Links Dump
drorzel | June 16, 2009
World Science Festivities | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine
"Iâm back from the World Science Festival, which was a rousing success, leaving thousands of smiling attendees chattering excitedly about the mysteries of the universe as they dispersed through the streets of Manhattan. So naturally I want to talk about how it could be improved. Writing about oneâs travels can be one of the least compelling arrows in the bloggerâs quiver, but it would be great if the science-festival idea caught on more widely, so perhaps there is something to be learned from the experience."
(tags: science…
drorzel | June 15, 2009
The dark side of animation
"To test their hypothesis, the team recorded two versions of a PowerPoint lecture. The presentations differed only in the presence of animation to incrementally present information. They then showed students either the animated or non-animated lecture and then tested the students recall and comprehension of the lecture.
The team found a marked difference in average student performance, with those seeing the non-animated lecture performing much better in the tests than those who watched the animated lecture."
(tags: education technology academia social-science…
drorzel | June 14, 2009
Flying Flux: The Dullness of Details
"Short sentences; active voice; keep the audience in mind; draw clear diagrams; minimize jargon; use paragraphs; spell correctly; conjugate verbs; employ diacritics properly; use metric; resist idiomatic speech; avoid overusing semicolons; write in English. All very helpful tips that I've gathered over the years, if you want to totally ensure that no one will ever want to read what you write. I think it behooves writers to make technical documentation fun by embedding a few surprises here and there for the unsuspecting reader. "
(tags: science technology…
drorzel | June 12, 2009
slacktivist: TF: Skip verse 10
"Be sure to use the King James Version when you bring up Luke 17:34 -- "In that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left" -- and then argue that a literal interpretation suggests that precisely 50 percent of homosexuals will be raptured."
(tags: books stupid religion blogs slacktivist)
Colonial Africa: A List of Questions « Easily Distracted
"I think Iâve hit on a catchy structure for a modest reshuffling of my Honors seminar in Colonial Africa. Much of my reading list will remain the same, but this…
drorzel | June 11, 2009
Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive « alex.moskalyuk
"50 scientifically proven ways constitute 50 chapters of the book, longest of which take 7 pages. The authors take the position that persuasion is a science, not art, hence with the right approach anybody can become the master in the skill of persuasion. So, what are the 50 ways?"
(tags: psychology marketing business advertising science blogs)
Learning Curves: New Adventures in Cheating
"The two exam papers had many identical wrong answers, many to word problems that required the answer to be given in a full sentence.…
drorzel | June 10, 2009
Random musings of Lizard Bench Mango - an affirmation?
"When I am struggling with something, I sometimes think 'Damn this is hard for me. I wonder if I am stupid,' and then I remember I have a degree in astrophysics from Cal Tech; I must not be stupid."
(tags: psychology silly academia)
drorzel | June 9, 2009
Connecticut District Tosses Algebra Textbooks and Goes Online - NYTimes.com
"Westport school officials say their less-is-more approach has already resulted in less review in math classes, higher standardized test scores and more students taking advanced math classes. The percentage of the districtâs 10th graders receiving top scores on state exams rose to 86 percent last year from 78 percent in 2006. Advanced Placement calculus and statistics classes enrolled 231 students this year, from 170 in 2006, and a record 44 students will be able to take multivariable calculus this fall, up from…
drorzel | June 8, 2009
Youâre Like School in the Summer⦠« The First Excited State
"Summertime is a time to focus on your research, without the distractions of tests, homeworks, and (hopefully) teaching duties. But many grad students, at least in physics, take the summer as an opportunity to attend summer schools, which are short, intense sessions aimed at advanced grad students that are held at various institutions around the country and the world. "
(tags: science academia physics education blogs)
Technology Review: Blogs: arXiv blog: The Dizzying Data Rate Conundrum
Theorists are more likely than…
drorzel | June 7, 2009
Who Underestimates Their Systematic Uncertainties ?
"It is a well-known fact that it is much easier to measure a physical quantity than to correctly assess the magnitude of the uncertainty on the measurement: the uncertainty is everything! "
(tags: physics particles experiment statistics blogs dorigo science)
Acephalous: Photo reference at the National Review
"The logicâsuch that it isâof the National Review editorial board seems to be that since everyone knows Asians are better than Latinos, no one can call them racist if they compare Sotomayor to an Asian. That argumentâsuch that it…
drorzel | June 5, 2009
Diary of a Trade Book (Newton and the Counterfeiter) 7.1: Rewards and Bribes « The Inverse Square Blog
"[W]hen sheer love of words and sentences and ideas canât carry you through, what can you fall back on?
Bribery."
(tags: writing books levenson)
Matthew Yglesias » Book Launch 2.0
As someone who created a Facebook page for his dog as a way to promote a book project, I definitely appreciate this.
(tags: internet books publishing marketing youtube video)
Confessions of a Community College Dean: Assessing Professional Development
"Since it's looking like we'll be short of funds for some…
drorzel | June 4, 2009
Swans on Tea » Going UP (Very Precisely)
"Ignoring that weâre working in English units, which scientists donât really do very much, the big thing that pops out to the budding, fully-bloomed, or dying scientist is the misuse of significant digits. Do we really believe the estimate of the houseâs weight is exact? No, itâs probably good to 2 digits, at best â the house could easily weigh several thousand pounds more or less than the estimated value. So the answer is that it takes 1,500,000 cubic feet of Helium to fill the balloons. You canât specify it any better than that. The same mistake…
drorzel | June 3, 2009
kitchen table math, the sequel: alternate universe
"While visiting schools in a variety of districts, I began to notice something that puzzled me. Some of these schools, particularly those with large numbers of poor and minority children, are working against daunting â some would say unreasonable â expectations for improvement in test scores. In more affluent schools, those pressures are much less evident. Yet the kinds of instructional problems that surface in both types of schools are strikingly similar."
(tags: education academia class-war society politics social-science)
Infinite…
drorzel | June 2, 2009
slacktivist: Killing in the name of
"In 1973, most evangelicals regarded opposition to abortion as a Catholic Thing -- and therefore vaguely suspect, as though it might lead to praying to Mary or something. But throughout the 1970s and into the '80s, that changed. The person most responsible for that change was Francis Schaeffer. He persuaded evangelicals to adopt this issue and to get so angry about it that it would come to replace even evangelism as their hallmark concern and their pre-eminent defining characteristic. The language, the rhetoric and arguments, the moral reasoning,…
drorzel | June 1, 2009
Silence Is The Enemy | The Intersection | Discover Magazine
Today begins a very important initiative called Silence Is The Enemy to help a generation of young women half a world away.Why? Because they are our sisters and childrenâthe victims of sexual abuse who donât have the means to ask for help. We have power in our words and influence. Along with our audience, weâre able to speak for them. Iâm asking all of youâbloggers, writers, teachers, and concerned citizensâto use whatever platform you have to call for an end to the rape and abuse of women and girls in Liberia and around the…
drorzel | May 31, 2009
The Boston Terrier Break Dance | The Intersection | Discover Magazine
A photo essay.
(tags: dog animals silly pictures)
Vagabond Scholar: Anti-Terrorist Fantasy Dream Team on the Case
""I believe a fictional threat is best met with decisive fictional force," explained President Obama. "Jack Bauer and Wolverine are among the very best we have when in comes to combating fantasy foes." Mr. Bauer said, "We're quite certain that our prisons are secure. Osama bin Laden and his agents wouldn't dare attempt a break-out, and would fail miserably if they tried. But I love this country. And should…
drorzel | May 30, 2009
Off the Kuff: Saturday video break: Literally!
"Mullet with headlights?"
(tags: music silly video youtube nostalgia)
Career Advice: Preparing for the Non-Academic Interview - Inside Higher Ed
"People assume the only reason to earn a Ph.D. is to become a professor to the exclusion of all other careers. They donât realize there are at least three categories of Ph.D. candidates looking for work outside academe: 1) those who have no intention of seeking academic work, 2) those who thought they wanted to be academics until they experienced graduate school, and 3) those who wanted to be…
drorzel | May 29, 2009
Could an iphone tell if your parachute didn't open with its accelerometer? | Dot Physics
"The first and simplest answer would be ânoâ."
(tags: physics education science technology gadgets dot-physics blogs)
Robert J. Lang Origami
Awesome origami art, and science as well.
(tags: art math science)
Don't Be Such a Scientist
Everybody with a blog has a book deal these days...
(tags: science politics blogs books society culture)
Who Can Name the Bigger Number?
"In an old joke, two noblemen vie to name the bigger number. The first, after ruminating for hours, triumphantly announces "Eighty-…
drorzel | May 28, 2009
The Washington Monthly
"This is one of the things I love most about blogs: Barack Obama nominates Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court; I, a non-lawyer, wonder what her record is like, and find the summaries in newspapers much too shallow and focussed on the politics of her appointment rather than her record; but voila! SCOTUSBlog has anticipated my every whim by running a series summarizing a whole lot of her decisions."
(tags: blogs law politics US)
David Foster Wallace | Books | A.V. Club
"David Foster Wallace wrote about lots of subjects with lots of strategies, all of them vehement.…
drorzel | May 27, 2009
Race and the Full Court Press at Racialicious - the intersection of race and pop culture
A good piece on the creepy racial subtext of that Malcolm Gladwell article. (I can stop posting about that any time I want to. Really.)
(tags: race culture sports basketball society)
Confessions of a Community College Dean: Men
"I mentioned a little while back that it's raining men here. The percentage of male students here has been climbing for the last several years, and the recession seems to be giving it a conspicuous boost. Male students are still a minority, though mostly in the over-21 age…
drorzel | May 26, 2009
Unscientific America: The Table of Contents | The Intersection | Discover Magazine
2009 promises to be a good year for science-y books by people with blogs.
(tags: books science social-science society politics intersection culture)
Tor.com / Science fiction and fantasy / Blog posts / Is the right book winning the Hugo?
"The problem we usually have with arguing about what won awards is that weâre too close to them, or else too far away. 1990 is long enough ago that we should have some perspective, and with these lists, we also have the perspective of the people who were there. Looking at…