drorzel | October 18, 2010
The Trouble with Scientists | Speakeasy Science
"Scientists won't talk to journalists; they don't want to waste their time "dumbing it down"; they don't see it as "making us smarter." So many of the good stories in science don't get covered at all. Or the stories get covered only for an already science-literate audience - explored in publications like Discover or Science News - rather than for that far larger group, the science disenfranchised.
Last week's editorial by Royce Murray, the editor of Analytical Chemistry, "Science Blogs and Caveat Emptor" brought home the point that while the…
drorzel | October 17, 2010I'm always taking pictures of SteelyKid going about her business, so a little turnabout is fair play:
The "camera" she's using is actually a small calculator that my mom gave her. She also uses this like a phone, to carry on lengthy conversations with her great-grandmother and sometimes friends from day care. She'll also sometimes just punch the buttons to watch the numbers change on the display.
Basically, it's a toddler iPhone. A whole lot cheaper than a real one, though...
drorzel | October 17, 2010
It's Time To Forgive George Lucas
"I cannot defend the prequels, despite their many laudable qualities: often wonderful if no longer industry-defining special effects; Jedi Knights that are warriors to be feared and respected; a glimpse of a splendid Republic of majestic alien races, a galaxy worth fighting for.
What I can say now, after rewatching the best film of the series on the occasion of its 30th anniversary, The Empire Strikes Back, is that George Lucas is directly responsible for one of the things that has given me the greatest, most quantifiable joy (if by "money spent" alone) in…
drorzel | October 16, 2010This week's short story club entry is Carol Emshwiller's "No Time Like the Present," a sort of timeless time-travel story. It's narrated by a teenage girl in an unnamed town somewhere in the US whose town sees a sudden influx of tall blond people who behave very oddly. While it's pretty obvious to the reader that something science-fictional is going on, the narrator takes a while to get to that realization, and even when she does, it's mostly buried in typical teen concerns-- friends, parents, potential romantic relationships.
This story has a sort of timeless quality, partly because it's a…
drorzel | October 16, 2010
Scale of Universe - Interactive Scale of the Universe Tool
A spiffy interactive guide to the scale of things.
(tags: science astronomy physics biology measurement computing internet)
slacktivist: Hold on to the good
"Test everything. Hold on to the good.
That's from the Apostle Paul, actually. It's a bona fide biblical commandment. Both parts of it. Test everything. Hold on to the good.
Note the difference between the first part and the second. "Test everything" is unconditional. What should we test? Everything. But the second part is conditional. We're not told to hold on to everything…
drorzel | October 15, 2010A big and important argument about religion and science has flared up again on Twittter. It occurs to me, though, that nobody has taken the obvious step of polling people about their actual beliefs, so let's see if we can't settle this question with (social) SCIENCE!:
I would prefer to be a member of:Market Research
What? It's not like this is any more pointless than the actual science-and-religion argument that's going on in blogdom.
drorzel | October 15, 2010Standing around in the cold for a few hours yesterday, then driving for almost five hours has given the cold SteelyKid had a week or so ago the opening it needed to infect me, so I'm all hoarse and achy this morning. Which means you get silly blogging, such as this poll inspired by some edits I had to make to this week's lab in the intro E&M class I'm teaching:
The code for those little colored bars on electrical resistors is:online survey
I know you'd like to be able to click more than one answer. Life's tough. Get a helmet.
drorzel | October 15, 2010
Kung Fu Hustle | Film | The New Cult Canon | The A.V. Club
"Stephen Chow seems to understand the limits and potential of CGI action better than anyone. If CGI is fundamentally inadequate in giving realistic action the same punch it has with real stunts and practical effects, then why not go completely in the other direction? The violence and mayhem in Chow's action-comedies Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle are spectacularly unreal, and the audience doesn't mistake them for reality any more than they would the Warner Brothers cartoons that partly define Chow's goofball sensibility. CGI has…
drorzel | October 14, 2010I didn't think I'd make it back in time for this week's Toddler Blogging, but things wrapped up earlier than expected in Buffalo, so I made it home in time for dinner. And a celebratory reading of Moo, Baa, La La La:
That's really about all I have the energy for. In case you didn't know already, New York is a rather big state to drive across. It's good to be home, now I'm going to fall over.
drorzel | October 14, 2010Emmy and I are in Buffalo today, after a long drive last night, made longer by the NY Thruway authorities decidin to randomly sprinkle lane closures along the westbound portion of I-90. They also made the sadistic move of putting on the "tune to this radio station for information" flashers before the big back-up, and then playing only a recording saying that they were updating the messages on the information network. For at least an hour. Nice work, Thruway idiots. That was positively Pennsylvanian.
Anyway, we're here in scenic Buffalo, where it isn't snowing yet, so don't ask. Which means I…
drorzel | October 14, 2010
James Burleigh Morton ⺠at museums, he is allowed to touch the art
One of Union's Watson Fellows from last year, blogging his trip around the world taking pictures of international shipping.
(tags: world travel academia awards pictures business blogs)
Out of the Kitchen and Into the Fire | Exploring Open-Fire Cooking Around the World
One of Union's Watson Fellows from last year, blogging his trip around the world learning open-fire cooking methods.
(tags: food academia awards travel world blogs)
drorzel | October 13, 2010Melissa at Confused at a Higher Level offers some thoughts on the relative status of experimental vs. theoretical science, spinning off a comprehensive discussion of the issues at Academic Jungle. I flagged this to comment on over the weekend, but then was too busy with SteelyKid and football to get to it. since I'm late to the party, I'll offer some slightly flippant arguments in favor of experiment or theory:
Argument 1: Experimentalists are better homeowners. At least in my world of low-energy experimental physics, many of the skills you are expected to have as an experimental physicist…
drorzel | October 13, 2010
Gay Sex vs. Straight Sex « OkTrends
"Gay issues have been in the news a lot lately, from the debate over same-sex marriage in Congress to a sickening rash of gay-bashing here in New York City. We see a lot of emotion out there, instead of information, and we wanted to provide some data-based context on sexuality so that people might make better choices about what they say, think, and do.
We run a massive dating site and therefore have unparralleled insight into sex and relationships. Here's what we've found, in numbers and charts."
(tags: statistics gender sex culture politics internet…
drorzel | October 12, 2010SteelyKid is a big fan of the classic children's book Goodnight Moon, which, if you haven't spent the last sixty-odd years in a cave, you probably know features a bunny saying goodnight to a variety of objects in a great, green room. The attentive toddler will find a lot to look at in the pictures-- there's a mouse in every one that SteelyKid delights in pointing out-- but an inquiring adult might well ask "Just how long does it take this bunny to say goodnight to all this stuff, anyway?"
Well, we can answer this question with SCIENCE! You see, there are six pictures in the book showing the…
drorzel | October 12, 2010It's that time of year again, which is to say "October, when we raise money for DonorsChoose." As you may or may not know, DonorsChoose is an educational charity which has teachers propose projects that would make their classrooms better, and invites donors to contribute to the projects of their choice. Every October since ScienceBlogs launched, we have done a fundraiser for them here, and this year's entry is now live:
While the warm-fuzzy sensation of doing a good deed for school children in poor districts may be enough to get some people to donate, I'll also sweeten the pot a little with…
drorzel | October 12, 2010
Pimp My Novel: Here Be Dragons
"[Myth:] Amazon is going to kill the independent/second-hand book store. While I can't say for sure this is 100% false, I'm very confident that Amazon will not kill independent, local, and second-hand book stores; there's no substitute for their ambience, knowledgeable staff, and propensity to stock hard-to-find titles. In fact, should Amazon manage to kill brick-and-mortar chains (which I think is the likelier scenario), indepedents might undergo a resurgence/renaissance of sorts. Think of it this way: chains are the dinosaurs, indies are the scrappy mammals…
drorzel | October 11, 2010SteelyKid, like most toddlers, knows a few songs, and likes to sing them over and over. Her repertoire is limited to "ABCDEFG" (the alphabet song, but that's how she requests it), "Twinkle, Twinkle," "Some man" ("This Old Man," which I only figured out this weekend), and "Round and Round" ("The Wheels on the Bus"). I get a little bored with the repetition, and so tend to make up my own verses, which get sideways looks from her, followed by telling Kate "Daddy's silly!"
I've been posting a lot of these on Twitter over the past several days (@orzelc), but for posterity, a few physics-related…
drorzel | October 11, 2010Via Tom, a site giving problem-solving advice for physics. While the general advice is good, and the friendly, Don't-Panic tone is great, I do have a problem with one of their steps, Step 7: Consider Your Formulas:
Some professors will require that you memorize relevant formulas, while others will give you a "cheat sheet." Either way, you have what you need. Memorization might sound horrible, but most physics subjects don't have that many equations to memorize. I remember taking an advanced electromagnetism course where I had to memorize about 20 different formulas. At first it seemed…
drorzel | October 10, 2010Oddly enough, it turns out that writing a book with a rambunctious toddler in the house is a much slower process than writing a book pre-toddler. Imagine that.
Anyway, as I did during the writing stages of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, I thought I would post occasional updates on the progress of writing Book 2: What to Tell Your Dog About Einstein. In addition to letting my readers know what I'm doing instead of blogging a bunch, it will help remind me that progress is being made, even if there are days when it feels like I'm not accomplishing anything.
Chapter 1: Relative motion and…
drorzel | October 10, 2010
YouTube - Sesame Street: Smell Like A Monster
The monster your monster could smell like.
(tags: youtube video kid-stuff silly)