drorzel | March 19, 2008A question for the Firefox users: How do I make Firefox on a PC use something other than Adobe Acrobat to read PDF files?
Background: Opera is my browser of choice for web surfing, but I use Firefox for accessing GMail, Movable Type, and a few other sites that don't play well with Opera, and Firefox is the only browser on the computer in the lab. It works very well, except for when I make the mistake of clicking on a link to a PDF.
Firefox reads PDF's through some sort of Acrobat plug-in, and Acrobat has one of those automatic update-checking things installed. When I click on a PDF file…
drorzel | March 19, 2008Anon_student asks:
You seem to enjoy teaching most of the time, but what traits/habits in students absolutely infuriate you?
Hoo, boy. There are so many, it's hard to choose just one...
If I'm allowed to group things together into a larger category of offense (and it's my blog, so I can do what I damn well please), I would say that the thing I find most infuriating in dealing with students is a lack of respect.
I don't mean "lack of respect" in the sense of "They call me 'Mr.' instead of 'Professor,'" or anything cosmetic like that. I'm talking about general behaviors that fail to respect…
drorzel | March 19, 2008"A" asks:
Given the chance, would you take a job at a major research-university, or do you enjoy teaching a lot and doing some research at your small liberal arts college?
My first answer is "no," though I guess it would depend on the terms of the offer. In general terms, though, I'm very happy with my job.
I went to a small liberal arts college, and really enjoyed the experience, so I actually went to grad school with the idea of getting a Ph.D. and then teaching at a small college. I've ended up pretty much exactly where I wanted to be-- well, OK, I'd probably be even happier at a certain…
drorzel | March 19, 2008Eric Lund asks:
Do you have any comments on the Eliot Spitzer scandal/resignation?
Nothing original, which is why I haven't commented. I had the same "what he said" reaction as most people who linked to August J. Pollak, but I didn't think that was worth a post.
I've never met Spitzer myself, though I did stand sort of near him at a Springsteen concert. Kate interviewed with him when he was Attorney General, and met with him once or twice more, and said he seemed smart, energetic, and likeable. She says that he did great things for the AG's office, which had been left in bad shape, so he…
drorzel | March 19, 2008As approximately six billion other blogs have noted, Arthur C. Clarke is dead. His obit in the Times runs to three pages, which is a good indicator of just how long and distinguished his life was.
My initial reaction is similar to Matt McIrvin's: it feels like the passing of an age. Bradbury and Pohl are of the same generation, but they don't feel like the same sort of writers as Clarke and Asimov and Heinlein, the ruling triumvirate of old-school SF.
I was never a huge fan of his fiction-- I went through Asimov and Heinlein phases, back in the day, but didn't get as deeply into Clarke. I'm…
drorzel | March 19, 2008
First-ever spring break quidditch tour March 22-29
The Middlebury Quidditch Club hits the road.
(tags: academia books sports silly SF)
Tenure, the Movie :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, and Views and Jobs
"I'm not sure how much I'll expect accuracy out of a Luke Wilson comedy about my profession," he said. "As long as the film is a relatively sympathetic portrayal of the difficulties of going through the tenure process and has a decent indie rock
(tags: academia movies silly culture society)
Loopy photons clarify 'spookiness' of quantum physics
A remarkably…
drorzel | March 18, 2008Joshua Palmatier, whose first two books I enjoyed, and probably ought to booklog, has organized the "Plot Synopsis Project," in which a bunch of published SF authors post copies of the plot synopses they sent with their successful novel pitches, and talk about the writing process. Most of them have lists of the participants posted, but here's a link to Tobias Buckell's post because he has just the list, independent of his plot summary, so you don't need to worry about accidentally reading spoilers.
This is a terrific idea, as the plot synopsis thing is one of the more mysterious and…
drorzel | March 18, 2008Adrienne asks:
Why, when you apparently are an agnostic or atheist, did you get married in a church? And are you going to baptize your baby? Raise him/her in a religious framework?
Now, here's a nice volatile question...
Why did we get married in a church? Because religion is more than just superstition and mythology. I've written about this before, and will no doubt write about it again.
My family is Catholic, and I was raised Catholic. I got out of school for an hour or so on Wednesday afternoon for religious education classes in middle school, and in junior high, I went to confirmation…
drorzel | March 18, 2008chezjake asks:
OK, try this one on for size. Do you have a bias against cats? We know that you have Emmy, and therefore you like dogs, but is there a reason you don't also have a cat?
Well, the main reason we don't have a cat is that we have Emmy. She divides the world of furry quadrupeds into two categories: "Prey" and "Terrifying." She can't quite make up her mind which category cats belong in, but neither is conducive to having a cat in the house.
In general, I'm not a Cat Person, though Kate is. I prefer my pets to be willing to acknowledge my existence at all times, not just when they…
drorzel | March 18, 2008J-Dog asks:
So, how come you don't blog more about Rugby?
Because it's not on tv regularly, and I can't blog about sporting events that I don't see.
This is a persistent source of irritation, though. For example, Wales just won the Six Nations, and the only mention of it I've seen on the "Worldwide Leader in Sports" was a quick clip in the Top Ten Plays on SportsCenter the other day. There hasn't been any continuing coverage of one of the biggest events in international rugby.
Meanwhile, though, we get half an hour every night of Gilette Fusion Presents the Miller Lite NFL Draft Report…
drorzel | March 18, 2008Stephen asks:
Why do you try to hide your secret desire to be a high-energy particle physicist?
Heh. Seriously, honestly, I have no desire whatsoever to be a high-energy particle physicist. I wish I had a somewhat better understanding of particle physics, becuase that way I would have an easier time reading a lot of news stories and Cosmic Variance comment threads, but particle physics is not for me, for a variety of reasons.
The main reason is really that I like doing table-top physics. I like knowing that all of my apparatus is in one place, and under my direct control. I don't have to…
drorzel | March 18, 2008Via Steinn, a "meme" asking people to name women in science:
Rules:
1. You can't choose people from your own institution or company.
2. You can't google or use the internet to aid in your search. (But if you know someone is a scientist, but not sure what disciple, you can look that up).
3. You can consult textbooks, journals, and class notes.
4. You can ask others to help you brainstorm, but they can't use the internet just to get 5 names fast (see #2).
5. Living and deceased scientists are acceptable.
6. Links to or references about the named scientists are greatly appreciated. Let's share…
drorzel | March 18, 2008
xkcd - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language - By Randall Munroe
Zombie Feynman!
(tags: comics science society physics silly)
Shtetl-Optimized » Blog Archive » Mistake of the Week: "But even he says so, and he's an X!"
"Given any exotic mixture of belief and group affiliation, there's almost certainly at least one person on Earth who fits the bill -- and who's even available to speak at your next engagement."
(tags: politics religion society science)
Physics Buzz: Katrina's Impact on Physics in New Orleans
"A session at the APS March Meeting focused on something I'd…
drorzel | March 17, 2008It hasn't been a roaring success, but LBMango on LiveJournal has a twist on the questions meme that I like:
Everyone has things they blog about.
Everyone has things they don't blog about.
Challenge me out of my comfort zone by telling me something I don't blog about, but you'd like to hear about, and I'll write a post about it.
It may not work here, either, but what the hell. Let's shake things up a bit-- if nothing else, it'll give me the chance to practice glib and non-responsive answers to difficult questions, in case I ever lose my mind and run for office.
(I blog about a wide enough…
drorzel | March 17, 2008In one of his March Meeting posts, Doug Natelson writes about laser cooling experiments that explore condensed matter phenomena:
While the ultracold gases provide an exquisitely clean, tunable environment for studying some physics problems, it's increasingly clear to me that they also have some significant restrictions; for example, while optical lattices enable simulations of some model potentials from solid state physics, there doesn't seem to be any nice way to model phonons or the rich variety of real-life crystal structures that can provide so much rich phenomenology.
I would dissent…
drorzel | March 17, 2008For the first time in forever, the NCAA Tournament will start this weekend, and I won't have a clear rooting interest. Neither Syracuse nor Maryland made the field of 65. This is, of course, karmic blowback from the Giants winning the Super Bowl-- the last time they won, Syracuse became the first #2 seed ever to lose to a #15 seed.
It's going to be an odd experience, but I'm basically ok with it, because neither team deserved to be there. They had their chances to make a case, but bother stumbled badly down the stretch. Maryland lost its last three games in inexcusable fashion, and Syracuse…
drorzel | March 17, 2008Over at Physics and Physicists, ZapperZ is thinking about the intro curriculum, and offers a suggestion:
I believe that we should have a more open-ended experiment to be given to the students. So I'll give an example. Note that while thing is something that I've thought about for a while, I'm still writing this off the top of my head. So there may be other problems with it that I haven't carefully considered.
Give them a problem to solve such as something like this:
Construct a pendulum clock. To make this clock useful, it would be helpful if the pendulum can swing back and forth once as…
drorzel | March 17, 2008
Jacks of Science â A Large Hadron Leprechaun Hunt
Leprechauns have infested the ATLAS detector. Get the hose.
(tags: physics silly pictures)
Crooked Timber » » A Primer on Irish Culture
Three gifted singers who have kissed the Blarney Stone.
(tags: music silly video youtube)
Swans on Tea » Lab Pix: All (Well, Some) Things, Great and Small
First-rate laser-table porn.
(tags: physics optics science pictures experiment)
YouTube - Helsinki Complaints Choir
"We always lose to Sweden in hockey and Eurovision."
(tags: art music culture society)
drorzel | March 16, 2008A little while back, there was some discussion of what science blogging should be, where the question of what draws the most traffic came up. A couple of people said they see more traffic from "real" science posts than from other trivia, in contrast to my claim that I see more traffic from other stuff.
It occurs to me that I have inadvertently run the experiment to test this over the past week: This week, I posted five hard-core physics posts, one each week day, and three of them were also tagged for ResearchBlogging.org. I also posted a bunch of frivolous things-- animal pictures, FutureBaby…
drorzel | March 16, 2008Today is "Selection Sunday," when the field for the NCAA basketball championships will be announced, and everybody will start filling out their office-pool bracket sheets. I'm going to be in the weird position of watching the tournament without a rooting interest, as both my teams stink, and won't be in the field.
But I can rant negatively about that later-- the important thing now is that this weekend is when the conference championships for a number of leagues are decided, so positive stories about basketball abound. So let's talk about them for a few minutes.
Really, there's no better…