April 27, 2008
Crooked Timber » » Maybe Baby
In which Maria makes a dubious choice of date movies. Then again, the first movie Kate and I went to was "Hrad Rain," so who am I to judge?
(tags: movies nostalgia blogs)
Physics and Physicists: Physics In Action at Theme Parks
On student trips to learn "Like how…
April 27, 2008
From the tablet today:
Yes, oh, yes it was...
The problem here, from my perspective, is that when the tablet is plugged into a power supply, it does not go to sleep properly. I can put it to sleep, and then connect it to charge the battery, but a few hours later, it will just be off, and when I…
April 27, 2008
Over at Shifting Baselines, Randy Olson posts a comment suggesting how to combat anti-science movies like Expelled:
You want to know how to start -- why doesn't somebody run a film festival for pro-evolution films? THAT is how you reach out to tap into new voices, new blood, new perspectives. THAT…
April 27, 2008
The big science-and-religion issue of the week has been Expelled, which The AV Club gave an F, writing:
Perhaps what Bruce Chapman of ID advocacy group The Discovery Institute says about Darwinists applies best to Expelled: "People who don't have an argument are reduced to throwing sand in your…
April 26, 2008
Seed: "So"
A look at the most common verbal tic of scientists.
(tags: science language academia education)
April 26, 2008
Every Friday (more or less) there's a "Faculty Social Hour" on campus. They have cheese and crackers, a fairly random assortment of beer, and a couple of bottles of wine, and various faculty come by to wind down a bit at the end of the week. It's a chance to socialize a little with people from…
April 26, 2008
I went for a bike ride this morning, the first real bike ride of the year (I've biked to and from work a couple of times, but this was the first real ride just for the sake of riding). There was some pissy drizzle at the start, but by the time I got on the bike path headed for Lock 8, the sun came…
April 25, 2008
Easily Distracted » Blog Archive » What's Wrong With "Social Justice"?
"If you really mean it, however, you have to seriously leave room for, even encourage, someone to answer the question, "Should we pursue social justice or be socially responsible" by saying, "No"."
(tags: academia education…
April 25, 2008
The organizers of the Science in the 21st Century conference at the Perimeter Institute have started to collect talk abstracts for the meeting. Actually, they started a couple of weeks ago, but I'm a Bad Person and haven't gotten around to writing anything for them yet.
It doesn't help that this…
April 25, 2008
Given the amount of time I've spent writing about academic issues this week, it's only fitting that the science story getting the most play is about math education. Ed Yong provides a detailed explanation, and Kenneth Chang summarizes the work in the New York Times. Here's Ed's introduction:
Except…
April 25, 2008
I'm kicking myself for not using this as a filler post a couple of weeks back when it was Easter:
This is from one of the shrines at Kiyomizu-dera in Kyoto-- the temple with the gigantic wooden platform looking out over the city. The sign at the lower right identifies it:
This stuatue is called "…
April 24, 2008
Princeton scientists discover exotic quantum state of matter
"Writing in the April 24 issue of Nature, the scientists report that they have recorded [the quantum Hall effect] in a bulk crystal of bismuth-antimony without any external magnetic field being present."
(tags: physics experiment…
April 24, 2008
We had a great time on our visit to Japan last summer, but we had one incredibly frustrating experience, on our first day in Yokohama. We couldn't bring three full weeks' worth of clothing with us, so we brought a bit more than one week's worth, and planned to get things cleaned there. The hotel…
April 24, 2008
Monday
9:00-10:15 am Grade exams from last week.
10:15-10:30 am Prepare for lecture
10:30-11:35 am Lecture about magnetic field of current loop, in-class activity on field of solenoid
11:35-12:45 pm Gasp, pant, eat lunch.
12:45-2:45 pm Tweak up apparatus for laser spectroscopy of rubidium lab
3:00-…
April 24, 2008
Lest you think that people in the US are uniquely alarmist about threats to Chiiiiillllllldrruuuun, a picture from last summer's trip to Japan:
I have absolutely no idea what that says, but it sure is lurid.
April 23, 2008
Acephalous: Interview with a Candidate for Many Jobs (but Winner of None)
"So your advice to candidates is to take consolation in the fact that the entire planet isn't being devoured by The Eater of Worlds?"
(tags: academia jobs blogs silly)
nanoscale views: Career comments
There's really no…
April 23, 2008
We've asked not to be told the sex of FutureBaby, even though Kate's doctors know it, having done an amniocentesis to screen for genetic defects. So far, they've been very good about not hinting at anything. We may have cause to reconsider this decision, though, as we get deeper into the issue of…
April 23, 2008
At Inside Higher Ed this morning, there's an article with the headline At U. of Georgia, Furor Over Clarence Thomas. As always when I see such things (or, say, complaints about having Mike Huckabee speak on campus here), my first thought was "Curse you, Georgia, for making me think, even for a…
April 23, 2008
As I may have mentioned in the past, we at Chateau Steelypips have benefitted greatly from Yale Law School's loan forgiveness program for graduates taking public service jobs. Since Kate shattered my dreams of a self-funded basement lab by deciding to use her pricey law degree for good rather than…
April 22, 2008
james_nicoll: Welcome to the Harlan Ellison Memorial Personal Boundaries Club
The title is really all the commentary you need on the "Open-Source Boob Project."
(tags: SF stupid gender ethics society culture)
Confessions of a Community College Dean: The Pre-Ninja Program
"75 percent of the…
April 22, 2008
Two weeks ago, now, I promised some peer=reviewed physics blogging, to compensate for the "screechy monkey" nonsense. Of course, I got distracted by other things, but I've been sitting on this paper for a while now, and I really need to get it off my desk.
The paper in question is "Quantum Register…
April 22, 2008
The release of Expelled has generated all sorts of chatter, almost certainly more than it deserves on its merits as a film. It's also produced repeated mentions of the fact that it's the eight highest-grossing political documentary of all time-- most recently, Tara Smith writing at Correlations.…
April 22, 2008
When I start to lecture, I go into Teaching Mode, which affects the whole way I present myself. I speak at a slightly higher pitch, and the whole cadence of my speech changes. I talk a little bit faster, but repeat myself more, and speak in a more formal style.
The funny thing is that I'll drop in…
April 21, 2008
Cognitive Daily: What's better for heating a mug of water: The stove or the microwave?
Dave watches pots boil so you don't have to.
(tags: physics science energy environment silly)
PETA's Latest Tactic: $1 Million for Fake Meat - New York Times
Shockingly, they've stumbled across a halfway…
April 21, 2008
There's a new "Ask a ScienceBlogger" question out:
"A question from a friend's 9-year old son:
What is in the air we breathe? What is it's chemical composition?"
The short answer to this is "a little bit of everything." Pretty much
any substance we have on Earth can be found in the atmosphere…
April 21, 2008
Another reason why I recommend limiting the advice you listen to as a new faculty member on the tenure track is that most of the things that academics do are highly individual activities. There's no one right way to teach or do research, and what works for one person may fail miserably for another…
April 21, 2008
One of many parts of the FutureBaby! process that I was lamentably ignorant of is the idea of the hospital tour. When I first mentioned to colleagues that we were expecting, many of them (mostly women) asked "Where are you going to have the baby?"
My initial response was "How the hell should I know…
April 20, 2008
Janet follows a post by ScienceWoman on prioritizing research time with a List of advice for tenure-track faculty. It's excellent advice if you're a junior academic seeking tenure.
I have only one suggestion to add:
Seek advice, but don't take too much of it.
If you're on the tenure track, you…
April 20, 2008
Scott Eric Kaufman, inspired by this piece in The New Yorker, relates his own tale of being stuck in an elevator:
At this point I was about five minutes into my own hanging. The damn thing wouldn't settle and so I panicked. I started pacing frantically and I checked my watch and I knew I would be…
April 19, 2008
Jacks of Science â Super Slow Motion is the New Slow Motion
"[A]s frames per second increase (speed of video decreases), coolness approaches infinity, a value infinitely cooler than the speed of normal life. Moving past this discontinuity, boringness surpasses coolness and we observe exponential…
