drorzel | December 11, 2007Here's the first of this year's series of pictures proving that our Christmas tree is all about SCIENCE!!! (which, for the record, needs to be said like it's in a Thomas Dolby song). Some of these will eventually get kind of obscure, but we'll start with an easy one:
This little guy, obviously, stands for the life sciences and evolution.
Why evolution? Well, because he's an iguana, and they're found in the Galapagos Islands, where Darwin did all that work, back in the day.
Also, we got him (her? it's hard to tell...) at the Darwin exhibit at the science museum in Boston.
You can't see it…
drorzel | December 10, 2007
Catholic World News : Vatican astronomer likens creationism to superstition
Brother Guy Consolmagno, talking sense as always.
(tags: astronomy religion science biology)
Daily Kos: What was wrong with the debate education question
A good discussion of the issues involved with merit pay, teacher compensation, and teacher's unions, from a teacher and union member.
(tags: education academia society politics)
The Best Way to Deflect an Asteroid - New York Times
I won't believe it until they do the experiment.
(tags: astronomy space science)
If It's Fresh and Local, Is It Always Greener? -…
drorzel | December 10, 2007Chateau Steelypips presents the 2007 Christmas Tree of SCIENCE!!!:
OK, it may not look all that science-y-- nary a Tesla coil to be seen-- but just like last year, this year's tree is all about the science. I'll be explaining how in a series of picture posts over the next week or so.
So, well, stay tuned...
drorzel | December 10, 2007Following on an article in Seed and an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, ScienceBloggers Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum (of The Intersection) have teamed up with a bunch of other smart people to launch Sciencedebate 2008:
Given the many urgent scientific and technological challenges facing America and the rest of the world, the increasing need for accurate scientific information in political decision making, and the vital role scientific innovation plays in spurring economic growth and competitiveness, we call for a public debate in which the U.S. presidential candidates share their…
drorzel | December 10, 2007"Do you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -- Steven Brust, Dzur
Way, way back in October, when I was annoying you all with DonorsChoose fundraining posts, I offered to sell post topics for $30. I've paid off most of these, but I have three left, one of which was for something more regarding Robert Jordan.
As I noted at the time, the Wheel of Time books were ridiculously important in my life-- because of them, I got involved with the Robert Jordan group on Usenet (I take obscure pride in being there from before the founding of rec.art.sf.written.robert-jordan), and through…
drorzel | December 10, 2007A few comments from this weekend's action:
- My Giants improved to 9-4 after a squeaking out a close win over the Eagles when a potential game-tying field goal clanged off the upright. Weirdly, they are now 6-1 on the road, and just 3-3 at home-- granted, they've played better teams at home than on the road, but still, Manning seems to do better away from New York.
This is a good win for them, as it guarantees they'll be over .500 on the season, and puts them in the metaphorical driver's seat for the first wild-card spot for the NFC. They have winnable games coming up agaisnt the Redskins and…
drorzel | December 9, 2007
The Little Professor: The Golden Compass
Less "atheist" than "Protestant."
(tags: literature religion review movies SF)
westerblog » Blog Archive » One Last Pullman Post
An important clarification regarding what happens to the Authority in His Dark Materials.
(tags: religion books literature movies SF)
drorzel | December 9, 2007It's been a couple of weeks since the last progress report, and Emmy is getting concerned.
So what's the status of the book, anyway?
Introduction
Current Revision: 1
Total Words: 430 (dialogue only)
Chapter 1: Particle-Wave Duality
Current Revision: 5a
Total Words: 5,279
Chapter 2: The Uncertainty Principle
Current Revision: 7
Total Words: 4,499
Chapter 3: The Copenhagen Interpretation
Current Revision: 2
Total Words: 4,801
Chapter 4: The Many-Worlds Interpretation
Current Revision: 3
Total Words: 4,869
Chapter 5: The Quantum Zeno Effect
Current Revision: 2
Total Words: 3,263
Chapter 6:…
drorzel | December 9, 2007Kate and I went to see The Golden Compass last night because, dude, armored bears! Also, we both really enjoyed the book, back when it first came out (though I haven't re-read it since The Amber Spyglass, to see if it was retroactively ruined by the third volume).
From the opening titles in the left-over Lord ot ht Rings font, it's clear that this is New Line's bid to reassert their dominance over the "movie adaptations of popular fantasy books" genre, and as a spectacle, it's very good. There's a nifty steampunk aesthetic to Lyra's world and, dude, armored bears!
I didn't walk out of the…
drorzel | December 8, 2007
It Came Upon A Midnight Weird :: Cavalcade of Bad Nativities 2007
"The people who made this probably never even saw Star Wars, so they have no idea that they've just made a Jawa nativity. Sure, they're adoring the child right now, but tomorrow, they'll be out stealing droids again."
(tags: silly pictures religion)
drorzel | December 8, 2007Poking around the Discover magazine web site looking for something else, I ran across this interview with Kip Thorne about black holes, wormholes, LIGO, and Stephen Hawking:
It sounds like Hawking hasn't done very well in his bets.
He hasn't won any of these bets yet. I think that characterizes the fact that he's ready to go out on a limb and challenge people, as a way of trying to foster the forward movement of science.
Are you still in contact professionally with Hawking?
He and I have never written a paper together. His current focus is the birth of the universe. Mine is probing its warped…
drorzel | December 8, 2007One of the perks of being a B-list sciece blogger is that people send me stuff that they would like me to promote to my dozens of readers. Such as, for example, National Geographic's very silly Dino Central Park site, where you can frighten simulated New Yorkers with simulated dinosaurs. Because... well, really, do you need a reason?
This is in connection with their Sunday dinosaur extravaganza on the National Geographic Channel. And you really can't go far wrong with shows about dinosaurs...
drorzel | December 7, 2007
YouTube - Here Comes Another Bubble - The Richter Scales
Web 2.0, to the tune of "We Didn't Start the Fire"
(tags: internet music silly video youtube)
Jobs, News and Views for All of Higher Education - Inside Higher Ed :: Hope on Ph.D. Attrition Rates -- Except in Humanities
"Even after 10 years, a majority of humanities Ph.D. students have not finished their degrees, while nearly two-thirds of those in engineering have done so. After seven years, a majority of engineering and life sciences students have wrapped up, while tha
(tags: academia jobs humanities science)
Slusho!
Watch Happy…
drorzel | December 7, 2007Over in LiveJournal land, Sherwood Smith links approvingly to an essay by Tom Simon in response to what are apparently some "logical positivist" evles in Christopher Paolini's books. I haven't read the books in question, but it really doesn't matter, as Simon very quickly spins this off into a larger essay about the nature of the world, in the mode of C.S. Lewis:
In my life, I have never witnessed an instance where the laws that govern the world sufficed to explain an event. That is, I have never seen anything that was not, strictly speaking, the after-effect of a miracle. Many events have…
drorzel | December 7, 2007Kind of a technical question, but typing it out might provide some inspiration, or failing that, somebody might have a good suggestion in the comments.
Here's the issue: I'm starting on a chapter about quantum teleportation for the book, and one of the key steps in the teleportation scheme is an entangling measurement of two of the particles. If you're teleporting a photon polarization state, the easy way to do it is to make a joint measurement of the polarization of the photon whose polarization you want to "teleport" and one photon from the entangled pair you're using for the teleportation…
drorzel | December 7, 2007Brad DeLong gives his stamp of approval to Steven Pearlstein's explanation of the mortgage collapse now in progress. It is, indeed, a very clear explanation of what went wrong:
Stick with me now, because this is where it gets interesting. For it is at this point that the banks got the bright idea of buying up a bunch of mezzanine tranches from various pools. Then, using fancy computer models, they convinced themselves and the rating agencies that by repeating the same "tranching" process, they could use these mezzanine-rated assets to create a new set of securities -- some of them junk, some…
drorzel | December 6, 2007
Cat Macros - Post a comment
LOLCat weighs in on the Russian acquisition of LiveJournal.
(tags: silly pictures blogs internet)
Hey Spot, You've Got Mail - New York Times
Dogster: because pets need social networks, too.
(tags: dog silly internet society)
The A.V. Club's Third Annual Surprisingly Specific Holiday Gift Guide | The A.V. Club
"Crap. It's the holiday shopping season again, and you don't want to go the gift certificate route one more time. Also, you've got a friend whose house smells like urine, and another who's constantly complaining about her inability to find adhesive…
drorzel | December 6, 2007John Scalzi is talking a big game:
I was just taking one of those Internet tests to see how much of a geek I am, when I suddenly thought, what the fuck am I doing? I'm a published science fiction writer. Do not pass "go," do not collect $200, you know? Just go straight to the geek win.
That's right, I win at geek. Tell me I'm wrong.
All I have to say is, "Enjoy it while you can, Heinlein boy."
I'm writing a book based on talking to my dog about quantum physics. Scalzi holds the title for the moment by virtue of actually being published, while my book is still pending.
But he's just keeping…
drorzel | December 6, 2007With the department secretary switching over to the all-Christmas-songs station, and Jason Hare and Jeff Giles celebrating holiday tunes that bring the suck, it seems like a good time to re-ask the eternal question:
Are there Christmas songs that can hold their own against "Fairytale of New York"?
Or, more to the point, name me some holiday-themed songs that don't suck. I got the list up to 21 songs last year, thanks in large part to Jeff Giles's now-vanished jefitoblog, but it would be nice to expand that, if suitable songs can be found.
drorzel | December 6, 2007Kevin Drum looks at the latest story about American students lagging the world in science test scores, and notes that this has been going on at least since he was in school. This leads him to wonder whether it's really as bad as all that:
I still wonder about this. If American kids are getting mediocre educations, and if they've been getting these mediocre educations for several decades now, shouldn't this have long since shown up in the business world, the tech world, and the financial world? And yet, it hasn't. So what's the deal? Makes me wonder if maybe American kids don't actually suck…