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Yet Another Distraction

Following in the footsteps of John Scalzi, I have been chosen to contribute to the Detroit News Weblog for the next month. I will be posting there on a daily or near-daily basis, just brief entries about the political campaign and politics in general. Feel free to drop by and tell me I'm full of it, or read some of the other folks they have blogging there. Yes, it's yet another thing to distract me from posting here, but I'll try and keep all of the balls in the air at once.

He should study Sun Tzu

How do you know Egnor is crazy as a loon? For one thing (among many), he lashes out at both Orac and me. Triggering a response from one wordy skeptical woo-woo-basher should be enough for any semi-sane kook, but his last little screed tried to trawl both of us up in the flimsy net of his delusions. I already swiped back, but now Orac rips him and Pat Sullivan apart. Dumb move. He really should just try us one at a time — his struggles last a little longer that way.

Great Ideas in World Cuisine

Two 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....

Sky, Full of Stars

If you're on the west coast tonight and are willing to stay up late or wake up early, you have the chance to see the Aurigid meteor shower. This shower is fairly unique because it arises from a comet with a period of around 900 years. Some people have even claimed that there's a chance this could be spectacular, but these predictions are often wrong. After the disappointing Perseids, I'd love to be able to stay up for this one, but I'm still on the east coast. Ah well. Maybe some other shower.

Ask a String Theorist: Update

Thanx to everyone for all the interesting questions in the previous thread. I apologize for not being able to answer every one of them. I just arrived at a workshop on Long Island, and I'm also feeling a bit under the weather. From what I've seen so far, I think I will do a post on what is perturbative string theory and what does it have to do with spacetime and gravity (maybe it will even lead into a post on what is background independence). Feel free to use this thread for more questions if you like.

Spiegel gets into the act, too

That movie Expelled is acquiring an international reputation: Spiegel reports on Unfreiwillige Kreationisten-PR: Forscher fühlen sich von Filmemachern missbraucht (if you'd rather, here's the google translation). By the time the film opens, what it will be best known for is that they had to lie to get their interviews. (They quote me. They get my name wrong. Oh, well, it's part of my grand plan: from now on, every scientist with a weird name you've never heard of before? Just assume it's me. I shall be ubiquitously mysterious.)

Bicycling Report (Lame Edition)

Saturday was a miserable cold and rainy day, and today wasn't a whole lot better. I took advantage of a brief spot of sun in the afternoon to get a short ride in, but it was awfully windy with dark clouds on the horizon, so I just rode around on local streets, so as not to end up five miles from home in a thunderstorm. Total Distance: 5.39 miles Average Speed: 13.4 mph Maximum Speed: 27.56 Year-to-date totals: Total Distance: 86.5 miles Maximum Speed: 32.0 mph Better luck next weekend, I guess...

Clifford Johnson Tribute Post

Here's a picture of some pretty flowers: These are from the ornatmental cherry tree in our front yard. Like all the other similar trees in the neighborhood, it's absolutely exploded over the past week. Also, I rode my bike a bunch this weekend: Saturday, I rode down to Lock 8, stopping for a few minutes to talk to another faculty member who was out with a group of students and community volunteers cleaning up one of the preserved locks of the original Erie Canal. Total Distance: 17.41 Average Speed: 14.53 Maximum Speed: 24.62 Sunday, I went in the other direction on the bike path, and a…

Bipolar Basketball

Not a lot of love for the ACC Preview post from earlier this week, and I got buried in work, so I didn't get a chance to write up the Big East and A-10 previews. I'll try to do at least one this weekend, but until then, the three basketball fans among my readers may or may not be happy to know that Jeremy Gold is back with his entertainingly bipolar look at Maryland basketball. His unique take on the roster is up now, and I'm sure there's more to come.

RateMyPreprints.com

Back when I first mentioned the idea, people were kind of down on the idea of SciRate.com, Dave Bacon's project to make a collaborative filter for the arxiv.org prerprint server. Not one to be easily discouraged, Dave has continued to work on it, and it now features papers from all the different arxiv categories, instead of just quant-ph. If you've been sitting around thinking "Gee, I wish there were a Digg for hep-th, well, today's you're lucky day. If you haven't, well, umm... Look over there! Shiny thing!

Requiescat in Pace

SDL 5401-G1, October 2001- February 6, 2007 SDL 5401-G1 ("Sid" to friends) died today of static shock, after five years of service in a grating-locked diode laser system. He had survived three lab floods, and more than a dozen power outages, but succombed to electric shock following a mishap with a Tesla coil. He is survived by three siblings from the same batch, one of whom has already taken his place in the grating-locked laser mount. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you send research grants. Sic transit gloria laseri.

The New York Times Steals Our Ideas?

An article came through my RSS feeds yesterday that looked for all the world like the New York Times was copying our Basic Concepts idea. Labelled as "Basics," it promised to provide a general discussion of the concept of time. "You bastards!" I thought. The actual article by Natalie Angier isn't all that similar to what you'll get from Basic Concepts posts on ScienceBlogs, taking much more of a humanities-major kind of approach, and giving a wide and fluffy survey of different concepts of time. It's still an interesting read, though.

links for 2008-10-29

The Frontal Cortex : Dangerous Models Why investment bankers are like cod fishermen (tags: economics social-science science environment animals blogs computing theory) Fear and Humiliation as Legitimate Teaching Methods :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, Views and Jobs Teaching lessons from World of Warcraft. Seriously. (tags: academia education games internet psychology social-science) Eight Ways To Survive The Next Eight Days Without Losing Your Frigging Mind - 236.com - News "Force Yourself To Engage In One Non-Election Related Activity Every Day" (tags:…

links for 2008-10-20

Michael Nielsen » The most remarkable graph in the history of sport "It may not be obvious at first glance, but it's a remarkable graph, even if you don't give a fig about cricket" (tags: sports statistics) The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.: On Being Skipped Notes from the sausage factory. (tags: books publishing blogs SF) nanoscale views: Faculty searches, 2008 version "[I]t never hurts to present this topic again at this time of the year." (tags: academia jobs science) On Who is American « Whatever Yes. (tags: US politics race religion society culture diversity)

David Foster Wallace, RIP

One of my favorite writers, David Foster Wallace, apparently hung himself yesterday. His thousand-page novel Infinite Jest puts the magnum in magnum opus, but it's a spectacular piece of work, and in some ways, his nonfiction was better than his fiction. Wallace was always a dangerous writer for me-- one of those people whose style I would end up unconsciously imitating whenever I read something new. He'd come out with a new collection, and I'd spend a week deleting footnotes from my emails and blog posts. I'm shocked and saddened to learn of his death, particularly in this manner.

Tell Me a Story

Via Alex, WNYC's Radiolab podcast features a wonderful commencement address by Robert Krulwich to the Caltech class of 2008, making the case for the importance of telling stories about science to the general public. This fits in wonderfully with what I said last week about science popularization. He comes at it from a different angle (and make an explicit connection to the evolution/ creationism debate, which I was avoiding), but it's the same basic argument. And, as a bonus, he has a good NPR voice, suitable for helping get a slightly fussy infant to go to sleep...

What Do You Think?

As you may or may not have seen from the banner ads on the site (depending on whether you read via RSS or not), ScienceBlogs is running a Reader Survey at the moment. Here's your chance to tell the Corporate Masters that they really need to sign up some more physics blogs. Or, you know, whatever else you think about the site. It shouldn't take long, and they're giving away Apple stuff, so if you're bored and missing Scrabulous, take a few minutes to fill out the survey.

What's Opera, Doc?

Over at Musical Perceptions, Scott has something that seems like a "meme": go to the Metropolitan Opera archives and see what they were playing on the day you were born (keyword search with your birth date written out). For me, the answer was "Concert Cavalleria Rusticana {471}." You know, this would probably be more fun if I knew something about opera... (It appears to be a concert performance of a handful of pieces from other opera, held in the Botanical Garden. None of the names mean anything at all to me, though.)

Pow!

In the same basic spirit as yesterday's knit cephalopod picture, here's a sign from Takayama that we really liked: I'm not sure exactly why the octopus has punched the fish to the moon, Ralph Kramden style, but Kate and I got a kick out of it. I'm also not sure what it says-- something to do with octopus (the first two characters of the top like are "ta ko" which is "octopus" in Japanese), and the first character of the third line generally means "big," but beyond that it's a mystery to me.

Nice Work, Baltimore

Way to screw it up for everybody. The Jets held up their end of things, but you blew it. (Actually, if somebody had to lose to the hapless Dolphins, it couldn't've happened to a better team. Well, OK, the Cowboys, but I really do hate the Ravens, whose defense is the absolute pinnacle of the strutting, dancing, chest-pounding horseshit that infects the NFL (and most pro sports) these days. (Shut up and play football, already. If I want to see chest-thumping and bellowing, I can get a Tarzan movie from Netflix.)

Thursday Thbbppt Blogging

I meant to take a picture of SteelyKid yesterday, before she left for Grammy's, so we would have a Toddler Blogging shot for the week. Alas, I am a dope, so you will have to make do with this out-take from last week's shots, in which SteelyKid shares her opinion of her father's dodgy memory: She's down in Boston at the moment, where we'll be heading tomorrow for her second birthday on Saturday. At last report, she was having so much fun, she didn't want to sleep, so, you know, whee!

Thursday Baby Blogging 042910

SteelyKid has a cold, again, so she's kind of unhappy tonight. There's a picture of a slightly bleary SteelyKid with Appa below the fold, but that's kind of a downer, so here's some video from the other night, showing her new favorite game: (She'll do this for hours. Well, ten minutes, at least, but it feels like hours when you're the one being ordered around and jumped on...) Here's the Appa picture, for completeness: Mommy and the Red Dog make things a little more bearable, but she hasn't been a happy camper today.

Thursday Substitute Baby Blogging 031810

Kate here, with some outdoor baby blogging: I'd meant for this to be a comparison photo to this one from August. Unfortunately it's got neither Chad nor Appa for scale, and she's slouching, which diminishes the OMG HUGE effect—but not the killer cute. One more outdoor picture and one indoor picture below the fold: Here we have a somewhat crooked image of her joy at having her picture taken: And here we have a Kate's-eye view of a very common sight here at Chateau Steelypips: Yes, she's the cutest toddler in the universe, thank you for noticing.

ABCNews.com: Climate Science Skepticism: 5 Controversial Claims

Last week I was interviewed by Ki Mae Heussner for an article on ACBNews.com. That article can be viewed here. Anyone coming here from there via the "How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic" link, it was incomplete, click here. I think that in the broader scheme of "science says sky is blue, Republicans disagree" journalistic balance, the article does well enough. It is a big topic to cover well as a one off assignment, which this may have been. I did not find any previous work of Ki Mae's in this area.

"On vacation" open thread, play nice!

So I will be in Fiji for a one week stop over on my way home from Tasmania to Vancouver and I do not expect to have much internet access and/or time. I think I will schedule a few "Climate Crock" posts for edumusement but otherwise no one will be minding the store here. (that unfortunately includes this Monday's "Another week of GW news" which will have to go up asap the week after next.) So feel free to raise any topics for discussion here but try to play fair (that goes double for all you Turkish spampots out there!).

Open thread

As per a request from comments here is an open thread for whatever might be on your minds. The request came when once again touching on the issue of 21st century temperatures. I have tried once, twice, three times in posts and so many others times in comments but this argument will likely not die until we get the next record breaking high. GISS thinks this will likely come in the next year or two if the El Nino they predict comes. Here is an opportunity for other approaches on this, or any other issue...

'Nanoball' batteries could recharge car in minutes - New Scientist

If you're in the same boat as I am (ie, you have a job and/or a life) you probably never get a chance to read every last article linked to in the latest "Another Week of GW news" posting (or even 1 in 100!) So I just wanted to point to the set of stories about "spin batteries" or nanoball-batteries (scroll down a couple of pages from this page anchor), an example of which is here at New Scientist. Cell phones recharging in 10 seconds and electric car batteries in 5 minutes, sounds promising!

Iron fertilization: Too good to be true?

I am a bit slow off the mark with this posting from Nature's Climate Feedback blog, but last month they put up a little news about iron fertilization of oceans as a geoengineering technique for removal of atmospheric CO2. Have a read, but in a nutshell: that Indo-German experiment is going forward in the Southern Ocean and recent studies of naturally occurring blooms are not cause to celebrate, as actual sequestration into deep water is not very high. As with this story, humanity needs to keep the cork in the champagne bottle for at least a little while longer...

Classic News: The Ivy League Nude Posture Photo Scandal

One fall afternoon ... I was summoned to... a windowless room on an upper floor, where men dressed in crisp white garments instructed me to remove all of my clothes. ... four-inch metal pins were affixed... to my vertebrae at regular intervals from my neck down. I was positioned against a wall; a floodlight illuminated my pin-spiked profile and a camera captured it. ... I'd been told that this "posture photo" was ... routine... Those whose pins described ... erratic postural curve were required to attend remedial posture classes. 1995 New York Times by Ron Rosenbaum.

Texans up to no good

... as usual ... a legislator in Texas has introduced a bill to require open document formats in all state government business. The bill is carefully worded such that only ODF could pass its test as "open." The story is covered by the Fort Worth Star Telegram, which is careful to be even-handed, giving Microsoft's spokesman equal time. A ZDNet blogger notes that the bill, introduced by a Democrat in a state whose politics is dominated by Republicans, faces chances that "...fall somewhere east of slim and west of none." from /.

Godlessness bustin' out all over

Scienceblogs are a hotbed of irreligiosity today. Besides my usual, expected, reflexive contumely (illegal in at least one state!), Aardvarchaeology is hosting the 59th Carnival of the Godless, and Revere rips into CNN's anti-atheist bias. Sample stupid quote: Listen, we are a Christian nation. I'm not a Christian. I'm Jewish, but I recognize we're a Christian country and freedom of religion doesn't mean freedom from religion. Got that? We are not free to be atheists if we choose, according to Constitutional scholar and moderate voice of reason Debbie Schlussel.

Microsoft CFO = Snidely Whiplash

"The large print giveth, the small print taketh away. Microsoft, which recently laid off 1400 employees, is now claiming that some of those lucky schmoes were inadvertently overpaid on their severance package. A letter from the company, which was subsequently circulated on the internet, states: 'We ask that you repay the overpayment and sincerely apologize for any inconvenience to you.' Microsoft has confirmed the authenticity of the letter, but it's not known what the amounts in question are, or how many of the 1400 were affected." slashdot (This is snidely whiplash, in case you didn't know…

Chimps in captivity are a problem.

The incident just reported an hour or so ago is unusual, but not unexpected or unheard of. A 200-pound chimpanzee kept as a pet and once used in commercials was shot and killed by police Monday after it mauled a woman visiting its owner and later cornered an officer in his cruiser, authorities said. Stamford police Lt. Richard Conklin said the injured woman was hospitalized late Monday in "very serious" condition at Stamford Hospital; her identity was not immediately released. Conklin said she suffered "a tremendous loss of blood" from serious facial injuries. source

Microsoft = Evil

From slashdot: "Microsoft is advertising for a new director of open source strategy, but this one has a specific purpose: fight the Linux desktop. 'The Windows Competitive Strategy team is looking for a strong team member to lead Microsoft's global desktop competitive strategy as it relates to open source competitors.' For a variety of reasons, this move is almost certainly targeted at Ubuntu Linux's desktop success. With the Mac, not Linux, apparently eating into Microsoft's Windows market share, what is it about desktop Linux, and specifically Ubuntu, that has Microsoft spooked?" figures.…

Call For Submissions: Best Anthropology Blogging 2008

From Neuranthropology: We've decided to host something that has not been done before - the first yearly edition of The Best of Anthropology Blogging. An increasing number of anthropologists are blogging about their work and their ideas, sharing how anthropology in all its forms is relevant to the wider world. We are going to bring that together into one great "Best of" package. It is time to show off what we do! And then get some press for it!! Here are our submission guidelines.... ... and, for the details, go HERE.

Supreme Court Overturns Bush v. Gore

WASHINGTON--In an unexpected judicial turnaround, the Supreme Court this week reversed its 2000 ruling in the landmark case of Bush v. Gore, stripping George W. Bush of his earlier political victory, and declaring Albert Arnold Gore the 43rd president of the United States of America. The court, which called its original decision to halt manual recounts in Florida "a ruling made in haste," voted unanimously on Wednesday in favor of the 2000 Democratic nominee. Gore will serve as commander in chief from Dec. 10 to Jan. 20. Read the rest here.

Mark Ritchie on the Recount

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie discusses the Recount of the 2008 Senate Race in Minnesota between Norm Coleman and Al Franken. These remarks are part of a forum held on "The Minnesota Tradition of Fair Elections" hosted by the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the Hubert H Humphrey Center, UMN. I find it interesting that he grew up with an electron microscope in his house. What's that all about? Lifted from the Facebook Account of my friend, who really exists despite rumors to the contrary, Ana Blogless.

The softer side of the war on christmas

Season's greetings from the secular side by August Berkshire Minnesota Atheists 'Tis the season. With winter coming, some members of the religious right have begun bracing themselves for the so-called annual atheists' "war on Christmas." While we think that the government and public schools should remain neutral when it comes to religious celebrations, we have no interest in depriving anyone of whatever private celebrations they wish to conduct. Nevertheless, in case you were wondering, here are the plans some of us have for December.... Read the rest here.

Man Cuddles Panda, Panda Mauls Man

A man has been attacked by a panda at a park in southern China, after he climbed into its enclosure hoping to cuddle the creature. The 20-year-old student had ignored warning signs and scaled a two-metre (6.5ft) barrier to get into the pen. State media say the panda bit him on his arms and legs, and he had to be rescued by the animal's keepers. Speaking from his hospital bed, the injured man said the panda had looked so cute he had just wanted to hug it. bbc

Protecting mountain gorillas

In July 2007, armed men entered the Democratic Republic of Congo's Virunga National Park and killed five critically endangered mountain gorillas at point-blank range, leaving the bodies where they fell. Since September 2007, rebel forces have controlled the area, threatening to kill any conservationists or gorilla rangers who attempted to enter the area. Recently, the rangers and their families had to flee from their homes and live in makeshift camps as the latest outbreak of violence engulfed the eastern part of the country. ... Read the rest here.

South Park, Coin Toss, Fast Food

By the way: You know that at the moment, the current vote count (with nearly three million votes cast) in the Coleman - Franken Senate race in Minnesota is just over 200 votes and fluctuating. This raises the possibility of a perfect tie. Minnesota law stipulates that at tie be settled by lot. That could be a coin toss, or it could be by drawing straws, etc. Were that to happen, what kind of stupid crap would come from Coleman ... What 9 year old rule changing or sophomoric complaining would we have to endure????

Terrorizing Dissent

Glass Bead Collective, Twin Cities Indymedia, and other independent media activists have released a new film, 'Terrorizing Dissent', an exposé of events at the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. Featuring first-person accounts and footage from more than forty cameras on the streets, 'Terrorizing Dissent' focuses on the story of dissent suppressed. People charged with "conspiracy to riot in furtherance of terrorism" speak out against the government's campaign to manipulate media coverage and label civil disobedience and community organizing as terrorism. You can see…

Bees can count to four

Previously, we thought they were sahing "bzzzzzz..zzzzz bzzzzzzzz" and stuff like that.... Researchers in Australia have discovered that honey bees have the ability to count -- at least to the number four. A scientist from the University of Queensland put five markers inside a tunnel and placed nectar in one of them, Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio reported. Honey bees placed in the tunnel flew to the marker with the food, and would still fly to the same marker stripe when the food was removed. source I have only this to say about the intelligence of bees.

What Orac said

Scienceblogs are being reviewed by Some Guy, and Orac criticizes the critic. My disagreement with the clueless critic comes from a fundamental flaw in his approach: he's basically coming along and announcing that Blog X should be about Y, and if it isn't Y-ish enough for his taste, he pans it. He, apparently, is the Content Dictator of the Blogosphere. One thing everybody needs to understand about blogs is that they aren't about what you think they're about. Good blogs are about the author, not your perception of what the subject should be.

Baby Penguins Adrift

More than 400 baby penguins have been found dead on beaches in Brazil, hundreds of miles from their native habitats. It is not uncommon to find the occasional penguin (dead or not) wahsed by currents far to the north of where they normally live, the number of penguins being found now is unprecedented. Why is this happening? According to Thiago Muniz, a veterinarian at the Niteroi Zoo, this could be due to overfishing forcing the penguins to forage father asea than normal, where they encounter strong currents. Details here.

Video from Anti-Silly-Sally Rally!

Via DAM10N, video from Kerns 'morality proclamation' that is both nauseating and inspiring :) So, Im starting the betting pool: What is Sally Kern/her psycho hubby going to be outed with? Oxycontin? Boinking babies? Maybe theyre illegal immigrants! Normal people dont behave like Sally. Normal people arent obsessed over these things. Its just a matter of time before we find out the root cause of Sallys abnormal behavior, and you know its gonna be good. *evil grin* *giddy laugh* I can hardly wait!! EDITED TO ADD: Local news coverage, also via DAM10N.

I wonder if the FSM is Danish?

I am put to shame—the flying spaghetti monster gets far more entertaining hate mail than I do. I learned this from an account in USA Today about the FSM, which also has this beautiful jewel of a quote: "It's too bad that they'll get attention for this sort of drivel when we have a robust scientific research program that the media doesn't seem to want to write much about," Discovery Institute spokesman Robert Crowther said in an e-mail interview. A "robust scientific research program"? Hee hee…I had no idea they had such comedians at the DI.

Uncertain Dots, Episode 11

We took a week off last week because Rhett was away on a Secret Mission, but we're back and better than ever this week. More uncertain! More dotty! Or something! Topics for this week include oblique references to Rhett's mission, some discussion of the Geocentric Janeway debacle, good and bad places to have a conference, why you shouldn't eat conference center food, why more physicists aren't on Twitter, and blogger gatherings. Here's a link to the Stealth Creationists and Illinois Nazis story I alluded to. It's from 2007, after the blogging dinosaurs but before the blogging armored sloths.

You mean I-35 doesn't dispense magical cures?

Remember that bizarre video from Pat Robertson that claimed I-35 was a holy highway? One element featured there was a cheerful (ex-?)gay man who claimed to have been "cured" in one of the Purity Sieges the Christians put on. It turns out that the story wasn't quite as beautiful as it was portrayed. The fellow was bipolar, was deprived of his medicine, put through a hellish harrowing instead of treatment, and was eventually kicked out of the "gay cure" program as a failure. The poor guy was simply manipulated for propaganda purposes by these Christianist fanatics.

The First Steps Are a Doozy

These aren't really SteelyKid's first steps, just the first ones I got on video: She routinely goes farther than that, more confidently than that, but the big lunge at the end is awfully cute. It's hard to get her really good walks on video, because she always seems to be on the verge of disaster, either by falling and hitting herself, or by walking toward the dog while she's chewing a bone, or heading some other place where she shouldn't be.... From what I understand, the terrifying phase should only last another twenty years or so.