The current edition of Asimov's is a double issue, for October and November. This is apprently an annual thing, but whatever the reason for it, I got a magazine with twice as many stories as usual, which probably creates a false impression of the worth of the magazine. I'll have to check out a regular-size version in the future. This is also probably the end of the Magazine Experiment, because I can't find anywhere to buy F&SF around here: their return policy is sufficiently obnoxious that the local SF specialty store won't carry it, and neither Borders nor Barnes & Noble had any…

It turns out that there's actually a small clause in the standard publishing contract that requires any author with a blog to post periodic updates on the progress of the current writing project. Who knew? Well, OK, there's no contractual obligation, but really, I have the blog, and I need to fill it with something, so why not the occasional progress report? I'm not going to commit to any particular schedule, but from time to time, I'll post updates on how things are going-- word counts, general impressions, out-of-context dialogue snippets. So, how is it going? The target here is around 40,…

Some time back, I proposed a contest: The person who comes closest to the actual number [of pictures taken in Japan] without going over will win something cheap and tacky from Japan that I will buy before I leave. I haven't fogotten about this, I've just been too busy to do all that much with the pictures. But we do have a winner, of this priceless artifact: The total number of pictures I took on the trip was 1,508 (or, at least, that's the total number I ended up with-- I distinctly remember taking some pictures at one temple in northwest Kyoto, but they're not on either of the memory…

At dinner with my parents last night, we were talking about the dinners at Sumiyoshi, the ryokan we stayed at in Takayama. I haven't gotten around to uploading those pictures yet, but I dug this one out: It's not the best picture of Kate, but she does provide a sense of scale... It was a great meal-- sashimi, tempura, beef cooked at the table, fish, pickles, miso soup, and probably some other things I'm forgetting. There was also this from the next morning: Which really just begs to be captioned "I Can Has Toaster," but discretion is the better part of valor. Breakfast was served in the…

The city of Nara, near Kyoto, is full of temples and shrines dating back to the eigth centruy, when it was briefly the capital of Japan. One of the largest shrines in the city, the Kasuga Taisha shrine, is dedicated to deities that use deer as their sacred messengers. As a result, deer are allowed to roam freely in Nara, and there are times when you can almost believe that they are sacred messengers of the gods: Other times, not so much: (The top picture shows a deer reclining next to the stone marker at the entrance of Todai-ji Temple, which houses the Great Buddha. The bottom picture was…

It's job-hunting season in academia, which also means it's talking-about-the-job-market season. After writing the previous post, I noticed a post on the same topic by Steve Hsu, who was interviewed for a Chronicle of Higher Education article (temporary free link, look quickly!) about the lousy job market in science. Steve has most of the relevant bits in his post, including this graph about the job situation in physics: Of course, being a contrary sort, I'd like to quibble a bit with the graph and its presentation in the article. The article makes a point of noting that: In physics nearly 70…

In the neverending debates about the current state of physics-- see, for example, Bee's thoughtful post about The trouble With Physics, you will frequently hear it said that the academic job market in physics sucks. But what, exactly, does that mean in quantitative terms? It's job hunting season in academia now-- still a little early in the season, maybe, but most places that are looking to make a tenure-track hire are probably accepting applications already. So I did a little poking around the Physics Today job listings to see what the numbers look like. This is the central clearing house…

On September 19, 1961, Betty and Barney Hill were driving through rural New Hampshire, and had an odd experience that has become probably the most famous alien abduction story in the history of UFO folklore. As it happens, they drove right past the town where SF author and Making Light blogger Jim Macdonald lives. Now, armed with a digital camera and a scientific mindset, Jim has set out to produce the definitive explanation of the Hill story, following published accounts step by step through the New Hampshire countryside. It's a terrific piece of work, even in an incomplete state (he's still…

Let's say you have a mirror-- not some cheesey $2 makeup mirror, but a research-grade aluminum mirror-- and it has some crud on it, say a film of junk deposited during your Summer Institute for Hot MEtal Chemistry. Like, say, the mirror on the right in this picture: How do you get that mirror clean? Well, first, you assemble your tools: You'll need the mirror, some lens tissue (special soft, lint-free paper), a hemostat (I prefer the curved-tip kind shown here, but you can use the straight ones, too), and some solvent (the bottle here is methanol, but you sometimes need to use acetone). The…

I'm in a Department of Physics and Astronomy, so several of my colleagues are astronomers. We also have a rather nice on-campus observatory, used for student research projects. Unfortunately, the combination means that we have a running argument with the rest of the campus regarding lights. The rather nice observatory is basically useless if there are big bright lights on all around it all the time, but various other groups want to have bright lights on all the time: Athletics wants the lights on the football field on so they can run night practices and intramurals; Campus Safety wants more…

The Scientist is doing a survey about science blogs, and if you go look at the article, you'll notice a shocking omission. That's right, there's not a single physicist on the list. Of course, that shouldn't actually be a surprise, as they're actually doing a survey of life science blogs. But that doesn't stop all sorts of people from referring to it as a survey about science blogs in general. And they complain about physicists being arrogant...

Wednesday was a Day of Meetings for me, starting at 8am, which means I didn't have time to type up a bunch of blog posts and schedule them as usual. Having just clawed my way out of Meetingville, though, let me take a few minutes to throw up another Academia post, before the topic gets too stale. Steinn has been thinking about the differences between the European and US educational systems (first post, second post), and he brought up an idea that I hadn't encountered before: "Looping". The idea, as described by Steinn:: When I were a lad, in elementary school you had teacher - call it a "…

A philosopher at McGill University has stirred up a controversy by requiring students to get perfect scores on a quiz about the Greek alphabet or drop her class on Plato: The course, which at times refers directly to original texts, requires students to gain a familiarity with the Greek alphabet. To make sure that would happen, Laywine tested them on the subject last week -- with the requirement that anyone getting less than 100 percent correct would have to drop the class. To be sure, the exam was given during the add/drop period, no knowledge of Greek was presumed and Laywine spent the…

At the recent Worldcon, there were several rounds of the usual Save the Magazines Chorus: short fiction is the lifeblood of the genre, it's where we get our new writers, etc. With the usual subtextual implication that I am a Bad Person because I don't read or subscribe to any SF magazines. (The most annoying version with a rant-by-proxy at the Hugo Awards. This bugged me all the more because the author in question didn't make the trip, and it really doesn't seem right to make somebody else deliver your mini-tirade about the state of the short fiction market. If you can't make the ceremony,…

Over at Pure Pedantry, Jake Young has recently posted two long, thoughtful, and civil entries in the New Atheism debate (he must have a thesis deadline, or something). The first follows John Dewey in arguing that a tight link between science and atheism is counterproductive, while the second collects and responds to criticism of the first. they're both well-thought-out, and argued calmly and carefully. Jake's a better man than I am. I say that not just because he managed to keep his cool after entering this argument, which I'm demonstrably not able to do, but also because I'm going to pick up…

A quick physics news update, on some stories that came out last week: "Thundercloud "accelerator" fires gamma-ray beam:" A team of scientists in Japan has seen a 40-second burst of gamma rays from a thundercloud. This was presumably produced by electrons accelerated to extremely high velocities within the could coming to a sudden stop-- a process with the fabulous German name "bremsstrahlung." This was not associated with lightning, and indeed, one of the scientists quoted in the article says that lightning would be counterproductive, basically "shorting out" the multi-million-volt potential…

Before we bought our current house, coming up on five years ago, we looked at another slightly larger house that's literally just around the corner. It hadn't officially been listed yet, but our agent (who, weirdly, lives right next door) showed it to us, and we thought very hard about it. Unfortunately, it was about $20K more than the bank was willing to lend us, so we couldn't make an offer. We looked at it on a Sunday, and talked to the bank on Monday. By Friday, it had sold, and for $10K more than the original asking price. It was bought by a young couple, a professional contractor and…

Sean Carroll takes a look at economics from the point of view of a physicist: Economists have a certain way of looking at the world, in which (to simplify quite a bit) people act rationally to maximize their utility. That sort of talk pushes physicists' buttons, because maximizing functions is something we do all the time. I'm not deeply familiar with economics in any sense; everything I know about the subject comes from reading blogs. Any social science is much harder than physics, in the sense that constructing quantitative models that usefully describe the behavior of realistic systems is…

Via Matt McIrvin, Total Drek's Unhelpful Hints for Graduate Students: (1) It is important to realize as soon as possible that you are not an undergraduate any longer. In fact, you're not really even a student. Grad school is more like an apprenticeship program than traditional schooling. As such, you're here to learn by doing. Stop thinking about what you do as "school" and start thinking of it as "work" and particularly as "your career." You're no longer practicing for your future- you're doing it right now. (2) Along these lines, keep in mind that nobody is impressed with your ability to…

Three comments on the second week of the NFL season: 1) Given that Brett Favre famously lay down to give Michael Strahan the single-season sack record, it seems only fitting that the Giants should roll over to give him the NFL wins record for a QB. If the clock hadn't run out, he probably could've broken the total touchdown record, too-- he only needs three to pass Marino, and God knows, the Giants weren't going to stop him from throwing a TD pass every time the Packers got the ball. 2) I feel for Eli Manning, and not just because I re-aggravated a shoulder separation on Friday (and then…