March 13, 2012
The thoroughly loathesome Rush Limbaugh is reaping the whirlwind from his latest gaffe (defined, of course, as any instance where a political figure shares his actual opinion with the public), with advertisers fleeing in droves. This has led to a good deal of chortling among the liberal types in my…
March 13, 2012
I finally got a copy of Cox and Forshaw's The Quantum Universe, and a little time to read it, in hopes that it would shed some light on the great electron state controversy. I haven't finished the book, but I got through the relevant chapter and, well, it doesn't, really. That is, the discussion in…
March 13, 2012
Fair Is Foul, But Fouling's Unfair - The Triangle Blog - Grantland
I would always prefer that the trailing team receive an opportunity to tie the game by hitting a shot from the floor. It's superior in every way: It doesn't force anyone to awkwardly miss a free throw on purpose, it's more dramatic…
March 12, 2012
The Links Dump item about software patents this morning includes a lament that there are so many silly little software patents, organized so badly, that finding one you might be infringing would take forever. This may or may not be a convincing argument against them, but for a physics geek like me…
March 12, 2012
Opinion: The problem with software patents? They don't scale
Nathan Myhrvold, the Microsoft veteran who founded the patent-trolling giant Intellectual Ventures, loves to complain about the "culture of intentionally infringing patents" in the software industry. "You have a set of people who are…
March 10, 2012
I've gotten out of the habit of booklogging recently, which is sort of a shame, because it means I've also gone back to the problem that led Kate and me to start booklogs in the first place: people ask what I've been reading recently, and I can't remember... As a sort of corrective to this, though…
March 9, 2012
I had planned to catch up on blogging a bunch of things this afternoon, but I decided I needed a nap more than I needed to pump up the blog traffic. So, here's a cute-baby picture to make up for it:
This is The Pip, trying to figure out what's up with the little dude in the mirror in his portable…
March 9, 2012
Still not as bad as Division I revenue sports § Unqualified Offerings
Still, at the end of the day, there's at least some notion of accountability and standards behind the assessment movement. I don't think it's been a very effective effort at accountability and standards, but somebody somewhere…
March 8, 2012
Yesterday was a really grueling day, and I'm home with The Pip today, so no substantive blogging. But here's a song about the universe, written and performed by one of my colleagues:
If this becomes the next LHC Rap, remember you heard it here first.
By a weird coincidence, we've been watching our…
March 7, 2012
So, the news of the moment in high-energy physics is the latest results being reported from a conference in Europe. The major experimental collaborations are presenting their newest analyses, sifting through terabyte-size haystacks of data looking for the metaphorical needle that is the Higgs boson…
March 7, 2012
Luis Alvarez: the ideas man - CERN Courier
Luis Alvarez - one of the greatest experimental physicists of the 20th century - combined the interests of a scientist, an inventor, a detective and an explorer. He left his mark on areas that ranged from radar through to cosmic rays, nuclear physics,…
March 6, 2012
The new book is out, which means it's time for lots of promotional efforts and links to radio shows and news articles and that sort of thing. Such as this one: I'll be talking about relativity and dog physics tomorrow night, Wednesday the 7th, on the Big Science radio program(me) at 9pm London time…
March 6, 2012
My course on the history and science of timekeeping has reached the home stretch, with students giving presentations in class for the remainder of the term. My portion of the course was wrapped up with two lectures on "quantum timkeeping," as it were: a lecture on the development of quantum…
March 6, 2012
Voters Slowly Realizing Santorum Believes Every Deranged Word That Comes Out Of His Mouth | The Onion - America's Finest News Source
"I honestly thought he was just playing up to the far-right voters, because that's what Republicans are supposed to do in the primaries," said Grand Rapids, MI…
March 5, 2012
The birth of The Pip required converting our spare bedroom into a nursery, which is a small price to pay for such a cute little dude. Other than the fact that we were using that room to store a lot of our paper books. Which means those need to move somewhere else, somewhere that is not inside our…
March 5, 2012
My timekeeping course this term is a "Scholars Research Seminar," which means it's supposed to emphasize research and writing skills. Lots of these will include some sort of poster session at the end of the term, but I decided I preferred the idea of doing in-class oral presentations. Having…
March 5, 2012
What the research says | National Numeracy
The Skills for Life survey (2011) measured the numeracy levels of 16 to 65 year-olds in England, finding that: 22% of the population (7.5 million adults) are working at Level 2 or above - roughly equivalent to A*-C at GCSE - compared with 26% (8.1million…
March 4, 2012
When There's More To Winning Than Winning : NPR
When last we left the NCAA, it was February madness, colleges were jumping conferences, suing each other, coaches were claiming rivals had cheated in recruiting -- the usual nobility of college sports. And then, in the midst of all this, the men's…
March 3, 2012
Making Light: Whisperado: Video! Release party! Free association!
Now available on YouTube: the video for Whisperado's "Teenage Popstar Girl." Song written by Sobel / Nielsen Hayden / Mills. Video concept and direction by Dan Azarian. Whisperado does not normally perform in black suits and ties.…
March 2, 2012
UPDATED X 6: YOU'RE RUINING NATHAN FILLION FOR ME, NATHAN FILLION. Alternate title: But I forgive you. -- TheBloggess.com
Conversation with my friend, Maile... me: Sooo...Nathan Fillion is making me doubt my own existence. Maile: Um...what? me: I've been asking him for a picture of himself…
March 1, 2012
I'm driving down back roads through Niskayuna and Colonie, making a big pointless circle. Because we had a slightly rough morning, and I don't want to wake up The Pip, who fell asleep in his car seat on the way home from lunch:
And every time we come to a stop sign or red light, I reach into the…
February 29, 2012
The Subject: header pretty much says it all: How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog is reviewed in Nature Physics. I am inordinately pleased with the existence of this-- not because I expect it to sell a significant number of books, but because a serious technical publication recognized it as worth…
February 29, 2012
One of the big stories in genre Internet news was Seanan McGuire's post last week, about reactions to the early release of some copies of her book, and the hateful garbage thrown her way by people outraged that the ebook didn't slip out early as well. And let me state right up front that the people…
February 29, 2012
scott_lynch: Against Big Bird, The Gods Themselves Contend In Vain
I was a hard-core Sesame Street viewer from about 1979 to 1984, and my memories of the show are the sort of deep nostalgic tangle you'd expect, with a great deal of idiosyncratic noise blended into the signal. So, for many years, I…
February 28, 2012
I'm home with The Pip today, so no extended typing for me, but I pre[ared for this by typing something up ahead of time, and getting John Scalzi to post it for me, as part of his Big Idea series:
In a way, a book about Einstein's theory of relativity is uniquely suited to a series about Big Ideas.…
February 28, 2012
The Pip says, "Hi, folks. My daddy's book is released today, and he's shameless enough to use me to promote it:"
"I can't read it yet, because I'm just a baby, but I can report that it was very satisfying to drool on. So you should definitely buy a copy, maybe two."
"Also, dig the awesome stuffed…
February 28, 2012
Religion News Service | Blogs | Mark Silk - Spiritual Politics | Santorum v. JFK
But if, as Santorum suggests, you do go on and read the speech, you will discover that Kennedy never said that people of faith have no role in the public square or that faith is not allowed there. He did, however,…
February 27, 2012
If you're allergic to hype, you might want to tune this blog out for the next couple of days, because How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog is officially released tomorrow, so it's all I'm going to talk about for a little while. Because, well, I'm pretty excited.
And tonight's exciting finding is…
February 27, 2012
We're in the home stretch of this term, and it has become clear that I won't actually be using the toy model of the arrow of time I've talked about in the past in my timekeeping class this term. These things happen. Having spent a not-insignificant amount of time playing with the thing, though, I…
February 27, 2012
In the genes, but which ones? | Harvard Gazette
"It is only in the past 10 or 15 years that we have had the technology for people to do studies that involved picking a particular genetic variant and investigating whether people who score higher on intelligence tests tend to have that genetic…
