July 9, 2007
Another pop-culture question for the audience: Jason Hare, in the course of recapping a Top Ten from 1985 makes a shrewd observation:
"Sussudio" was a damn catchy song in 1985 and while nobody will admit to liking it now, I guarantee you that once an indie band covers it, Stereogum will lose their…
July 9, 2007
Pete Vonder Haar at Blog 9 from Outer Space is not enthusiastic about a Sex and the City movie. Neither am I, really, and this wouldn't rate a post except for a passing mention:
At any rate, I'm sure a movie about a quartet of promiscuous 40- and 50-somethings will be much better than that Magnum P…
July 8, 2007
An insane audiophile of my acquaintance recently remarked (in a locked LiveJournal, otherwise I'd link to it) that while live classical music is clearly superior to recorded classical music, it's crazy to go to a live performance of pop music because "you're not hearing actual instruments/voices,…
July 8, 2007
I still have one Hugo nominee to read, but I needed to take a break between Glasshouse and Blindsight, so I rewarded myself with the latest in Steven Erikson's epic Tales of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, Reaper's Gale. We're still a few books behind in the US, so this is a gigantic UK trade…
July 7, 2007
The slow-motion "meme" of the moment is this "eight things about yourself" list. Doctor Pion tagged me a while back, but I've been bad about actually responding, because I'm lazy. This seems like a good weekend topic, though, so here are some random facts about me (I'll try not to repeat any from…
July 7, 2007
Andre at Biocurious points out an interesting piece in Nature. They interviewed four prominent SF authors--Paul McAuley, Ken Macleod, Joan Slonczewski, and Peter Watts about biology in science fiction. The resulting article is a good read, with lots of interesting anecdotes and examples, and if you…
July 6, 2007
Inside Higher Ed reports today on a new brainstrom from the ETS
With criticism growing that standardized tests and grades fail to convey the full picture of applicants, the Educational Testing Service is preparing a standardized way for graduate schools to consider students' non-cognitive strengths…
July 6, 2007
I know, it's "Live Earth," but they've got this giant blue-green circle at the left of their logo, which makes it look like an illuminated initial capital...
So, the latest charity rock specatcle is scheduled to start tonight. I can't say I've been paying any attention-- I only noticed it today…
July 6, 2007
"Ahhhh... summer at last. No more classes. No more committee meetings. Do you realize what this means?"
"Ummmmm.... no. What does it mean? What are we going to do this summer, Brain?"
"The same thing we do every summer.... Try to do PUBLISHABLE RESEARCH!!!"
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"Are you pondering what I'm…
July 5, 2007
Just in time to drive parents into a panic for the rest of the summer, the New York Times has a big article about sunscreen:
Dr. [James] Spencer [a dermatologist in Florida] said that an S.P.F. 15 product screens about 94 percent of UVB rays while an S.P.F. 30 product screens 97 percent.…
July 5, 2007
I suppose I really ought to say something about the "demonstration" of Steorn's perpetual motion machine that's supposed to start today, but, really, I don't have much to say. I mean, if they were claiming that their device extracted free energy from extra dimensions thanks to their revolutionary…
July 5, 2007
Looking back at the archives, I see that I never did get around to blogging about Jennifer Ouellette's Black Bodies and Quantum Cats, which I finished back in May. This is a particularly shameful oversight, as she visited campus in late May, and gave two excellent talks for us, so the least I can…
July 4, 2007
"American Music," the Violent Femmes
"California Stars," Billy Bragg and Wilco
"The City of New Orleans," Arlo Guthrie
"Song to Woody," Bob Dylan
"The Body of an American," the Pogues
"Born in the USA," Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
"Fortunate Son," Creedence Clearwater Revival
"American…
July 4, 2007
On the way in from the parking lot yesterday, I caught up with a colleague from Mechanical Engineering, who was on a bike, but had stopped to look at one of the local raptors. There are at least two red-tailed hawks living on campus, and one of them was on the ground only ten or fifteen feet from…
July 3, 2007
There have been a number of true and non-silly stories about astronomy and cosmology recently, which I'll collect here as penance for the earlier silly post:
Some theorists at Penn State have constructed a Loop Quantum Gravity model that they claim allows for an oscillating universe with no…
July 3, 2007
The New York Times today has a story about a different sort of summer camp:
Students with a passion for all things explosive and proof of United States citizenship pay a $450 fee that covers food, lodging and incidentals like dynamite. In the course of a week, the 22 students at this session set…
July 3, 2007
WASHINGTON, DC (UP News Service)-- In a move that supporters say shows sensitivity and compassion, President Bush today commuted the sentence of the planet Pluto, which was demoted to a "dwarf planet" by the International Astronomical Union in August of 2006. Under the President's new order, Pluto…
July 2, 2007
It's really difficult to come up with new ways to frame crisis stories about the dwindling number of science majors in the US, but people keep finding them. The latest is from Marc Zimmer writing in Inside Higher Ed, who makes a number of biology analogies:
The numbers indicate that the American…
July 2, 2007
Between the concert last night and an afternoon cookout at the house of one of Kate's co-workers, we were out of the house for most of the day yesterday. This means light blogging today, as I struggle to deal with the stuff I really should've done yesterday.
I do want to note, though, the New York…
July 2, 2007
A while back, Kate and I saw Richard Thompson play a solo acoustic show at The Egg in Albany. Last night, he was back in town, this time with a band, touring in support of his new album, Sweet Warrior. Here are the band credits from the program:
Michael Jerome: drums, percussion
Taras Prodaniuk:…
July 1, 2007
Kate's going to Readercon next weekend, and I'm not. I have three summer students at the moment, and some other projects that I need to work on, and I just can't spare the time.
This means I'm going to have a whole weekend to do things that Kate doesn't enjoy, like go out for sushi and greasy…
July 1, 2007
Via PZ, a blog on biology and science fiction is griping that biology gets no respect, and links to a Jack Cohen article complaining that authors and filmmakers don't take biology seriously I was particularly struck by this bit:
Authors, film producers and directors, special-effects teams go to…
June 30, 2007
My intention of reading all of the nominees for the Hugo Awards in the fiction categories hit a bit of a snag yesterday. I finished all the short fiction (novella, novelette, short story), and most of the novels, leaving only Peter Watts's Blindisght and Charlie Stross's Glasshouse. James Nicoll…
June 29, 2007
I'm still looking for charity suggestions to help prove that atheists aren't just cynical misers. Again, I'm offering to donate $200 to worthy non-religious charities suggested in comments. I've gotten some good suggestions already, but more are always welcome.
On a less serious note, nobody has…
June 29, 2007
Lest I go two days without linking to Inside Higher Ed, there's a "Devil's Workshop" column from Wick Sloan today, in the form of a fake letter to Congress calling for higher taxes on higher education:
Perhaps it's time for the nation to admit we are at war and to act accordingly. The immense Iraq…
June 29, 2007
Steinn checks in from his Mediterranean vacation with not one, not two, but three reports from the conference on Extreme Solar Systems, and a hint of maybe more to come.
The big news here, as far as I can see, is that they're starting to find more low mass planets, and more planets with long…
June 29, 2007
Via EurekAlert, next weekend will see a soccer demonstration by nanoscale robots at the RoboCup competition in Atlanta. This is "nano" in the usual sense of "hundreds if not thousands of nanowhatevers," of course, and they're not exactly playing soccer:
The soccer nanobots (nanoscale robots)…
June 28, 2007
I'm going to drop back a bit, and steal an idea from Doug Natelson, who posted about Grand Challenges in condensed matter physics almost two weeks ago. This was prompted by a report from the National Research Council listing such challenges, including things like "How do complex phenomena emerge…
June 28, 2007
George Gamow was a Russian-born physicist who is known for, in roughly equal proportions, his work on nuclear physics, his popular-audience books, and his really weird sense of humor. He famously added Hans Bethe's name to a paper he wrote with his student, Ralph Alpher, just so the author list…
June 28, 2007
Presenting the hottest new product in the telecommunications sector: the rPhone:
rPhone combines three delightfully diverse products into one awkward and cumbersome handheld contraption -- a revolutionary steam-powered satellite phone, a stylish French musicbox, and a vibrasonic multi-purpose tool…
