bcohen
Posts by this author
Here's another table. At one level, this is clearly of a different sort than the other ones I put up (like Geoffroy 1718, and Bergman 1775). This one is linguistic, not symbolic. It has words, not alchemical symbols. But on another level, it is similar in its efforts to organize how substances…
I have more, you know. More chemistry tables. Here's another. It's by the not-so-famous, younger-peer-to-Linnaeus, Swedish Chemist Torbern Bergman. It was published in 1775. He actually made a two-fold one. One represented the results of identify "elective attractions" betwen the substances…
This has a target audience of maybe zero. (And Luker, you can go on ahead and stop reading now.) You have to be fond of two things simultaneously: Good Phish songs and good Children's Books.
In particular, you have to indulge me with this book-to-song convergence: The last two pages of Donald…
Katherine and Sarah have posted a conversation Janet and I had about Sir Karl Popper. It's "inside the Seed mothership" over at Page 3.14. Run, don't walk, to check it out. But then walk, and be careful, it's getting icy, back here and read all our posts again and again and again. You see that…
A Forum on the Presentation of Data, More or Less.
(As sent by the Good Folk at the Battle-Scarred Muffin Pan, we present pie charts and a bar graph, all from this wonderful site, titled simple "We Have Pie Charts.")
ANALYSIS OF RIFFS IN DEVO'S "SPEED RACER"
(a propos of the recent sciency-album…
How does science work in the court? How should it work? Who says? For what end?
The subject comes into public view every now and again, and an esteemed batch of science and technology studies (STS) scholars have done well to explain the relationships (Sheila Jasanoff, at Harvard's Kennedy School…
I'd seen Janet's notice a few days or a week or whatever it was ago of The New York Times's notice of a book about the history and philosophy of chemistry. As Janet commented, it's just not every day you get studies about chemical history in the NYT. It's probably only maybe one or two days, ever…
If you really need to get a hold of Paul, he's here now, and can be emailed at gotmybootysacked@hotmail.com
We have recovered from a long phase of [insert prior reference here] PF#1 debriefing, having [insert pithy topical subject here] commissioned the Baker-Hamilton PF Study Group to offer…
"When we don't know what we are after, we risk passing it over in the dark." -- Three Farmers on their Way to a Dance
Nominee #1: Karl Iagnemma
Nominee #2: Chris Ware
Nominee #3: Richard Powers
Richard Powers, like the other nominees, is a creative ambassador in the broadest and most noble sense.…
So says the following article in The Guardian: "How mirrors can light up the world."
The subtitle: "Scientists say the global energy crisis can be solved by using the desert sun."
Then follow the sub-headings and you'll have the basic run-down on the story:
"Competitive with oil"
"Safer and cheaper…
I've been conferring with the Uncyclopedia recently. Legitimate knowledge, all, it being on the web.
What is it? "The Uncyclopedia is the greatest achievement of mankind at the height of his splendor." Here's what I found, a propos to Scienceblogs:
The Uncyclopedia on Science:
Science (pronouced…
Robert Altman died on Monday. M*A*S*H was his first hit, way back in the day (the 1970 day, that is). There were many more. And so here are some obits: this one (from the NYT), that one (from The Guardian), and the other one (from the world's most reputable source).
McCabe & Mrs. Miller was…
"The Key to Modern Life is Strategic Ignorance."
That's a quote from Joel Achenbach's story, "Another Way," in the Washington Post this weekend about an off-the-grid eco-settlement in North Carolina. (Some good pictures here.) He writes about Earthaven, an eco-village, that considers itself an "…
Says Slate.com: "Boston artist Rosamond Purcell repurposes the old, the burnt, and the mangled."
They (Slate) have a slide show about/from Purcell's new book, Bookworm. Check it out here. Go ahead. I'll wait. No worries.
Waiting...waiting...waiting...
Okay, now you're back.
The first caption…
A story in the Post yesterday, "Think Tank Will Promote Thinking: Advocates Want Science, Not Faith, at Core of Public Policy," begins this way:
Concerned that the voice of science and secularism is growing ever fainter in the White House, on Capitol Hill and in culture, a group of prominent…
We end up examining political, cultural, economic, moral, environmental, and technical factors of nuclear energy in some of my courses here in the Engineering School. In the process of reviewing some older material, I once again came upon this wonderful article by Kristin Shrader-Frechette, a…
One of my favorite recent sub-features at McSweeney's is Lawrence Weschler's Convergences Contest. I am stunned yet again with today's artful entry (#28), sent to L.W. by Walter Murch:
[caption from the site: "Logging trees in a Swedish forest, as seen from the air"]
As far as transits across the sun, this was a good one. (It's a video link to NASA, who has several color variations at this main link -- just click "Hotshot" at the top.) As far as transits in general, it ranks right up there with other famous transits, like the ones astronomers would go on…
Ah, how exciting it is for Democrats. So much so that they forgive and/or forget moral lapses elsewhere, such as that old Virginia trick of state-sponsored discrimination. To avoid such easy ignorance, The World's Fair's Gift Shop and Haberdashery proudly links to the next great T-Shirt, available…
As introduced here a month or two ago, Mountain Man Dance Moves is making the rounds, picking up the press, impressing the ladies. The McSweeney's Book of Lists was released in September, with a steady rise in Amazon ranking since then (from the 15,000 range to the 1500 range). There was notice…
The system has failed. My point is that the system, as we have constructed it, is a failed one. All kids choose "treat." None choose "trick." Not one. It is time to change course. It is time to cut and run from the Trick-Or-Treat option. That's my only point. We're a one-party system when…
Although there were some intra-family disputes about what belongs where, we did derive a basic candy hierachy, and I do think it is basically sound. This taxonomy is based on years of research and debate, on thorough testing and re-testing, on statistical comparison and quality measurement, on…
So here's one from TIME, on population density. I did not realize Dallas-Fort Worth was the fifth largest metropolitan area. I did not know that.
(it's an old map, completely irrelevant to the link above)
This has to be the best new job title. George Mason University is looking for a Technology Evangelist. Quoth GMU:
The Center for History & New Media at George Mason University is seeking a technology evangelist for Zotero (www.zotero.org), an open source bibliographic management and note-…
The Silencer (being performed in Blacksburg, VA, on November 1, 2, and 3, ahead of its London opening in 2007) is a play about Global Warming and Climate Science. How about that, a play about global warming and climate science. Not your everyday occurrence. I can't say if it's Michael Frayn-…
This time it's possible that it isn't really his fault. Dawkins is speaking here at the University of Virginia this Friday, on the rare day that I'm out of town at a conference. I could blame the History of Science Society, or the Society for Social Studies of Science. (See Janet's post too; get…
The new Border Fence Law: What a stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid , stupid, stupid, stupid , stupid idea.
Hmmm, a billion bucks or two...
What would I spend it on?
Healthcare?
Education?
Scientific resources?
Critical infrastructure?
Arts funding?
Language classes?
New TiVos…
From an Eco Politics listserv I see mention of an upcoming debate about Nuclear Energy: "Cradle to Grave: New Nukes and Old Radioactive Waste"
It is a Live Webcast Debate being held on the 27th. The link is here, but you can't see anything until the webcast.
More details below the fold...
MEDIA…
Adam Gopnik writes in the Oct. 23rd New Yorker about Darwin's writing period after the Beagle and before Origins (which is to say, roughly through the 1840s and into the later 1850s). His essay is more or less an appreciation for Darwin's literary skill, that skill being that he could present his…
I saw two more reviews of Dawkins' new and widely discussed The God Delusion recently. Both were critical about the book. Both had points that I thought were very well made. One review is by Terry Eagleton, in the London Review of Books. The other is by Marilynne Robinson, in the November 2006…