September 24, 2007
The current edition of Asimov's is a double issue, for October and November. This is apprently an annual thing, but whatever the reason for it, I got a magazine with twice as many stories as usual, which probably creates a false impression of the worth of the magazine. I'll have to check out a…
September 24, 2007
It turns out that there's actually a small clause in the standard publishing contract that requires any author with a blog to post periodic updates on the progress of the current writing project. Who knew?
Well, OK, there's no contractual obligation, but really, I have the blog, and I need to fill…
September 23, 2007
Some time back, I proposed a contest:
The person who comes closest to the actual number [of pictures taken in Japan] without going over will win something cheap and tacky from Japan that I will buy before I leave.
I haven't fogotten about this, I've just been too busy to do all that much with the…
September 23, 2007
At dinner with my parents last night, we were talking about the dinners at Sumiyoshi, the ryokan we stayed at in Takayama. I haven't gotten around to uploading those pictures yet, but I dug this one out:
It's not the best picture of Kate, but she does provide a sense of scale... It was a great…
September 22, 2007
The city of Nara, near Kyoto, is full of temples and shrines dating back to the eigth centruy, when it was briefly the capital of Japan. One of the largest shrines in the city, the Kasuga Taisha shrine, is dedicated to deities that use deer as their sacred messengers.
As a result, deer are allowed…
September 21, 2007
It's job-hunting season in academia, which also means it's talking-about-the-job-market season. After writing the previous post, I noticed a post on the same topic by Steve Hsu, who was interviewed for a Chronicle of Higher Education article (temporary free link, look quickly!) about the lousy job…
September 21, 2007
In the neverending debates about the current state of physics-- see, for example, Bee's thoughtful post about The trouble With Physics, you will frequently hear it said that the academic job market in physics sucks. But what, exactly, does that mean in quantitative terms?
It's job hunting season in…
September 20, 2007
On September 19, 1961, Betty and Barney Hill were driving through rural New Hampshire, and had an odd experience that has become probably the most famous alien abduction story in the history of UFO folklore.
As it happens, they drove right past the town where SF author and Making Light blogger Jim…
September 20, 2007
Let's say you have a mirror-- not some cheesey $2 makeup mirror, but a research-grade aluminum mirror-- and it has some crud on it, say a film of junk deposited during your Summer Institute for Hot MEtal Chemistry. Like, say, the mirror on the right in this picture:
How do you get that mirror…
September 20, 2007
I'm in a Department of Physics and Astronomy, so several of my colleagues are astronomers. We also have a rather nice on-campus observatory, used for student research projects.
Unfortunately, the combination means that we have a running argument with the rest of the campus regarding lights. The…
September 19, 2007
The Scientist is doing a survey about science blogs, and if you go look at the article, you'll notice a shocking omission.
That's right, there's not a single physicist on the list.
Of course, that shouldn't actually be a surprise, as they're actually doing a survey of life science blogs. But that…
September 19, 2007
Wednesday was a Day of Meetings for me, starting at 8am, which means I didn't have time to type up a bunch of blog posts and schedule them as usual. Having just clawed my way out of Meetingville, though, let me take a few minutes to throw up another Academia post, before the topic gets too stale.…
September 19, 2007
A philosopher at McGill University has stirred up a controversy by requiring students to get perfect scores on a quiz about the Greek alphabet or drop her class on Plato:
The course, which at times refers directly to original texts, requires students to gain a familiarity with the Greek alphabet.…
September 18, 2007
At the recent Worldcon, there were several rounds of the usual Save the Magazines Chorus: short fiction is the lifeblood of the genre, it's where we get our new writers, etc. With the usual subtextual implication that I am a Bad Person because I don't read or subscribe to any SF magazines.
(The…
September 18, 2007
Over at Pure Pedantry, Jake Young has recently posted two long, thoughtful, and civil entries in the New Atheism debate (he must have a thesis deadline, or something). The first follows John Dewey in arguing that a tight link between science and atheism is counterproductive, while the second…
September 18, 2007
A quick physics news update, on some stories that came out last week:
"Thundercloud "accelerator" fires gamma-ray beam:" A team of scientists in Japan has seen a 40-second burst of gamma rays from a thundercloud. This was presumably produced by electrons accelerated to extremely high velocities…
September 17, 2007
Before we bought our current house, coming up on five years ago, we looked at another slightly larger house that's literally just around the corner. It hadn't officially been listed yet, but our agent (who, weirdly, lives right next door) showed it to us, and we thought very hard about it.…
September 17, 2007
Sean Carroll takes a look at economics from the point of view of a physicist:
Economists have a certain way of looking at the world, in which (to simplify quite a bit) people act rationally to maximize their utility. That sort of talk pushes physicists' buttons, because maximizing functions is…
September 17, 2007
Via Matt McIrvin, Total Drek's Unhelpful Hints for Graduate Students:
(1) It is important to realize as soon as possible that you are not an undergraduate any longer. In fact, you're not really even a student. Grad school is more like an apprenticeship program than traditional schooling. As such,…
September 17, 2007
Three comments on the second week of the NFL season:
1) Given that Brett Favre famously lay down to give Michael Strahan the single-season sack record, it seems only fitting that the Giants should roll over to give him the NFL wins record for a QB. If the clock hadn't run out, he probably could've…
September 17, 2007
James Oliver Rigney, better known to the world by his Robert Jordan pseudonym, has passed away after a long illness. I didn't know him personally-- I met him very briefly once, at a signing-- but the Wheel of Time books were ridiculously important in my life. I met a great many friends through…
September 16, 2007
The last night of the Worldcon in Yokohama, I wound up in a conversation with a couple of Japanese fans and another American. At the suggestion of the other American (whose name I forget-- sorry), we spent a while trading questions: we'd answer a question about the US, then they would answer a…
September 16, 2007
Ethan Zuckerman has the sort of life that every academic dreams of: He travels all over the world going to conferences where really smart people, some of them famous, talk about interesting things. And he doesn't even have to grade exam papers, or attend boring faculty meetings.
His latest jaunt…
September 16, 2007
One of my favorite underappreciated bands of the mid-90's is the Boston-based three-piece Buffalo Tom. They got a little bit of play with songs like "Sodajerk" and "Treehouse" (both of which have turned up in commercials, and the former apparently figured prominently in an epsidoe of "My So-Called…
September 15, 2007
A while back, I posted a call for non-religious charities, and donated $200 to two organizations recommended by readers. Having done that, I would be remiss in my duties as a blogger if I didn't mention the ne plus ultra of atheist charities, the newly launched Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason…
September 15, 2007
Speaking of science explanations in SF, or at least science explained by SF authors, there's a very nice history of dark matter at SFNovelists.com by Mark Brotherton (via Tobias Buckell):
The story of dark matter starts back in the 1930s with Fritz Zwicky, a brilliant but difficult Caltech…
September 15, 2007
In a comment to my Worldcon wrap-up, "fvngvs" asks a question following up on the science in SF panel:
So Chad, now that you've had some time to think about it, can you think of a list of books/stories with a really good treatment of science concepts?
It's a good question, and deserves a full post…
September 14, 2007
The particle physics community in the US has rolled out a new site promoting the Large Hadron Collider, because, you know, there was a danger that we might forget that it's there. As part of the site, they're featuring four new physics blogs, by Monica Dunford, Pam Klabbers, Steve Nahn, and…
September 14, 2007
Every now and then, usually in the summer or early fall, when the sun is shining and it's just pleasant to be outdoors, I find myself almost regretting my career choices. After all, had I chosen a career in the biological sciences, rather than laser physics, I could do my research outside in the…
September 14, 2007
So, Bill Belichick has been fined half a million for the incident last week in which a Patriots assistant coach was caught videotaping Jets signals. The team was also fined $250K, and will lose at least one draft pick over the incident.
Now that the punishment has been handed down, can somebody…
