September 14, 2008
... for a successful defense. And excellent taste in celebratory beer.
September 14, 2008
Kate and I were talking about Garrett Lisi's utopian idea of a time-share netowrk for scientists (about which more later, maybe), and I mentioned the fine tradition of great discoveries being made while on vacation. It occurred to me, though, that there's a secret history story begging to be…
September 14, 2008
One of my favorite writers, David Foster Wallace, apparently hung himself yesterday. His thousand-page novel Infinite Jest puts the magnum in magnum opus, but it's a spectacular piece of work, and in some ways, his nonfiction was better than his fiction.
Wallace was always a dangerous writer for me…
September 13, 2008
Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator: Make Your Own Palin Baby Name
"Chad Orzel, if you were born to Sarah Palin, your name would be: Bush Gator Palin"
(tags: politics US internet silly)
Tor.com / Science fiction and fantasy / Blog posts / A Chance to Show Off: the first line game
"Not long after I…
September 13, 2008
Back in March, I noted that I had inadvertently done an experiment to see what kinds of posts bring the most hits. That week, I posted one peer-reviewed post every day, along with a bunch of other articles, and I looked at the traffic stats to back up my contention that hard-core science blogging…
September 13, 2008
A while back, at dinner, I made my usual complaint that Slacktivist doesn't get enough attention. Kate expressed some doubts, because he certainly seems to have a large number of readers and commenters.
The problem is, it's not read by the people who really need to be reading it, and today provides…
September 13, 2008
Well, I'm back...
I was away for SteelyKid's 5-week birthday, but Kate was good enough to get the bison picture for the week. I got in late last night, and only got a bleary half-hour of baby-calming in at 2:30am, but even that was enough to reconfirm that she's the cutest baby in the universe.…
September 12, 2008
'Race and Class Matters at an Elite College' :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, Views and Jobs
"Elizabeth Aries explores the insights she gained by studying four groups of students at Amherst College: affluent white students, affluent black students, white students without…
September 12, 2008
The Science in the 21st Century meeting is being held at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, which is in a really nice building in the middle of Waterloo. It's a building that was quite clearly designed with physicists in mind, as there are numerous little common spaces where people…
September 11, 2008
Fafblog! the whole world's only source for Fafblog.
"As a Jesus-fearing moose-hunting hockey-mom mother of five who hunts moose for Jesus, Sarah Palin is kin to the wild outdoors and appreciates its bountiful splendor as she is gunning it down from her airplane. "
(tags: politics blogs silly US…
September 10, 2008
Pure Pedantry : PhD Complete Rates
"As opposed to completion gaps, I am much more concerned with the fact that about a third of students are not finishing their PhDs. Why is that?"
(tags: academia science education gender race social-science)
Learning Curves: You Will Be So Screwed When We Get…
September 10, 2008
I'm having a great time at this week's conference, but I still find myself missing SteelyKid. Which is kind of amazing, really, as she's only been around for five weeks, and she's mostly just slept, cried, eaten, and soiled an astonishing number of diapers. And yet, how can I not miss this:
Really…
September 10, 2008
We're out for a walk, when the dog spots a squirrel up ahead and takes off in pursuit. The squirrel flees into a yard and dodges around a small ornamental maple. Emmy doesn't alter her course in the slightest, and just before she slams into the tree, I pull her up short.
"What'd you do that for?"…
September 9, 2008
Shaping Single Photons | Physical Review Focus
"Physicists have been manipulating single photons for several years, but now a team has modulated the time profile of a photon. Using the same optical equipment that fashions ordinary light pulses, the team molded single photons into arbitrary shapes…
September 9, 2008
I've seen a lot of neat stuff discussed at the Science in the 21st Century meeting, some of which I'll talk about in more detail later, when I have more time to think. One of the most interesting experiences of the meeting, though, has been using FriendFeed to sort of collaboratively live-blog the…
September 9, 2008
If you're looking for something to fill your science-related entertainment needs while I'm in Canuckistan pondering the future of society, and thus not blogging much, here are a couple of things you might want to check out on tv (whose producers sent me helpful emails letting me know of their…
September 8, 2008
Whatever » A Previous Message Repeated, Slightly More Forcefully
"Now, again, please: Take a nice, deep cleansing breath, center yourself, have some tea, and get a goddamn grip. "
(tags: US politics blogs)
Confessions of a Community College Dean: Ask the Administrator: Academic Blacklists?
"…
September 8, 2008
The video from today's talks at the Science in the 21st Century conference have been posted at the PIRSA collection, so if you want to see my talk, you can watch the video (a 110 MB WMV file), and/or look at the slides (a 2.7 MB PDF).
I would also particularly recommend watching the video of John…
September 8, 2008
I gave my talk this morning at the Science in the 21st Century conference. Video will eventually be available at the Perimeter Institute Recorded Seminar Archive site, but if you'd like to get a sense of the talk, a few people were live-blogging it in the FriendFeed room for the meeting. You get a…
September 7, 2008
Confessions of an RNC security guard | Salon
"Even in their lusty, alcohol-fueled swoons, these young politicos still call Palin "governor." In a way, this reverential horniness is sort of endearing. But mostly it's just creepy."
(tags: politics US journalism society culture)
Shtetl-Optimized Â…
September 7, 2008
Sunday's a travel day for me, as I take a tiny little prop plane to the exotic land of Canada, for the Science in the 21st Century workshop. After an hour and a half bent double in a goddamn Cessna, I'll probably be too sore to type, so don't expect much blogging from me.
If you're looking for…
September 6, 2008
Soundtrack Saturday: "Real Genius" | Popdose
All but one of the songs from Val Kilmer's finest film.
(tags: music movies blogs science)
September 6, 2008
We went down to visit Kate's parents on Wednesday, so I wasn't able to post the weekly bison-for-scale picture. I did get one, though, so here it is a few days late:
This also gives us a chance to show off her "Smart Cookie" onesie, which I picked up because it's a nice break from the frilly pink…
September 5, 2008
Adventures in Ethics and Science: Data paparazzi.
Is it ethical to write a paper based on a snapshot of a data slide at a conference?
(tags: ethics science publishing physics academia)
Jonathan Martin's Blog: Democrat reader email of the day (so far) - Politico.com
"Mrs. Palin needs to be…
September 5, 2008
Dave Munger does Friday polls calling them "Casual Fridays," but then, the usual run of posts at Cognitive Daily is a lot more serious than my usual standard. So I'll call this a "semi-formal Friday" poll, sort of the khaki pants and blue blazer of the online research world.
I'm also too lazy to…
September 4, 2008
Torontoist: ROAWR...Pop!
Best. Balloon Animal. EVER.
(tags: dinosaurs animals art silly pictures)
Built on Facts : Charging the Earth
"Gravity couldn't hold lint to your shirt in a million years."
(tags: physics math gravity science blogs)
Confessions of a Community College Dean: In Which I…
September 4, 2008
Fade in on an Old, Balding White Man reading the paper at the breakfast table.
OBWM: I don't know. I'm really worried about the economy. Rising fuel prices, increasing costs of everything...
Cut to his Younger Blond Wife, sipping tea
YBW: I know. And the mortgage crisis, all these home…
September 4, 2008
We're in Boston to visit Kate's parents, and while we wait for SteelyKid to wake up and demand food, we're watching "Mike and Mike" on ESPN2 (the live simulcast of the radio show). They've been talking about how tonight's NFL kick-off (our long national nightmare is over...) was pushed up so as not…
September 3, 2008
The Quantum Pontiff : Wisely Using Your Advantage
"In other words, what is your probability of ruin, given a starting bankroll of D dollars, an advantage of p, and a target of T dollars?"
(tags: science math statistics blogs)
Optics basics: Coherence ë Skulls in the Stars
A very nice…
