Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
worldsfair | April 27, 2009Just a quick note to say that I'm currently in Louisiana, and therefore probably won't be blogging until I'm back in Vancouver on Wednesday. If you're in the area, I'll be giving a talk later today on Science Literacy - 3:30pm at the Life Sciences Annex Auditorium (A101Life Sciences). Should be fun.
worldsfair | April 23, 2009
Science Scout twitter feed
Yesterday at the SCQ, a short paper was published describing a "Kingdom Cake," whereby the various layers represented the different kingdom designations. The cake itself was pretty cool, but made all the more impressive by its competition at a full on bake off for Darwin's birthday back on February 12th.
The range was marvelous, and as I sampled them, I kept wondering what type of baking would Darwin himself have preferred, or even prepared himself. In any event, here are a couple of highlights.
Firstly, the aforementioned "Kingdom Cake"
Accompanying this…
bcohen | April 20, 2009Or so I was told.
Speaking of ill-conceived arguments, we've been blessed at The World's Fair to host a lively conversation about NASCAR over the past two years. After one provocative query -- isn't burning a lot of fossil fuel bad for the environment?; can you believe they just banned lead in racing fuel after all these decades? -- we found some support from the NASCAR fan community itself.
After you get a chance to read up on the prior NASCAR post, for context to this post, come on back. I think there are a few lessons to be had. One is that we still lack a facetious sans serif font for…
worldsfair | April 17, 2009So, I'm looking around at other blogs, and basically a lot of them have recurring features, often specific for a particular day. And I'm thinking the World's Fair could do this as well.
But instead of something always related to science, why not spin it a little and say that there is, in fact, a science to making a perfect mixed tape. Whereby one of the things you hope for are songs that speak to you at a variety of different levels.
Anyway, more on the science of a perfect mixed tape later, but for now, why not start a Friday tradition of suggestion a great tune for your listening pleasure…
worldsfair | April 17, 2009
Science Scout twitter feed
Photo of a nice set of boobies we saw at the Natural History Museum from the SCQ
So the question, of course, is "what exactly is up with birds and breasts?" And I'm not talking about white meat versus dark meat preferences.
Instead, there is this uncomfortable coincidence between bird names and colloquialisms associated with women's breasts. It's almost as if you can do this mental exercise of running off a list of slang words, and then seeing if there is a connection to avian nomenclature.
For example, you have the implied: such as hooters, where even…
worldsfair | April 16, 2009
That's right! This guy!
Often in the blogging world, we are advised that picking a good title goes a long way to securing an engaged reader. Likewise, the same principle also applies to the art of securing your audience when giving a talk. And I'm of the opinion that taking some extra effort into crafting your opening statement is going to pay off in the long run.
If I could break it down, here are things to keep an eye out for when working out how to start your talk.
1. Should be short.
2. Should set the tone of your personality. Doesn't necessarily need to reflect the tone of the…
worldsfair | April 15, 2009Eddie Vedder on vox.
Sting on bass.
Ringo on drums. Anybody on drums.
Thom Yorke doing backing vocals
A duet with Beyonce.
Lyrics by Margaret Atwood.
Samantha Fox's breasts.
A wardrobe malfunction.
Wilco in the studio.
A studio.
A studio with amps that go to eleven.
A cameo in a Woody Allen movie. A cameo in a Jackie Chan movie.
A mention at the next Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.
A mention on American Idol.
Blessing from the Pope.
Permission from my wife.
(This list presented again from a old posting, since we were on the subject of writing music anyways)
worldsfair | April 14, 2009As I was composing a few lyrics to a song about thermodynamics (mp3 is further down the page), it quickly occurred to me how the first three laws could easily describe various elements of love.
You've got the first law, a testament to bookkeeping, where explicit in equations like dU=dQ-dW is the idea that what you'll get out (a relationship) is directly determined by what you put in (to a relationship).
Then, of course, there is the second law - a statement on the notion of entropy, often laymanized (is that a word?) as a reflection of "disorder." (I don't think anyone would argue about…
bcohen | April 9, 2009A commentary, I think, on the public understanding of basic human decency. Or lack thereof.
Stewart on tyranny, poor memory, and potato day:
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
M - Th 11p / 10c
Baracknophobia - Obey
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes
Economic Crisis
Political Humor
Or try here.
worldsfair | April 8, 2009This is nicely done.
Andre was one of our Terry talk speakers last November and he did a great job.
In essence, he described current practices in the classroom setting, and tried to make a case that education could be greatly enhanced when certain technologies are brought into the learning process (particularly as social networking and gadgets continue to progress).
Anyway, he describes his talk as:
I would like to talk about the potential for technology to change the way that education works, specifically at the University level. This will take off where Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk…
worldsfair | April 8, 2009
Science scout twitter feed
The reason why there were two ways of saying the element aluminum/aluminium has always been one of the those things that made me go "hmmm" But by the same token, it's also always been one of those things that never stuck around in my consciousness long enough for me to look it up.
Well, lucky for all us, Michael Quinion over at World Wide Words does an awesome job of going into the lexicon of these words, paying particular attention to why two forms exist - specifically, why the Brits say "Alumininium" and why Americans say "Aluminum."
It's actually quite…
worldsfair | April 6, 2009So I'm getting ready for a talk on science literacy and careers, etc, and was looking for material for some new slides. Anyway, I've always been a fan of delicious sounding science jargon, and have been on the hunt for an appropriate word I can use, possibly, as a thematic device in my talk.
So of course, I begin by googling the keywords, "word most syllables" and from that came across the following:
Pnuemonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcano
Which, depending on the source you read is either some wierd lung disease, or, as it turns out, a completely fabricated word propogated by the internet to…
worldsfair | April 4, 2009So close! But not close enough.
Only 20 readers away from making the 1000 mark yesterday.
worldsfair | April 3, 2009
Attributed to iTop Edition
This post brought to you because of two reasons.
1. I've been thinking about potential banner ideas, and pixelated art came to mind.
2. I'm a little fearful of this blog blowing up (explanation here). Just need something to add a few more readers. Related to this, I'm a little worried about the weekend - I'm just barely making the traffic cut off on weekdays. The weekend will be presumably tougher...
worldsfair | April 3, 2009As the semester winds down, I'm getting that same urge to muck about with my guitars again and maybe record a song or two (it might sound impressive, but really, it's as amateur as it gets).
Last time I did this, I ended up writing a song on science jargon (Jargon Fueled Ways - mp3), which kind of tried to use as many words as possible that were suggested by readers in the comment section. These included the words:
Epiglottis
Flagella
Dictyostelium
Homo erectus
Anyway, I'm in the song writing mood again, and, like last time, I'm going to follow suggestions on what scientific concept to focus…
worldsfair | April 3, 2009
Science scout twitter feed
Since we're in the thick of NCAA action, remember this?
Anyway, I'm reminded of one of favourite battles in the science showdown. That is the battle between "acids" and "d orbitals." Here's how it went...
- - -
Welcome folks, to this here what we'll call the beautiful game (at least we'll say that for the molecular level). This game really had it all, it was dynamic, it had equilibrium, it had fluid transition, and it was catalytic. It involved freakishly large chemical sounding words, and also a wierd scoreboard that looked something like this:
But hey,…
worldsfair | April 2, 2009
So it's not often that someone can "guarantee" anything, but when I was first informed of helping out with an invited speaker, I had two individuals take the effort to tell me that his talk may quite possibly "be the best talk you'll ever hear" or "will change your life."
Strong words indeed, if not for the fact that the sources happen to be opinions I trust. Anyway, who are we talking about? Well, we're talking about a Sheldon Solomon.
His academic credentials essentially revolve around something called Terror Management Theory which wiki succinctly describes:
It looks at what…
worldsfair | April 2, 2009
Sciencescout twitter feed
I put this Wilco vs Radiohead query up a while back on the blog, and essentially got a fair amount of commentary stating musical tastes, preferences, why the comparison is invalid, etc.
Anyway, imagine my surprise when I heard about a CD coming out this summer, which can add a bit of weight to the discussion.
I'm talking specifically about the new Neil Finn "Seven Worlds Collide" CD. Here's a YouTube channel devoted solely to the collaborative project, and here's part of a review of one of the live concerts held to back up the upcoming CD.
That included four…
worldsfair | April 1, 2009
At my school, I happen to be involved in a project with a writing contest that has a general public category. Basically, we don't have many entries in this category and there's, like, three bookstore giftcards at stake here ($50, $100, and $350 - all usable online)! This is Canadian dollars, I'll admit, but if you've got a post you've written in the last year or so, that you think fits, then do send it on (basically critieria is very broad - something globally relevant, any genre of writing works - previously published ok).
If it makes it easier, you can even leave your URL in this thread…