drorzel | September 17, 2007James Oliver Rigney, better known to the world by his Robert Jordan pseudonym, has passed away after a long illness. I didn't know him personally-- I met him very briefly once, at a signing-- but the Wheel of Time books were ridiculously important in my life. I met a great many friends through Robert Jordan fandom on Usenet, which helped keep me sane during graduate school. And Kate was among the people I met there, so I really owe him more than I can easily express.
Making Light has more, including links to a number of other tributes. Whatever you may think of the books (and this is neither…
drorzel | September 16, 2007The last night of the Worldcon in Yokohama, I wound up in a conversation with a couple of Japanese fans and another American. At the suggestion of the other American (whose name I forget-- sorry), we spent a while trading questions: we'd answer a question about the US, then they would answer a question about Japan, and so on.
Eventually, one of the Japanese fans asked "Why are there so many otaku in America?" I answered "Because Japanese anime is really good," (doing my bit for international relations) and that kicked off a general conversation about anime. After rattling off the paltry few…
drorzel | September 16, 2007Ethan Zuckerman has the sort of life that every academic dreams of: He travels all over the world going to conferences where really smart people, some of them famous, talk about interesting things. And he doesn't even have to grade exam papers, or attend boring faculty meetings.
His latest jaunt was to the Idea Festival in Louisville, Kentucky, and he has blogged it extensively. Highlights range from Steve Wozniak talking about the birth of Apple to James McLurkin's swarms of robots to Dirk Brockmann using dollar bills for epidemiology (hey to Tara and Revere). Like all of his conference…
drorzel | September 16, 2007One of my favorite underappreciated bands of the mid-90's is the Boston-based three-piece Buffalo Tom. They got a little bit of play with songs like "Sodajerk" and "Treehouse" (both of which have turned up in commercials, and the former apparently figured prominently in an epsidoe of "My So-Called Life"), but they had a string of three terrific albums (Let Me Come Over, Big Red Letter Day, and Sleepy Eyed) that just never got the recognition they deserved. Of course, I say this in part because their characteristic sound-- chiming guitars, rolling drums, slightly cryptic lyrics-- plays to all…
drorzel | September 15, 2007A while back, I posted a call for non-religious charities, and donated $200 to two organizations recommended by readers. Having done that, I would be remiss in my duties as a blogger if I didn't mention the ne plus ultra of atheist charities, the newly launched Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.
Ten of the eleven missions listed are about the promotion of atheism, making it more like a missionary organization than the Red Cross, but the list does include:
7. Charitable giving by secularists to humanitarian good causes. Major disasters like earthquakes or tornados prompt a…
drorzel | September 15, 2007Speaking of science explanations in SF, or at least science explained by SF authors, there's a very nice history of dark matter at SFNovelists.com by Mark Brotherton (via Tobias Buckell):
The story of dark matter starts back in the 1930s with Fritz Zwicky, a brilliant but difficult Caltech astronomer, who was studying galaxy clustering. Galaxies group together, apparently under the force of gravity, and between Newton and Einstein, humans seem to have a pretty good idea of how gravity works. There's a very general relationship between gravity, speed, and size, that governs everything from the…
drorzel | September 15, 2007In a comment to my Worldcon wrap-up, "fvngvs" asks a question following up on the science in SF panel:
So Chad, now that you've had some time to think about it, can you think of a list of books/stories with a really good treatment of science concepts?
It's a good question, and deserves a full post in response. It also probably deserves better than to be posted on a Saturday morning, when nobody's reading, but oh, well.
Anyway, the question stems from a question posed during the panel, asking for books or stories that do a particularly good job presenting some science concept or another. I…
drorzel | September 14, 2007The particle physics community in the US has rolled out a new site promoting the Large Hadron Collider, because, you know, there was a danger that we might forget that it's there. As part of the site, they're featuring four new physics blogs, by Monica Dunford, Pam Klabbers, Steve Nahn, and blogosphere veteran Peter Steinberg.
They really need to work on getting a blog interface that doesn't suck, or at least an RSS feed, but this has the potential to be an interesting site. It's also the second time that the particle physics community has organized a blogging effort (the first was 2005's…
drorzel | September 14, 2007Every now and then, usually in the summer or early fall, when the sun is shining and it's just pleasant to be outdoors, I find myself almost regretting my career choices. After all, had I chosen a career in the biological sciences, rather than laser physics, I could do my research outside in the nice weather, rather than in a windowless room in the basement.
Of course, every now and then, I hear stories like the one in the talk given by a colleague's summer research students a few weeks ago. He's a plant biologist specializing in moss, and his students went out looking for samples to test…
drorzel | September 14, 2007So, Bill Belichick has been fined half a million for the incident last week in which a Patriots assistant coach was caught videotaping Jets signals. The team was also fined $250K, and will lose at least one draft pick over the incident.
Now that the punishment has been handed down, can somebody explain to me why this is such a huge deal?
I mean, maybe it's just that the sports I played regularly (basketball, rugby, soccer) are much less pattern-driven than football, but I really don't see what's so utterly terrible about this business. It's not like they sent a spy to the Jets' practice…
drorzel | September 14, 2007One of our senior physics majors has made a video promoting sustainability to students, and posted it on YouTube. I need to figure out the best way to link it from the department web page, but it occurs to me that I have this big Internet platform I can use to plug it:
It's a good piece of work. Amazing what kids these days can do.
drorzel | September 14, 2007Discussing Isaac Asimov's non-fiction a bit yesterday reminded me of my absolute favorite panel at Worldcon, Saturday's "Mundane or Transcendent?" with Cory Doctorow, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Charlie Stross, and Robert Silverberg as moderator. They're all really smart people, and they're all good at turning phrases on the fly, so it was terrifically entertaining.
Some of the best stuff on the panel involved Cory Doctorow talking about Isaac Asimov's fiction, and putting it in a very different light. He argued that Foundation is really a story about the New Deal, and that the Laws of Robotics…
drorzel | September 13, 2007So, for the last several months, I've had a loaner tablet PC from our ITS department, that I used when teaching in the Winter and Spring terms. It's a Toshiba, and a few years old, but it worked pretty well for what I was doing.
Since I've got some book money coming in, I'm looking to buy one for myself. I can do some product research on my own, but I'm sure there are people reading this who have strong opinions on the subject, so: If I'm looking to buy a tablet PC, what should I get? It needs to be a Windows machine, so please don't tell me about wonderful products from Apple, if they exist.
drorzel | September 13, 2007A critical question has come up in looking over stuff for the book:
Does a dog have Buddha nature?
I mean, a dog has particle character, obviously. And quantum theory tells us that a dog has wave nature. But does a dog have Buddha nature?
Hard questions make Emmy sad. Or maybe she's just pondering the enlightenment and salvation of all beings. Sometimes it's hard to tell.
drorzel | September 13, 2007Via Steinn, the Incoherent Ponderer ponders academic clothing:
For some strange reason, whenever it is not clear whether the attire is formal or informal, I am much more concerned about overdressing, than dressing too informally.
I think that this is because it's very difficult to be dressed too informally in academic environment - unless of course it's a fancy dinner or cocktail party or something. Even if I err on the side of informal dress code, chances are - there is still someone dressed even more informally, likely a senior faculty member. I know some people who seem to be wearing…
drorzel | September 13, 2007James Nicoll has a question about pop science:
Who today fills the niche of science popularizer once filled by people like Ley or Asimov? That is, who writes essays covering a wide range of the sciences, as opposed to covering one in detail for the public?
If you look in the comments, the second plugs Bill Bryson's science book, and you'll find me saying positive things about Natalie Angier's The Canon. (You'll also find me quibbling about Asmiov, but that's a side debate...)
They're not coming up with a whole lot over there, but surely ScienceBlogs readers have some ideas. So, are there…
drorzel | September 12, 2007Two words: Beef Sushi
This was bought at a stand in Takayama, which takes a lot of pride in the local beef (which was, indeed, excellent). I'm not sure it's completely raw-- another place had a poster showing similar sushi pieces being roasted with a blowtorch, but alas, they were closed for renovations. I couldn't see exactly how this was prepared, but the color here mostly comes from a thick soy-sauce glaze put on the meat before it was served.
Even if it wasn't actually raw, it was certainly extremely rare. And goooooood....
drorzel | September 12, 2007In a comment to the book announcement, "HI" makes a request:
Would you be able to summarize the recent paper "Progressive field-state collapse and quantum non-demolition photon counting" (Nature. 2007 Aug 23;448(7156):889-93) for non-specialists? How do you interpret it?
This probably would've slipped by me if not for this comment, but it's a really nice paper, and I'm happy to give it a shot. There's also a commentary by Luis Orozco that you won't be able to read without a subscription because Nature are bastards that way.
The basic idea of this paper is that they prepare a quantum system…
drorzel | September 12, 2007Before it slips too far into the mists of memory, I should probably post some summary thoughts about Nippon 2007, the World SF Convention in Japan that Kate and I attended last week. To some degree, this will be inside-baseball stuff, but if you're not interested in fannish stuff, rest assured, there is some good, weighty physics stuff coming later. Also, some utter fluff. We aim to please, here at Chateau Steelypips.
So, the Worldcon in summary. Basically, I think it was an enjoyable experiment, and while I wouldn't call it an unqualified success, I'd be in favor of doing it again, several…