Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
bcohen | August 8, 2006This is from chapter 15 (The Value of Philosophy) of B. Russell's (1912) The Problems of Philosophy . A friend sent it to me a while back, asking if I thought the sentiment was relevant for any President in particular. I just came across it again while looking for something else. As it always happens.
The private world of instinctive interests is a small one, set in the midst of a great and powerful world which must, sooner or later, lay our private world in ruins. Unless we can so enlarge our interests as to include the whole outer world, we remain like a garrison in a beleagured fortress…
bcohen | August 8, 2006There is a triple theme here, circling around cabinets of curiosity, which I'll get around to eventually. How about a picture first.
Frontispiece from Museum Wormianum depicting Ole Worm's cabinet of curiosities
But first. A few days ago we linked to a site on the "Longest Running Scientific Experiment," at the Athananius Kircher Society. I'm still not sure what the site is, or the Society I should say, but it's, let's say, curious. Someone--Wamba--commented that it reminded them of the Museum of Jurassic Technology, which was just right. What a perfect connection. The MJT was the…
worldsfair | August 2, 2006
Lake Louise
Well, it's nice to be back from our little Canadian Rockies roadtrip, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by the relative ease of having two young kids stuck in the back of our minivan for hours on end. It's actually been a while since we've ventured on a "real" trip, having been scared off in the past when Kate and I took a 10 month old (and very busy) Hannah to the Alps for 4 weeks (note: if anyone is thinking of doing something similar, please talk to me first - I hate saying this, but there is apparently some value to things like Disney Cruises afterall).
Anyway,…
bcohen | July 21, 2006Having been asked as a Science Blogger the following:
If you could have practiced science in any time and any place throughout history, which would it be, and why?...
I say: Mid-Eighteenth Century France or Thereabouts (with Scottish and Swedish and American colleagues, sure)
Diderot, D'Alembert, Condillac, Condorcet, Rousseau, Voltaire, Lavoisier, David Hume, Benjamin Franklin, Linnaeus, let's put him in there too. Just think about D & D's L'Encyclopedie alone: The tree of knowledge, great plates about everything (heads, mineralogy, artisan workshops), and it just goes on.
That…
worldsfair | July 21, 2006So I'm a teacher type right? And what do I think of powerpoint? Well, it's certainly convenient, although to be honest, I'm partial to good old real time pen and projector or chalk and blackboard lectures (a good way to pace yourself). Anyway, I've had ongoing requests to put up some of the powerpoint slides I've presented previously, so I figured maybe this blog is a good place to bank some of my more interesting slides.
In the meantime, this has to be one of the funniest uses of powerpoint I seen in a while. Good song too (from Wholphin, song by Cantinero, video/powerpoint by Mad…
bcohen | July 21, 2006"On Evidence"
(and in reference to the on-going, yet still unsolved Puzzle Fantastica #1)
Since this is a science blog and scientists and engineers are all about evidence and experiments and so on, we broach the subject of evidence. Namely, what kinds of evidence have we offered, and how has that evidence been interpreted?
Some commenters have gone for an analysis of numbers. Others are seeking common patterns. Few are treating the clues as accruing, while many are picking out minor features of each clue, interpreting the "real" clue to be a visual subset of the main clue. Some consider…
bcohen | July 20, 2006For centuries we've languished in the abyss of not-knowing what science is. An abyss so deep and so languishable, that we didn't even know we didn't know. A true Rumsfeldian dilemma, with mixed metaphors to boot. What accounts for scientific excellence and credibility? Why do we trust scientists? Is it because they are so serious? We just never knew.
But now we do: how can we define science? what does it take to *be* scientific? Just ask Penn's Chemistry Department and their new building.
The answer: Flemish Bond Brickwork. And it was right there in front of our faces all along!
This…
worldsfair | July 17, 2006Here presented is the final clue in our little experiment. It being the start of a story, a novel to be precise. In fact, we're getting tingles just thinking how lovely it all comes together, and the challenge, of course, is to see whether you can break our mystery. We will present the answer soon enough - maybe next week, the week after that, or maybe because it's always one of those two weeks, we'll deliberately wait until the third.
If you have the answer, or any answer (and we've seen brilliance in those before [1,2]), please say so below in the comments. Or better yet, post something…
worldsfair | July 12, 2006Wondrous theories have been brewing over the three clues so far. Here is another. The fourth actually, a video too (Quicktime required).
And in case you like visual things, like to see things all at once. Here are the first three images.
bcohen | July 9, 2006We won't yet drop a fourth visual clue for the P.F #1, but we will give at this point a few negations:
The answer does not involve Carl Sagan's pet, does not belong to the category "architecture," and is not only about the combination of fishes and cows. Furthermore, it is not something that begins with the letter J. We are not putting you on.
This, we know, helps. We've been told so.
(Stay alert this coming week...)
bcohen | July 6, 2006The Worlds' Fair is thinking, pondering, mulling over, mulling under, obsessing around something, something not to be told, something requiring many prepositions. Something to be intimated, perhaps. But something not to reveal. Yet. Not yet. There are things that will lead you to it, things that are helpful. We've made some of them available. One is a fish. A picture of a fish, rather. One is a picture of the cow as a food factory. It's a cow. A third is Elvis related.
There is a puzzle being revealed, but we dare not step closer. We leave that to you. The puzzle is bigger than…
worldsfair | July 4, 2006A big thank you for the folks who contributed to our little portion of that wonder of a wonder, the scienceblogs.com DonorsChoose challenge. The SCQ also recieved a number of stellar Haiku's which will be used in the Haiku Phylogeny project. Here is a small sampling of them (feel free to submit more to the Science Creative Quarterly at tscq@interchange.ubc.ca):
DROSOPHILA MELANOGASTER DISASTER
fruit fly punnett squares
tic-tac-toeing genotypes
gives birth to Mothras
~Scheherazade
THE HAIKU CHEAT
Tyrannosaurus
Is a bitch for a haiku
Too many sybbles
~Paul Clarkson
UNTITLED
Cynics declare…
worldsfair | July 1, 2006In honour of Canada Day, here are a couple things of canadian note on my iTunes list:
FireworksTragically Hip
Drink To Me, Babe, ThenA.C. Newman
house of the rising sun Begood tanyas
Crooked TeethDeath Cab for Cutie
lemon meringue pieJeremy fisher
tell me again Ron sexsmith
Both Sides NowJoni Mitchell
brother downSam roberts
Don't get your back upSarah harmer
ReunionStars
One Great City!The Weakerthans
worldsfair | June 26, 2006Our unpaid interns have alerted us of our less than enthusiastic showing at the Scienceblogger's DonorsChoose challenge. For those, who missed the first announcement, we had offer guaranteed publication of a Haiku of your writing at the Science Creative Quarterly, which culminates in the collection of hundreds of Haiku for use in our Haiku Phylogeny project (i.e. we're looking for Haiku's on organisms specifically).
Despite this, our donations currently stand at a paltry $300, which even here we suspect is mostly due to contributions from our unpaid interns.
Anyway, two interesting things…
worldsfair | June 24, 2006People often ask me what it is exactly I do, and in technical terms, I have a somewhat unque Faculty position at the University of British Columbia, with no clear Department that I can call my home. This means that whilst I am often out of the proverbial UBC loop, I am also happily privy to an enormous amount of autonomy in the types of projects I can pursue. In effect, Michael (Smith) did a wonderful job of setting up a tenured university "education" position where there is an unprecedented amount of freedom to follow up on worthy pursuits as the lab sees fit.
And what might be a worthy…
worldsfair | June 19, 2006Re: Blogging is for Chumps, first off.
This is a call for outstanding candidates to apply for two intern positions within the context of producing relevant material for The World's Fair. The successful applicant is expected to work in areas of interest to current faculty members (Dr. David Ng and Dr. Benjamin Cohen), to interact with related groups within our network, and to have demonstrated ability in producing essays of reasonable quality and interest.
Due to the competitive nature of this process, we ask that all candidates at the very least meet the following criteria:
The candidate's…
bcohen | June 18, 2006We don't deign to actually do it. We're all about Unpaid Interns. They just looked up "deign" for us, in case you were wondering. The system works.
This, we say, because Sciencebloggers have been asked:
How is it that all the PIs (Tara, PZ, Orac et al.), various grad students, post-docs, etc. find time to fulfill their primary objectives (day jobs) and blog so prolifically?...
Unpaid Interns is the answer. Dave and I have yet to type a single word for the sake of this chump-infested blogging enterprise. We don't write this crap. Get real. You think we'd pen such canned tripe? Dave and I…
worldsfair | June 16, 2006As a Director of a science teaching facility, who sees maybe close to 2000 high schoolers in my lab each year, I'm hoping we can have a good showing in this great DonorsChoose challenge that Janet set up. There's certainly a lot of incentive, ranging from the simple act of promoting science within the school setting, to the prizes and offer of matching funds from Seed Headquarters.
From our end, to sweeten the pot even more, we would like to let you know that donations, $10 or higher, placed via our World's Fair + Science Creative Quarterly challenge, will immediately entitle the donor to…
worldsfair | June 15, 2006This is what happens when an individual is comfortable with the sciences...
Einstein's EEG
The World's Fair, in collaboration, with the Science Creative Quarterly is pleased to participate in The ScienceBlogs/DonorsChoose raise-money-to-help-science-classrooms-a-thon!. In our case, donations $10 and above via the World's Fair Challenge, will guarantee publication of a science Haiku of your composition over at the SCQ.
As Janet over at Adventures in Ethics and Science says:
Those of us who blog here at ScienceBlogs think science is cool, important, and worth understanding. If you're reading…