drorzel | September 18, 2012There are a bunch of physics stories that I'd sort of like to write about, but don't have time for, and politics is oscillating between "darkly hilarious" and "indescribably depressing," so that's best left alone. So, here's some cute kid pictures instead.
SteelyKid has lately taken to telling all and sundry "This is my daddy. He's a scientist." She also sometimes adds "I'm a scientist, too!" so it seemed appropriate to go out with her and Do A Science.
As previously mentioned, she got a bunch of Backyard Safari gear from my aunt and uncle, which included a safari vest and a collapsible mesh…
drorzel | September 13, 2012For her birthday, SteelyKid got a "Butterfly Keeper" set, which is basically a big mesh cylinder maybe two feet high and a foot in diameter. It came with a coupon for free live caterpillars for "Painted Lady" butterflies, which we duly sent away for. These came in a plastic cup full of caterpillar food, with paper across the top, and after eating most of the food, they climbed up and hung from the paper to form their chrysalises.
The instructions said to transfer the pupae to the mesh thing by pinning the paper to the top or side, which I did, with much delicate effort. Then, while moving…
drorzel | September 13, 2012Last week, in the post about fermion conduction, I left a reference hanging:
There’s nothing physically blocking the atoms from flying right through the channel– in fact, an atom that enters the channel will always exit the other side without slowing down along the way. This is termed “ballistic,” a term that will always have a special place in my heart thanks to an incident at my Ph.D. defense.
Which was what? Let’s just leave that hanging to see if anybody actually reads this far. I can explain it in a comment if people want to know.
A couple of people asked for the explanation in comments…
drorzel | September 12, 2012In which we learn about a new science communication service, some history of astronomy, a more complete definition of "one-hit wonder," and a new science award promoting basic research.
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Bowler Hat Science
Matthew Francis launches his Media Empire, offering a variety of talks (both public lectures and research talks), and more importantly workshops on communicating science to a general audience.
Transit of Venus History: Deaths and Dilemmas - News Blog - SkyandTelescope.com
Western astronomers in 1761 may not have been the first to see a transit of Venus. The renowned Arab…
drorzel | September 10, 2012In which we look at Obama's speaking style, what Bill Clinton wrote vs. what he said, and Gangnam Style.
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Obama and the Racial Politics of American English - NYTimes.com
This ended up being less interesting than it seemed it might be, but I'm not sure why.
What Bill Clinton Wrote vs. What Bill Clinton Said - Politics - The Atlantic Wire
How knowing your material backwards, forwards, and inside out lets you turn a pretty good text into a masterful speech.
My Dear Korea: KOREAN MUSIC: PSY’s “Gangnam Style” and "Gangnam Oppa" in “Architecture 101” (1)
If you, like me, are a little…
drorzel | September 8, 2012In which science shows the FAA is full of crap, Slate takes on the question of science grad school, NFL team logos get redesigned to make them honest, the Joint Quantum Institute invites your Nobel guesses, and experimentalists are more sought after than theorists.
Do Our Gadgets Really Threaten Planes? - WSJ.com
"The odds that all 78 of the passengers who travel on an average-size U.S. domestic flight have properly turned off their phones are infinitesimal: less than one in 100 quadrillion, by our rough calculation. If personal electronics are really as dangerous as the FAA rules suggest,…
drorzel | September 6, 2012So, it's been a while, but let's see if we can't hit the ground running with a good physics post. There have been a few notable physics events since I went on hiatus, but for a return to physics ResearchBlogging, we'll go with something near and dear to my heart, ultracold atoms. Specifically, this Science paper (free arxiv version) about passing atoms through a narrow channel. This is a cool bit of subfield-crossing physics, so let's dust off the Q&A format, and go through it.
Hey, dude, long time no see. So, what's the deal with this paper? Well, the title pretty much tells you what's…
drorzel | September 5, 2012Confessions of a Community College Dean: Kermit
How Kermit the Frog is the perfect model for an academic administrator.
Chester A. Arthur: Sasquatch Trainer : Filmmaking Frenzy: Commander-in-Chief
From the people who brought you "Rutherford B. Hayes, Urban Vigilante," a movie about the only Union alumnus (so far) to be US President.
In a Mass Knife Fight to the Death Between Every American President, Who Would Win and Why? « Face in the Blue
One of my most-visited sites on the web is Reddit.com, and one of my favourite subreddits is HistoricalWhatIf, an online community that debates…
drorzel | September 4, 2012So, a couple of months ago, I said I was taking some time off from the blog, and wasn't sure I would make it back. What was up with that, anyway?
Well, for one thing, I had a bunch of stuff to work on, and needed the extra time. I wrote a proposal for a third book that's being shopped around now, about which I won't say anything other than that it doesn't involve Emmy. (She's taking it in stride. As long as she gets treats and belly rubs, we're cool.).
I also wrote two papers, posted to the arxiv: first, Searching for New Physics through AMO Precision Measurements:
We briefly review recent…
drorzel | September 2, 2012Physics after accelerators, the need for more athletic thinking, a call for more phenomenological thinking in physics, and a goofy phenomenological model for politics.
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More things in heaven than earth § Unqualified Offerings
A vision of a post-accelerator world for fundamental physics.
Fit for Physics – Dynamics of Cats
An argument that we need physics students to be more like football players.
Backreaction: Questioning the Foundations
A call for more phenomenological thinking in physics.
The Surprising Power of the New Hampshire Primary | Mother Jones
A goofy phenomenological model…
drorzel | September 1, 2012I might return to physics blogging at some point, but I know what people really want from this blog. So, here's a cute kid picture.
Don't worry, Daddy, we're not up to anything
The Pip is increasingly mobile, and here we see him trying to climb into my lap, with an assist from big sister SteelyKid. Giving them superhero-ish noms du Net may have been a mistake, because I think they may be planning to take over the world...
drorzel | June 26, 2012The title pretty much says it all.
One of the reasons I wanted to get the Ten Years Before the Blog series done was that I'm incredibly burned out on everything right now, and I need to step away from the Internet for a while. There are too many things that aren't getting done, and I just can't keep putting in the time needed to produce blog content. I figured that re-reading the highlights of the last ten years would either re-invigorate me, or failing that, it would at least provide a good placeholder for when the blog goes dark.
I'm not officially quitting ScienceBlogs or anything like…
drorzel | June 26, 2012In which we reach the end of our decade-long historical recap.
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So, at long last, the recap of my decade of blogging has reached the current year. And I do have a file of pre-filtered links from the current year (well, up through early May, when it was put together), which I was going to go through and post in the same manner as previous years.
But you know how when some magazine does a list of the "top 40 songs of the last 40 years," or whatever, there are always 6-8 songs from the last couple of years, and you say "No way. It may be a big hit right now, but it's too soon to call…
drorzel | June 25, 2012In which we look back on the ninth full year of this blog, and one of the most unpleasant incidents in the whole run, which nearly ruined what was otherwise a good year.
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This is probably going to be the longest of these posts, at least in terms of the number of links included-- I've got all of the worthwhile-looking posts open in tabs, and it comes to 82 total. I may ditch a few of them during the post-writing process, but we'll see how that goes.
Anyway, this blog year kicked off with probably the least enjoyable incident of the entire run, namely Sodamageddon. The higher-ups at…
drorzel | June 25, 2012In which we look at the history of lunch, the breathtaking inanity of the NYTimes's Style section, what kills us then and now, the latest tempest in the blogging teapot, and some of the best songs from one of my favorite bands.
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Lunch: An Urban Invention
As late as 1755, according to Samuel Johnson’s definition, lunch was simply “as much food as one’s hand can hold” — which, as Laura Shapiro, culinary historian and co-curator of the New York Public Library’s new Lunch Hour NYC exhibition, recently explained to me, “means that it’s still sort of a snack that you can have at any…
drorzel | June 23, 2012I had hoped to get the next Ten Years Before the Blog post queued up for today, but what with one thing and another, that didn't happen. It probably won't happen before Monday, either, as the weekend will be full of family-type activities-- taking SteelyKid to soccer this morning, and her summer camp orientation tomorrow, and so on.
So, here's some cute-kid material in honor of that. The featured image above (not visible in the RSS feed, alas) is me with the two kids, The Pip sporting the Yankees outfit his Aunt Mary sent him (Uncle Dick would've been proud), and SteelyKid in her spiffy new…
drorzel | June 22, 2012In which I list some pop song lyrics for you to guess, because it's Friday and I'm tired.
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The other night, on Twitter, Patrick Nielsen Hayden posted a snippet of song lyrics with the hashtag "#greatestalbumsofalltime." I was bored and looking to kill time, so I followed up with a couple of my own, both of which happened to start with "She said..."
And I said to myself, "Ooh! There's an idea for a themed guess-the-lyrics blog post." Thus, this.
The following list is a set of phrases that immediately follow "She said..." (or "she says") in a pop song (or, in two cases, have "she…
drorzel | June 22, 2012In which we review yet another good year of blogging, including the establishment of some ongoing series. And also a useful reality check.
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This great blog re-read project has been useful for a couple of reasons. First, it's reminded me that there have been long stretches of time when I produced a lot of good stuff for the blog. When I initially considered this, I was a little afraid that the whole thing would be depressing, and I wouldn't have anything good to point to. If anything, though, I've had the opposite problem-- cutting things down to a manageable length (assuming these…
drorzel | June 21, 2012In which celebrity culture comes to particle physics.
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It's been about six months since we had a big flurry of Higgs Boson stories, and as enjoyable as the relative quiet has been, it means we're due for another run. And, predictably enough, the usual suspects are stoking speculation about what, exactly, will be officially revealed in a few weeks at the summer particle physics meetings. This spilled over into the rest of the social media universe, with the joke hashtag #HiggsRumors becoming a trending topic on Twitter for a little while last night.
As is also sadly predictable,…