drorzel | June 12, 2009
slacktivist: TF: Skip verse 10
"Be sure to use the King James Version when you bring up Luke 17:34 -- "In that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left" -- and then argue that a literal interpretation suggests that precisely 50 percent of homosexuals will be raptured."
(tags: books stupid religion blogs slacktivist)
Colonial Africa: A List of Questions « Easily Distracted
"I think Iâve hit on a catchy structure for a modest reshuffling of my Honors seminar in Colonial Africa. Much of my reading list will remain the same, but this…
drorzel | June 12, 2009Tom Levenson has another post up in his ongoing series about the writing and publishing process of his new book, this one about generating publicity. At this point, he's gone past what I've experienced so far, but this is fortuitously timed, as I got a note from my editor yesterday saying that the bound galleys are in. Woo-hoo!
There will be pictures and so on when I get my copies (probably next week). This seems kind of early-- the book itself won't be out for another six months-- but I assume that the folks at Scribner know what they're doing. Anyway, I eagerly await Tom's next installment…
drorzel | June 12, 2009There's a nice write-up about the World Science Festival in the New York Times today:
The second annual World Science Festival, a five-day extravaganza of performances, debates, celebrations and demonstrations, including an all-day street fair on Sunday in Washington Square Park, began with a star-studded gala tribute to the Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson at Lincoln Center Wednesday night. Over the next three days the curious will have to make painful choices: attend an investigation of the effects of music on the brain with a performance by Bobby McFerrin, or join a quest for a long-lost…
drorzel | June 12, 2009Dave Ng has recently upgraded the Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique site, which provides a variety of achievement badges for members to claim and post. I'm not a big one for extra graphics on the blog (they delay the loading of the cute baby pictures), but if you're into goofy stuff, they've got some fun options.
For the record, the badges I can claim include:
I Blog About Science (duh)
Has Frozen Stuff Just to See What Happens (Level III) (liquid nitrogen is cool)
Worship Me, I've Published in Nature or Science
Experienced with Electrical Shock (…
drorzel | June 11, 2009
Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive « alex.moskalyuk
"50 scientifically proven ways constitute 50 chapters of the book, longest of which take 7 pages. The authors take the position that persuasion is a science, not art, hence with the right approach anybody can become the master in the skill of persuasion. So, what are the 50 ways?"
(tags: psychology marketing business advertising science blogs)
Learning Curves: New Adventures in Cheating
"The two exam papers had many identical wrong answers, many to word problems that required the answer to be given in a full sentence.…
drorzel | June 11, 2009A little while ago, I griped about the Short Story nominees for this year's Hugo Awards. I've now finished the nominees in the Novella and Novelette categories, so I thought I'd comment on them as well.
As a general matter, I'd just about be willing to contribute money toward a fund to buy supporting memberships for fans who can't generally afford Worldcon, in hopes of getting fewer nominees that suck. Seriously. It only takes 20-ish nominations to get a story on the ballot in one of the short fiction categories, and this would be a worthy project if it meant not having to read another…
drorzel | June 11, 2009You get Baby Blogging early today, because I have a ton of grading to finish today, and don't have time for bloggy things. This week, SteelyKid shows off two new-ish skills:
She can stand up, and she's strong enough to lift a bison! Look out, world...
If you're clicking through to warn us that allowing her to stand up in the Pack and Play is a sure route to Instant Death!!!!1!, please don't.
drorzel | June 10, 2009
Random musings of Lizard Bench Mango - an affirmation?
"When I am struggling with something, I sometimes think 'Damn this is hard for me. I wonder if I am stupid,' and then I remember I have a degree in astrophysics from Cal Tech; I must not be stupid."
(tags: psychology silly academia)
drorzel | June 10, 2009Dear Email Recipients:
Thank you very much for responding rapidly to the question I sent you. Now, please go back to my original message, and respond to the other four questions that were in that message.
Thank you for your reading comprehension,
Annoyed Re-Sender of Emails
drorzel | June 10, 2009OK, it's not really a full post-mortem, because I haven't graded the final exams yet, but I wouldn't tell you about those, anyway. Still, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the past term, which was my first teaching introductory mechanics on the Matter & Interactions curriculum.
On the whole, I continue to like the approach. I like the way that the book focuses on the major physical principles-- the Momentum Principle, the Energy Principle, the Angular Momentum Principle-- because those are the real take-away message from introductory physics. I also thing it's good that the class…
drorzel | June 10, 2009Over at Cosmic Variance, Julianne is annoyed at Nature's embargo policy. It seems that somebody or another posted a paper to the arxiv while submitting it to Nature, and included a note on the arxiv submission asking people to abide by Nature's embargo.
So, instead of blogging about the Incredibly Exciting Discovery (which I'd loooove to talk about), I'm writing about what a ridiculous fiction the authors are asking us all to participate in, for the sake of the authors' potentially getting a publication accepted to Nature. The authors advertised a paper to thousands of interesting, engaged…
drorzel | June 9, 2009
Connecticut District Tosses Algebra Textbooks and Goes Online - NYTimes.com
"Westport school officials say their less-is-more approach has already resulted in less review in math classes, higher standardized test scores and more students taking advanced math classes. The percentage of the districtâs 10th graders receiving top scores on state exams rose to 86 percent last year from 78 percent in 2006. Advanced Placement calculus and statistics classes enrolled 231 students this year, from 170 in 2006, and a record 44 students will be able to take multivariable calculus this fall, up from…
drorzel | June 9, 2009
I'm watching Pardon the Interruption after work, and they're talking about the Belmont Stakes. They show a clip of horses running, and Emmy pipes up: "I like horses!" She does this when she feels I'm not paying her enough attention.
"Horses are okay," I say.
"Okay? Horses are really neat!" She thumps her tail on the floor, to emphasize the point.
"I guess." A really bad idea comes to me. "Say, did you know that all horses have an infinite number of legs?"
"What?"
"Yeah," I say, pausing the DVR. "All horses have an infinite number of legs, and I can prove it with logic."
"How?"
"Well, we know…
drorzel | June 9, 2009Every year around this time, references to that damn sunscreen speech pop up again, as people start thinking of graduations. It's in the air (Union's graduation is this Sunday, and I don't think I've ever been happier to see the end of an academic year).
And, of course, I have actually been asked to give a graduation speech. Which leads naturally to thinking about what one piece of advice I would give to a high school student who came up to me and said "I plan to study physics in college. What one thing should I study?"
(Hey, it could happen...)
My one-word piece of advice for students…
drorzel | June 8, 2009
Youâre Like School in the Summer⦠« The First Excited State
"Summertime is a time to focus on your research, without the distractions of tests, homeworks, and (hopefully) teaching duties. But many grad students, at least in physics, take the summer as an opportunity to attend summer schools, which are short, intense sessions aimed at advanced grad students that are held at various institutions around the country and the world. "
(tags: science academia physics education blogs)
Technology Review: Blogs: arXiv blog: The Dizzying Data Rate Conundrum
Theorists are more likely than…
drorzel | June 8, 2009Two things that are worth a plug beyond the Links Dump level:
1) Over at the Intersection, Sheril Kirshenbaum wants you to look at pictures of people kissing. This is for Science, so stop giggling, and tell her what you think of the pictures.
2) There's a new blog, Ecocomics, dedicated to exploring the burning questions of how the principles of economics play out in superhero comics. This is both more and less silly than that description makes it sound. If you'd like a participatory entry to parallel Sheril's kissing survey, they're asking readers who's the richest character in comics.
drorzel | June 8, 2009Somebody recently asked me whether I had figured out who Female Science Professor is. I truthfully replied that I haven't even tried.
That was the first thing that came to mind when some jerk from the National Review revealed the identity of "Publius", kicking off another round of discussion about the etiquette of revealing identities that bloggers have chosen to conceal. This one probably won't be any more revealing than the previous go-rounds.
It's worth a tiny bit of effort, though, to fight for correct language in this case. Lots of people, most of them right-wingers, will be referring to…
drorzel | June 8, 2009Tom at Swans On Tea comments on an article about meetings:
The most common meeting in my experience is the status meeting, where everyone gets together and reports on what they've accomplished. If it's a small group, these are usually fine because you already have familiarity with the tasks. But when you get a large group together, which has diverse tasks and goals, there is impending disaster. Bad meetings I've attended often involve people discussing details that nobody else at the table understands or possibly cares about -- the sort of thing that should happen one-on-one or in a small…
drorzel | June 7, 2009
Who Underestimates Their Systematic Uncertainties ?
"It is a well-known fact that it is much easier to measure a physical quantity than to correctly assess the magnitude of the uncertainty on the measurement: the uncertainty is everything! "
(tags: physics particles experiment statistics blogs dorigo science)
Acephalous: Photo reference at the National Review
"The logicâsuch that it isâof the National Review editorial board seems to be that since everyone knows Asians are better than Latinos, no one can call them racist if they compare Sotomayor to an Asian. That argumentâsuch that it…
drorzel | June 7, 2009Two annoying technology moments yesterday:
1) Kate and I got cell phones when we bought this house, and have been overpaying for them for quite some time. We rarely use them (partly because we get no signal inside the house), and have never come close to using our monthly allocation of minutes.
Verizon now offers pre-paid plans, which would save us a good deal of money that could then be spent on baby toys, so we went to the local Verizon store to switch over. And immediately got told that they couldn't guarantee that we could keep the same numbers. And then that it would take an hour or so…