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I am not here

Hurtling1 down the road in my black Chevy2, I laugh maniacally3. "Time to kick creationist butt4," I say, "and test the mettle of the Cheeseheads.5" I'm heading off to the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point to minister to the heathen today, so my online presence may be limited. I've got a lecture to give in their Evolution Sunday series. Here's a copy of the PowerPoint file6, just so I have an online backup. I'm racing right back early Monday morning, though. I've got a hellish week or two of grading and exams and classes and more travel, and I've got to get an early start on it all.…

Explaining Science to the Public

Chris Brodie is teaching the 'Explaining Science to the Public' class at NC State University. His students come from English, science and engineering departments and he is teaching them how to write well and how to utilize all of the modern technologies for science communication. The students are now all on Twitter - yup, that's a class assignment - and you can follow their discussions if you search for the #esttp hashtag. I visited their class last month and discussed various new forms of online science communication with them. Almost all of them also came to hear a wonderful presentation…

Subway lines as cello strings; an atlas of loneliness

I get mail with wonderful links in it, but I'm hard pressed to find the time to post them, so my apologizes to those who've sent me things and not heard back. I'm beyond swamped. In the meantime, perhaps you'll enjoy these two nontraditional takes on "mapping." First up, map as music (or is it vice versa?): "Conductor" by Alexander Chen Conductor turns the New York subway system into an interactive string instrument. Using the MTA's actual subway schedule, the piece begins in realtime by spawning trains which departed in the last minute, then continues accelerating through a 24 hour loop.…

Some modest proposals for animal rights supporters looking to make their case without resorting to harassment, intimidation, or violence.

I take it that a good number of animal rights supporters feel that their position is philosophically well-grounded, intuitively appealing, and compatible with the flourishing of humans as well as of non-human animals. As such, I would argue that animal rights supporters can, and should, advance their position without resorting to tactics that depend on harassment, intimidation, or violence. (At least some animal rights supporters agree.) Especially since the hope is to win the hearts and minds of the larger public to the cause of animal rights, supporters of this position might want to hold…

Dark Energy in the 17th Century

I was shown this today, and it totally rocks. ADS archives have gone back, just a wee bit... The Smithsonian/NASA Astrophysics Data System, ADS, is one of the most amazingly useful and comprehensive scientific data bases on the planet. It covers all the major astronomical journals, including electronic or scanned images of essentially all the articles, as well as links to all the major online astronomical databases - including searchable and browsable images and links to published data by object. Now, if you go to ADS and enter just a data in the "Publication Date between" field - in the…

Darwin Quotes

I love fools experiments. I am always making them. - Charles R. Darwin Support The Beagle Project Read the Beagle Project Blog Buy the Beagle Project swag Prepare ahead for the Darwin Bicentennial Read Darwin for yourself. Happy Valentine's Day!

they all want what we got

but they don't know it yet feeling a bit bolshie today: freedom is just another word for nothing left to sell! how dare they buy our products and still they don't respect us! mood music for the afternoon

American politics explained

At last, you too can understand how our government works. Be sure to listen through to the end and catch the request for donations. Giving Weiner the money to buy explosives sounds like a total win to me.

Classes

From time to time my co-author on _A Nation of Farmers_ and I teach classes on practical topics about adapting to lower energy life, food storage and preservation, garden and farm design, etc... The classes are offered online and are asynchronous (ie, you don't have to be online at any particular time - we post stuff, then people respond as they are able, and then we respond as we are able...). We're offering two such classes in the next couple of months. First, Aaron and I are offering "Making Your Place" which helps people who are considering relocation, concerned they may have to…

The Schrödinger Sessions II: More Science for More Science Fiction

As you probably already know, last year we ran a workshop at the Joint Quantum Institute for science-fiction writers who would like to learn more about quantum physics. The workshop was a lot of fun from the speaker/oragnizer side, and very well received by last year's writers, so we're doing it again: The Schrödinger Sessions is a three-day workshop for science fiction writers offering a “crash course” in modern physics, to be held at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI), one of the world’s leading research centers for the study of quantum mechanics. We will introduce participants to…

Nature Goes Wiki

From the WSJ: Nature, one of the world's most prestigious scientific research journals, has embarked on an experiment of its own. In addition to having articles submitted for publication subjected to peer reviews by a handful of experts in the field, the 136-year-old journal is trying out a new system for authors who agree to participate: posting the paper online and inviting scientists in the field to submit comments praising -- or poking holes -- in it. Lay readers can see the submitted articles as well, but the site says postings are only for scientists in the discipline, who must list…

World's Largest One Stop Shopping for Free Online Courses!

OpenYale courses. Looking for free, open source learning materials about any subject, from top experts in the world? I used to think that MIT's OpenCourseWare and Yale's OpenYale courses were a "one stop shopping" source for this, until I came across this stunning, worldwide, multi-lingual collection of course materials. I invite you to explore this collection of free learning materials, including course syllabi, exams and study guides in a wide array of subjects, from the US, the UK, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, China...you get the idea. Many thanks to Junqiang Zhou…

Robert O'Brien Trophy Winner: Jill Stanek

I haven't given out a Robert O'Brien Trophy in a while, but here's someone who really deserves one: Jill Stanek. The award is given for this breathtakingly idiotic column at the Worldnutdaily where she actually claims that legalizing the purchase of Plan B emergency contraception over the counter will lead to more pedophilia. Seriously. She said that. I swear. The title to the column is: Babes in Thailand rapists needn't leave U.S. Exclusive: Jill Stanek predicts Plan B customers will be men bedding underage girls I'll give you a moment to pick your jaw up off the desk. Ready to continue?…

New watch, old watch, still the same

About a year ago I enthused about my new watch, a Garmin Forerunner 110. Since then it has become ever-more-vital, sustaining me through any number of runs. However about a month ago it started to mist up inside. I took the back off and it dried out, but then I had two wet outings, it misted up, I didn't get round to drying it out, and it has never been the same again. In fact it no longer works. Score -1 for Garmin. During the year I'd got rather annoyed by a couple of other flaws with it: it really won't act as a GPS-on-the-move, in particular it won't tell you its height; and the whole…

Where There's Smoke, There's Ribs

Chalk up another prediction for Lynn. I told her the other day that I saw a smoker that I really wanted and came *this* close to buying it, but didn't. The first thing she said was, "You'll buy it before long." Hey, I waited three days! This morning I got to thinking that since I won so much playing poker this week, it's almost like I'm not really buying it, the other players in my game are buying it for me as a gift, right? Okay, just humor me and say yes. So I went over and bought it this morning. Actually, I didn't buy the same smoker that I looked at the other day, I bought a different…

Links for 2010-10-26

Should Students buy an iPad or a Year's Supply of Pot Noodles? | blog@CACM | Communications of the ACM "Suppose you gave up washing clothes for a year, or relied on your mum to do it for you. According to the budgeting guide this would save £222, just about half of the iPad. You could go with dirty clothes for your first two years and buy an iPad for third year, I guess. How about food? The budget reckons £1295 for a year. Sheer extravagance! Two Pot Noodles a day would cost under half that at £547.50. Throw in some vitamin supplements at £1.69 and what more could you need? That saving…

Just In Case You Can...

...the deadline for the end of the Donors Choose fund drive is rapidly approaching. I'm bummed that it looks like TSZ will not reach 100% of its funding goal. That means some potential matching funds will go unclaimed. I realize many of you may have other favorite charities you support, so I thank you for considering Donors Choose. Wouldn't you like to donate to Experiments in Calculus? Help a teacher buy two calculator-based data collectors to let students learn calculus through experiments with distance, velocity, and acceleration. There's a teacher in Trenton who needs funds to buy…

Darwin Quotes

A man's friendships are one of the best measures of his worth. - Charles R. Darwin Support The Beagle Project Read the Beagle Project Blog Buy the Beagle Project swag Prepare ahead for the Darwin Bicentennial Read Darwin for yourself.

Various updates

Not everything gets posted on the blog (though people who follow me on Twitter, FriendFeed or Facebook may catch some of these blips), so here's a quick summary of the past few weeks: =========== Most important news first - there is a new kid on the block! Not exactly my block, but close enough - this is a small town! Welcome Oliver Anton Zuiker to the world! So, no surprise Anton's been busy lately - for all the good reasons. Congratulations, my friend! ============= These brief respites from what is usually deemed "work" do not stop us! We are - though in a slower, summer-style tempo -…

Darwin Quotes

The very essence of instinct is that it's followed independently of reason. - Charles R. Darwin Support The Beagle Project Read the Beagle Project Blog Buy the Beagle Project swag Prepare ahead for the Darwin Bicentennial Read Darwin for yourself.

Mississippi! You've been keeping secrets!

I was amused by this infographic about sex toys, especially by some of the data. Did you know that Mississippians buy more anal sex toys per capita than any other state? I always knew there was something squirmy about Trent Lott.

Stacy's Aard T-shirt Design

Here's the second t-shirt design suggestion, from Stacy Mason! Compare the first one from Jim Allen/Sweeney. And Barn Owl has volunteered to distribute the shirts! So unless a third design comes my way soon, I'll set up an on-line poll to decide which image goes onto the Aardvarchaeology t-shirts, and then place the order.

Unscientific America: Is the (new) media to blame?

In this post, I continue working through my thoughts in response to Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum's new book, Unscientific America. In this post, I focus on their discussion of the mainstream media and of the blogosphere. You might guess, given that I'm a member of the science blogosphere, that I have some pretty strong views about what blogs might accomplish in terms of helping the public engage with science. You would be correct. A fair portion of Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future (reviewed here) explores conditions of American life that make it…

Lightspeed Magazine: Sci Fi and Reality collide

There's a slick new online Sci Fi rag called Lightspeed. I like this one because they also publish nonfiction pieces that are relevant to their fiction stories. Ok I'm a bit biased because they asked me to write a nonfiction piece for them. In the same issue there was a story called Manumission by Tobias Buckell, which used intentionally created memory loss as a plot device for a story that is part noir, part Heinlein, and all funky fun. My piece loosely relates to the story, but explores a bit more of what memory loss means for an individual's perception of themselves. Do drop by and…

Bill & Daniel's Excellent Open Publishing Manifesto

A few weeks ago Bill Gasarch published his Journal Manifesto 2.0 on the Computational Complexity blog. Basically, his idea was to start a scholarly publishing revolution from the inside: Keep in mind: I am NOT talking to the NSF or to Journal publishes or to Conference organizers. I am NOT going to say what any of these people should do. I am talking to US, the authors of papers. If WE all follow this manifesto then the problems of high priced journals and limited access may partially go away on their own. To be briefer: To the extend that WE are the problem, WE can be the solution. It's a…

One Reason Why the Imminent Demise of Printed Books Is Ridiculous (and Scary): Libraries

There's been some recent discussion about what eBooks will mean for publishing (ScienceBlogling Chad Orzel has a good roundup). As it often is, my take on this is 'follow the money.' Maybe my reading habits are skewed*--or more accurately, my book acquisition habits are skewed--but about eighty percent of the books I read I check out from the library (it's lower for fiction, nearly 100 percent for non-fiction). I don't think most books, especially non-fiction, where it's really hard to judge from reviews if a book is any good, are worth the full hardcover price (or even a twenty to thirty…

Old MacDonald speaks to a geneticist

OLD MACDONALD: Do you want to buy some beef? GENETICIST: If the beef is not tainted with mad cow, then I would be very much interested in purchasing your beef. However, as there have been a few recent outbreaks of this disease in North America, I think I will abstain for now. OLD MACDONALD: What is mad cow? GENETICIST: Mad cow is a term that refers to something known as bovine spongiform encephalitis, a curious infectious agent that is neither a virus nor a bacterium. Despite this, it is still an infectious agent that can cause the brain of said infected cattle to turn into a sponge, which,…

The Friday Fermentable: Mass-produced winners

Readers of this near-weekly feature have been the beneficiaries over the last few weeks of the wisdom from my scientific and wine colleague, Erleichda. Now with the feature back in my hands, I am now realizing that one difficulty in keeping up is finding wines of value that are widely accessible to readers, geographically and financially. For example, I would love to share with you a glass of what I am enjoying currently this Friday evening: an indulgent glass of 2003 Thorpe Reserve Shiraz from the McLaren Vale of South Australia. Crafted by expert winemaker, Linda Domas, the best way I…

McCain's Healthcare 'Plan': Paying More for Healthcare Is a Feature, Not a Bug

Magic ponies: they're not just for Iraq, but healthcare too! (from here) Yesterday, I described how families would pay more under McCain's healthcare plan. But one point that I neglected to mention is that this is supposed to be a good thing. The logic (of a sort) is that if you end up paying more for treatment, then you will choose not to receive unnecessary treatment. Like heart surgery. Roger Hickey explains: ...McCain wants to tax workers' health care premiums that are paid for by employers. Ask any expert, conservative or liberal, and they will tell you the result will be…

More nuttiness from Indonesia on bird flu

Indonesian Health Minister, Siti Fadilah Supari, has reiterated her refusal to share isolates of H5N1 virus (it's unclear if this is her decision alone or is the considered decision of the Indonesian government). This came at the current inter-minsterial conference on bird flu on underway in Delhi (how many of these conferences are there, anyway? It seems like every week there's another one.) Her demand is that every isolate have a Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) requiring a statement each time the isolate is shared with another laboratory, stating it is only for diagnostic purposes and not…

On the Limits of Expert Credibility: Theory and an Application to Climate Change?

On the Limits of Expert Credibility:Theory and an Application to Climate Change (h/t FE) is an interesting paper. I'm not sure I believe it, but it is interesting (particularly so after reading Krugman on why people don't understand [[Comparative advantage]]; h/t Timmy). The "Conclusions" section is a bit odd. Having spent the paper trying to demonstrate that interested parties will try to buy off the messenger, i.e. the media, they then try to explain the media's non-accuracy by Morris's (2001) model of political correctness instead of their own results. I don't understand that. The abstract…

Why my mom didn't buy me a slot car track for Christmas in 1978, even though I told her that's what I wanted

[This article was originally posted in December, 2006] I'm not bitter about this, honest I'm not, but it does often seem that people who know you very well end up buying really lousy gifts. What I really want to find out is this: why do they do that? It turns out, market researchers want to know, too. How can they have a prayer of selling people things they don't want when people can't even convince their loved ones to buy them things they do want? Davy Lerouge and Luk Warlop have designed a clever study to examine this very issue. They wanted to know whether couples who've been together for…

Why my mom didn't buy me a slot car track for Christmas in 1978, even though I told her that's what I wanted

I'm not bitter about this, honest I'm not, but it does often seem that people who know you very well end up buying really lousy gifts. What I really want to find out is this: why do they do that? It turns out, market researchers want to know, too. How can they have a prayer of selling people things they don't want when people can't even convince their loved ones to buy them things they do want? Davy Lerouge and Luk Warlop have designed a clever study to examine this very issue. They wanted to know whether couples who've been together for at least six months were any better at predicting each…

Loss Aversion and Real Estate

The latest report on home sales is bleak: Sales of new homes fell in June for the seventh time in the past eight months, more proof that the worst housing slump in decades is getting deeper. The Commerce Department reported Friday that sales of new single-family homes dropped by 0.6 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 530,000 units following an even bigger 1.7 percent fall in May. The decline was slightly smaller than had been expected and sales were revised up a bit for May. Even with those changes, new home sales are down by a sharp 33.2 percent from a year ago. At…

Orkney Photographs On-line

After some culling and editing, I've put 74 snaps from my visit to Orkney on-line. Comments and questions are most welcome! [More blog entries about orkney, photography, Scotland; Orkney, Skottland, foto, fotografi.]

ScienceOnline'09 on Minnesota Atheist Radio

Science is moving onto the internet. Collection of data, collaboration between researchers, communication and critique of results, teaching and learning--all are increasingly being done online. ScienceOnline, held January 16 - 18 in 2009, is a conference dedicated to discussing the intersection of science and online technologies. Bora Zivkovic, one of the founders and organizers of ScienceOnline will join Atheists Talk Sunday, February 1, to talk about the purpose of the conference, the results of this year's sessions, and why it's important to meet your online colleagues in person. Produced…

Imagination fails me

You can buy communion wafers on Amazon, which is no surprise. Amazon will also tell you what other customers bought when they ordered their communion wafers. I…I…don't understand! I get a brainlock when I try to put these things together, I'm afraid.

Just like XO laptop, but made of canvas and leather

Have you ever heard of TOMS Shoes? Apparently, this has been going on for two years now. Blake Mycoskie is making these shoes and, whenever you buy a pair for yourself, he sends another pair to a poor child in the developing world.

Darwin Quotes

As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities. - Charles R. Darwin Support The Beagle Project Read the Beagle Project Blog Buy the Beagle Project swag Prepare ahead for the Darwin Bicentennial Read Darwin for yourself.

Warm Up The Virgins

Has anyone seen the cover of today's New York Post? Apparently, the NYPost was giving away today's issue on the streets because no one would buy it (and no, I am not posting the cover picture here; it's disgusting. Funny, but disgusting).

UC gets new VP for research

He could buy his own 1% share in Gemini! This, btw, confirms my belief that a secret cabal of astronomers will take over the University of California in its entirety in the near future. I, personally, will welcome their new starry overlords.

Now Available...

The electronic version of Among the Creationists is now available! Yay! Click here for the Kindle version. Click here for the Nook version. The print version will be available soon. Buy it, read it, and let me know what you think!

They Might Be Giants = Science is Real = Awesome!

This is up (I'm sure) everywhere, but I can't resist also showing it off, especially since I've played around with the science song genre myself. And you can buy the CD/DVD set for yourself (or your kids) at Amazon.

Pablo Neruda at Kings Place tomorrow

There's a reading at Kings place tomorrow. See here for details. You'll have to buy tickets. If you read Neruda, I don't have to tell you it will be worth the money. I hear there will be a screening of a reading by Neruda himself.

A Child's World

Conversation with my two year old daughter this morning. Daughter: [looks at a picture book involving tigers] Where is the mummy tiger, daddy? Me: It has gone for hunting, Nidhi. Daughter: No, daddy. It has gone to a shop to buy baby-corn.

Ken Lay Aspen Memorial and Obituary - part 2

Turns out that I was not the only one offended by the content of Ken Lay's biography and obituary: From the Letters to the Editor of this morning's Aspen Daily News: Editor: I just finished reading your paper's obituary of Kenneth Lay and was somewhat puzzled by the dichotomy between Kenneth Lay, convicted felon in one of the two biggest corporate scandals in American history, and your article. I understand not dwelling on the negative but this man was not a good Christian in any sense of the word. He destroyed many, many more lives than he ever enriched outside of his family. Kenneth Lay…

Fungus Amongus

Fun little stop-motion fungus vid this morning... which I can't get to run on here properly. While I'm at it, I might as well add a video from a couple weeks back that appeared on Carl Zimmer's blog, The Loom. Entitled "Fungus Cannon," it demonstrates new research by Nicholas Money, a mycologist from Miami University, that fungus achieve the fastest known flight times in nature. These spores are launched at up to 55 miles an hour-which translates to an acceleration of 180,000 g. For more details check out Zimmer's post or the published research in PLoS One. The video is set to Anvil Chorus…

A big day for Obamacare

Today is an exciting day in US healthcare history: For the first time, uninsured US residents can go online to shop for individual health insurance policies and feel confident of a few things: they can easily see information to make meaningful comparisons between plan options; they won’t be rejected or charged an astronomical rate based on their health history; and once they have a policy, they won’t be unpleasantly surprised by an omission of an essential benefit like hospital or maternity care. In addition, insurance shoppers with incomes between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level…

Harvesting MMORPG Time

Source. I had a dream last night of harvesting MMORPG time to save the planet. Let me explain. Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG) are deeply engaging millions of players, spending some 21 hours per week in a virtual world according to The Daedalus Project. The World of Warcraft alone has more than 12 million subscribers, part of an industry that exceeded revenues of $1 billion in 2008. Consider the scale of the time investment - 12 million players averaging 21 hours per week! MMORPG's allure is understandable. They offer an alternative experience in which one is…

HandBell Hero

tags: holidays, handbell hero, online game Ahhh, this online game brings back memories! When I was an undergrad in college, I was a member of the Handbell Choir .. So when a long-time reader of mine sent this online game, HandBell Hero, to me, I had a lot of fun playing with it and so I (of course) had to share it with you, too. How did you do? I didn't do very well. I can promise you that I was a better handbell choir member than I am a handbell player in this game!