November 2, 2008
Tor.com / Science fiction and fantasy / Blog posts / World Fantasy Awards Winners!
Congratulations to all the winners.
(tags: books sf awards literature)
CDF Ghost Muons | Cosmic Variance
More thoughts on the maybe-a-particle, maybe-a-background-effect news from Fermilab.
(tags: science physics…
November 2, 2008
With the election nearly upon us, I've started regularly following Talking Points Memo again. Late last night, Josh Marshall wrote about the early voting results:
Among those who've already voted, it's Obama 57%, McCain 38%. And that number is not inconsistent with numbers coming out of a lot of…
November 2, 2008
Via FriendFeed, an interesting analysis of Internet traffic at compete.com. They set out to test the assertion that the "Long Tail" of low-traffic sites account for more traffic than they used to, and found exactly the opposite-- the share of all pageviews for the top ten domains increased from 29…
November 2, 2008
It's now November, so the annual DonorsChoose fundraiser is officially over. According to the official leader board, at the time of this writing, ScienceBlogs has raised just under $30,000, from 302 donors, funding projects that will help 9,810 students. Those numbers may increase in the next day…
November 1, 2008
So, I've recorded a bunch of video for the dance-like-a-monkey thing. I want to edit several of these clips together in order to form a longer clip. I did this once before with video recorded using Kate's camera, to make the Hoops With Moss video, using the Movie Maker program that came with Vista…
November 1, 2008
Via Boing Boing, a "conceptual artist" is selling a make-your-own-universe kit:
According to [a slightly garbled explanation of quantum mechanics], any kind of measurement causes the universe to split and this is the basis of Keats' new device. His universe creator uses a piece of uranium-doped…
November 1, 2008
Some time back, the Obama campaign site offered a "check your voter registration" link. This seemed like a good resource to promote, so I checked it out. This required giving them an email address, and since then, I've gotten a flood of fundraising emails purporting to be from significant people…
November 1, 2008
Optics basics: Inverse problems « Skulls in the Stars
An advanced value of "basic," but a good post.
(tags: physics optics science blogs)
Freshman for Life
Blotchmen, in which Rorschach tries to find his missing plums.
(tags: comics books blogs art internet literature sf)
marnanel: And now,…
October 31, 2008
Today is Kate's first day back at work (part-time), so I'm home alone with SteelyKid. This doesn't leave me much time or mental energy for blogging, so here's a bonus baby picture for the week:
This one's mostly for the grandparents, who bought her the Halloween outfit. You can't see the jack-o-…
October 31, 2008
The high-energy physics blogosphere (well, two blogs worth) is abuzz this morning with the news that the CDF collaboration has seen something in collisions producing multiple muons (a muon is sort of like an electron, only heavier). You can get more from Tommaso Dorigo and Peter Woit.
What they're…
October 30, 2008
Today marks twelve weeks of SteelyKid:
I spent pretty much the whole day at work, trying to get stuff done in advance of Kate's return to work tomorrow, which will see me left home alone with SteelyKid all day for the first time. I'm a little apprehensive, to be honest.
As for the picture, Kate…
October 30, 2008
ICA Supreme Cuisine | Wii⢠& DSâ¢
Iron Chef America: The video game
(tags: food games television computing silly)
Setshot: Basketball for the Aging and Infirm: Careers: A 73 year-old college basketball player!
There's hope for me yet...
(tags: sports basketball blogs silly)
Mr. Dawkins,…
October 30, 2008
Steinn responds to yesterday's post about his comments about science blogging. I'm going to continue the tradition of responding here, rather than in his comments, because, well, I need something to post today.
He concedes that outreach is a worthy purpose of blogging, but continues to be concerned…
October 30, 2008
Via Facebook, of all things, a message reporting a conversation with Representative Bill Foster (D-Fermilab), talking about the best ways to encourage Congress to take science seriously. First, he addressed what's been done in the past:
On the effectiveness of the APS letter-writing campaign:
*…
October 29, 2008
In a move that I'm sure will surprise, oh, three or four people, the editors of Seed have officially endorsed Barack Obama for president.
I doubt any regular reader of this blog will be surprised to hear that I agree with their endorsement. In fact, I'm on record as saying that I will not vote for…
October 29, 2008
Last week, I wrote about ion traps as a possible quantum computing platform, which are probably the best established of the candidate technologies. This week, I'll talk about something more speculative, but closer to my own areas of research: neutral atoms in optical lattices.
This is a newer area…
October 29, 2008
Steinn asks a provocative question:
has science blogging done any good?
I can think of science policy issues where blogging has made a contribution, and the general spread of information and communication done by blogs has probably had some impact, but has any actual science been directly impacted…
October 29, 2008
The Frontal Cortex : Dangerous Models
Why investment bankers are like cod fishermen
(tags: economics social-science science environment animals blogs computing theory)
Fear and Humiliation as Legitimate Teaching Methods :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, Views and Jobs…
October 28, 2008
The closing narrative of the McCain campaign is apparently going to be "Obama's a pinko commie socialist who wants to raise your taxes," which means it's time for all good liberals to bust out the graphs to show why this is false. Well, graph, singular. You know the one:
I don't remember who first…
October 28, 2008
There have been a whole bunch of stories written about the idiot skinheads who were busted for a ludicrous plot to kill a whole bunch of black people, including Barack Obama: the AP version, the Washington Post, the New York Times. They're all pretty similar, and they're all notable for one thing:…
October 28, 2008
Over at Dot Physics (which might be the best physics blog in the world at the moment), Rhett Allain has a pair of posts exploring the physics of Fantastic Contraption.
The posts don't really lend themselves to excerpting, so you need to go over there and read them, but I think they're brilliant,…
October 28, 2008
Cognitive Daily: Should you let your toddler watch TV?
No, you dolt.
(tags: science psychology television kid-stuff)
The Bill Clinton President School - World Wide Web Homepage
"Aren't you tired of not being president?"
(tags: us politics onion silly internet)
Microsoft Ad Campaign Crashing…
October 27, 2008
One of my service activities at the moment is serving on the committee that determines our nominees for the Watson Fellowship. Participating institutions are allowed to nominate up to four students, and we've just selected this year's nominees, who are a really interesting bunch.
The Watson, for…
October 27, 2008
As has already been noted by people with too much free time, my DonorsChoose challenge stands at $6,254. This is a big jump, and happened because somebody emailed to ask whether a donation of theirs had been counted; when I logged in to check, I found that there was $715 in account credits, which I…
October 27, 2008
Corruption in textbook-adoption proceedings: 'Judging Books by Their Covers'
Richard Feynman on the idiocies of the textbook selection process.
(tags: science math education books politics culture publishing)
What does it all mean -- Crooked Timber
"There are two big economic ideas that look…
October 26, 2008
Another day, another DonorsChoose incentive claimed. I'm actually late in responding to this one-- I missed my self-imposed 24-hour deadline because we're visiting Kate's parents outside of Boston, but I'll try to make up for it with the answer. Anyway, Helen asks:
How did Emmy become part of your…
October 26, 2008
I tagged Ethan Zuckerman's post abpout video "windows" to other places in a links dump recently. The idea is to put big video screens and cameras in fast-food restaurants around the world, and provide virtual "windows" into other restaurants in other countries. In talking about the idea, Ethan…
October 26, 2008
5 Presidential Elections Even Dumber Than This One (Somehow) | Cracked.com
Hard as it may be to believe...
(tags: politics history comedy US silly internet)
October 24, 2008
Roe vs. Wade? Bush vs. Gore? What are the worst Supreme Court decisions? - Los Angeles Times
Legal experts weigh in.
(tags: law politics us history society)
Quantum Hyperion | Cosmic Variance
Is Saturn's moon there when nobody's looking?
(tags: science quantum physics astronomy planets)
...My…
October 24, 2008
This week's department colloquium was Roel Snieder of the Colorado School of Mines on The Global Energy Challenge. I have to admit, I was somewhat rude, and spent a lot of the talk futzing with my tablet, but really, while his presentation of the material was very good, the material itself wasn't…
