drorzel | November 19, 2009Actually, this ought to be "Wednesday Morning Baby Blogging," as that's when the picture was taken. Kate and I are going to New York City for the weekend, though, and SteelyKid is spending the weekend with Grandma and Grandpa in Scenic Whitney Point. So, you get an early picture, posted late:
This was taken just before we bundled her off to day care Wednesday. Kate's playing the "got your red dog" game-- for some reason, when you pop the pacifier out of SteelyKid's mouth, she finds it hilarious. Provided that you give it back pretty quickly, that is...
drorzel | November 18, 2009Kate has a court appearance in New York tomorrow, and we're making a long weekend of it. I'm typing this from my parents' house, where I'm dropping SteelyKid off for some quality time with Grandma and Grandpa, and tomorrow, I'm heading down to The City. I've got some meetings scheduled tomorrow afternoon, and Friday at lunch, and then we're going to kick back and enjoy New York.
Of course, one of the paralyzing things about NYC is the sheer variety of cultural options. There's the AMNH, with lots of geeky exhibits, the Met, where you can spend days and not see everything, and MOMA, for a…
drorzel | November 18, 2009It's always kind of distressing to find something you agree with being said by people who also espouse views you find nutty, repulsive, or reprehensible. It doesn't make them any less right, but it makes it a little more difficult to be associated with those views.
So, for instance, there's this broadside against ineffective math education, via Arts & Letters Daily. It's got some decent points about the failings of modern math education, which lead to many of our entering students being unable to do algebra. But along the way, you get frothiness like the following:
The educational trends…
drorzel | November 18, 2009
Zeroth Order Approximation: Summary dismissal
"Not every civil court case proceeds to trial. Some are settled "out of court" by the parties involved. Others are settled by the judge in a "summary dismissal" or "summary judgment". The suit is deemed to be unworthy of trial, even without a full hearing. In this way valuable time is saved and litigants are discouraged from bringing frivolous lawsuits.
We often do the same thing with ideas. In fact, a great deal of what appears to be debate about ideas actually takes place in a "pre-trial" phase, in which people discuss whether an idea should…
drorzel | November 17, 2009As every physics-loving dog knows, the idea that electrons behave like waves was first suggested by Loius Victor Pierre Raymond de Broglie (the 7th duc de Broglie) in 1923. The proper pronunciation of his surname is a mystery even to human physicists, though. So, how would you say it?
Louis Victor Pierre Raymond de Broglie's surname is pronounced:(polls)
Even though Louis was a quantum pioneer, please choose only one of the available options.
drorzel | November 17, 2009Sunday night, the Patriots lost a heartbreaker to the Colts 35-34. The talk of the sports world yesterday was Bill Belichick's decision to go for it on fouth-and-two on his own 28 yard line when he was up by six with just over two minutes to play. They didn't get the first down, and turned the ball back over to the Colts, who went on to score a touchdown and win the game.
Yesterday's discussion was a low point even by the standards of sports talk radio, with one idiot after another holding forth about how stupid Belichick's decisions was, and how he "disrespected his defense," and various…
drorzel | November 17, 2009There's been an independent rediscovery of the notion of using dogs to explain physics, as you can see in this YouTube video of Golden Retrievers explaining the structure of atoms:
Emmy thinks she should get royalties, in the form of cheese. But then, she thinks that about everything...
drorzel | November 17, 2009
Why Wine Ratings Are Badly Flawed - WSJ.com
"[A] 1996 study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology showed that even flavor-trained professionals cannot reliably identify more than three or four components in a mixture, although wine critics regularly report tasting six or more. There are eight in this description, from The Wine News of a Silverado Limited Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 that sells for more than $100 a bottle: "Dusty, chalky scents followed by mint, plum, tobacco and leather. Tasty cherry with smoky oak accents..." Another publication, The Wine Advocate, describes a wine…
drorzel | November 16, 2009Blogging has been light of late because I was in the Houston area for the weekend, at the annual meeting of Sigma Xi, the scientific research honor society (think Phi Beta Kappa, but for science nerds). Every chapter is required to send a representative to the annual meeting at least once every three years, and as I'm the current president of the Union chapter, I got to go this year.
In a lot of ways, the meeting was more Boskone than DAMOP, and I'm not just saying that because there were little ribbons for everybody's badges. This is an obvious consequence of the fact that it was mostly a…
drorzel | November 16, 2009
Michael Nielsen » The Wikipedia Paradox
"To determine whether any given subject deserves an entry, Wikipedia uses the criterion of notability. This lead to an interesting question:
Question 1: What's the most notable subject that's not notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia?
Let's assume for now that this question has an answer ("The Answer"), and call the corresponding subject X. Now, we have a second question whose answer is not at all obvious.
Question 2: Is subject X notable merely by being The Answer?"
(tags: internet culture michael-nielsen computing silly)
On the Opinion that…
drorzel | November 15, 2009
10 Geeky Laws That Should Exist, But Don't | GeekDad | Wired.com
"1. Munroe's Law: A person in a geeky argument who can quote xkcd to support his position automatically wins the argument. This law supersedes Godwin, so that even if the quote is about Hitler, the quoter still wins."
(tags: science culture books internet silly)
A Rolling Stone Leads to Rome - Schott's Vocab Blog - NYTimes.com
"A little knowledge is a friend indeed.
A friend in need is a dangerous thing."
(tags: language silly blogs)
drorzel | November 14, 2009
WTF, Aerosmith? WTF? | Popdose
"Never has there been a band so unbelievably great and so sadly shitty at the same time. That, to me, is the Aerosmith legacy, and it's only bound to get worse. Yet, there is something that still seems sacred about this band, beyond mere nostalgia. I just think they need to go away for good before we'll be able to figure out exactly what that is."
(tags: music culture popdose blogs)
Book Review - 'What the Dog Saw - And Other Adventures,' by Malcolm Gladwell - Review - NYTimes.com
"The themes of the collection are a good way to characterize Gladwell himself…
drorzel | November 13, 2009
Physics Buzz: Best physics inventions of 2009
"TIME magazine has announced the 50 best inventions of 2009. NASA's Ares family of rockets was a shoo-in for best invention, given the recent launch of Ares 1-X, the family's test rocket. I'll give them that; NASA could certainly use the cheerleading.
But I was surprised to see "Teleportation" sixth on the list. When did I miss this? Has everyone else been teleporting to work while I've been trudging in the rain? How can I get my hands on a teleporter?"
(tags: science physics quantum blogs physics-buzz)
The 10 weirdest physics facts, from…
drorzel | November 12, 2009An indignant SteelyKid says "What do you mean I can't go to day care? I'm perfectly healthy!"
She is, indeed, doing much better. Last night, I wasn't sure you'd get any Baby Blogging at all, because snot and fever don't make for a photogenic baby. She's waddling around in more or less her usual state at the moment, though, and has decided that if she can't go to day care, she'll climb into my lap and learn about photography:
This makes me feel significantly less guilty about leaving town this afternoon. Not guilt-free, mind, but significantly less guilty.
drorzel | November 12, 2009The always interesting Timothy Burke has a good post about PowerPoint in classes, spinning off a student complaint. I've been lecturing with PowerPoint-- my own slides, not something sent to me by a textbook company-- since day one, so of course I have opinions on the topic.
For the most part, Burke's points on the pros and cons of PowerPoint are excellent. There's one motive for using PowerPoint that he leaves out, though, and it's slightly at odds with the rest of the advice.
One of the nice things about PowerPoint is that it can be used to provide a record of the lecture, for the sake of…
drorzel | November 12, 2009SteelyKid had a check-up yesterday, and got three shots (chicken pox, MMR, and seasonal flu). This may or may not be related to her high fever and general misery last night; whatever the cause, she was not a happy camper.
Since she can't very well go to day care like that, I'm staying home with her this morning. I'm also leaving for the Sigma Xi meeting this afternoon, which is outside Houston, so I'm going to go from dealing with an unwell toddler to feeling like an unwell toddler as I deal with the air travel system. Whee!
In honor of spending the morning trying to distract an unhappy…
drorzel | November 12, 2009
Das Kriegstagebuch von Dieter Finzen im 1. Weltkrieg - Wardiary of Dieter Finzen in WW1
Diary entries from a German soldier in WWI, posted 93 years after they were written.
(tags: history war world blogs)
WW1: Experiences of an English Soldier
"This blog is made up of transcripts of Harry Lamin's letters from the first World War. The letters will be posted exactly 90 years after they were written. To find out Harry's fate, follow the blog!"
(tags: history war blogs world)
Cocktail Party Physics: The Mayans Warned Us: Don't Trespass In Yellowstone
"Last night I settled down into a cushy…
drorzel | November 11, 2009Some years ago, I heard Bob Park give a talk about pseudoscience, using "How to get rich and famous abusing your science knowledge" as a framing device. He ran through the deceptions involved in a bunch of high-profile "science" based scams and scares-- homeopathy, free energy, power lines causing cancer, etc.
Over at Live Granades, there's a four-step guide to creating a scientific controversy that gives you something close to Park's template:
1. Pick something that is regarded as true by the vast majority of scientists in the field and claim that it causes something bad.
2. Demand that…
drorzel | November 11, 2009I've gradually gotten used to the idea that as a semi-pro blogger, I will occasionally be sent review copies of books I've never heard of. These are generally physics books, and I have a stack of them sitting next to the bed at the moment, not being read nearly fast enough.
It's only recently that I realized that, having written a book in which I explain quantum mechanics through conversations with my dog, I'll probably start getting dog books as well. Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind-- we like free books, here in Chateau Steelypips-- but it's going to be a significant change.…
drorzel | November 11, 2009If you want to be a musician, there are some simple rules you must follow:
And now you know...
(The squeaky toy noises in the early part of this drive Emmy nuts...)