Links Dump
drorzel | May 2, 2012Self-enhancement and imposter syndrome: neither is good for your teaching | Science Edventures
McCrickerd points out it is only through dissatisfaction that we change our behavior. An instructor with an overly-enhanced self sees no reason to change when something bad happens in class. "Not my fault they didn't learn..." And who else does a lot of teaching? Teaching assistants, that's who. Graduate students with a raging case of imposter syndrome. When something goes wrong in their classes, "It's my fault. I shouldn't even be here in the first place..." Yeah, that's a real motivator.…
drorzel | May 1, 2012McSweeney's Internet Tendency: The Only Thing That Can Stop This Asteroid is Your Liberal Arts Degree.
Don't think I don't have my misgivings about sending some hotshot Asian Studies minor into space for the first time. This is NASA, not Grinnell. I don't have the time or patience for your renegade attitude and macho bravado. I can't believe the fate of mankind rests on some roughneck bachelor of the arts. I know your type. You feed off the thrill of inference and small, instructor-led discussion. You think you're some kind of invincible God just because you have cursory understandings of…
drorzel | April 30, 2012Confessions of a Community College Dean: Class Dismissed
In my darker moments, I sometimes wonder if the root of the problem with public higher education in America is that it was designed to create and support a massive middle class. And we've tacitly decided as a society that a massive middle class is not a priority. We're trying to fulfill a mission that the country has largely abandoned. When the goal of a prosperous middle class was tacitly dismissed, dominos started to fall. The meme making the rounds last week was the announcement that outstanding student loan debt in America…
drorzel | April 28, 2012Learning about science education from the experts: Kids « Boundary Vision
By far the best panel on science education I've seen recently was given by a few of the most important people in the field: kids.
drorzel | April 27, 2012Animals Disappointed in your College Performance
This ostrich begs to differ with you. Grammar does matter.
Boston Review -- Claude S. Fischer: The Loneliness Scare
Social scientists have more precisely tracked Americans' isolation and reports of loneliness over the last several decades. The real news, they have discovered, is that there is no such epidemic; there isn't even a meaningful trend. If we turned to historians to measure Americans' degree of isolation over the centuries, they would probably find periods of growing and lessening social connection. The rough evidence indicates a…
drorzel | April 26, 2012What Particle Are You? | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine
I am not a particle! I am a HUMAN BEING!!
Studies in Everyday Life: Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist: My Comments on the Limits to Growth
This is my response to the recent post by UCSD physicist Tom Murphy, in which he questions an economist about the physical limits of energy consumption and its implications for economic growth. Following Murphy, I'll respond in four acts.
drorzel | April 25, 2012Taking in a concert doubleheader with Creed and Nickelback, the world's most hated bands - Grantland
The moment you tell people you're seeing Creed and Nickelback in concert -- on the same night, at roughly the same time, in two different venues -- it suddenly becomes a stunt. Just describing the premise seems schlocky; it's like Def Leppard playing on three different continents in 24 hours, or maybe something David Blaine would attempt if he worked for the Fuse network. The immediate assumption is that this is some type of sonic endurance test, and that no person could possibly enjoy the…
drorzel | April 24, 2012Fire - Flint & Steel - Some Clarifications
"I started a fire with flint and steel." Often heard, at least in some circles. But, what does this really mean? Well, there are two very different processes that might be being talked about: Traditional Flint and Steel: Striking a hardened piece of carbon steel with a very hard rock, often flint, to generate sparks. Ferrocerium: Scraping a "magic" stick (trade names: Fire Steel, Blastmatch, Metal- Match) with something "sharp" to generate sparks. Why do we care about making a distinction?
Facts, 360 B.C.-A.D. 2012 - Chicago Tribune
Over the…
drorzel | April 23, 2012How do I get my students to prepare before coming to a flipped class? - Turn to Your Neighbor: The Official Peer Instruction Blog
A whole lot of words about the virtues of Peer Instruction and Just-in-Time Teaching, followed by a one-paragraph response to the question in the title. Don't blink or you might miss it.
Screening Out the Introverts - Advice - The Chronicle of Higher Education
While I have some sympathy, I'm not sure how far you can really go to lessen the strain on introverts in academia given that one of the primary professional activities necessarily involves talking to a room…
drorzel | April 21, 2012Dark Matter: Now You See It, Now You Don't | Of Particular Significance
Both claims that I'm about to describe use novel techniques, and their analyses have not been repeated by anyone else. At this point you should understand that both are tentative, and (based on the history of radical claims) the odds are against them. Both might be wrong. That said, both analyses look to me as though they've been reasonably well done, and if a mistake has been made, it will require someone far more expert in dark matter studies than I am to point it out. So let me describe them in turn, to the best of my…
drorzel | April 18, 2012What's up in the solar system in April 2012 - The Planetary Society Blog | The Planetary Society
Lest you get too depressed about the mothballing of the Space Shuttles, a roundup of all the cool space probes out there producing real science.
Yes, I Took My Ninth Grader on a College Tour (and It Was Worth It) - NYTimes.com
The purpose of bringing busloads of middle-school children to campuses is not to emphasize a particular place. Mr. O'Hara says he downplays the names of particular campuses. They visit student centers, libraries and dorms, take in a varsity basketball game, and meet with…
drorzel | April 17, 2012A few thoughts on Hilary Rosen, moms and work
But instead of engaging Rosen's points, the media storm is about how Democrats Hate Mothers. Or, Democrats Hate GOOD Mothers -- you know, the kind who stay at home. The women the Democrats like are those slutty Planned Parenthood sluts, or something. And while all the Democratic and Republican spokespeople (including President Obama) seem to agree that being a mother is THE MOST IMPORTANT JOB IN THE WORLD: -None of the men who think parenthood is THE MOST IMPORTANT JOB IN THE WORLD seem willing to do it full-time themselves, even when, like Mitt…
drorzel | April 16, 2012Sparks Fly Over Shoestring Test Of 'Holographic Principle'
" "The beauty of it is that we have the people who can come up with this low-risk, high-reward experiment," says Fermilab's Raymond Tomlin. "It's one shot, and if you discover something you go to Stockholm [to collect a Nobel Prize]. And if you don't see anything, you set a limit." Not everyone cheers the effort, however. In fact, Leonard Susskind, a theorist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, and co-inventor of the holographic principle, says the experiment has nothing to do with his brainchild. "The idea that this…
drorzel | April 14, 2012Microsoft Word is cumbersome, inefficient, and obsolete. It's time for it to die. - Slate Magazine
Nowadays, I get the same feeling of dread when I open an email to see a Microsoft Word document attached. Time and effort are about to be wasted cleaning up someone's archaic habits. A Word file is the story-fax of the early 21st century: cumbersome, inefficient, and a relic of obsolete assumptions about technology. It's time to give up on Word. It took years for me to get to this point. I came of age with Word. It's the program I used to write my college papers, overcoming old-fashioned page…
drorzel | April 12, 2012What Is Science? From Feynman to Sagan to Curie, an Omnibus of Definitions | Brain Pickings
So, what exactly is science, what does it aspire to do, and why should we the people care? It seems like a simple question, but it's an infinitely complex one, the answer to which is ever elusive and contentious. Gathered here are several eloquent definitions that focus on science as process rather than product, whose conduit is curiosity rather than certainty.
Inside the DOJ's ebook price-fixing case against Apple: an analysis | The Verge
We just got our hands on the DOJ's antitrust complaint against…
drorzel | April 11, 2012Denim and Tweed: Asking permission
Last May, the Republican-controlled state legislature voted to amend the Minnesota Constitution, adding a thirteenth section to the "Miscellaneous Items" of the Constitution's Article XIII to declare, "Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Minnesota." The Democratic governor's veto was purely symbolic; in Minnesota, the fate of constitutional amendments proposed by the legislature is determined by statewide ballot. So seven months later, I started calling total strangers and asking them to vote against the…
drorzel | April 10, 2012Gymkata proves that tiny gymnasts make tough heroes | Film | Films That Time Forgot | The A.V. Club
Plot: At the height of the Reagan era, someone had the bright idea to turn diminutive, soft-voiced, mulleted gymnast Kurt Thomas into an international action star. How? By positing him as a master of "gymkata," a discipline that combines gymnastics--a sport most commonly associated with anorexic 12-year-old girls from former Soviet-bloc countries--with karate.
The anti-Walmart | David Rohde
Cashiers are barred from interacting with customers until they have completed 40 hours of training.…
drorzel | April 7, 2012The murky water of chastising and celebrating NFL violence - Grantland
Of course, it's 2012 -- the Year of Internet Self-Righteousness -- which means we need to feign disgust, pile on the Saints, argue for Williams to receive the NFL's death penalty and basically freak out that a football coach would ever do that. So let's concede the following points. No, you shouldn't instruct your players to hurt people. Yes, you should be fined and suspended for that. Yes, Gregg Williams came off like an insensitive Neanderthal, and yes, it would be difficult (if not impossible) to take him seriously as a…
drorzel | April 6, 2012Texts from Hillary
"So then I sent her a text saying I think I left my favorite sunglasses in the desk."
Swans on Tea » Do You Have My Back?
So this whole "get back to doing science" kind of hits me where I live. I've seen budgetary fallout from recent events, and I know I'm not alone in that regard. But I also know that a tweet is not a substitute for actual action or activism. I'm a scientist. So I want to know: Do you have my back? Are you going to fund me? That is, do you recognize the value of research so that you won't complain that some fraction of a penny from your tax dollar goes…
drorzel | April 5, 2012The Gravitational Force in Angry Birds Space | Wired Science | Wired.com
As anyone that has played the game can tell you, this air looking stuff surrounding an asteroid defines a region in which the angry birds will interact with the rock. If the bird is outside of this region, there will be no force on bird. No force means no change in velocity and the bird will move along at a constant speed in the same direction. Ok, I admit it - I missed this one. Why? Why would the game do this? I have no idea, but it is probably either because it makes the game more fun to play or because it makes it…