drorzel | April 19, 2011The New York Times had another article on the environmental impacts of shale gas drilling, which reminded me that I had intended to write something else on the subject after February's post on the fracking panel at AAAS, but never got around to it. The hook for the article is yet another study showing that the environmental questions are more complicated than just the question of how much CO2 is released in burning gas vs oil or coal, with loss and leakage during the drilling process potentially producing a lot of greenhouse gases.
This is, of course, a single study, and includes the…
drorzel | April 19, 2011
Keeping the Keys to the Kingdom « Easily Distracted
"I'm very much with my colleagues in their call for a renewal of practical wisdom. But in their view-and mine-one of the consequences of such a turn would be that we'd stop trying to make systems, rules and structures do to us, for us, with us, what we ought to do for ourselves. That's my concern with the call that Price makes, that a reminder to be a more decent human being easily curdles into an institutional imperative to do so, and from there into a set of rules, strictures and requirements that are tasked with taking away our…
drorzel | April 18, 2011 It's been a while since I wrote up a ResearchBlogging post, but since a recent paper forced me to update my "What Every Dog Should Know About Quantum Physics" slides with new pictures, I thought I should highlight the work on the blog as well. Not that you could've missed it, if you follow physics-y news-- it's been all over, getting almost as much press as rumors that some people whose funding will run out soon saw something intriguing in their data. So, in the usual Q&A format:
OK, what's this about? Well, the paper title, "Quantum interference of large organic molecules" pretty well…
drorzel | April 18, 2011
TV staffing: uniquely awful, but survivable | johnaugust.com
"Here is what it means to be a TV writer: You are paid to work in conditions that vastly accelerate the degradation of your body while brainstorming fantasy lives for the select group of your co-workers who work in conditions designed to make their already-exceptional bodies look better than yours ever did or will.
It's a psychologically fraught occupation for this and other reasons. But mostly this one."
(tags: culture television writing business blogs)
Lance Mannion: Onward Christian soldiers, at 24 frames per second
"The main…
drorzel | April 17, 2011A very silly musical poll question, brought to you by the local classic rock station's music selection this morning:
Which of these makes more sense:online surveys
On an unrelated note, it's deeply unfair that sleeping really late puts SteelyKid into a worse mood than not getting enough sleep does.
drorzel | April 16, 2011
By Ken Levine: How to create a hit network drama
"Fame and riches can be yours! Procedural/action dramas are in and you too can create one if you just follow these very simple steps:
Always start with a couple. He must be boyishly handsome and she must be smoking hot. You can go "mature" but then one has to be an established television star, and the other has to be a J. Crew model. In rare cases you can go "both mature" (CSI: NEW YORK) but then one has to be a former movie star and the other has to be an established television star who's had a lot of work done. A LOT of work done.
In the…
drorzel | April 15, 2011Regular blogging has been interrupted this week not only because I jetted off to southern MD but because this week was the due date for the manuscript of the book-in-progress. It's now been sent off to my editor, and thus begins my favorite part of the process, the waiting-to-see-what-other-people-think part.
I'm pretty happy with it, though it's a bit longer than it was originally supposed to be. This is no doubt partly due to the fact that I'm too close to the thing at the moment, and can't see the obvious places where I could cut material, but that's why professional editors get the big…
drorzel | April 14, 2011SteelyKid has been sick this week, which made it a perfect time for me to fly down to Maryland for a couple of days. Fortunately, she and Kate have both forgiven me. I did break out the new friend I purchased for SteelyKid a couple of weeks ago, and have been holding in reserve:
The fuzzy blue fellow is a plush Eeyore, who was a big hit. We read the story from The House at Pooh Corner where Pooh and Piglet build Eeyore a house at bedtime tonight, and when Eeyore made his first appearance, she had the stuffed Eeyore kiss his picture in the book.
"They haven't got Brains, any of them, just…
drorzel | April 13, 2011
The Defenders - NYTimes.com
"One of those on the ramparts peering out into the night was a blue-eyed, dark-haired young Irishman named John Thompson, a private, who left what may be the only surviving description of the battle by a rank-and-file soldier: a long letter that he sent two weeks later to his father back in County Derry, Ireland. Even though he planned to return home to the old country as soon as his enlistment expired in a few months' time, Thompson felt a surge of pride as "we hoisted our colors the glorious 'Star Spangled Banner' and quietly awaited the enemies fire."
As an…
drorzel | April 12, 2011I'm in last-minute-revision mode here, made mroe frantic by the fact that SteelyKid developed a fever yesterday, and had to be kept home from day care. I did want to pop in to note that I will be giving the Natural Science and Mathematics Colloquium at St. Mary's College in Maryland tomorrow, Wednesday the 13th. This will be the "What Every Dog Should Know About Quantum Physics" talk, described for the colloquium announcement as:
Quantum physics, the science of extremely small things like atoms and subatomic particles, is one of the best tested theories in the history of science, and also one…
drorzel | April 12, 2011
Making Light: *Spoilers* Sucker Punch *Spoilers*
"Imagine The Matrix as written by M. Night Shyamalan, casting no one you've ever heard of, and shot as soft-core porn. That's Sucker Punch."
(tags: movies culture review blogs making-light)
WTF: Journal publishes ESP B-u-n-k |
"The article ends, as these things often do, with a discussion section. This section, as all articles on psi phenomena must, mentions quantum mechanics.
'Those who follow contemporary developments in modern physics, however, will be aware that several features of quantum phenomena are themselves incompatible with our…
drorzel | April 11, 2011
Cocktail Party Physics: so you want to be a science consultant
Step Zero: Live in Los Angeles.
(tags: science education outreach media television movies blogs cocktail-party books communication)
drorzel | April 10, 2011Once upon a time, there was a beautiful young girl from a family of modest means, who received a spiffy new jacket as a gift. It was bright red, and had a big warm hood that she could pull up over her head when she didn't feel like combing her hair. She was so pleased with this jacket that she wore it around all the time, even in the summer, and because of this, everybody called her "Red Hood," even her teachers.
One day, she decided to go visit her grandmother, who lived on the other side of the deep dark woods. Her mother said, "As long as you're going to Grandma's house, take her this…
drorzel | April 10, 2011
"Tie this to your lanyard, Billy Collins"
"My brother Aryaman (the talented one) writes: "A colleague of mine who is interested in pursuing science education after her PhD was directed to a collection of (I think apocryphal) answers to science questions from 5th and 6th graders in Japan. I noticed many of them were almost little haikus. So I took the time to work some into form...""
(tags: science education world japan poetry blogs culture silly shalizi)
You can't be a fan of SF and lament the rise of ebooks - The Word - According To Me | The Word
"It happens so often, people that are…
drorzel | April 9, 2011Over in LiveJournal land, nwhyte just finished reading all the Hugo-winning novels, and provides a list of them with links to reviews or at least short comments. He also gives a summary list of his take on the best and worst books of the lot.
The obvious thing to do with such a list, particularly in LiveJournal land, is to take the list and mark which ones you've read, and so on. In th interest of a little variety, though, let me suggest an alternate game: the academic parlor game "Humilation," invented by David Lodge, in which literary academics admit to not reading various classic works,…
drorzel | April 9, 2011
Confessions of a Community College Dean: Remedial Levels
"[T]he CCRC found that the single strongest predictor of student success that's actually under the college's control -- so I'm ignoring gender and income of student, since we take all comers -- is length of sequence. The shorter the sequence, the better they do. The worst thing you can do, from a student success perspective, is to address perceived student deficits by adding more layers of remediation. If anything, you need to prune levels. Each new level provides a new 'exit point' -- the goal should be to minimize the exit points…
drorzel | April 8, 2011It's college admissions season, which means a steady influx of high-school seniors thinking about coming here next year, making campus visits. Most of these students sit in on at least one class, to get an idea of what it's like. Which occasionally leads to odd things, but nothing stranger than what just happened: a prospective student just sat in on my junior/senior level elective class on quantum mechanics in the state-vector formalism. I suspect he didn't get a whole lot out of today's lecture, on changing state vectors and operators from one basis to another. In fact, I suspect this might…
drorzel | April 8, 2011
How Much is a Dragon Worth? - Michael Noer - Backslash - Forbes
"To silence the skepticism and to give fans of the list some idea of just how deep the rabbit hole goes, I've decided to flash a little bit of imaginary ankle and walk through a typical Fictional 15 investigation, in this case of Smaug, the fire-breathing dragon from J.R.R. Tolkein's novel The Hobbit and the forthcoming Warner Bros. movies.
Certainly Smaug is depicted as being very rich in the novel. At one point, Bilbo Baggins, the book's hero, addresses him as "O Smaug, unassessably wealthy" and his gold is described as…
drorzel | April 7, 2011A shot from this morning, before SteelyKid had gotten dressed:
Why is she balanced precariously on the arm of that chair, you ask? So she could do this, of course:
This was the exciting game of the morning: climbing up on the arm of the recliner, then doing a dramatic drop back to the seat. Over, and over, and over, with much giggling.
Hey, you might've done the same, if given an armchair of the appropriate scale. SteelyKid sure made it look like fun...
drorzel | April 7, 2011A few weeks ago, I gave a talk based on How to Teach Physics to Your Dog for the University of Toledo's Saturday Morning Science program. At that time, their local PBS affiliate recorded the talk, for use on their very nice streaming video site, Knowledgestream.org. My talk is now up, and the video is hopefully embedded below:
I haven't listened to the entire thing, but I watched the first 10-15 minutes, and it's pretty good. the sound is coming from a microphone on my shirt, so you can't really hear any of the audience reaction (I got some good laughs in appropriate places), and in places…