Links
aardvarchaeology | December 6, 2013Ikea’s typhoon rescue relief outguns China’s. Nope. Not surprised that their government does not care much.
China Ends One-Child Policy.
“Viking-age” ‘gold men’ unearthed in Sweden”. Actually, a bit older than the Vikings...
When the workload grows too huge, I recommend a solution found in Terry Pratchett’s Pyramids. The pyramid engineer creates a time loop so different temporal versions of him can work in parallel. Literally “an army of me”.
The Welsh language must be perfect for writing sagas about ancient heroes battling it out.
Creepy White Guys and Asian Women” *shudders in disgust…
catdynamics | July 9, 2012time for all new linkedy links here at the new digs
Quantum Frontiers - a new blog from the Institute for Quantum Information and Matter, with kickoff by John Preskill hisself.
Question of the day: explain quantum mechanics in five words
My attempt: Probability Amplitudes, Observables don't Commute
Good to know John still does khakis and chalk, but we gots to know: does he still have the diet pepsi?
Took me years to break the habit... not that I was overly impressionable as a tender young grad turkey taking QFT or anything.
Subtleties of the Crappy Job Market - for Scientists, that is.…
stoat | February 27, 2011
Scenes from a ski-ing holiday to Les Deux alpes a few years back. This is La Roche de la Muzelle, which I think is gorgeous. Maybe I'll get to climb it one day. Summitpost says it is PD / II (though not in winter) and the route to it goes over that beautiful roman bridge.
These are the reasons I was digging around in old pix: at the after rowing curry Andy said he could find a pic of me with pony tail on my wiki page, but it has gone. And I said, aha, but I have far better than that. Note that the beret is a Pyrennean one.
And in a token bit of climate don't miss The good…
stoat | January 22, 2011 Actually, its just another pile of links thinly disguised.
We thought that mandating python-style indents with pre-processing back into C might be nice. Alternatively some scheme whereby indent levels reflect coder status, so you can see immeadiately what not to fiddle with. And of course, what font should the code be in?
Watching the Deniers says There will be no US Congressional investigation into "Climategate": or how global warming sceptics got duped. And may be correct. Even the wackos aren't really wacko enough to take on the science, it seems: the froth is just for the voters, who are…
stoat | December 19, 2010 Time for a few linky type things. The first couple point to the New Blog in case you've missed it.
* Snowy again by me, about the recent weather.
* Christmas Head
* xkcd Christmas Tree (thanks Mayank) and on wikileaks :-)
* Lamest edit wars on wikipedia. The Bot wars section is good. Of course, wikipedia is soft nowadays, with the block-fingers too poised. We had real edit wars in the old days.
* Beautiful supernova fragments via Bad Astronomy. As a species we are frequently rubbish but occaisionally sublime.
* J+J go to AGU but don't find much except Macs. A nice dig at Curry's incoherence…
stoat | September 26, 2010 I liked it, anyway, enough to clean it up. Perhaps better in context: Echo Park Time Travel Mart (via TS's feed). And the Victorian iPods are good, too.
Via CIP, who feels for the suffering rich, a good piece from Krugman (which is itself really from Brad DeLong) Rat Race America. On why those who are really quite comfortably off no longer feel as comfortable as they would have 30 years ago.
Godel in Engine Summer?. You decide. But if you haven't read it, you should. And The Deep. And Beasts. But don't read Little, Big. Or at least, not all of it.
If we had to sum up the political view of…
stoat | September 9, 2010 The latest crop of links-n-stuff. First up is this superb photo - ht TS's google reader feed. It won second prize but for my money is far and away better than any of the others (higher-res version - thanks BD). Its tagged as a "condensation rainbow" but it isn't, I think (wrong shape). It is probably diffraction not refraction - see [[Iridescent cloud]]. Tom said I saw this elsewhere (can't remember where) and I think the explanation given was that the plane was making a sharp turn and adiabatic expansion resulting low pressure one side of the wing lowered the temperature enough for an ice…
jgoldman | August 28, 2010Welcome to the weekly linkfest, August 28 edition.
Science
Brian Switek writes about one of the fastest mammals on earth, the pronghorn, and the complex ecology it lives in. Of Pronghorns and Predators. It's an interesting look into the predator-prey relationships between wolves, coyotes, and pronghorns.
Another great post from Brian, in which he tells us about the mystery of the missing brontosaurus head.
Yet another human falls prey to the illusion of attention. The guys at The Invisible Gorilla explain why there is just no safe way to text while driving.
The dog-human connection in…
stoat | August 27, 2010Its friday, time for some lighter stuff.
* Cameron (not, not the Borkeback one) won't debate Morano, and Morano is happy to crow. All good knockabout fun, and Cameron ends up looking like a fool, but who cares? He is a film director.
* RC notes this appalling error by the Black Helicopter Gang: "I wonder if you've seen this terrible description of the greenhouse effect on a UNFCCC background page? http://unfccc.int/essential_background/feeling_the_heat/items/2903.php
It actually says that incoming solar energy is 'reflected' by the planet's surface 'in the form of a calmer, more slow-moving…
jgoldman | August 15, 2010Science and Science Writing
Colin Schultz has committed science blogging! Science bloggers link more often to original research than do mainstream journalists. Not surprising, but good to know there's empirical research.
Hannah Waters of Culturing Science ponders the place of young science writers in the broader science writing ecosystem.
And in response, some good reminders about the business of blogging for n00b bloggers or journos. (via @edyong209)
As usual, another great piece from Bora in which he considers the relative benefits and consequences of being a part of a blogging cooperative…
jgoldman | August 1, 2010I humbly present, once again, the quasi-weekly linkfest. Enjoy!
First, a reminder: Submit awesome science blogging for Open Lab! I encourage you not to be shy about submitting your own stuff!
Also, are you following me on twitter? Lots of shenanigans going on over there, and lots of good links, too.
Starting with the Science:
Did you catch my Research Blogging editor's selections this week?
Science journalist Bill Lascher (twitter, blog) is now doing some freelance writing about the environment for High Country News, on their "A Just West" blog. Interesting stuff. I know Bill from when he was…
jgoldman | July 27, 2010Here are my Research Blogging Editor's Selections for this week:
EcoPhysioMichelle explains a giant methods FAIL on a recent paper that "claims that women who are approaching menopause become 'more willing to engage in a variety of sexual activities to capitalize on their remaining childbearing years.'"
NeuroKuz wonders, "Is it really possible to empathize with and emotionally respond to a robot while simultaneously knowing that it is just a robot?" What is the human neural response to emotional robots?
Eric Michael Johnson brought the Primate Diaries in Exile Tour to David Dobbs' Neuron…
jgoldman | July 20, 2010Here are my Research Blogging Editor's Selections for this week:
Scicurious delights and entertains while explaining a study all about rat urine, in song and rhyme. She instructs: If You're Happy And You Know It, Smell Some Pee.
Christian Jarrett of BPS Research Digest asks, Did you see the unicycling clown?
More Vodka! It should all taste the same, considering vodka is just water and 40% ethyl alcohol. Right? Torah Kachur of Science in Seconds explains whether different types of vodka actually taste different.
And finally, a post of my own: do dogs have contagious yawning?
jgoldman | July 13, 2010Here are my ResearchBlogging Editor's Selections for this week.
First, something near and dear to our hearts. BPS Research Digest explains a recent paper investigating the links between bloggers' personalities and their word choices. "Some commentators have suggested that the internet allows people to present idealised versions of themselves to the world. Contrary to that idea, Yarkoni found that bloggers' choice of words consistently related to their personality type just as has been found in past offline research."
A relative newcomer to the Psych/Neuro blogging community, Mike Lisieski of…
stoat | July 7, 2010"The more I get into this, the more I find two classes of doom-sayers, with, of course, the silent majority in between," he wrote. "One group says we will turn into snow-tripping mastodons because of the atmospheric dust and the other says we will have to grow gills to survive the increased ocean level due to the temperature rise." - Hubert Heffner, deputy director of the administration's Office of Science and Technology under Nixon, 1970.
JA also thinks that Fred Pearce is rubbish.
And while I'm on rubbish journo's (are there any other sort? Yes of course: JF!): as I said before, Monbiot is…
jgoldman | July 6, 2010Here are my Research Blogging Editor's Selections for this week:
TwoYaks at the GeneFlow blog effectively criticizes the hypothesis that girls like pink and boys like blue because of evolved sex differences in hunting and foraging behaviors. Thankfully, a disclaimer is included so that evolutionary psychology isn't totally destroyed by the criticism: "Evo-Psych can be a good tool for exploring behaviour, when employed properly, and in a comparative context." My field thanks her.
The effects of magic mushrooms on the brain, via fMRI? Well, sort of. More like the effects of fMRI on the brain,…
jgoldman | June 29, 2010Here are my ResearchBlogging Editor's Selections for this week.
Today's selections will appear in haiku form.
How hungry are you?
Hunger affects decisions,
says Christian Jarrett.
Touch and texture, too,
at Neurophilosophy,
alter decisions.
Science and Reason
explores creativity
and mental illness.
Social Rejection?
Study says take Tylenol.
Neurocritic laughs.
laelaps | June 8, 2010
Welcome Maryn McKenna and her blog Superbug to Sb! And, in case I forgot to mention it before, make sure to check out Deborah Blum's blog Speakeasy Science, too!
Wildlife experts use civetone-containing cologne to lure big cats
In a scene reminiscent of the ending of Kingdom of the Spiders, caterpillars blanket the English countryside with webs.
Coming soon, Inside Nature's Giants, series two.
John Lynch shares the introduction to Follies of the Present Day: Scriptural Geology from 1817 to 1857.
So you want to be a scientist? Learn to write!
How to make a blockbuster - the…
jgoldman | May 25, 2010More science, more blogging, more fantastic. Here are my Research Blogging Editor's Selections this week:
Angry people might play video games to release pent up energy and aggression...But researchers find that it doesn't really help. Neoacademic explains why.
Blue bananas and pink elephants. Kevin Mitchell at Wiring the Brain considers a rare condition called colour agnosia.
Stereotypically, men don't love housework, but most at least begrudingly help out. New research finds that men who do less paid work than their female partners also do less housework than average men. Read about why on…
jgoldman | May 18, 2010Fascinating Psychology and Neuroscience blogging as always this week. After several weeks behind me as Psych and Neuro Editor, I can confirm that is indeed really, really hard to just pick a few posts each week. But pick them I must...here are my Research Blogging Editor's Selections for this week:
Starting light, Neurokuz shares an interesting study looking at whether music choice affects exercise performance.
Moving on, Bill Yates of Brain Posts considers late maturation as a confounding variable in diagnosing ADHD.
Michelle Dawson, of The Autism Crisis, has an interesting look into the…