Links Dump
drorzel | November 26, 2009
The Mid-Majority : Assistant Coach for a Night
"[Northwestern State Coach] McConathy did things a little differently than most coaches -- he subbed his players five-in, five-out, ran an offense that was almost as old as the NCAA Tournament itself. He often allowed coaching friends and local children into the locker room at halftime, even for big games. He let national journalists give pregame pep talks. And for the middle part of this decade, his unconventional ways were paying off. The Demons had a long string of 20-win seasons, and made four consecutive Southland title games.
But now, the…
drorzel | November 25, 2009
Confessions of a Community College Dean: Teaching Governance
"As an administrator, I'm constantly struck by the unacknowledged contradiction among many faculty between "consult us in all things" and "back off and leave us alone." It's not that I don't understand the impulse; depending on local practice, 'service' may or may not count for tenure or promotion. If it doesn't, then the duck-and-cover approach makes short-term sense. Certainly, anybody who has put in time in contentious meetings (hi!) can attest that they can be draining, that you'll sometimes see people at their worst, and that…
drorzel | November 24, 2009
CHART ATTACK!: 11/20/76 | Popdose
"I keep trying to figure out what this song is really trying to say in its subtext -- but no, I'm pretty sure it's actually about two muskrats courting. I know I said this a few songs ago, but WHY? Why did we need a song about two muskrats on a date? And even more importantly, why were Captain & Tennille the third artists to record the song? Originally titled "Mukstrat Candlelight" -- and let's just pause a second to think about the meeting where the artistic merits of this title were debated -- the song was written and recorded by Willis Alan Ramsey in…
drorzel | November 23, 2009
Seeing Laser Beams : Built on Facts
"I have to say it's a nice job perk that I can see old science fiction tropes come to life pretty much every day."
(tags: science physics optics blogs built-on-facts lasers)
blarg? » A Note To Maya
"So according to the old joke, a fed-up student asks the physics prof who's going over kinetics in protracted detail, what good is all this? What will I ever use this for? To which the professor, not even looking up from where he's writing on the board, says "This stuff saves lives." The student balks for a second and then gets belligerent, demanding to know…
drorzel | November 18, 2009
Zeroth Order Approximation: Summary dismissal
"Not every civil court case proceeds to trial. Some are settled "out of court" by the parties involved. Others are settled by the judge in a "summary dismissal" or "summary judgment". The suit is deemed to be unworthy of trial, even without a full hearing. In this way valuable time is saved and litigants are discouraged from bringing frivolous lawsuits.
We often do the same thing with ideas. In fact, a great deal of what appears to be debate about ideas actually takes place in a "pre-trial" phase, in which people discuss whether an idea should…
drorzel | November 17, 2009
Why Wine Ratings Are Badly Flawed - WSJ.com
"[A] 1996 study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology showed that even flavor-trained professionals cannot reliably identify more than three or four components in a mixture, although wine critics regularly report tasting six or more. There are eight in this description, from The Wine News of a Silverado Limited Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 that sells for more than $100 a bottle: "Dusty, chalky scents followed by mint, plum, tobacco and leather. Tasty cherry with smoky oak accents..." Another publication, The Wine Advocate, describes a wine…
drorzel | November 16, 2009
Michael Nielsen » The Wikipedia Paradox
"To determine whether any given subject deserves an entry, Wikipedia uses the criterion of notability. This lead to an interesting question:
Question 1: What's the most notable subject that's not notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia?
Let's assume for now that this question has an answer ("The Answer"), and call the corresponding subject X. Now, we have a second question whose answer is not at all obvious.
Question 2: Is subject X notable merely by being The Answer?"
(tags: internet culture michael-nielsen computing silly)
On the Opinion that…
drorzel | November 15, 2009
10 Geeky Laws That Should Exist, But Don't | GeekDad | Wired.com
"1. Munroe's Law: A person in a geeky argument who can quote xkcd to support his position automatically wins the argument. This law supersedes Godwin, so that even if the quote is about Hitler, the quoter still wins."
(tags: science culture books internet silly)
A Rolling Stone Leads to Rome - Schott's Vocab Blog - NYTimes.com
"A little knowledge is a friend indeed.
A friend in need is a dangerous thing."
(tags: language silly blogs)
drorzel | November 14, 2009
WTF, Aerosmith? WTF? | Popdose
"Never has there been a band so unbelievably great and so sadly shitty at the same time. That, to me, is the Aerosmith legacy, and it's only bound to get worse. Yet, there is something that still seems sacred about this band, beyond mere nostalgia. I just think they need to go away for good before we'll be able to figure out exactly what that is."
(tags: music culture popdose blogs)
Book Review - 'What the Dog Saw - And Other Adventures,' by Malcolm Gladwell - Review - NYTimes.com
"The themes of the collection are a good way to characterize Gladwell himself…
drorzel | November 13, 2009
Physics Buzz: Best physics inventions of 2009
"TIME magazine has announced the 50 best inventions of 2009. NASA's Ares family of rockets was a shoo-in for best invention, given the recent launch of Ares 1-X, the family's test rocket. I'll give them that; NASA could certainly use the cheerleading.
But I was surprised to see "Teleportation" sixth on the list. When did I miss this? Has everyone else been teleporting to work while I've been trudging in the rain? How can I get my hands on a teleporter?"
(tags: science physics quantum blogs physics-buzz)
The 10 weirdest physics facts, from…
drorzel | November 12, 2009
Das Kriegstagebuch von Dieter Finzen im 1. Weltkrieg - Wardiary of Dieter Finzen in WW1
Diary entries from a German soldier in WWI, posted 93 years after they were written.
(tags: history war world blogs)
WW1: Experiences of an English Soldier
"This blog is made up of transcripts of Harry Lamin's letters from the first World War. The letters will be posted exactly 90 years after they were written. To find out Harry's fate, follow the blog!"
(tags: history war blogs world)
Cocktail Party Physics: The Mayans Warned Us: Don't Trespass In Yellowstone
"Last night I settled down into a cushy…
drorzel | November 11, 2009
Faraday's Cage is where you put Schroedinger's Cat - Why you might want to live in ND...
"My rural area friends have commented on this same trend. Most kids don't do anything unsupervised in cities and spend all of their time indoors. School is making this worse. Kids are being given ever more homework at younger grades, seat work is now taking place in kindergarten, etc. Contrast this with my rural area friends and relative whose kids play outside a lot, understand how things work, aren't afraid of dirt, and, forgive me for saying this, are a fairly skinny lot. They're also fairly…
drorzel | November 10, 2009
A New Spacecraft to Explore on Waves of Light - NYTimes.com
"About a year from now, if all goes well, a box about the size of a loaf of bread will pop out of a rocket some 500 miles above the Earth. There in the vacuum it will unfurl four triangular sails as shiny as moonlight and only barely more substantial. Then it will slowly rise on a sunbeam and move across the stars."
(tags: science space technology overbye)
News: Engaged or Confused? - Inside Higher Ed
"[The National Survey of Student Engagement] "fails to meet basic standards for validity and reliability," writes Stephen R.…
drorzel | November 9, 2009
The Mid-Majority : The Old Ways
"Once the Union was preserved forever, the United States stopped worrying splitting into two. So with the late 1800's came the combat-in-context of professional and amateur sports. If you're looking for a reason why the South never rose again, it's probably because it was too busy learning how to play American-style football."
(tags: sports basketball journalism media history blogs mid-majority)
Cocktail Party Physics: batteries not included
"The explosion of portable computers (laptops, smart phones, etc) has brought the problem of battery power to the…
drorzel | November 8, 2009
On Denialism and the role of science in America. (1) - By Chris Mooney and Michael Specter - Slate Magazine
A fourpart discussion on science, the media, and American society, featuring the authors of _The Republican War on Science_ and _Denialism_.
(tags: science politics media journalism society culture medicine)
The Peril of Palatability - Reason Magazine
"Kessler fearlessly accuses major restaurant chains of a crime they brag about, relying on unnamed "insiders" to reveal that comestible pushers such as Cinnabon and The Cheesecake Factory deliberately make their food delicious--or, as…
drorzel | November 7, 2009
WIPP Exhibit: Message to 12,000 A.D.
"This place is not a place of honor.
No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here.
Nothing valued is here.
This place is a message and part of a system of messages.
Pay attention to it!
Sending this message was important to us.
We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture."
(tags: science social-science nuclear energy culture)
Best Books of 2009: Science Top 10
"Welcome to our Best of 2009 top 10 lists for Science. We've put our editors' picks and our 2009 bestsellers for each category on the same page together, so you can easily compare. Click on…
drorzel | November 6, 2009
Philip K. Dick | Books | The A.V. Club
"Why it's daunting: Science fiction and fantasy get a lot of mileage out of taking their readers to new worlds, but most classic genre fiction is really about making new worlds seem like home. The Lord Of The Rings would lose a lot of its appeal if the hobbits had no Shire to return to, and Isaac Asimov's Foundation series wouldn't be nearly as effective if the heroes weren't bent on protecting a sane, prosperous status quo. Philip K. Dick doesn't play by the same rules. While his work has clear genre roots, using such familiar tropes as androids, time…
drorzel | November 5, 2009
TPM: The Philosophers' Magazine | My philosophy: Alan Sokal
"Physicists, when they do philosophy, often do it badly. They're often confused about the conceptual foundations of their own physics, because sometimes you can compute and get the right results even if you don't understand conceptually very well what you're doing. That's a criticism that not only philosophers but also mathematicians make of physics. Because I'm half a mathematician I respect that criticism too. So it's absolutely true that physicists often make a botch of the conceptual foundations of physics, especially when it…
drorzel | November 4, 2009
Technology Review: Blogs: arXiv blog: Protecting aircraft from high-powered lasers
Sadly, this does not involve giant laser cannons trying to shoot down planes.
(tags: science physics lasers optics)
Essay - What to Write Next - Picking a Genre for Your Next Novel - NYTimes.com
"Thriller Nothing wrong with putting a little food on the table, especially in these times of economic uncertainty.
Recommended for: Those who know only five adjectives, but know them really well."
(tags: writing books literature silly)
slacktivist: TF: Saving Hattie Durham
"Apart from the generally dull…
drorzel | November 3, 2009
Fafblog! the whole world's only source for Fafblog.
"I'm not real sure how I got here in the first place, and when you think about it you really have to go all the way back to school, and mom thought I should be a doctor and dad thought I should be an industrial wood lathe and I wanted to be the Cenozoic Era and we tried to work out a compromise but lookin back it was really the kinda situation where nobody was gonna end up really satisfied in the end"
(tags: fafblog silly blogs)
Unsolicited Advice X: How to Frame a Winning Proposal | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine
"Pretty much every…