drorzel | November 10, 2008Over at Slate, Daniel Gross has a really dumb piece on rich people voting for Obama "against their own economic interest". There are many dumb things about this article, starting with the fact that it doesn't even attempt to answer the question in its title, but the main thing that's dumb is the framing of the question:
While there has been job loss and economic anxiety throughout Fairfield County, I don't think that economic problems alone explain the big Democratic gains in the region. In Greenwich, economic stress for many people means flying commercial or selling the ski house (while…
drorzel | November 10, 2008SteelyKid has recently begun to figure out her hands. As I noted last week, within the last couple of weeks, she's started to be able to reliably grab things near her. Just within the last few days, she's discovered that she has two hands, and they can interact with each other:
She's started grabbing one hand with the other, and exploring them. I've also seen her start to use both hands in concert, holding a hanging toy steady with one hand, while manipulating bits of it with the other, like a good little scientist.
Hands are, of course, critical to science. You can't be a good scientist…
drorzel | November 10, 2008The announcement of Cosmic Variance's sell-out has prompted some people to link to Nicholas Carr's lament for days gone by:
Blogging seems to have entered its midlife crisis, with much existential gnashing-of-teeth about the state and fate of a literary form that once seemed new and fresh and now seems familiar and tired. And there's good reason for the teeth-gnashing. While there continue to be many blogs, including a lot of very good ones, it seems to me that one would be hard pressed to make the case that there's still a "blogosphere." That vast, free-wheeling, and surprisingly intimate…
drorzel | November 9, 2008
Warnock's Dilemma - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"[T]he problem of interpreting a lack of response to a posting on a mailing list, Usenet newsgroup, or Web forum. It occurs because a lack of response does not necessarily imply that no one is interested in the topic, and could have any one of several different implications, some of which are contradictory. Commonly used in the context of trying to determine why a post has not been replied to, or to refer to a post that has not been replied to."
(tags: internet computing culture language)
Please Pardon the Interruption While We Sell Out…
drorzel | November 8, 2008
Highlights: Newsweek's Special Election Project | Newsweek Politics: Campaign 2008 | Newsweek.com
I'm about the one millionth person to recommend this, but their series of articles about the election really is excellent.
(tags: news politics US society history journalism)
The New Adventures of Mr Stephen Fry
"[A]bove all let there be pleasure. Let there be textural delight, let there be silken words and flinty words and sodden speeches and soaking speeches and crackling utterance and utterance that quivers and wobbles like rennet. Let there be rapid firecracker phrases and language that…
drorzel | November 8, 2008SteelyKid was a little bit fussy yesterday, and would only be quiet when carried in the "airplane" position. There are a limited number of ways to pass the time when doing this, so I had the tv on, and while channel-surfing past MSNBC, caught something saying that Obama would be giving his first news conference. That sounded somewhat interesting, so I watched it.
The news conference itself was pretty unremarkable, but the immediate aftermath provided an excellent example of why the only tv news I watch is on Comedy Central. It's not just the mind-boggling self-importance that Timothy Burke…
drorzel | November 7, 2008
Study finds many motorists don't see need to heed speed limits
A result that will surprise approximately nobody with a driver's license.
(tags: social-science news law silly)
Better Late Than Never?: Titanic | The A.V. Club
"If only every woman in the world was periodically forced to choose between two fantastically beautiful men--one rich and civilized yet stuffy, and one poor but free and capable. Then we wouldn't have to keep seeing that plotline over and over again, because everyone would be so bored from dealing with it in real life that it wouldn't be the stuff of clichéd dreams…
drorzel | November 7, 2008If, like me, you have long thought that the world needs more thrillers based on quantum physics, the students and post-docs of the Ultrafast Group at Oxford have got a short film for you: The DiVincenzo Code, in six parts on YouTube.
It doesn't make any less sense than a Dan Brown novel, and the production is impressively good. Ian Walmsley's turn as the evil Dr. Eve is not to be missed, particularly part V where he does the Mad Scientist Dance.
(Via the Pontiff.)
drorzel | November 7, 2008In a comment on a post from last week, Neil B. Asks a good question about my snarky response to the "make-your-own-universe" kit:
[Y]ou never explained why this "universe creator" could be considered based on a misapprehension. Considering the way multi-worlds QM theory is usually presented, IIUC; why would you (anyone?) say it doesn't work as advertised?
The short and unhelpful answer to this is "See Chapter 4 of my book when it comes out." I spent a lot of time wrestling with the best way to understand this stuff, and I think it came out all right.
The longer answer is, well, complicated.…
drorzel | November 7, 2008Looking over my scheduled posts for today, I see that there isn't anything stridently political. Not wanting to shock the systems of readers still coming down off the election, let me add my voice to the chorus of ScienceBloggers expressing concern over the idea of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.
This is not a knock on his qualifications, or him as a person. As I understand it, he has done great work, and he spoke here a few years ago, and was very generous with his time considering he had a cold that made him sound like a duck.
The problem is, his…
drorzel | November 7, 2008Former NBA player Manute Bol spoke on campus last night. Bol, who was born in southern Sudan, is currently working with a group called Sudan Sunrise to promote peace and reconciliation efforts in that country, and specifically to build a school in his home village.
Bol spoke for an hour or so about his experiences trying to draw attention to the situation in his home region, where his people have been being oppressed by the Sudanese government since long before anyone had heard of Darfur. Even when he was playing, Bol sent a good deal of money to Sudan. Since his retirement he has spent…
drorzel | November 7, 2008It's SteelyKid's three-month birthday! One quarter of a year, already. To celebrate, she shows off her developmental progress:
Within the last week or so, she's finally grasped the idea that the larger world consists of objects that she can interact with. Just this week, she's begun to reliably grab the hanging animals in her little play gym thing. She can even get two at once:
This may not seem like that big a step to non-parents, but it's a huge deal, because it greatly increases the length of time that she can amuse herself. I don't need to sit there and shake the hanging monkey around…
drorzel | November 6, 2008
Kevin Drum - Mother Jones Blog: Raw Data
"Which groups did Obama do especially well with? That is, which groups did he swing by margins substantially more than 9 points?"
(tags: us politics math statistics social-science society)
Easily Distracted » Blog Archive » Appalachia and Other Reflections
"I think we can all make things just ever so slightly better, make the air less poisonous, by pushing to the margins of our consciousness the crazy, bad, gutter-dwelling, two-faced, tendentious high-school debator kinds of voices out there in the public sphere, including and especially in blogs…
drorzel | November 6, 2008For lucky Week 13, SteelyKid models an outfit from the Belichick Collection:
Asked about the picture afterwards, she said "It is what it is. Right now, we're focused on next week. We just take it one game at a time."
Well, ok, she's not that advanced. She does, however, know what to do with a stuffed toy:
I think Emmy's been coaching her. "Rule One: Anything you can get your paws on, goes in your mouth."
drorzel | November 6, 2008On the way in to work this morning, I was switching through stations on the radio, and heard a bit of "Only" by Nine Inch Nails ("Only" on last.fm) followed by "Hitchin' a Ride" by Vanity Fare ("Hitchin' a Ride" on last.fm). I was struck by the unsettling realization that the chorus of "Only" would fit the tune of the dippy little flute line in "Hitchin' a Ride."
And now I'm stuck with the image of some hippy singing "There is no you, there is only me" like a bouncy little pop song. Since I can't shake it, I thought I'd share it.
Don't all thank me at once.
Other examples of alarming…
drorzel | November 6, 2008Getting back to science, at least for the moment, I was puzzled by a press release from RPI, with the eye-catching headline Solar power game-changer: 'Near perfect' absorption of sunlight, from all angles. The article describes work published in Optics Letters (that I haven't been able to put my hands on yet), developing new anti-reflection coatings to enhance the absorption of light by silicon solar panels:
An untreated silicon solar cell only absorbs 67.4 percent of sunlight shone upon it -- meaning that nearly one-third of that sunlight is reflected away and thus unharvestable. From an…
drorzel | November 6, 2008I've seen several people linking to Andrew Gelman's analysis of voting in the election, which is generally good and interesting. I would like to quibble about one thing he says, though. After noting that young voters overwhelmingly went for Obama, he says:
But there was no massive turnout among young voters. According to the exit polls, 18% of the voters this time were under 30, as compared to 17% of voters in 2004. (By comparison, 22% of voting-age Americans are under 30.)
This is a little harsh on younger voters. Using his numbers and a bit of algebra, the turnout among young voters was 81…
drorzel | November 5, 2008
stevenberlinjohnson.com: The System Worked
"We hear so often that the American political system is broken, but I think the last two years suggest that our national politics are healthier than we have been led to believe."
(tags: politics us society culture blogs)
Easily Distracted » Blog Archive » Dear President Santa
"Here's a Christmas wish list of stocking stuffers for the Obama transition team to consider."
(tags: politics us law society culture)
drorzel | November 5, 2008Slate (who, by the way, drive me up the freaking wall with their habit of giving each story about six different headlines, depending on where the link is) has hit the ground running with a panel of distinguished right-wing types discussing what the Republicans should do now. Jim Manzi gets the ball rolling with an idea that's sure to be a winner: market-based education reform.
No amount of money or number of "programs" will create anything more than marginal improvements, because public schools are organized to serve teachers and administrators rather than students and families. We need, at…
drorzel | November 5, 2008As I said in an earlier post, the only election-night coverage I watched was the Comedy Central special and Obama's speech on C-SPAN. This morning, though, I flipped back and forth between MSNBC and CNN while feeding and walking the floor with SteelyKid (when she's fussy, she won't tolerate me standing still to read blogs).
It's really amazing stuff. I think they managed to have negative information content. I actually feel dumber for the bits and pieces of commentary I saw before SteelyKid wound down and could be coaxed to go to sleep.