December 11, 2007
Here's the first of this year's series of pictures proving that our Christmas tree is all about SCIENCE!!! (which, for the record, needs to be said like it's in a Thomas Dolby song). Some of these will eventually get kind of obscure, but we'll start with an easy one:
This little guy, obviously,…
December 10, 2007
Catholic World News : Vatican astronomer likens creationism to superstition
Brother Guy Consolmagno, talking sense as always.
(tags: astronomy religion science biology)
Daily Kos: What was wrong with the debate education question
A good discussion of the issues involved with merit pay, teacher…
December 10, 2007
Chateau Steelypips presents the 2007 Christmas Tree of SCIENCE!!!:
OK, it may not look all that science-y-- nary a Tesla coil to be seen-- but just like last year, this year's tree is all about the science. I'll be explaining how in a series of picture posts over the next week or so.
So, well,…
December 10, 2007
Following on an article in Seed and an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, ScienceBloggers Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum (of The Intersection) have teamed up with a bunch of other smart people to launch Sciencedebate 2008:
Given the many urgent scientific and technological challenges facing…
December 10, 2007
"Do you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -- Steven Brust, Dzur
Way, way back in October, when I was annoying you all with DonorsChoose fundraining posts, I offered to sell post topics for $30. I've paid off most of these, but I have three left, one of which was for something more…
December 10, 2007
A few comments from this weekend's action:
- My Giants improved to 9-4 after a squeaking out a close win over the Eagles when a potential game-tying field goal clanged off the upright. Weirdly, they are now 6-1 on the road, and just 3-3 at home-- granted, they've played better teams at home than on…
December 9, 2007
The Little Professor: The Golden Compass
Less "atheist" than "Protestant."
(tags: literature religion review movies SF)
westerblog » Blog Archive » One Last Pullman Post
An important clarification regarding what happens to the Authority in His Dark Materials.
(tags: religion books literature…
December 9, 2007
It's been a couple of weeks since the last progress report, and Emmy is getting concerned.
So what's the status of the book, anyway?
Introduction
Current Revision: 1
Total Words: 430 (dialogue only)
Chapter 1: Particle-Wave Duality
Current Revision: 5a
Total Words: 5,279
Chapter 2: The Uncertainty…
December 9, 2007
Kate and I went to see The Golden Compass last night because, dude, armored bears! Also, we both really enjoyed the book, back when it first came out (though I haven't re-read it since The Amber Spyglass, to see if it was retroactively ruined by the third volume).
From the opening titles in the…
December 8, 2007
It Came Upon A Midnight Weird :: Cavalcade of Bad Nativities 2007
"The people who made this probably never even saw Star Wars, so they have no idea that they've just made a Jawa nativity. Sure, they're adoring the child right now, but tomorrow, they'll be out stealing droids again."
(tags: silly…
December 8, 2007
Poking around the Discover magazine web site looking for something else, I ran across this interview with Kip Thorne about black holes, wormholes, LIGO, and Stephen Hawking:
It sounds like Hawking hasn't done very well in his bets.
He hasn't won any of these bets yet. I think that characterizes the…
December 8, 2007
One of the perks of being a B-list sciece blogger is that people send me stuff that they would like me to promote to my dozens of readers. Such as, for example, National Geographic's very silly Dino Central Park site, where you can frighten simulated New Yorkers with simulated dinosaurs. Because…
December 7, 2007
YouTube - Here Comes Another Bubble - The Richter Scales
Web 2.0, to the tune of "We Didn't Start the Fire"
(tags: internet music silly video youtube)
Jobs, News and Views for All of Higher Education - Inside Higher Ed :: Hope on Ph.D. Attrition Rates -- Except in Humanities
"Even after 10…
December 7, 2007
Over in LiveJournal land, Sherwood Smith links approvingly to an essay by Tom Simon in response to what are apparently some "logical positivist" evles in Christopher Paolini's books. I haven't read the books in question, but it really doesn't matter, as Simon very quickly spins this off into a…
December 7, 2007
Kind of a technical question, but typing it out might provide some inspiration, or failing that, somebody might have a good suggestion in the comments.
Here's the issue: I'm starting on a chapter about quantum teleportation for the book, and one of the key steps in the teleportation scheme is an…
December 7, 2007
Brad DeLong gives his stamp of approval to Steven Pearlstein's explanation of the mortgage collapse now in progress. It is, indeed, a very clear explanation of what went wrong:
Stick with me now, because this is where it gets interesting. For it is at this point that the banks got the bright idea…
December 6, 2007
Cat Macros - Post a comment
LOLCat weighs in on the Russian acquisition of LiveJournal.
(tags: silly pictures blogs internet)
Hey Spot, You've Got Mail - New York Times
Dogster: because pets need social networks, too.
(tags: dog silly internet society)
The A.V. Club's Third Annual…
December 6, 2007
John Scalzi is talking a big game:
I was just taking one of those Internet tests to see how much of a geek I am, when I suddenly thought, what the fuck am I doing? I'm a published science fiction writer. Do not pass "go," do not collect $200, you know? Just go straight to the geek win.
That's right…
December 6, 2007
With the department secretary switching over to the all-Christmas-songs station, and Jason Hare and Jeff Giles celebrating holiday tunes that bring the suck, it seems like a good time to re-ask the eternal question:
Are there Christmas songs that can hold their own against "Fairytale of New York…
December 6, 2007
Kevin Drum looks at the latest story about American students lagging the world in science test scores, and notes that this has been going on at least since he was in school. This leads him to wonder whether it's really as bad as all that:
I still wonder about this. If American kids are getting…
December 5, 2007
Angels and Demons
Frequently asked questions about antimatter at CERN. Dan Brown has a lot to answer for.
(tags: books physics science stupid)
Major physics breakthrough in understanding supersolidity
The weirdness continues, in this remarkable uninformative press release.
(tags: physics low-…
December 5, 2007
The building where my office is is one of those 60's era brick buildings with lots of basically identical little offices arranged along indistinguishable hallways. Tenured professors are known to get lost in there trying to find specific offices. To make it a little easier, some of us decorate our…
December 5, 2007
There's a piece by Michael Dine in Physics Today this month with the ambitious title "String theory in the era of the Large Hadron Collider, thus combining two of my very favorite topics... I was going to give it a pass, but I was surprised to discover that it's freely available-- most of their…
December 4, 2007
Yahhhhhhh: Canadian PSAs Are Clearly Not Messing Around
Canadians are terrifying
(tags: video youtube television Canada)
"Dinosaur Mummy" Found; Has Intact Skin, Tissue
A surprisingly intact hadrosaur provides all sorts of interesting information
(tags: biology dinosaurs news science)
Why do…
December 4, 2007
Physics World has an interview with Alastair Reynolds, who was trained as an astrophysicist but is now a full-time SF author:
How does your physics training help with your writing?
Less than people imagine. I think the most important attribute for a science-fiction writer is to be fascinated by…
December 4, 2007
While I'm ranting about Inside Higher Ed articles that pissed me off, here's another. Rob Weir walked uphill through the snow to his first academic job, and thinks the academy shouldn't be hiring the spoiled kids we have these days:
[J]ust about one year ago the popular media sounded alarmist notes…
December 4, 2007
Over at Inside Higher Ed, they have a piece looking at the state of college football as we enter bowl season. This is dominated by two large tables of numbers, one good, and one bad.
The first table is the good one, as it explains why the college football "championship" is so messed up. It lists…
December 4, 2007
It was not a stunning display of football, but the Patriots' win over the Ravens was at least a tense and interesting game down to the last minute of play. New England looked awful, but pulled it together on the last drive, picking their way down the field for a game-winning touchdown with 44…
December 3, 2007
Ralph Asher Alpher - Physics Today December 2007
A very nice obituary
(tags: astronomy physics)
Chemical & Engineering News - ACS News - Class Of 2006 Salaries And Jobs
The overall situation is pretty good, but Ph.D. Salaries dropped somewhat.
(tags: chemistry academia news jobs)
MIT…
December 3, 2007
I burned out some diode lasers a while back, and needed to buy replacements. Here's one of the replacements on top of the tube containing the other, with a US quarter for scale:
Here they are, with the box and packing material used to ship them to me:
I realize that this is probably due to…
