Chatter
tfk | October 4, 2006I guess I haven't paid as much attention to the Pitch since Tony Ortega left, so somehow I managed to not notice that this year's annual Best Of awards were coming.
If you peruse our sidebar, you'll see that we won the Best Blogger award last year, with Greg Beck taking "Reader's Choice" and Tony's KC making a strong showing.
For whatever reason, there's no "Best Blogger" category this year, but the excellent … Just Cara won "Best Republican Blogger" and the new-to-me Frighteningly Uncommon Sense won "Best Blog About Life."
Note also that Paul Morrison won Best Politician. As for the rest:…
tfk | October 4, 2006Positive Ape Index reports a fascinating find in a Kansas antique mall, an authentic space suit from the Gemini program. The suit never went into space, though it did go into high altitude test flights. Apparently the new owner of the suit knows how the only such suit that isn't in a museum wound up in that store, and will provide details in future posts.
tfk | September 25, 2006Every week the finest blogging of Kansas gathers at the Kansas Guild of Bloggers. This week TfK will be the guildhall.
Emaw from Three O'Clock in the Morning offers a Friday signoff, so go "Leave a comment, and maybe a link."
Previous host John from the Blog Meridian writes On clarity, a look at where we stand in the fight for clarity regarding torture. Is the Senate compromise/capitulation clearer than the Geneva Conventions? Is it better that the CIA have clarity or that citizens do? "Boy, this achieving clarity stuff is complicated, isn't it?"
Paul Decelles of The Force that Through It…
tfk | September 24, 2006Submit your posts to this week's Kansas Guild of Bloggers ASAP! Submissions are due by tonight.
goodmath | September 22, 2006It's friday again, so in addition to a bizzare programming language, you get a random ten.
1. *Transatlantic, "Mystery Train".*: very cool neo-prog rock track.
2. *Darol Anger and the Republic of Strings, "Dzinomwa Muna Save".* Darol Anger is one the most creative artists of our generation. He's a violinist who is constantly out pushing his limits. He's played classical, jazz, bluegrass, folk, rock, and stuff that just can't be classified. This tune is his take on a traditional african song, performed by his latest band. Brilliant, amazing, fascinating, and beautiful.
3. *Bach, "Erkenne Mich…
tfk | September 22, 2006The Kansas Guild of Bloggers is moving their guildhall to TfK next Monday. So anyone who lives in Kansas, has lived in of Kansas, or even has passed through the state should submit their favorite Kansasish blogging by Sunday evening.
tfk | September 19, 2006It be International Talk Like ye Pirate Day, so if ye be leavin' comments, they'd best be in yer best sea-dog dialect.
Some land-lubbers out yonder may think find it a mite odd for a nice Jewish boy like meself t' be talkin' like a one-eyed fool with a wooden leg. But ye'd be wrong.
Ye see, me scurvy sea-dogs, some o' the finest pirates in all the Seven Seas were Jewish. So says Ed Kritzler, a scholar of the pirates, who tells the tale o' how the Spanish Inquisition unexpectedly drove some Sephardic Jews to the pirates' life:
While some Jews, like Samuel Pallache, took up piracy in part to…
goodmath | September 14, 2006This is *very* off-topic for this blog; it's really more of a rant on a personal subject which I think it's worth saying publicly.
I am mentally ill. I have clinical depression. CD is a thoroughly miserable illness. I'm incredibly lucky to live at a time when CD like mine is easily treated by medication. Two pills every morning, and I'm myself again.
The point of writing this isn't to tell the world that I've got clinical depression, or to say "Gosh I like my drugs". The reason that I'm writing this is gripe about how people react when they hear that I take psychiatric medication. For some…
tfk | September 14, 2006A few years back, the University of Chicago hosted a great event. Students organized several day of panels and discussions, with luminaries in many fields coming to discuss the issues of the day. On a panel about technology, a friend of mine asked whether the panelists were worried that more people from our generation weren't involved in hardware, soldering whatzits and making hobby computers.
One panelist (the only person on the panel that I remember was Bruce Perens, and it wasn't him) said that he had learned to fix the carburetor on his ancient pickup back in the Stone Age, and he was…
tfk | September 13, 2006There's some sort of new pissing contest raging over whose watch is nerdiest. And while I can't compete in the sliderule competition, I think my watch prowess stands on its own.
I have no watch. No, that's false. I have a couple of watches somewhere or other. But I don't wear a watch. Why bother. Between my computers, my cell phone, my PDA, my iPod, and all the rest of my nerd gear, I have all sorts of clocks that automatically synchronize to internet servers on a regular basis. What good would a bracelet do me?
"Disdain for appearances" indeed.
goodmath | September 11, 2006Orac is refusing to surrender and acknowledge the obvious fact that he simple *is not* as much of a geek as I am. So I am obligated to point out several further facts in my attempt to make him surrender the crown of geekiness.
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First: compare our professsions. Orac is a cancer surgeon: a person whose professional life is dedicated to *saving peoples lives*. There are people living today who would be dead but for the efforts of Orac. It is an honorable profession, deserving of nothing but respect.
In contrast, I am a software engineering researcher; aka a professional computer geek…
tfk | September 8, 2006That's how rubidium and cesium are described in this video about the explosive consequences of mixing alkali metals and water.
Gotta love the Brits. See also the competition between thermite and liquid nitrogen. Round two matches the winner against a Peugeot engine, and then the car's gas tank.
goodmath | September 7, 2006Draw your pocket protectors, it's a geekout!
Janet, our lovely resident ethicist has challenged all of the ScienceBloggers to [a geekout][geekout], to determine who, among us, is the geekiest. How could I, a *math* blogger and computer language geek, pass up such a challenge? (Incidentally, Janet, as the person who seems to do more community building and social stuff than anyone else at SB, I think you've pretty much disqualified yourself.)
Let's start with recent stuff.
* I write a blog on theoretical math. Come on guys, how do you think you can compete with that? I spent my first two months…
tfk | September 6, 2006Adventures in Ethics and Science announces "It's a nerd-off." And I have to admit that Stemwedel is pretty nerdish.
But seriously, does she bring out the fabulous work of Tom Glazer or Marais and Miranda to enlighten her science labs? No, I think not. Who but a nerd god would dare attempt to use bizarre '50s and '60s educational music to inform sophistumicated modern youth?
And who but a nerd god would get such joy out of "Song of the Rocks," whose lyrics proceed:
"I am mica-schist" cracks me up every time. The old-guy voices explaining "we're cinnabar" always sends me off to figure out…
tfk | September 6, 2006I have linked the Feedburner feed that worked on the old TfK to the new TfK's content. You're welcome.
tfk | September 4, 2006The Crocodile Hunter died the way he lived, under attack by a wild animal.
"And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest."
tfk | September 3, 2006They used to be just like me and you
They used to be sweet little boys
But something went horribly askew
Now killing is their only source of joy
The Decemberists' new album, due out in October, has been leaking out in various fora. The album is loosely organized around a Japanese tale of a man who saves a crane's life, and later marries a mysterious woman who helps him rise above the poverty of being a fisherman, but finally flees as she is revealed to be the same crane. The theme of transformation, of suffering, of contorted perversions below the calm surfaces, returns the band and…
goodmath | September 2, 2006While I was away on vacation, my family made a stop in Corning NY to see the Corning Glass Museum. I had to snap this photo for PZ. Alas, all I had was the camera in my cellphone, so the resolution leaves something to be desired, but it's the thought that counts, right?
As long as I'm posting pictures, I'll also include an image of my favorite piece in the museum. The picture doesn't do it justice, but it's the best I have.