drorzel | November 3, 2010
Motorcycle tablecloth trick: could it be done? | Wired Science | Wired.com
"After watching this episode, a colleague had a great question:
"How fast would the MythBusters have to go to make this trick work?"
Interesting. In their last attempt, they had the motorcycle going around 100 mph. It did't work, but some of the stuff did stay on the table. What if they went faster? Could it work?"
(tags: science physics video blogs dot-physics education outreach culture television)
Confessions of a Community College Dean: Culture of Poverty
My disregard for the Charles Murray line of argument is…
drorzel | November 2, 2010Today's a lab day in my main class for the term, with a fairly involved experiment to measure the charge-to-mass ratio of the electron. This is going to be all kinds of fun, because 1) I can't get into the room to set anything up until an hour before the start of class, and 2) SteelyKid is home sick, which means I can't go in to pull stuff together until about an hour before the start of class. Whee!
Today's a day to (attempt to) accentuate the positive, though, so let's use this as a jumping-off point for a more upbeat topic, namely:
What's the best lab you ever did in a lab science class?…
drorzel | November 2, 2010If you're in the US, go vote. Preferably for a candidate who isn't barking mad, but ultimately that's between you and your conscience.
If you're not in the US, or you've already voted, enjoy some cute, as SteelyKid is first skeptical about the idea of lots of kids in masks visiting the house:
Then happier once she heard about the candy:
(She's home sick today, and thus somewhat less cute than these pictures from Sunday. But, you know, even when sick, she's pretty cute.)
These are also another flash/no-flash pair, which is a slightly better comparison than the previous round, given that they…
drorzel | November 1, 2010In last weekend's post about arguments from innate differences, I suggested that I might be willing to illustrate my position with adorable toddler pictures. On thinking more about it, I'm a little hesitant to write about this at length, because it could easily topple over into arrogant-physicist territory. But then, it's an excuse to post adorable toddler pictures, so...
So, let me put a short disclaimer up front: I'm not attempting to claim that I have suddenly uncovered a unique and obvious flaw in innate-difference arguments, by virtue of my Big Physicist Brain. I am well aware that the…
drorzel | November 1, 2010
Buddy Comedy Idea § Unqualified Offerings
"So, because the FBI has a habit of finding losers, coaxing them off the couch, holding their hands through the process of planning a terrorist attack, and then arresting them, let me propose this concept for a screenplay:"
(tags: movies politics writing war world us blogs unqualified-offerings culture comedy)
drorzel | October 31, 2010
Views: No Excuses, Mr. President - Inside Higher Ed
"Most parents and taxpayers consistently share the beliefs of most teachers about what needs to be done to improve our schools. An August Gallup/Phi Delta Kappa survey showed respondents agreeing with teachers that the largest problem with schools is a shortfall in funding, that the major issue with teacher competence is support for retraining and keeping up to date, that the biggest problem with recruitment and retention is abysmal teacher pay. A McKinsey & Co. report released this month noted that many nations with excellent schools…
drorzel | October 30, 2010This week's Short Story Club entry is "My Father's Singularity" by Brenda Cooper. Who I keep having to remind myself is not the Brenda-with-a-surname-starting-with-C that I remember posting to rec.arts.sf.written back in the day (that was Brenda Clough).
This is set in the not-too-distant future in the Pacific Northwest, and is the first-person tale of a boy who grew up on a farm with his father telling him he'd go through the Singularity someday:
In my first memory of my father, we are sitting on the porch, shaded from the burning sun's assault on our struggling orchards. My father is…
drorzel | October 30, 2010
The Forever Blog « Easily Distracted
"There's been talk that blogs are over and Twitter and Facebook are king. I meant to say something about this issue when the end of Bitch Ph.D was announced, since that was an important blog for me and many other people. I think it's only half-right to say that the day of the blog is done.
No matter what alternative venues might come into existence, many blogs were going to have finite lifespans. Even group blogs are not really publications with an identity that stands apart from their authors, into which new authors can come and old ones depart while…
drorzel | October 29, 2010Chateau Steelypips lost power this morning for unknown reasons, preventing me from putting up the post I planned to do with lots of cute toddler pictures. Thus, a quickie poll in honor of the crazy person a couple of blocks away who sometimes yells at me for dropping Emmy's bagged poop into her full trash cans while they're at the curb:
Somebody else dropping a bag of dog poop into your trash can when it's at the curb awaiting pickup is:online surveys
As noted a long time ago, this would be a great opening scene for an episode of CSI (Call me, CBS. We'll talk.), but beyond that, I'm kind of…
drorzel | October 29, 2010The New York Times has a video highlighting particularly clever campaign commercials in the New York area, which includes this spot from my uncle John Orzel's state senate campaign:
I'm not aware of any polling regarding the race, so I have no idea how things will turn out next Tuesday. The word from my parents is that spirits are high in the campaign (read: Uncle John is enjoying the process, and the friends and relatives making up the campaign staff are as well), so that's good, at least.
Anyway, if you're in the Binghamton area, vote for my uncle next week. If not, enjoy the award-worthy…
drorzel | October 29, 2010
Polson High School students use primitive bows to study physics
"It's one thing to put Montana's Indian Education for All Act to work in a social studies classroom.
Physics? That would seem to be a whole 'nother matter.
And it is. But certainly not, as Polson High School teacher Jon Petersen is proving, impossible.
Petersen's physics students spent their class time Tuesday measuring elastic potential energy.
But they did so using two primitive bows, one made of hickory and the other of vine maple, built by Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribal member Francis Cahoon."
(tags: education…
drorzel | October 28, 2010Inspired by the anti-flash-photography article in the morning's links dump, this week's Toddler Blogging offers you a choice of two different pictures. Here's one with the flash:
And one without:
(Appa's been feeling self-conscious about SteelyKid's growth lately, and asked for a little forced perspective in the second shot. SteelyKid was too busy reading Dr. Seuss to notice.)
A proper comparison would, of course, use the same composition and framing. No such plan survives contact with a toddler, though-- by the time I switched modes on the camera, she had lost interest in the book she was…
drorzel | October 28, 2010The Times Higher Education magazine in the UK, that is. They ran a review of my book a couple of weeks ago, which I've only just noticed:
The approach is quite entertaining. The tone of the book is chatty and contains some truly awful puns involving dogs, which, if you can stand them, make it an attractive and lively read. However, don't be fooled - Emmy is no ordinary dog. She can reason with the informed leaps one may expect from a physics undergraduate, despite peppering her conversation with "squirrel", "bunny" and "chase".
If you're in the UK, the edition the review refers to is on sale…
drorzel | October 28, 2010I finished Jennifer Ouellette's new book a few weeks ago, shortly after my trip to Alabama, but it's taken me a long time to get around to reviewing it due to a combination of too much work and being a Bad Person. There's finally a tiny break in the storm of work, though, so here's a slightly belated review.
The Calculus Diaries is not a book that will teach you how to do math. There aren't worked examples, detailed derivations, or homework problems in the main text. It might, however, teach you not to fear math, as it provides a witty and accessible explanation of the key concepts behind…
drorzel | October 28, 2010
Take better photos of friends and family: Turn off your flash. - By Steven I. Weiss - Slate Magazine
"The flash didn't go off" has been shorthand for photographic failure for more than 100 years, but the conventional wisdom on lighting is now being challenged by advances in camera technology. The quickest, simplest, cheapest way to take more professional-looking pictures of your friends and family is to stop using your digital camera's built-in flash.
(tags: pictures technology gadgets slate education optics)
The hard edge of empire - Charlie's Diary
"We know about the real world of the…
drorzel | October 27, 2010It's late October, which means that the thoughts of small children and adults who have never quite grown up turn to selecting appropriate costumes for Halloween. In the spirit of these literary suggestions and these abstract concept suggestions, I thought it would be useful to offer some suggestions for physics-themed costumes, for those who want to dress as something from the greatest science.
Of course, there are some really obvious choices for physics-themed costumes (Einstein: rumpled clothes, white hair, distracted manner, German accent; Feynman: black pants, white shirt, brushed-back…
drorzel | October 27, 2010I'm spending a good chunk of the morning grading the exam that I gave yesterday, so here's a poll on what you might call exam philosophy. Our classes are small, so the bulk of our exams are free-response problems, and we tend to break those problems into sub-parts (1a, 1b, 1c, etc.). There are two approaches to writing these questions that I have seen: one is to use the sub-parts to break a single problem into steps, thus leading students through the question; the other is to write questions where the sub-parts are independent, so that a student who has no clue how to answer part a can still…
drorzel | October 27, 2010
Video: Fingerless Robotic Hand Can Pick Anything | Wired Science | Wired.com
"The simple gripper is made of a bag of coffee grounds and a vacuum, though other grains such as couscous and sand also work, says study coauthor Eric Brown of the University of Chicago. To pick something up, the bag of loose grounds first melds around the object. Then, as a vacuum sucks air out of the spaces between grains, the gripper stiffens, packing itself into a hard vice molded to the outline of the object. Reducing the bag's starting volume by just a teeny amount -- less than 1 percent of the total -- was…
drorzel | October 26, 2010Last night's Giants-Cowboys game was not one of the finer displays of football you're ever see-- the score makes it seem like a close game, but the Giants turned the ball over five times and gave up a punt return for a touchdown, basically handing the Cowboys 28 points. Other than that, you know, they played really well.
This morning, the sports-radio people are all wondering why the Cowboys are so much worse than expected, and the Giants are looking better than expects. The answer to this is really simple: The offensive line. It's probably the least glamorous position on the field, but the…
drorzel | October 26, 2010
Should Students buy an iPad or a Year's Supply of Pot Noodles? | blog@CACM | Communications of the ACM
"Suppose you gave up washing clothes for a year, or relied on your mum to do it for you. According to the budgeting guide this would save £222, just about half of the iPad. You could go with dirty clothes for your first two years and buy an iPad for third year, I guess. How about food? The budget reckons £1295 for a year. Sheer extravagance! Two Pot Noodles a day would cost under half that at £547.50. Throw in some vitamin supplements at £1.69 and what more could you need? That saving…