drorzel | April 16, 2009
Bristol Palin and two kinds of virginity | TPMCafe
"Prior to the Palin blow-up, the evangelical wing and the traditional upper crust WASP wing of the party had a pretty basic agreement about the value of pure white virgin daughters. Having a few of these hanging around on podiums made politicians look good, and preserving the myth of the pure white virgin was of the utmost importance. Everyone thought they agreed on this topic. But Bristol Palin had to go have a baby, and the difference of opinion on what to do about girls who don't live by the standards of purity became harder to deny."
(…
drorzel | April 16, 2009The other day, I wanted to hear the seasonally-appropriate Hold Steady song "How a Resurrection Really Feels" ("She crashed into the Easter Mass, with her hair done up in broken glass, She was limping left on broken heels and she said 'Father, can I tell your congregation how a resurrection really feels?'"), so I punched it up on iTunes by sorting the music library alphabetically by song title. Which meant that, after the song finished, I got to hear every song in my collection that starts with the word "How."
It occurred to me that this might be the basis for one of those Internet "meme"…
drorzel | April 16, 2009Physics World has a nice news article about a new experimental development in quantum computing, based on a forthcoming paper from the Wineland group at NIST in Boulder. I'd write this up for ResearchBlogging, but it's still just on the arxiv, and I don't think they've started accepting arxiv papers yet.
The Physics World piece summarizes the key results nicely:
Now, Brad Blakestad and colleagues at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, Colorado have created a junction in an ion trap in which there is practically no heating. Constructed from laser-machined…
drorzel | April 15, 2009A recurring problem in academic science is trying to correctly identify a single author. For example, I was reviewing a grant that made reference to a group, but not a specific paper, and needed to sift through a few pages of search results in order to determine which of the people with that surname was the one I was looking for.
I'm somewhat fortunate in that the combination of my last name and first initial is not common. The Harvard/ Smithsonian Astrophysics Data System turns up all of my papers and nothing else when searching for "Orzel, C." The INSPEC database comes up with one bogus…
drorzel | April 15, 2009
EzraKlein Archive | The American Prospect
"If you indeed instituted the calls to flatten out the federal tax distribution, the influence of state and local taxes would leave you with an incredibly regressive tax structure, not a slightly less progressive tax structure. Which is something to keep in mind next time you read a Wall Street Journal columnist attacking the soak-the-rich qualities of the federal income tax system."
(tags: blogs politics economics class-war ezra-klein)
Levitation and diamagnetism, or: LEAVE EARNSHAW ALONE!!! « Skulls in the Stars
"Itâs hard to tell if the author…
drorzel | April 14, 2009Over at Faraday's Cage, Cherish has had a Huck Finn moment with regard to paper writing style:
I know that I'm not supposed to use the first person plural when writing papers. Frankly Scarlet, I don't give a damn. I am going to say, "we did this" and "we did that".
This made me blink a little, because I've never thought that was a rule. In fact, one of the things I had beaten into my head when I was a grad student writing papers was that scientific papers ought to be written in the first person plural and the active voice.
There definitely seems to be a belief that scientific writing should…
drorzel | April 14, 2009Over the weekend on FriendFeed, Paul Buchheit posed an interesting question:
Assume that I'm going to get rid of $20,000 and my only concern is the "common good". Which of these is the best use of the money: give it to the Gates foundation, buy a hybrid car, invest it in a promising startup, invest it in the S&P500, give it to the US government, give it to a school, other?
A lot of the discussion consists of tedious (and non-specific) banging on about the wonders of start-ups, but there's some good stuff in there if you have the patience to read through it.
Buried in there with…
drorzel | April 13, 2009
EDSBS » Archive » CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS COVERS THE NATIONAL TITLE GAME
"Like the tyrant who conjured a territory whole from the aether, so have we on this field two imaginary kingdoms wrenched forth from geographic oblivion. Florida, were it not for the intervention of a few real estate scamsters in the â20, the discovery of insecticide, air-conditioning, and the generous slathering of federal pork upon the stateâs snake-infested swampwaste, would have descended into a kind of Sun Belt Lord of the Flies scenario, I think. I must also admit this may have happened despite all the best…
drorzel | April 13, 2009Howard "Yaaaaah!" Dean, the former governor of Vermont, Presidential candidate, and head of the DNC, will be speaking on campus tonight. It's exceedingly unlikely that I'll ask him any questions, because I prefer to leave that to students when possible, but if anybody has any really brilliant suggestions of things he ought to be asked, leave them in the comments, and I'll see what I can do.
drorzel | April 13, 2009I've remarked several times that I think condensed matter physics gets slighted in public discussions of the field, especially relative to its usefulness. Particle physics gets all sorts of press, but in practical terms, it is essentially useless-- whether CERN or Fermilab locate the Higgs boson or not will make absolutely no difference in the lives of the average person. Condensed matter physics, on the other hand gets basically no press, despite the fact that modern technological civilization would be impossible without an understanding of condensed matter physics.
(I should note here that…
drorzel | April 12, 2009
Backreaction: Women in Physics
"I was invited to the upcoming APS meeting in Denver to speak in a session on "Women and Minorities in Gravity: Science and Career Paths." And since I have somewhat of a bad conscience for never having been at never any APS meeting, not to mention never having been of any use for The Issue, I thought I should go. Now that the meeting is coming closer, I wonder what I know about women and minorities in physics (not sure what "in gravity" is supposed to mean). And their career paths. Or absence thereof."
(tags: science blogs academia gender diversity…
drorzel | April 12, 2009Today is Easter, for those who celebrate it, and the end of Cadbury Egg season for those who don't. SteelyKid's grandparents and great-grandmother are coming to visit, because it's been weeks since they saw her cuteness in person. And that means minimal blogging today.
Religious connotations aside, Easter is one of the cultural signposts of spring. And spring, of course, means the return of twittery birds, and bunnies:
They're bunnies in the next yard over, right now, but there will be bunnies. Oh, yes, there will be bunnies.
Happy Easter to those who celebrate it. The rest of you, enjoy…
drorzel | April 11, 2009
When the Martian Winds Blow... : Starts With A Bang
"Opportunity is headed towards Endeavour Crater (above), and this power boost may shorten its trip by months. This would be the largest crater ever explored by a rover on Mars, and we may yet get to see it, all because of a gust of wind!"
(tags: science astronomy blogs space planets)
Woody Harrelson claims he mistook photographer for zombie - CNN.com
""I wrapped a movie called 'Zombieland,' in which I was constantly under assault by zombies, then flew to New York, still very much in character," Harrelson said in a statement issued Friday…
drorzel | April 11, 2009...what with his wife, Emily, giving birth to twins. It sounds like he's pretty happy with this state of affairs, though.
Go leave him a congratulatory comment. Or, better yet, go buy one of his books-- they're great fun for you to read, and will help keep Toby supplied with the vast number of diapers he'll need in the next several months...
drorzel | April 10, 2009
How hostage negotiations work. - By Christopher Beam - Slate Magazine
"What, exactly, does a hostage negotiator do?
Wear down the captors. Negotiating strategies vary depending on the demands, the time of day, the hostage-taker's sanity, and a million other factors. (For example, you might want to send in a SWAT team right away if nightfall is approaching or if the person starts randomly killing hostages.) But in general, the negotiator's job is to run down the clock. That gives the hostage-taker time to calm down, and it gives cops time to figure out the best way to make a "tactical entry…
drorzel | April 10, 2009My bedtime reading last night was an old pop-science book by Isaac Asimov, about black holes and astronomy generally. He talks at some length about the size and age of the universe, and just before I stopped and went to sleep last night, I reached his discussion of Cepheid variables, which begins thus:
In 1784 a Dutch English astronomer, John Goodricke (1749-1786)-- a deaf-mute who died at the age of 21-- noted that the star Delta Caphei (in the constellation Cepheus) varies in brightness.
After his death in 1770, Goodricke became a vampire, and continued his astronomical career for a…
drorzel | April 10, 2009Over at the Intersection's new digs, Sheril has posted a rather long list of fellowship programs for people interested in science policy. Sponsors include government agencies, private universities, professional societies, and private foundations, and cover pretty much every branch of science. If you'd like to take a look inside the sausage factory and spend some time trying to help make better science policies, check out the list.
Sadly, the list doesn't seem to include any of the programs Chris Mooney called for, where science-friendly billionaires donate money to support people to become…
drorzel | April 9, 2009
Why was Jesus crucified? - By Larry Hurtado - Slate Magazine
"A central statement in traditional Christian creeds is that Jesus was crucified "under Pontius Pilate." But the majority of Christians have only the vaguest sense what the phrase represents, and most non-Christians probably can't imagine why it's such an integral part of Christian faith. "
(tags: culture religion humanities history slate)
Color + Design Blog / All 120 Crayon Names, Color Codes and Fun Facts by COLOURlovers
"According to a Yale University study, the scent of Crayola crayons is among the 20 most recognizable to…
drorzel | April 9, 2009Sabine Hossenfelder from Backreaction has landed a job as an assistant professor at NORDITA. That's good news any time, but especially in the current climate.
And going Sabine one better, Mary at View from the Corner has both defended her thesis and gotten a job at the same company as her husband. Way to solve the two-body problem, Mary.
Congratulations to both of them. And if you have happy job news to report, consider this a Happy Job News Open Thread.
drorzel | April 9, 2009Why is this night different from other nights?
Because day care at the Jewish Community Center was closed for Passover, and SteelyKid spent the day at work with Kate, of course. And after a long day of baby lawyering, it's good to relax with a drink:
SteelyKid here shows off that she can hold her own bottle, thank you very much. It's not the best Appa-for-scale picture, but new abilities are more important than strict perspective.