
Posted on September 1, 2007 7:10 PM • 1 Comments •
This post is quite thoroughly off-topic for this blog. But as someone who is openly religious and who has written a number of posts that criticize Christian institutions, I get a fair bit of mail from cretins who make...
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Posted on August 16, 2007 1:17 PM • 35 Comments •
I got hit by a mutant meme; I don't remember who tagged me. I'm not terribly into these meme things, but I don't pass up excuses to post recipes. So below the fold are four recipes that I've created:...
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Posted on July 20, 2007 2:34 PM • 5 Comments •
So that 8-facts thing is going around, and I got tagged. I've stalled long enough that everyone I read was already tagged, and I'm sure you've all seen it by now, so I'm not going to waste time repeating the...
Posted on June 28, 2007 10:50 AM • 6 Comments •
So today's my thirteenth wedding anniversary. And what did my lovely wife buy me as a present? Yes, a Klein bottle coffee mug. Does she know me well, or what?...
Posted on June 5, 2007 10:28 AM • 8 Comments •
My father died on sunday. To some degree, I'm still in shock. Even though we knew it was coming, when something like this happens, no amount of preparation really helps. He'd been sick with an antibiotic resistant infection since...
Posted on May 22, 2007 5:19 PM • 102 Comments •
One more bit of personal blogging, and then it'll be back to the math. You may have noticed that I haven't been as active in the discussions on my posts for the last few weeks as I would normally...
Posted on March 16, 2007 10:04 PM • 27 Comments •
In general, I haven't talked much about personal stuff on the blog, unless it related to something else that I was already talking about. This post is going to be an exception to that. There's a bit of a...
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Posted on March 15, 2007 11:10 AM • 71 Comments •
PZ, Bora, Orac, John, and others have all put up posts about a list of the 50 most significant Science Fiction and Fantasy works of the last fifty years. As the reigning Geek-Lord of ScienceBlogs, I figured that I...
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Posted on March 11, 2007 4:19 PM • 100 Comments •
Today, the ACM announced the winner of the Turing award. For those who don't know, the Turing award is the greatest award in computer science - the CS equivalent of the Nobel prize, or the Fields medal. The winner:...
Posted on February 21, 2007 10:09 PM • 13 Comments •
This week's "Ask a ScienceBlogger" is an interesting one, but very tricky to answer. The question was proposed by fellow SBer Dave Munger: "What's a time in your career when you were criticized extremely harshly by someone you respect? Did...
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Posted on December 18, 2006 10:03 AM • 10 Comments •
Following in the footsteps of orac and PZ among others of my fellow SBers, I've taken the survey to find out which historical lunatic I am. And I must say, I'm pleased with the results! Which Historical Lunatic Are You?From...
Posted on December 14, 2006 8:09 AM • 8 Comments •
After it was pointed out to me in the comics, I've been regularly reading a rather nifty webcomic called xkcd. Today's xkcd strip is an interestingly drawn map of the full IPv4 address space, showing what's allocated to who, and...
Posted on December 11, 2006 9:38 AM • 12 Comments •
As you may have noticed, lately, I've been fascinated by Haskell. I haven't done anything much in it until quite recently; it's been sitting in my to-do queue for a long time. This weekend, I was hacking away on a...
Posted on November 25, 2006 7:18 PM • 32 Comments •
One year ago on Thanksgiving day, my friend John Vlissides died. I'm sure that many of you have heard of John. He was one of the so-called "Gang of Four" who wrote the "Design Patterns" book that set off a...
Posted on November 23, 2006 2:14 PM • 3 Comments •
Chad, over at Uncertain Principles found an interesting meme, which I thought would be fun to take a stab at: What authors have you given up on for good? And why? Darn good question, that is. I'm often fascinated by...
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Posted on October 18, 2006 1:47 PM • 69 Comments •
It's friday again, so in addition to a bizzare programming language, you get a random ten. Transatlantic, "Mystery Train".: very cool neo-prog rock track. Darol Anger and the Republic of Strings, "Dzinomwa Muna Save". Darol Anger is one the most...
Posted on September 22, 2006 3:35 PM • 7 Comments •
This is very off-topic for this blog; it's really more of a rant on a personal subject which I think it's worth saying publicly. I am mentally ill. I have clinical depression. CD is a thoroughly miserable illness. I'm incredibly...
Posted on September 14, 2006 2:11 PM • 81 Comments •
Orac is refusing to surrender and acknowledge the obvious fact that he simple is not as much of a geek as I am. So I am obligated to point out several further facts in my attempt to make him surrender...
Posted on September 11, 2006 12:15 PM • 31 Comments •
Draw your pocket protectors, it's a geekout!...
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Posted on September 7, 2006 4:56 PM • 36 Comments •
While I was away on vacation, my family made a stop in Corning NY to see the Corning Glass Museum. I had to snap this photo for PZ. Alas, all I had was the camera in my cellphone, so the...
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Posted on September 2, 2006 5:54 PM • 6 Comments •
About 10 days ago, I wrote about Grigory Perelman and his proof of the Poincare conjecture. This is a quick followup. There's a more detailed story over on Seed. The Fields medal was supposed to be presented this past week,...
Posted on August 26, 2006 9:57 AM • 10 Comments •
Over the six months tåhat I've been writing this blog, I've gotten a bunch of email from people asking about what it's like working as a researcher in industry vs working in academia. It's a good question, one which I've...
Posted on August 26, 2006 9:54 AM • 17 Comments •
I figured it was time I did the latest random thing to be wandering its way around Scienceblogs. Janet has introduced the "random quotes" meme., in which we're supposed to go wandering through the quotes here, and pick the first...
Posted on August 19, 2006 9:04 PM • 4 Comments •
Over at fellow SBer {Worlds Fair][worldsfair}, they've put up an unofficial "Ask a ScienceBlogger" question, about childrens books: Are there any children's books that are dear to you, either as a child or a parent, and especially ones that perhaps...
Posted on July 14, 2006 3:06 PM • 7 Comments •
It's friday again, so it's time for a random ten. So out comes my iPod, and the results are: Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, "Latitude": mediocre tune off of the latest Flecktones album. This album was a 3-CD set. Unfortunately,...
Posted on July 7, 2006 10:08 AM • 0 Comments •
It's that time of the week again, when I bore you with my bizzare taste in music. Quite an eclectic mix this week. Spock's Beard, "Thoughts". A track from an oldish Spock's Beard album. SB is an American neoprog band,...
Posted on June 30, 2006 12:49 PM • 3 Comments •
This is the last time I'm going to bug folks to remind them to donate to the SB challenges. The DonorsChoose fundraiser here at ScienceBlogs is just about over. Three more days for you to help some kids get a...
Posted on June 29, 2006 8:16 PM • 2 Comments •
Just a reminder: the ScienceBloggers DonorsChoose challenge is not over yet. 10 GM/BM readers have already contributed over $1100. I can't even begin to say how terrific I think that is. 9 of the proposals that I picked for...
Posted on June 22, 2006 8:27 PM • 0 Comments •
It's that time of the week again, and a new "Ask an SBer" question is out. The question is: "What makes a good science teacher?" As usual, since I'm the only math blogger around here, I'm going to shift...
Posted on June 22, 2006 6:21 PM • 13 Comments •
Off topic, but can't resist commenting, for reasons that will become clear. Over at Sadly No, Brad discusses a review of Glenn Reynold's latest book, which includes some babble about "Transhumanism". The very first comment? I was watching a show...
Posted on June 22, 2006 10:50 AM • 16 Comments •
Off topic, but as a proud New Yorker, I can't resist. Over on Feministe, zuzu posted a link to an article about New Yorkers, and how when it comes to genuine helpfulness, NY is the best city in the...
Posted on June 21, 2006 9:16 AM • 5 Comments •
I don't want to get too NPR-ish, but: Just a quick reminder about our SB charity thing. GM/BM readers have donated almost $1000 dollars to help get desparately needed supplies for math teachers. And our benevolent Seed overlords are matching...
Posted on June 17, 2006 8:02 PM • 0 Comments •
The Stills, "In the Beginning". I accidentally downloaded this from Salon this morning. I know absolutely nothing about the band. Planet X, "Digital Vertigo". PlanetX is quite a strange group. All instrumental, something like a cross between bebop and...
Posted on June 16, 2006 6:21 PM • 2 Comments •
As usual for this time of the week, the seed folks have tossed out a new "Ask a Science-Blogger" question for us to answer. This weeks is particularly easy. The question: How is it that all the PIs (Tara, PZ,...
Posted on June 15, 2006 7:31 PM • 0 Comments •
Janet over at Adventures in Ethics and Science has gotten a bunch of us SB folks to get involved in raising money for school science programs. As the only current resident math geek around here, I'm expanding it from just...
Posted on June 15, 2006 11:57 AM • 5 Comments • 1 TrackBacks
Janet over at Adventures in Ethics and Science has tagged all of us newbies with a Pi meme. As the new math-geek-in-residence here, I'm obligated to take on anything dealing with Pi. 3 reasons you blog about science Because I...
Posted on June 12, 2006 8:30 AM • 10 Comments •
As usual, once a week, the Seed folks send all of us a question from one of the SB readers: Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would...
Posted on June 11, 2006 12:00 PM • 0 Comments •
