July 19, 2009
Open Left:: Sotomayor Hearings For The Hearing Impaired
"Oh how I long for the dignified workplace I once had at SNL."
(tags: race politics US law stupid)
Weekend Diversion: A Charity Challenge! : Starts With A Bang
If Ethan gets at least 100 people to donate $10 or volunteer 4 hours for…
July 19, 2009
Kate and I will both be on programming at Anticipation, the upcoming Worldcon in Montreal. The official program should be up on the web soonish, but I got my schedule by email, and figured I would post it here for those who care:
When: Fri 10:00
Title: How to Effectively Talk about Science to Non-…
July 19, 2009
The New York Times has a habit of publishing these loathsome little profile articles that either belie the paper's liberal reputation, or are a stealthy attempt to bring about the Red Revolution by stoking class hatred. These generally take the form of profile stories about wealthy suburbanites in…
July 18, 2009
Clowns Kicked KKK Asses - Neatorama
"âWhite Power!â the Naziâs shouted, âWhite Flour?â the clowns yelled back running in circles throwing flour in the air and raising separate letters which spelt âWhite Flourâ.
âWhite Power!â the Naziâs angrily shouted once more, âWhite flowers?â the clowns…
July 17, 2009
slacktivist: TF: Bruce's sermon, part 1
"There's a monster at the end of this book. And if the authors succeed at what they've set out to do, that monster is you.
That's part of why one should only read these books slowly, in small, weekly doses, while pausing to scream at or mock every page."
(…
July 17, 2009
After a long service outage, our home Internet is back, and I can post Baby Blogging pictures. Of course, it's not as easy to get those as it used to be, because SteelyKid is always on the move these days:
You pretty much have to hold her in place to keep her in the frame:
(This picture also…
July 17, 2009
I've been really surprised at the number of people writing about Unscientific America who are confused by the discussion of the Pluto incident (Mad Mike is the latest, but it's not hard to find more). For those who haven't read the book, the first chapter opens with a description of the public…
July 17, 2009
This clip of Emmy and SteelyKid is actually from almost two months ago-- I posted it on Emmy's Facebook page, but not here. But it's still cute, and ought to give SteelyKid's adoring public something to tide them over until we get our DSL back and I can post this week's Baby Blogging.
July 17, 2009
A big thunderstorm last night took out the DSL at Chateau Steelypips (and most of the 518 area code, it seems), and service is still out. So, if you're wondering why I haven't had any online presence since 5pm or so, that's why.
I'm going to deal with the essential stuff using my office Internet…
July 16, 2009
Having spent the last couple of posts talking (in part) about the need to change academic culture, and de-stigmatize non-academic science jobs, here's an attempt to step up and do something direct and productive. No, this won't cost you anything.
One of the difficulties with trying to broaden the…
July 16, 2009
This isn't actually about a literal or metaphorical smackdown-- it's more about a distinction in language, related to a number of the comments that have been made regarding Unscientific America. (Yeah, I know. I'll find something else to talk about soon.)
The issue is most clearly laid out by Janet…
July 16, 2009
The most unfortunate thing about the furor over Unscientific America is that the vast majority of the shouting concerns a relatively small portion of the actual argument of the book. Far too much attention is being spent on the question of whether Chris and Sheril are fair to Myers and Dawkins, and…
July 15, 2009
Bad Boys | Film | A.V. Club
"From this rich central dynamic, all manner of hilarity springs. Smith is fastidious about the upkeep of his expensive sports car. Lawrence is a slob who gets his messy hamburger all over its glistening interior! How will they ever be able to work together? My…
July 15, 2009
I am a fan of the New York Giants.
I believe that they can win every game they play. I hope that they will win every game that they play. I get emotionally involved in their games to such a degree that my heart pounds and I get short of breath when they face a critical play in the fourth quarter. I…
July 15, 2009
I've sometimes seen it said that in order to have a productive discussion, people on both sides need to be willing to change their minds. I think that's probably slightly overdetermined-- you can find examples of cases in which neither side was going to change, but they managed to sustain a…
July 15, 2009
Yesterday's Michelson Interferometer quiz was surprisingly popular-- as of 8:30 pm Tuesday (when I'm writing this), just under 1500 people have voted in the poll, three and a half times as many as in the next most popular poll I've done. Who says there's no audience for physics?
So, what's the…
July 15, 2009
There was a bunch of discussion yesterday about a graph comparing the amount of money spent on veterinary expenses over the last twenty-odd years to the amount spent on human health care over that same span:
There were a lot of dumb things said about this, but really, the worst part of the whole…
July 14, 2009
funny-pictures-cat-upsets-your-gravity.jpg (JPEG Image, 500x398 pixels)
Finally, the problem with quantum gravity is revealed.
(tags: pictures silly animals internet physics gravity quantum)
Robert Wright: Why the "New Atheists" are Right-Wing on Foreign Policy
"It must strike progressive…
July 14, 2009
It's been a while since I posted an update on the status of the book-in-production. Things are moving along-- the second (and hopefully final) pass proofs are in the mail now, and assuming those are ok, that's about it for the text. Then it's just a matter of waiting.
I asked a friend at work who…
July 14, 2009
One of my favorite movie scenes:
July 14, 2009
I'm running way behind this morning for a variety of reasons, so I'm going to swipe another easy question and throw it back to the audience. this one's from Eric Lund, who asked:
If you could attend a dinner with any major political figure in the world, who would it be, and why?
The answer that…
July 14, 2009
Inspired by one of yesterday's easy questions, a pop quiz for you. The figure below shows a Michelson Interferometer:
A laser falls on a beamsplitter, which allows half of the light to pass straight through, and reflects the other half downward. Each of those beams then hits a mirror that reflects…
July 13, 2009
Confessions of a Community College Dean: College Prep
"In some circles, 'college' is an undifferentiated term for a place that other people go to get the kinds of jobs that other people get. It's probably some kind of racket, though the exact workings are hard to detail.
In some circles, 'college…
July 13, 2009
As noted earlier, I'm not at my sharpest, thanks to this past weekend's festivities. Which means I don't have any deep-thinking blog posts in the queue, and the hundreds of posts piled up in Google Reader since later Thursday were just marked read without more than a cursory glance.
Since I'm at a…
July 13, 2009
As noted last Friday, I spent the weekend in Chicago with a bunch of friends from college, which kept me pretty busy-- some golf, ridiculously upscale steaks, improbably located Cajun food, a Cubs game (5-2 Cubs over Cardinals), ribs, and live blues music (from Joanna Connor and Duke Tumatoe). I…
July 12, 2009
Tor.com / Science fiction and fantasy / Blog posts / Beyond the Aryth Ocean: Part 1: A review of selected maps in fantasy novels
"[L]etâs take a look at some of the great maps of fantasy literature. This is by no means a complete list of the great ones, or even the most well known. Rather, itâs a…
July 10, 2009
If you're desperate for something to fill your Friday afternoon, and not the comment-leaving sort, you could do a lot worse than spending an hour and a half (give or take) with Chuck Klosternman and Bill Simmons in their two part ESPN podcast. It's nominally about sports, but they spend a good bit…
July 10, 2009
I'm headed out of own for the weekend to play golf and re-live the past with some friends from college. If all goes well, I should be in Chicago by the time this posts.
I wouldn't want to leave you starved for entertainment, though, so I'll follow many of the other ScienceBlogs folks (as usual,…
July 9, 2009
P.G. Wodehouse | Books | A.V. Club
"Logistics and aesthetics stand in the way of anyone wishing to dive into P.G. Wodehouseâs canon. His work sprawls over 90 books published over 75 years, most of which are constantly sneaking in and out of print, many of which have different British and American…
July 9, 2009
This is an action shot, but you can't really tell.
An instant after this was taken, SteelyKid succeeded in getting Appa off the couch, and thumped down hard on her butt.
This is also "Late-Wednesday Baby Blogging," as Kate and SteelyKid left for Readercon early this morning (well, Kate is bound…
