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How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Now With More Quantum

If you're in the UK, you may very well be thinking "You know, I love the idea of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, but I find American idiom very intimidating. If only there were an edition just for people like me..." Well, hypothetical UK person, your prayers have been answered: This is the cover for How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog, coming this fall from Oneworld books to a bookshop on the high street near you. With "yard" changed to "garden," and other minor linguistic tweaks to make it more comprehensible in Merrie Olde England and other such places. Also, an index, which the…

How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Upcoming Events

Two noteworthy events related to How to Teach Physics to Your Dog in the next month: First, and most important, I'm going to be signing books at the Author's Alley portion of the World Science Festival Street Fair. The fair itself is in Washington Square Park in Manhattan, though the name of the signing program is a little misleading-- rather than being in an actual alley, the signings will be on the eighth floor of NYU's Kimmel Center, on the south side of the square. I'm signing at 1:30, and there are plenty of other books and presentations on offer, not to mention festive happenings…

Links for 2010-04-25

One-third of Americans may be obese, but we're not too fat to fight. - By Daniel Engber - Slate Magazine "Yet fat soldiers are sometimes given the boot for reasons that have nothing to do with their abilities in the field. According to military guidelines, even someone who's fit as a fiddle can be drummed out of camp for having the wrong body dimensions. Consider that a young man who's 6 feet tall must weigh less than 195 pounds, or have a body fat percentage below 26, in order to serve in the Army. [...] That's true even if he excels on the U.S. Army's Physical Fitness Test. [...] When it…

It's in the DNA

SteelyKid was playing with something on the floor behind my chair, so I started reading my newsfeeds. Kate was on the other side of the office, engrossed in her own computer-related program activities. After a moment or two, SteelyKid got up, and ran into the living room. Kate and I both finished what we were reading, then noticed a disturbing lack of baby noise. "Where did she go?" Kate asked. "I dunno," I replied, and we both got up from our computers and headed out of the office in opposite directions. We met in the kitchen, with no SteelyKid. Kate said, "Seriously, did she go upstairs?"…

Poll: What Do Students Need to Learn About Technical Writing?

I am currently on a committee looking to set some standards for technical writing in the introductory engineering sequence (which means the first two terms of physics, as they constitute 50-67% of the classes common to all first-year engineers). One of our jobs is to come up with a list of skills that we want to particularly emphasize in student writing in the first year. I've already sent this query to my colleagues, who are the votes that really matter, but this seems like a worthy subject for a blog poll. If nothing else, it will be interesting to see if my wise and worldly readers prefer…

Is our bloggers learnin'? - GMO Edition

As long as I am here, blogging among such a broad-based and scientifically minded crowd, it seems a shame to only focus on subjects I already know a little bit about. I have had in mind for a while starting a series of posts that focus on subjects a little off topic for our usual here and ask questions rather than explain or opine. Hopefully I can do a bit more learning this way. So, coincidentally on another thread, a topic of long standing personal interest and ignorance has come up: genetically modified organisms. I have intuitive misgivings about GM crops, only a very small part of…

How to talk to crakar - point 3

Crakar said: The 3300 Argo bathythermograph buoys deployed throughout the world's oceans since late in 2003 have shown a slight cooling of the oceans over the past five years, directly contrary to the official theory that any "global warming" not showing in the atmosphere would definitely show up in the first 400 fathoms of the world's oceans, where at least 80% of any surplus heat would be stored. Source: ARGO project, June 2009. I would like to rely on commenters to handle this one properly, I am aware of the talking point, have read rebuttals but have not researched it myself. Though the…

The inevitable has occurred

Hey, you know that $15 million lawsuit that was filed against me by Stuart Pivar? He's been getting hammered on the weblogs, the City Pages was preparing a story on it, the Seed lawyers were unflappable, and Peter Irons was constantly sending Pivar and his lawyer cutting dissections of their poor case. Peter was in contact with the City Pages reporter, who received a brief comment from Pivar earlier this evening. "My attorney withdrew the suit today." I wonder if the article is still going to be published…? I can't say that I was ever really worried — the man had no case — but it's nice to…

Observations on sexism in the skeptics movement

... by Skepchick by "carr2d2" ... touch on a wide range of topics that make TAM7 seem like a microcosm of the blogosphere, academia, and to some (limited) extent the broader society. "...a lot of men in the skeptical movement, well intentioned as they may be, have a tendency to look at women as though we are some sort of separate species; monolithic and mysterious..." Regarding commentary on women's dress at the conference by Drescher, "I honestly find it difficult to know where to begin here. You want more women in skepticism, but when they show up without properly camouflaging their…

"Towing Jehovah:" James Morrow on Atheists Talk Sunday

First, let's suppose that Jehovah God is real. Good News for the religious, right? Then, let's twist it a bit and see what happens should Jehovah die. This would cause a major problem for at least the Abrahamic religions. After all, how could we hope for eternal life if the Provider Himself is subject to mortality? The guarantee of eternal life in His Presence would at that time become null and void. Steps must be taken and a coverup must be carried out. Hiding bodies is difficult enough, but when the body of Jehovah falls from Heaven and turns out to be two miles long, complications…

The eBiosphere Real-Time Citizen Science Challenge!

May 31 - June 3, 2009 What's this all about? Every species has a geographic distribution, and these are changing rapidly due to climate change and other factors. In fact, the environment is changing faster than professional scientists can monitor it, and the only way to understand this response is to recruit amateurs to make and report observations. "Citizen science" has a long history in biology, but, in many ways, it is now crucial to both science and conservation. We are trying to demonstrate the concept of a "global human sensor net" as part of the eBiosphere informatics challenge.…

Coleman, under investigation, wants to use campaign funds for criminal case

Attorneys for Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) have asked the Federal Election Commission for permission to use campaign funds to pay his legal bills stemming from allegations that a Coleman confidante funneled improper payments to the lawmaker via his wife. Coleman and his wife have denied any wrongdoing, but the former CEO of Deep Marine Technology, a Houston, Texas, company, filed a lawsuit claiming that Nassar Kazeminy, a DMT investor, "coerced DMT to make improper payments of $75,000 to Laurie Coleman through her employer, for the ultimate benefit of her husband." A similar lawsuit was also…

The ever-shifting plans of CNN

OK, here's the latest word on tonight's show on atheists with Paula Zahn: there will be a different version of the previous report on ostracized atheists. Dawkins' interview will be four minutes long. There will also be a panel with Niger Innis (a conservative Republican), Roland Martin (a religious commentator), and Christopher Hitchens (atheist pain-in-the-ass). Apparently, they searched the entire United States of America and couldn't find a single atheist, so they had to import a couple from one of those godless foreign countries. You know, if they'd called me this morning I could have…

Twittered to me just now

Mythical Creaturs Stamps to be released by Royal Mail this summer Nature's Artificial Divide: The best hope for science journalism is a marriage of new and old media There is now a Brian Bat Foundation. I suppose it is to raise money to send more bats into orbit. NPR: Obama Backers Return To Streets To Push Plans President Obama's grass-roots political machine has been reactivated for a weekend door-knocking crusade designed to sell the administration's economic plan -- and its record-busting $3.6 trillion budget. But the task for the Organizing for America volunteers -- tapped from…

Check Out The Reef Tank

The Reef Tank is an enterprise that supports and supplies salt water aquarists and supports the use of captive raised organisms and knowledge about ecosystems and conservation issues. From their site: The Reef Tank is a unique bulletin board with a unique philosophy. Our mission is to provide a supportive, flame-free environment for beginning and experienced aquarists to share ideas, ask questions, and learn about the marine and reef keeping hobby. We also aim to educate ourselves and others about responsible animal husbandry, promoting captive-raised livestock and aquacultured corals when…

Actual Email about emacs and vi

Maybe.... Subject: Re: The UNIX-Haters' Handbook? (was Re: Who are the most obnoxious computer groupies?) .... Matthew Crosby wrote: >In article , >Loren Petrich wrote: >> >> In my experience, vi is the absolute worst full-screen >>(character-mode GUI) text editor I have *ever* used. >> [ and so on in the anti-vi mode ... ] > >vi has the fastest, most efficient keybindings around. > [ and so on in the pro-vi mode ... ] Harley Hahn's book _Unix Unbound_ (which I recommend, BTW, to anyone learning Unix) has chapters on vi and emacs. The vi chapter contains…

Race and the new DC Social Scene

An interesting essay ... ...Debra Lee, chief executive of Black Entertainment Television, has been on Washington's A-list for some time, but she has been even more popular since Nov. 4, receiving invites from folks she doesn't really know. "The first reaction is: 'Wow. Isn't that curious? Are they just using me?' " she said. "Then you think about Obama, who says he wants to be inclusive." At the same time, an invitation to Lee's home is an even hotter ticket, after Jarrett and incoming White House social secretary Desiree Rogers showed up for one of her late-night parties last month. On…

Aid flights arrive in DR Congo, but insecurity persists

UNISEF in the Congo: NEW YORK (November 12, 2008) -- Insecurity persists in the North Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where more than 250,000 people have been forced from their homes in the last two months alone, due to fighting between the army and a rebel group. Today, two more planeloads of emergency supplies landed in Goma to help address critical health and humanitarian needs of the displaced. A total of 10 shipments are expected over the coming days; six have landed thus far. "These supplies will help contain the spread of cholera and diarrhea, both extremely…

Latest Poll: Franken Creeping Ahead Of Creep

A brand new Rasmussen poll places Franken in a very slight, and statistically insignificant lead over Coleman in the Minnesota Senate race. The good news is that of the last five or so polls, over the last few weeks, all but one has put Franken ahead, but never by a statistically significant amount. This latest poll places Franken at 41% and Coleman at 37%. In the Minnesota Third District, Veteran Marine and Democratic Candidate Ashwin Madia was shown to be pulling ahead of Republican Erik Paulsen near the beginning of the month, but again the lead is not statistically significant. That…

Don't forget to vote. Oh, and wear a wool sweater!!!

In a recent election in the District of Columbia, an extra 1,500 votes were added to the vote count that were never cast. Apparently, these votes were caused by static electricity. Or something. New measures are being taken to make sure irregularities in September's D.C. Primary vote don't happen in November. Officials at the D.C. Board of Elections say they now know what caused 1,500 extra votes to appear in the count. 326 people voted at the Reeves Center precinct on primary election day in September. Their votes were captured on a computer cartridge, but the Board of Elections says…

McCain Suspends Campaign, Debates

Is John McCain a Coward? John McCain has apparently suspended his presidential campaign, in an effort to either a) bring more focus to the impending collapse of the world's economy which he helped cause problem or b) get out of Friday's debate which could not possibly come at a worst time for him. See: "McCain seeks to delay Friday's debate" UPDATE: Note the following comment from the cited report: The move put Obama in a bind. Rejecting the idea would allow McCain alone to appear above politics, but agreeing to suspend campaigning and the debate could make Obama look like he's…

This blog issues a fatwa regarding Random House Publishers ...

... declaring them to be wimps, prudes, and possibly chicken-poop racists. If you're moderately literate, you've probably heard of The Jewel of Medina, the scandalous book about Aisha, the child bride of Muhammad, which Random House pulled from their publication schedule ... The book had reached the stage of galleys without anyone at Random House batting an eyelash, as far as can be told. The author, Sherry Jones, a journalist, requested that Random House send a review copy to Denise Spellberg, Associate Professor of History and Middle Eastern Studies and the author of one of the…

Linux Jokes

More Computer Humor available here. Samples below: Excerpt from "Fifty Ways to Leave your Editor: Just press control-K, Ray, Try double-Z, Fred, You're still in insert, Bert, So hit control-C. Press meta-x, Lex, Then type, `exit-quit-leave' Or else just suspend, friend, and kill(1) it with glee. Or, in case you are missing Winter, try this Xmas Carol: better !pout !cry better watchout lpr why santa claus town cat /etc/passwd >list ncheck list ncheck list cat list | grep naughty >nogiftlist cat list | grep nice >giftlist santa claus town who | grep sleeping who | grep awake who |…

I Know Where I'm Going to be Next Weekend!

Apparently there's a rally coming up in Washington DC: The Reason Rally is an event sponsored by many of the country's largest and most influential secular organizations. It will be free to attend and will take place in Washington, D.C. on March 24th, 2012 from 10:00AM - 6:00PM at the National Mall. There will be music, comedy, speakers, and so much more. We hope you can join us! I'm so there! But it gets even better. You see, the following day the American Atheists will be holding their annual convention: The Annual Convention of American Atheists will be held March 25th and 26th, 2012 (…

Crazy is as crazy does: EXPELLED and House of Numbers

Check out this AWESOME anti-science movie! Outdated, discredited, or simply flat-out scientifically wrong hypotheses presented as real scientific controversies! Pro-outdated-discredited-wrong 'scientists' persecuted, ostracized by TEH MAN! World cant handle the philosophical implications of their brilliant ideas! SUPER AWESOME cellular animations! Real scientists interviewed under false pretenses! Quotemined! Pissed off scientists shows up at movie screening and all hell breaks loose! Am I talking about EXPELLED II: Dembskis vs the Baylor Lunch Lady? No! Im talking about EXPELLED-except-…

Research Blogging Rage and ERV live

Today/Tomorrow I am getting presentations ready for two events: 1-- Science outreach to YEC Oklahomans Time: March 26, 7 pm Place: Christs Church of Yukon, 620 W. Vandament Ave Topic: ERV 'debates' a random hobo 2-- Americans United for the Separation of Church and State: Oklahoma Time: March 28, 8:30-2:30 ($15 registration if you want to stay for lunch, email me if interested) Place: OCCC Topic: They may take our lives... but theyll never take... OUR ACADEMIC FREEDOM!! Both talks will be recorded and available on YouTube for those of you not lucky enough to be in the OKC area :P Anyway,…

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

That's the title of an interesting article from the current issue of The Atlantic, written by Nicholas Carr: Over the past few years I've had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn't going -- so far as I can tell -- but it's changing. I'm not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I'm reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I'd spend hours…

Happy Birthday, Mr. Einstein

The other big nerd event of today is that it's Einstein's birthday, on this date back in 1879. I keep meaning to take and post a photo of the cool picture of Einstein we have in the department's collection of stuff, and this is as good an excuse as any. Charcoal drawing of Einstein giving a talk in Schenectady in 1939. The original is in the Department of Physics and Astronomy office, donated by Carl George, who I think got it from the artist originally. If not for him, we wouldn't have anything to sarcastically call smart people who do dumb things. Oh, yeah, and the whole General…

So Long, Summer

It's Labor Day in the US, and due to a weird quirk of scheduling, for once I didn't have to spend it at work. This is also the traditional end of the summer season, so SteelyKid and I went over to the JCC pool for one last dip and a final ice cream cone from the snack bar: Last ice cream of pool season. She's gotten really good at swimming this summer, and in protest against the end of the season, she's wearing her swim goggles around the house. They're tinted blue, and she's declared that they're laser goggles, part of her superhero gear. She's now doing a complicated obstacle course…

Baptisms Down

Some encouraging news: Baptisms in the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant denomination, have dipped to their lowest point in 60 years, according to a new report. Last year, there were 332,321 baptisms in the church, which is 17,416 less than 2009, according to the report from Nashville-based LifeWay Christian Resources. There was only one baptism for every 48 Southern Baptists in the country in 2010. Sixty years ago, there one baptism per every 19 church members. In eight out of 10 years, the number of baptisms performed have declined. Skipping ahead: Church…

Stenger on Quantum Woo

I can't quite believe I am writing this, but the HuffPo religion section actually has not one, but two, good posts up. The first is from Victor Stenger talking about some of the daffier misapplications of quantum mechanics. It makes a nice follow-up to Monday's post about Michael Shermer's essay. In short, a physical object isn't either a particle or a wave. These are just two alternative descriptions of the same object. You do not have to measure one property or the other exclusively. Observing a beam of light with appropriate apparatus, you find that localized photons are always present…

Why Chess, Swords, and Beer Do Not Mix

From the San Jose Mercury News: An evening that started with two friends playing chess and drinking beers ended with one man stabbed to death and another booked on murder charges Tuesday, Alameda police said. Kelly Scott Kjersem, a 40-year-old Alameda man, arrived earlier in the evening at 1220 Park Avenue with a 12-pack of beer, police Lt. Bill Scott said. Kjersem was visiting the home of his friend, Joseph W. Groom, 62, to drink and play chess. The two men played and drank for some time, and later a female friend of Groom's arrived and began cooking dinner for the two men. While she was in…

Links for 2009-09-08

Sunday Function : Built on Facts One of the most useful functions in math isn't really a function in the usual sense. (tags: math physics blogs built-on-facts science) Hitler finds out about another Downfall parody from dawsonbros - Video "Maybe we should just make one of these ourselves. Do our own clip." (tags: video silly internet) Pitching an idea for a new show in the Star Trek franchise. : Adventures in Ethics and Science "The show would focus on a set of characters who are the Star Fleet equivalent of an internal affairs bureau on a cop show. These characters would investigate…

Links Dump Backlog: 7/23/09

The del.icio.us automatic blog posting that usually produces the daily links dump posts here has been broken during the recent ScienceBlogs upgrade. The links dump posts from last Thursday on didn't happen, but we've kludged up a way to get that material back. These are the links that should've posted on Thursday the 23rd: Pimp My Novel: Hammered by Thor A concise explanation of the infamous Thor Power Tools decision, and what it meant for book publishing. (tags: publishing business books blogs economics law) Pimp My Novel: No! Yes! No!: The Schizophrenia of Sell-Through Why selling too…

Two-Word Lyrics: Independence Day Edition

I have a new appreciation for Cathy and Amanda and the rest of the infant room staff at the day care center, after two days of chasing a fully recovered SteelyKid around the house because she still had a couple of coxsackie virus blisters on her hands. They're earning the money we're paying them. She's back in day care today, but my brains have turned to cheese, so here's a lyrics-guessing game. Same drill as before: each of these two-word phrases identifies a song; if you know it and want to guess, leave your guess in the comments, and include a two-word phrase from a different song for…

That's What You Get for Talking Physics with Skaters

Via email, a news story from San Francisco with the headline "Physics discussion ends in skateboard attack": A homeless man is on trial in San Mateo County on charges that he smacked a fellow transient in the face with a skateboard as the victim was engaged in a conversation about quantum physics, authorities said today. Jason Everett Keller, 40, allegedly accosted another homeless man, Stephan Fava, on the 200 block of Grand Avenue in South San Francisco at about 1:45 p.m. March 30. At the time, Fava was chatting with an acquaintance, who is also homeless, about "quantum physics and the…

links for 2009-05-12

18 and Under - The Marks of Childhood or the Marks of Abuse? - NYTimes.com "This year, the study of child abuse is coming of age as a medical specialty. In November, the first medical board exam will be offered in a new official specialty, child abuse pediatrics. Knowledge and research that have accumulated over decades about the effects of physical abuse and sexual abuse are being codified into a curriculum; fellowship training in the field will have to meet certain standards; an expert, testifying in court, can expect to be questioned about being board-certified. " (tags: science medicine…

Mysteries of Back Pain

Everybody I know who has back problems swears up and down that sleeping on a really firm mattress is key. My father used to have a big plywood board under his side of the mattress, so that his side of the bed would be less soft (I think they have since bought a new mattress that is uniformly hard). So, why is it that every time I sleep on a mattress that's firmer than the one we have here, my lower back locks up so badly that it's an hour before I can walk comfortably? And when I get back to our relatively soft bed, my back feels fine in the morning? I suppose this could be some sort of grand…

Links for 2011-03-03

Gnome Physics - Cap'n Refsmmat's Blog of Doom "All subatomic particles -- electrons, protons, neutrons and so on -- are composed of extremely small gnomes. While relatively unknown, the gnome theory of matter can successfully explain many physical phenomena, including gravitation, electromagnetism, the photoelectric effect, and the wavelike properties of matter." (tags: science physics silly blogs) Media old and new are mobilized for effective causes - O'Reilly Radar "The bright light of social media has attracted the attention of followers in every discipline, from media and academia to…

Links for 11-11-10

slacktivist: TF: Chairface Carpathia "The villain Nicolae Carpathia probably reminds of more than any other is Chairface Chippendale, from one of my favorite episodes of The Tick -- a warped parody of superhero comics. Chairface, a supervillain, constructs a giant heat ray he plans to use to carve his name on the moon. Our heroes, of course, rush to stop him, but the Tick struggles to make sense of this grandly strange act of supervillainy, asking his sidekick, Arthur, if carving your name on the moon is even illegal. "It's just wrong," Arthur says, and he's surely right about that.…

How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your UK Dog

Between travel and general work craziness, I completely forgot to note that the UK version of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog has gone on sale: The title for this edition is How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog, and the vanity search keeps turning up mentions to it in the Guardian Bookshop, so I guess they like their dog physics with extra quantum in Britain. Anyway, if you've been waiting and wondering when there would be a version with fewer idiomatic Americanisms, it's here, and available from the usual sources. This brings the in-print edition tally to five, that I know of: the…

Local Bookstore Report

Not that I'm obsessed, or anything (current Amazon rank: 1106), but here are the results from my incomplete survey of local book stores regarding How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Barnes & Noble: "Out of Stock" in all local stores. Has never been in stock, really. Borders in Crossgates Mall: "Likely in store" according to the book finder computer, but if they actually put any out, either they sold them, or they're well hidden. The Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: Two copies prominently displayed in the top row of the "new arrivals" case, between David Byrne's book about bicycling and John…

Physics for Math Students

I gave a talk last night to the Albany Area Math Circle, a group of high-schoolers who are interested in science and math, and enter and do very well in national math competitions. I think there were 48 kids there last night, which was pretty impressive. I gave basically the same talk I gave at Boskone on the Many-Worlds Interpretation, including reading the dog dialogue from Chapter 4. I made an effort to update the SF references a little, to things that people born in the early 1990's might recognize. (Wow, I feel old.) The talk was probably a little too abstract for the audience, and I…

When Men Were Men, and Physics Was Natural Philosophy

The Royal Society has launched a spiffy new site that lets you browse highlights of the last 350 years of science as published in the Philosophical Transactions ("Giving Some Accompt of the Present Understanding, Studies, and Labours of the Ingenious in Many Considerable Parts of the World since 1665."). These include things like Ben Franklin's very matter-of-fact instructions for flying a kite in a thunderstorm, Thomas Young's introduction of the wave theory of light, and Maxwell's original treatise on electromagnetism. These are available as scanned PDF's, in all their oddly-typeset glory (…

Thursday Baby Blogging 112609

We hosted Thanksgiving this year, and SteelyKid was the life of the party. When she saw Grandpa make the unwise decision to sit down on the couch with a glass of red wine, she came running, and spilled it all over him. To make up for it, she graciously decided to include him in this week's Baby Blogging: (He borrowed dry clothes from me.) We also took advantage of having everyone here to get a Baby Blogging picture with four generations in it: Actually, we took a bunch, as Kate was trying to get one where SteelyKid wasn't partially obscrued by her red dog. This was probably the best of them…

DonorsChoose Wrap-Up

This year's DonorsChoose Challenge entry came up just short of $8,000, at $7,976. Many thanks to everyone who donated. As promised during the challenge, I will be giving away one advance copy of the book (either a real copy when they start printing in a few weeks, or a galley proof if you want one Right Now) to the largest individual donation, and one to a donor chosen at random from the set of donors who sent me email asking to be considered. At present, the list of people who have asked to be part of the drawing is much smaller than the list of people who donated. So, I'll hold off on the…

Lazy Sports Writing Hall of Fame: William Rhoden

I've lost a lot of sleep this weekend staying up late to watch Syracuse games, so I'm only getting to some of the Friday articles in my RSS feeds now. I don't want to let this utterly worthless column by William Rhoden of the New York Times pass without comment though. It's ostensibly about the Syracuse-UConn six-overtime epic on Thursday night, but the actual description of the game is limited to two paragraphs at the very beginning that could've been written after twenty minutes of watching SportsCenter Friday morning. The vast majority of the article-- seventeen of the twenty paragraphs--…

links for 2009-02-06

Textbooks have jumped the shark | Dot Physics "I have been afraid to really speak my mind on this issue because I donât want to completely enrage the textbook publishers. They do send me free books sometimes. Oh well, first what is the chance they will read this? Second, I already have tons of books and there is always wikipedia." (tags: physics blogs education academia books dot-physics) Biocurious: Drew Endy on group meetings Excerpts from a presentation on how to give better group meeting presentations, and a link to the original slides in PDF format. (tags: science blogs education…

Hoisted from Comments: Moderate, or Linearly Independent?

Stealing a post-generating method from Brad DeLong, Bill Tozier posted and interesting comment that I wanted to highlight: I've often wondered why people place me (a moderate in a lot of polarized debates) "in the middle". I think I'm orthogonal, not "in the middle". I'm concerned about plenty of things; they're just not what's being discussed, and in some cases they can't even be framed in the terms used in the core debate. My suspicions grow that fundamentalism should not be defined as being extreme, or merely holding extreme opinions, but rather as framing every discussion including those…

links for 2008-03-22

Security Beat The DHS gets security advice from Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and David Brin. I feel safer already. (tags: stupid SF war US politics) States' Data Obscure How Few Finish High School - New York Times "Like Mississippi, many states use an inflated graduation rate for federal reporting requirements under the No Child Left Behind law and a different one at home. As a result, researchers say, federal figures obscure a dropout epidemic so severe that only (tags: education politics US academia) Antihydrogen Production within a Penning-Ioffe Trap Using magnetic fields to trap…