drorzel | December 29, 2008I was on Baby Duty today, so I spent some time listening to Bloggingheads dialogs, including Kerry Howley and Richard Rodriguez:
There's a lot of good stuff in here, but I almost hesitate to post about it, because it's practically guaranteed to bring out the worst sorts of commentary. There's a bunch of stuff about race, gender, and identity which was really interesting, but will undoubtedly set "Uncle Al" off. The biggest problem, though, is that the most interesting comments had to do with religion.
Rodriguez spends a bit of time talking about Catholicism in comparison to evangelical…
drorzel | December 29, 2008This is a much more idiosyncratic sampling than usual, for the simple reason that I bought very little music this year-- probably the least since I started buying my own records. This was a combination of pre-SteelyKid austerity measures (do you know what day care costs these days?), post-SteelyKid lack of time to listen to music, and, most recently, a nearly full hard drive on my home computer (which will be replaced soon-ish, so I'm trying to eke out a few more weeks with this one).
Anyway, here are the five-star songs from 2008:
"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You…
drorzel | December 29, 2008While I realize that you find your eighty-pound Labrador Retriever utterly charming, there are, in fact, other people and dogs who are not enthusiastic about having him galumphing over to try to jump on us. Hard to believe, I know, but it's true.
For this reason, you should have your dog on a leash when you go outside. Or, if that basic bit of courtesy is too much, you should at least put a collar on the dog, so you have something to grab onto when you make a belated attempt to control him.
Yes, this is true even if you're only going outside long enough to get into the car and run an errand.…
drorzel | December 28, 2008
nanoscale views: More about insulators
"I've been thinking more about explaining what we mean by "insulators", in light of some of the insightful comments [on the last post]."
(tags: science physics blogs materials condensed-matter)
Cocktail Party Physics: CSI lies and suspicious science
"CSI? Unrealistic? Hate to break it to you kids, but, yeah. At the very least, the speed with which our intrepid heroes get their results would make any cop, ADA, or defense attorney double over in laughter, when they're not crying. DNA rape kits, appallingly, have as much as a six year backlog, according…
drorzel | December 28, 2008Bora has a post taking issue with the claim made in Slate's blogging guide article that blog posts should be short. At least, I think that was his point-- the post was much too long, and I didn't read it all.
I'm constantly amazed by how evergreen the "how to blog" topic is. It's just not that complicated-- pick a blogging system, find a host, and start typing. There is literally no wrong way to do it-- for every rule put out there that you absolutely must follow, there are probably ten blogs that violate it, and are brilliant.
Individuality is the point of the whole enterprise. The world…
drorzel | December 27, 2008
nanoscale views: What does it mean for a material to be an "insulator"?
"We broadly lump solids into two groups, those that conduct electricity and those that don't. Materials in the latter category are known as insulators, and it turns out that there are at least three different kinds."
(tags: science physics blogs education materials condensed-matter)
Mr. Faraday's (most excellent) experimental researches in electricity (1831) « Skulls in the Stars
"I started to investigate Faraday's writings while working on a post about Edward Bulwer-Lytton's novel The Coming Race, which quotes…
drorzel | December 25, 2008SteelyKid says "Glad tidings for all!"
Or, well, something like that. This is an out-take from the Christmas pictures-- it's amazing how hard it is to get a picture of a four-month-old in which she is both upright and smiling.
Anyway, Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it, or at least won't be offended by being wished a Merry Christmas. The rest of you, have a good Thursday.
drorzel | December 24, 2008I haven't sent it off to my editor yet-- I need to look it over one more time to see if there are horrible mistakes anywhere-- but I'm officially declaring the third draft of the book-in-progress to be complete. It clocks in at 61,518 words, and 240 pages. That's 50% more words than the contract calls for, but it is down 8,000 words and 23 pages from the second draft.
Most of the reduction came from dropping the former Chapter 9, which was an uneasy fit with the rest of the material. It may become a web site extra at some point in the future. The rest of the edits included some substantial re…
drorzel | December 23, 2008What with one thing and another, I didn't watch this week's Bloggingheads Science Saturday-- Kate's parents were visiting, and then there was the Snowpocalypse, and I have book edits to finish, and I don't enjoy the John Horgan/ George Johnson pairing all that much. Apparently, I really missed out, because three-quarters of the way through, Johnson uncorks a rant about a past episode featuring Ed Yong and Abbie Smith, where they said something about science journalism that he took the wrong way. This has, predictably enough, turned into yet another blogospheric kerfuffle. I believe Brian's…
drorzel | December 22, 2008
The Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media » Far from the Peer-Reviewed Journal,Scientists Confront How-Tos of Op-Eds
"So how can scientists strategically convey their messages to a broad audience without losing the nuances of their field? "
(tags: science politics writing journalism)
Christmas, please, but hold the treacle: 42 holiday entertainments that don't make us want to claw our eyes out with rage | The A.V. Club
Does not include Pratchett's Hogfather, probably because it's too British, but it's better than almost anything that did make the list.
(tags: culture television…
drorzel | December 22, 2008I was up late watching my Giants play the Carolina Panthers (they won in OT-- now you see the importance of Brandon Jacobs), and today is a Baby Day, so I have no deep thoughts to blog. So here are some quick comments on recent reading:
The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson. This is the concluding volume of the Mistborn trilogy, and reading it confirms that he was the right choice to finish the Wheel of Time. This book takes a huge, complicated plot, and brings all the various pieces together for a satisfying conclusion. He also does a nice job of complicating the set-up from the original…
drorzel | December 21, 2008
Tor.com / Science fiction and fantasy / Blog posts / How to talk to writers
"Writers are people, and they were people before they were writers. They change light bulbs and buy groceries just like everyone else. Really. Because they're people, they vary. Some of them are jerks, but many of them are very interesting people to talk to."
(tags: blogs culture SF books writing)
Shtetl-Optimized » Blog Archive » How long could a black hole remain in the center of the earth?
I don't know, but I expect a panicky Gregg Easterbrook column about it any day now.
(tags: science physics blogs silly…
drorzel | December 21, 2008Steve Po-Chedley, a recent Union graduate and physics major, is spending the better part of a year in Uganda, as part of a new program set up by the college. As part of the program, he's maintaining a blog, and recently posted some reflections on his work to date. The most interesting part is where he has some second thoughts about the project:
After a few weeks, some of the criticisms of this program haunted me. There are few metrics in how effective you are - I was a fairly major component of the P6 class, but I felt uncomfortable asking to give exams - homework was tough to give because…
drorzel | December 21, 2008A minor but extremely annoying language peeve:
The straps that one uses to steer horses are called reins.
The period of time during which some sort of ruler holds authority is a reign.
Thus, when one wishes to reassert control over something that is running unchecked, one would "rein it in." The time during which the unchecked influence is having malign effects might be called a "reign of terror."
It's a subtle and important distinction. It's also not something that spell-check will help you with.
Consider the comments an open thread for confused homonym peeves.
drorzel | December 20, 2008
Sciencewomen : Thoughts on my AGU experience
Don't tell my university administrators, but sharing my latest science results is only a tiny fraction of the reason to go to a conference like AGU. Even hearing the latest and greatest science is not the entire reason. This is a lesson that is taking me a long time to learn.
(tags: science academia jobs meetings)
Respectful Insolence: Your Friday Dose of Woo: When a mad mathematician meets quantum homeopathy
Oh, Lionel Milgrom, no!
(tags: science blogs stupid medicine)
Minimal Advice to Undergrads on Programming
"You should treat "Thou shalt…
drorzel | December 20, 2008I've complained previously about the idiotic positioning of the radio antenna on my car, which has nearly cost me an eye a couple of times, when I needed to hack ice off the windshield. Today brought up another example of really small design flaws that make a big difference.
Last night's storm dropped about a foot of powdery snow all over everything (in fact, it's still snowing a little bit). This is mostly pretty easy to deal with, except for the end of the driveway where the plows compact it into much denser material. So I went to the shed, and dragged out the snow blower.
Said snow blower…
drorzel | December 20, 2008I've said a number of harsh things here about the bad attitude of people who consider themselve Intellectuals toward math and science. After reading this New Yorker discussion about a Young Adult novel, I may need to change my stance a bit.
It's not that they're better than expected when it comes to math and science-- the subject never comes up. The mind-changing thing is their really appalling ignorance of and attitude toward YA books. It's really pretty amazing. And if somebody said things in public that were half as insulting to teenage girls as what they say about teenage boys, they'd be…
drorzel | December 19, 2008
EzraKlein Archive | The American Prospect
It's possible there are other solutions than EFCA. But it needs to be solved, one way or the other. EFCA has its problems, but pretending that it's somehow a perversion of workplace democracy as compared to a world in which 25 percent of organizing campaigns see a worker fired is absurd.
(tags: politics economics US class-war)
Stop picking on the Newbery Medal, the premier award in children's literature. - By Erica S. Perl - Slate Magazine
Is a Newbery winner right for every kid? No--but what book is? Some kids will give the tougher tomes a try…
drorzel | December 19, 2008...to answer a two-minute web survey asking about what scientific issues are most important to you. The blurb announcing it is:
What topics in science, engineering, and medicine matter most to you? The National Academies are interested in developing useful and engaging print and web-based educational materials on the topics that you'd like to learn more about. They invite you to participate in a brief survey. You can find that survey here.
In the 2-minute survey you'll be presented with a list of topics and asked to select the five that matter most to you. At the end, you can see how your…
drorzel | December 19, 2008Nobody officially "tagged" me for this, but I saw it at Easily Distracted, and it seems like a good post topic for the Friday before Christmas. The idea is to pick one movie title for each letter of the alphabet.
The list below the fold is not an attempt to come up with Great Films for each letter of the alphabet; rather, it's a list of movies that I liked enough to be willing to watch them again. I'm fully aware that not all of them are cinematic triumphs, but I like them, and that's what matters here.
After Hours A quirky and amusing early Scorsese movie. Alternate choice: The Adventures…