September 21, 2008
With the LHC starting up last week, this week's Saturday science video on bloggingheads.tv had a physics theme, with Sean and Jennifer getting together to chat about physics, calculus, and poker.
It's good stuff, and I was surprised to hear my own name appear in the middle of it. Unfortunately, the…
September 21, 2008
Charles Kuffner is the latest to note that people would rather watch football with Obama than McCain. As always, they try to delve into the reasons:
"I think he'd be fun to sit back with and hear his experiences, all his stories," said Kyle Ferguson, 28, a Republican from Santa Rosa, Calif., who…
September 21, 2008
And now, a report from Uncertain Principles's Senior Middle East Correspondent, checking in from Yemen in the wake of the attack on the US Embassy there:
For years, the Yemeni government has let some al-Qaida figures and other Islamic extremists go free in political deals hoping to keep them quiet…
September 21, 2008
... at least, that's the only reason I can think of for ABC News to run a story on the effects of the financial crisis containing the following:
"A lot of those people will have to sell their homes, they're going to cut back on the private jets and the vacations. They may even have to take their…
September 20, 2008
HAMLET (FACEBOOK NEWS FEED EDITION). Written by Sarah Schmelling.
"Polonius thinks this curtain looks like a good thing to hide behind."
(tags: books literature internet silly culture pictures)
BBspot - Evolutionary Acceleration Research Institute Ready to Start "Squirrel Smasher"
"Scientists…
September 20, 2008
SteelyKid is much too young for cartoons, but it's not to early to celebrate the weekend with a riot of bright colors and stylized animal shapes:
We had a really good morning of "Happy Awake Baby" (as opposed to "Happy Sleeping Baby" or "Screaming Awake Baby," which are more common), and she had a…
September 20, 2008
After five long years, Fred Clark has reached the final pages in his exhaustive deconstruction of Left Behind (fittingly enough, they include a phone call). If you would like to see the beginning, the first few pages are here, but the series really starts with Left Behind Is Evil.
Fred's analysis…
September 19, 2008
It was not a great night for helpless mammals in Chateau Steelypips last night. SteelyKid was a little colicky, and the Queen of Niskayuna has developed some problem with her paw necessitating a vet visit today, which led to some late-night whining. Kate ended up spending several hours soothing…
September 19, 2008
Speaking of quantum (as we were), I've been meaning to link to the recent Scientific American article by Chris Monroe and Dave Wineland on quantum computing with ions. This is a very good explanation of the science involved, but you'd expect nothing else, given that the authors are two of the very…
September 19, 2008
The Pontiff beat me to it, but my Ph.D. alma mater has scored a $12.5 million grant from the NSF to fund the Joint Quantum Institute as a Physics Frontier Center for the development of quantum technology:
The Physics Frontier Center (PFC) award, effective September 1, will fund 17 graduate students…
September 18, 2008
...My heart's in Accra » Sumo and the cycle of nature
"Every two months, there's a 15-day basho. You can set your watch by it, if you happen to have one of those watches that's accurate only to the week."
(tags: sports Japan drugs blogs)
Basics: Making graphs with kinematics stuff | Dot…
September 18, 2008
Your weekly picture of SteelyKid, with Appa for scale:
Note the addition of the crib mirror. She's started to become more aware of the world around her, and may parents picked up a couple of mirrors when they were here last week. The mirror is the most fascinating thing in the world, when she's…
September 18, 2008
I have often expressed a wish for there to be more physics majors, and more science majors in general. Given the demographic information in the previous post, is this just irresponsible feather-bedding on my part?
I don't think so, but that's because I would make a distinction between science…
September 18, 2008
There's an article in yesterday's Inside Higher Ed about the supply of scientists and engineers, arguing that there is not, in fact, a shortage:
Michael S. Teitelbaum, a demographer at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, looked at what he called five "mysteries" of the STEM work force issue. For…
September 18, 2008
On hearing that Washington Mutual is the next bank up in Wall Street's fire sale, I have to admit that my first thought was "Well, that's what they get for letting their customer service be handled by shady guys in Nigeria..."
I've gotten so much scam email over the years with Subject: headers like…
September 17, 2008
Tor.com / Science fiction and fantasy / Blog posts / Free e-books from Will Shetterly and Emma Bull
Two really good books, for free. What more could you want?
(tags: SF books literature)
D.F.W., R.I.P. :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, Views and Jobs
"For a young writer…
September 17, 2008
After talking to Cameron Neylon last week, I'm strongly considering setting up an online lab notebook for my research lab. Not so much for the philosophical reasons having to do with openness and the like-- as a practical matter, I still don't think my data will do anybody any good-- but for…
September 17, 2008
Another thing I thought was intriguing that came up at the Science in the 21st Century meeting wasn't from a formal talk, but rather a conversation over dinner with Garrett Lisi and Sabine Hossenfelder about the future of publishing. Garrett was suggesting a new model of publishing, based on…
September 17, 2008
I have never been a huge proponent of the Open Access and Open Data movements in science publishing, because they've always struck me as wasted effort. I've never really seen what value is supposed to be added by either project.
When I think about the experiments that I've been involved with (see…
September 17, 2008
Two new recent posts take up the question of "spherical cows," the old joke term for absurd-sounding approximations that physicists make to turn intractable problems into easy ones. First, The First Excited State explains when N=N+1:
Everybody who's taken any sort of math class knows that a…
September 16, 2008
Wondermark by David Malki ! - 442: In which Beth keeps her Books
"They will breathe with gills that make the sound of fluttering pages."
(tags: internet comics books kid-stuff)
Unsolicited Advice VII: Should I Have a Web Page? | Cosmic Variance
Yes, but for the love of God, keep it professional…
September 16, 2008
(Over the course of this week, I'm going to post a handful of things about talks that struck me as particularly interesting at last week's conference. The order will be chosen based on how much time I think I will have to write them up, given SteelyKid's demands for attention...)
On Thursday, the…
September 16, 2008
Time for everybody's favorite morbid pop-culture game: as we all know, it's a standard joke that celebrity deaths come in threes. So, who completes this week's triad:
David Foster Wallace, Richard Wright, and ...?
September 16, 2008
Everybody's all abuzz about this picture:
This may be the first image of a planet around a sun-like star. May be, mind-- it looks likely, but there are still a lot of caveats. If it is a planet, and not a dim background star, it's got about eight times the mass of Jupiter, and is orbiting at…
September 15, 2008
Lithwick: Put Palin on the Supreme Court | Newsweek Dahlia Lithwick on Legal Issues | Newsweek.com
"[I]f any branch of government is in need of a mother of five who likes shooting wolves from helicopters, the [Supreme] [C]ourt is it."
(tags: law politics silly US)
David Foster Wallace (Harper's…
September 15, 2008
If you listen to people talking about (or read people blogging about) new ways of doing things, you'll frequently hear references to Science or Academia as if they were vast but monolithic entities existing in their own right. Statements like "The culture of Science does not reward open access..."…
September 15, 2008
The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article about online literacy this week (time-limited link, look quickly), and I'm sure you'll be shocked to learn that the author is pessimistic. The article cites distressing findings from new research:
In the eye-tracking test, only one in six subjects…
September 15, 2008
As you might have guessed from yesterday's tease, the folks at ScienceDebate 2008 have now managed to get answers from the McCain campaign (to go with Obama's froma few weeks ago). Which means that while you may never see them answering science questions on a stage together, you can put them head-…
September 15, 2008
Via Brian and John, John Cleese's take on genetic determinism:
All the best social commentary comes from comedians, these days.
September 14, 2008
I started watching the Giants-Rams game today with SteelyKid on my lap. The Giants marched right down the field, and scored a touchdown, and seemed to have the game well in hand. It was lunchtime, though, so Kate took SteelyKid upstairs, and the Giant offense sputtered after that, producing only…
