drorzel | October 14, 2007
Friends, not policies, win elections - Physics World - physicsworld.com
I am shocked-- shocked!-- to learn that voters don't always elect the candidate woth the best policies.
(tags: politics physics stupid journals)
C. Sample Citation and Introduction to Citing Blogs
For those times when you want to use a LOLcat in a Science article... (via Neurophilosophy)
(tags: blogs academia journals)
Pure Pedantry : Crazy Useful Paper on Statistics
Error bars, their use and misuse. (Months old, because I'm clearing some old stuff out of my RSS reader in advance of Big Changes)
(tags: math science…
drorzel | October 14, 2007So, we'd like to get a new refirgerator (our current refrigerator is pretty old and beat. When the compressor kicks on, the lights in the living room flicker, and the shelf on the inside of the door is broken, which greatly reduces the useful storage space.), and being good liberal types, we'd like something energy-efficient. The problem is, our house is small, and the kitchen is very small, so the space available for the fridge (without ripping all the cabinets out and re-doing the whole kitchen) is only about 28" wide, and the selection in that small size is really limited. In particular,…
drorzel | October 14, 2007I've been largely silent about the NFL for the past couple of weeks, mostly because I don't know what to make of anything that's happening. I only saw the first half of last week's Giants game, where it looked like they had reverted to their early-season form, but then they exploded in the second half, while I was in a meeting. I thought the Packers had the Bears beat, and they blew it, and I thought Dallas was dead on Monday, but somehow they came back.
What does it all mean? Hell if I know.
Anyway, in lieu of insightful commentary from me, consider this an open thread about everything…
drorzel | October 14, 2007I'm cleaning out some old saved items from my RSS feeds, to prepare for some changes at ScienceBlogs, and one of the items I had marked but never done anything with was an announcement of the launch of Correlations, a group blog from Wired Science and PBS. It suffers a bit from the Wired aesthetic of posterizing photographs so as to make them unrecognizable, but at least it's black text on a white background, so PBS has had some moderating influence.
They've got a good collection of science bloggers, including Clifford Johnson of Asymptotia and ScienceBlogs' own Tara Smith and Sheril…
drorzel | October 13, 2007
Overheard in New York | History Is an Unbroken Chain of Irony
(tags: silly)
YouTube - Cowboy Bebop AMV - Woolongs for Nothing
A classic Dire Straits video redone with Cowboy Bebop characters
(tags: anime music youtube silly)
drorzel | October 13, 2007Here's another installment in the payoff for Rajesh Vaidya's donation. This is one of a bunch of pictures Kate took of me and Emmy playing on the floor:
This sort of looks like it ought to be a scene from one of our physics conversations, so here's my lame attempt at a caption:
I'm sure somebody out there can do a lot better than that, though, so have at it.
drorzel | October 13, 2007You may or may not have noticed the appearance of large banner ads promoting the ScienceBlogs DonorsChoose EccentricCapitalization Challenge. If you haven't, they go to this page explaining the challenge and offering valuable prizes. If you'd like to increase the range of swag you can obtain for your donation, head on over there and check it out.
And, of course, there's still the standing offer to purchase blog posts here, and I'll be offering some new incentives on Monday. So, well, go donate something, and get stuff in return.
drorzel | October 13, 2007It's Saturday, and it's Homecoming weekend at Union, so I'll be over on campus watching sporting events for a good chunk of the day. That means it's a perfect time to pay off another blog purchase, this one from Rajesh Vaidya who asked for LOLEmmys, at least five pictures worth.
There are two problems with this request: First, the Queen of Niskayuna is much too dignified to speak in LOLCat. More importantly, though, I'm not very good at coming up with these. However, that's why I have clever readers. So, here's a picture:
And here's my lame attempt at a caption:
I'm sure somebody out there…
drorzel | October 12, 2007
Nonlocal Quantum Effects with Bose-Einstein Condensates
New theoretical resutls having to do with measurements of particles in two independent condensates show some cool quantum effects
(tags: physics quantum science articles)
Finite-Temperature Collective Dynamics of a Fermi Gas in the BEC-BCS Crossover
Experimental resuts looking at fermionic atoms near the transition analogoue to that in a superconductor.
(tags: physics quantum science articles experiment)
Nonlinear Phase Shift from Photon-Photon Scattering in Vacuum
QED effects may shift the phase of really intense laser pulses due…
drorzel | October 12, 2007I promised a while back to write a post on a topic of your choosing, in exchange for a $30 donation to my DonorsChoose challenge. I've got a fair number of requests, and I should really start paying them off. The first one comes from Ewan McNay, who aks:
what quantum mechanics can tell us about the existence of free will (if anything)
Oh, sure. Stick me with the tough questions.
This will be somewhat rambling and discursive, because it's not really an area that I've thought much about, or where I know anything solid about the science. In fact, my first thought on hearing the question has…
drorzel | October 12, 2007There's been a bunch of talk about the apparent European dominance in Nobel Prizes this year, and whether it means that American science is in decline, blah, blah, blah. I'm a little surprised at this-- nobody took last year's abundance of American laureates as a sign of the collapse of European science, after all-- but then, there seem to be large numbers of people who will seize on anything at all to be evidence of the end of American dominance in whatever area.
In some ways, the proper reaction to the whole thing is probably the reaction of a colleague of mine in Economics. I asked him who…
drorzel | October 12, 2007(WASHINGTON, DC) On the heels of reports from Oslo that the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded jointly to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and former US Vice President Al Gore, a White House spokesman issued a statement saying that "significant uncertainty" remained regarding the recipient of the prize.
"The President feels that at this time, it's too early to say for sure whether Al Gore has won the Peace prize," said White House spokesman Scott Stencil. "The science is just not conclusive yet. The President feels that more study is needed before we agree that this honor…
drorzel | October 12, 2007The Nobel Peace Prize was announced this morning, and will be split between an international panel and everybody's favorite PowerPoint presenter:
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 is to be shared, in two equal parts, between the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr. for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.
There's long been a tradition of inviting American Nobel…
drorzel | October 11, 2007
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2007 - Speed Read
The Nobel committee explains the Chemistry prize
(tags: chemistry Nobel science news)
PhysicsCentral: Nanobowl Video Contest: Win World's Smallest Trophy!
Make a YouTube video showing the physics of football, win a nanoscale trophy
(tags: youtube science physics football sports)
Freaky Ninja Turtle Dog
Click the image for video. Not even a poodle deserves this.
(tags: dog pictures stupid)
Single top: new results from CDF! « A Quantum Diaries Survivor
The latest exotic particle news.
(tags: physics science news experiment)
New quantum…
drorzel | October 11, 2007If you'd prefer a more positive approach to fundraising, here's another post to highlight a specific project, one of many that are asking for funding to meet depressingly basic needs. In this case, the proposal is titled "Weighing In", which is pretty accurate:
Our 7th & 8th graders from our classes in Buffalo, NY are in need of scales to develop their measurement skills in science.
My project needs 3 Triple Beam Balances.
This is a high-poverty district (80% qualify for free lunch), and they're looking for $420 to buy scales for a science lab. You wouldn't think they'd need to go…
drorzel | October 11, 2007At least, that's a conclusion a cynical person might be tempted to draw from the fact that the ScienceBlogs Leaderboard for the DonorsChoose challenge is dominated by us "Neville Chamberlain" types...
At present, the ScienceBlogs participating in the Challenge have raised more than $14,000 to help schools and school children. The Seed Media Group (publishers of Seed and backers of ScienceBlogs) have pledged to match up to $15,000 in donations, so that's really $28,000, and not too shabby.
Looked at another way, though, it's pretty pathetic. That $14,000 has come from at most 138 donors (some…
drorzel | October 11, 2007In the "Social Networks Brighten My Morning" file, I am inordinately amused to be getting status updates from a Nobel laureate on Facebook.
Speaking of Nobel laureates, the latest chunk of dynamite money was awarded this morning to novelist Doris Lessing:
"that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny"
I have absolutely no idea what that means, not having read any of her books. I associate her with the class of mainstream writers who independently reinvent science fiction, and then insist that they're not…
drorzel | October 10, 2007By popular request, I'm moving the links below the fold. Click "Read on" to find a wealth of links to Nobel Prize information, colorful bunnies, and early basketball information.
You R Here: MTV News Live Music Coverage » Ticket Stubs: Bob Dylan, The Shins, Breaking Benjamin, Lifehouse
MTV News notes my Dylan concert review. Does this count against my fifteen minutes?
(tags: music news concert)
Blogging at MentorNet
New blog from a prominent science and engineering mentoring organization. They could stand to add some sidebar links, though.
(tags: academia science gender blogs)
Troths…
drorzel | October 10, 2007Attention-grabbing anecdote about science-related issue.
Short biographical sketch of quirky researcher working on scientific problem.
Short explanation of the scientific problem's history and significance.
Anecdote about quirky researcher's work on scientific problem.
Short explanation connecting back to initial attention-grabbing anecdote.
Pithy summary of What It All Means.
(Repeat steps 2-4 as needed to fill out word count.)
I got a review copy of The Best American Science Writing 2007 from Seed a little while ago, but I haven't had much time to read lately. I spent six hours on a bus…
drorzel | October 10, 2007I'm running short of Dorky Poll topics-- suggestions are welcome-- but it occurred to me that a meta-dorky-poll might be worth a shot. So:
There have been many Dorky Polls here over the last year or two. Which Dorky Poll question was the most dorktastic?
"Dorktastic" is in the eye of the beholder, obviously-- it might mean "I cant believe you ased that," or it might be "I can't believe fifty people have an opinion about that." But which of the questions that have been asked so far is the epitome of the Dorky Poll?