Links Dump
drorzel | October 27, 2008
Corruption in textbook-adoption proceedings: 'Judging Books by Their Covers'
Richard Feynman on the idiocies of the textbook selection process.
(tags: science math education books politics culture publishing)
What does it all mean -- Crooked Timber
"There are two big economic ideas that look substantially less appealing in the light of the current crisis."
(tags: economics social-science politics history)
Cocktail Party Physics: paradigm shift
"There has been much weeping and gnashing of teeth in recent years bemoaning the "death of science writing," but it's really just the demise of…
drorzel | October 26, 2008
5 Presidential Elections Even Dumber Than This One (Somehow) | Cracked.com
Hard as it may be to believe...
(tags: politics history comedy US silly internet)
drorzel | October 24, 2008
Roe vs. Wade? Bush vs. Gore? What are the worst Supreme Court decisions? - Los Angeles Times
Legal experts weigh in.
(tags: law politics us history society)
Quantum Hyperion | Cosmic Variance
Is Saturn's moon there when nobody's looking?
(tags: science quantum physics astronomy planets)
...My heart's in Accra » Woices, and weird windows on the world
"I want to build windows between these spaces. We'd place videoconferencing systems unobtrusively in walls within these spaces - possibly something no more complicated than a flat-screen monitor and a webcam. They'd connect, at random, to…
drorzel | October 23, 2008
Good Math, Bad Math : Credit Default Swaps: Gambling as Insurance
"Credit default swaps are interesting - in the same way that a Rube Goldberg device is interesting. They are in a fundamental sense very simple, but the structure that's built up around them is so bizarre, so ridiculous on the face of it, that when you look at it in retrospect, it's hard to believe that anyone actually thought that it was a good idea, or that it could ever work."
(tags: economics math stupid)
Spin segregation puzzles physicists - physicsworld.com
"John Thomas and colleagues at Duke University found that…
drorzel | October 21, 2008
Introduction to the work energy theorem | Dot Physics
"I think it is interesting to look at how most textbooks define energy:
Energy is the ability to do work
This is really a stupid definition. Kind of circular logic, if you ask me. "
(tags: physics education science energy academia)
Powell Endorses Obama | The Onion - America's Finest News Source
"There goes his standing with people who were tolerating him because he was in the Bush administration."
(tags: politics onion silly)
PHD Comics: Academic Salaries
In the words of David St. Hubbins, "Too much f*$%ing perspective."
(tags:…
drorzel | October 20, 2008
Physics - From atoms to molecules (and back)
"Atoms colliding in a magnetic field can form weakly bound states called Feshbach molecules. These states have now been used in combination with advanced laser techniques to create tightly bound ground-state molecules close to quantum degeneracy."
(tags: physics molecules atoms experiment science news low-temperature)
The Cartoon Lounge: Online Only: The New Yorker
Farley Katz (of the New Yorker) and Randall Munroe (of xkcd) in an old-fashioned cartoonist's duel.
(tags: xkcd comics internet silly)
drorzel | October 19, 2008
Michael Nielsen » The most remarkable graph in the history of sport
"It may not be obvious at first glance, but it's a remarkable graph, even if you don't give a fig about cricket"
(tags: sports statistics)
The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.: On Being Skipped
Notes from the sausage factory.
(tags: books publishing blogs SF)
nanoscale views: Faculty searches, 2008 version
"[I]t never hurts to present this topic again at this time of the year."
(tags: academia jobs science)
On Who is American « Whatever
Yes.
(tags: US politics race religion society culture diversity)
drorzel | October 17, 2008
Don't scrap the squiggle! -- Crooked Timber
"My only complaint about the crawler is that CNN removes it from the screen when the debate finishes. I absolutely wish that they continued to show the favourable/unfavourable reactions of the dial-testing focus group to the talking heads on the news afterwards; you'd be able to see the worm plunging every time Wolf Blitzer opened his gob."
(tags: television politics society silly social-science)
Tony Womo Out Three To Four Weeks With Bwoken Widdle Fingey | The Onion - America's Finest News Source
"Team doctors originally believed Womo's poor,…
drorzel | October 16, 2008
Physicists set new entanglement record - physicsworld.com
"Researchers in China and Europe have entangled a record-breaking 10 quantum bits -- an important breakthrough in the quest to develop practical quantum computers."
(tags: physics quantum computing science news experiment optics)
Ananova - Rabbit wins half marathon
Don't tell Emmy.
(tags: animals silly dog sports)
drorzel | October 14, 2008
Fafblog! the whole world's only source for Fafblog.
"Okay okay but who is Barack Obama, really, while I am playing scary music and flashing this terrifyingly desaturated image of Barack Obama in a turban across your television screen? "Oh my god I have no idea, who is this mysteriously radical mystery radical!" Giblets is glad you asked!"
(tags: politics US race silly blogs fafblog)
And If You Direct Your Attention To The X-Axis, You'll Find I Have No Idea What I'm Talking About | The Onion - America's Finest News Source
"In today's class, we'll be exploring the following principles:…
drorzel | October 13, 2008
Q and A - What Happened to the Golf Ball the Astronaut Hit on the Moon? - Question - NYTimes.com
"Alan Shepard actually hit two balls on the Apollo 14 mission of 1971, and they are still on the Moon, he said in a 1991 interview on the Academy of Achievement Web site for students."
(tags: space science sports US history)
Star Wars ABC - a set on Flickr
The real question is, can we get this as a cross-stitch primer for the nursery?
(tags: art SF silly movies culture nostalgia)
The Quantum Pontiff : Information Age Transcripts
A good idea, that would unfortunately require people to…
drorzel | October 12, 2008
Swans on Tea » Grad School Camp
It's crazy, but it just might work.
(tags: academia silly education blogs)
The Reality-Based Community: Palin at the Flyers: What the @#$%& Were They Thinking?
Alternate title: "We Booed Santa Claus, and Governor, You're No Santa Claus."
(tags: US politics stupid)
Kevin Drum - Mother Jones Blog: Troopergate Finale
"In fact, here's the part that really puzzles me: what exactly did Todd and Sarah Palin hope to accomplish?"
(tags: US politics stupid)
drorzel | October 11, 2008
nanoscale views: What's interesting about condensed matter physics
"It's amazing how many complicated phenomena result from just simple quantum mechanics + large numbers of particles, especially when interactions between the particles become important. "
(tags: physics science materials blogs)
PHD Comics: Undergradese
"Translation: 'Can I do my homework in your office?'"
(tags: academia silly education comics)
drorzel | October 10, 2008
slacktivist: They need help
"The reason I've been writing about/obsessing over things like the P&G rumor or the usefulness of Snopes is that I'm trying to figure out how to liberate the captives of unreality. "
(tags: politics psychology US society culture education)
Images of the 2008 TC3 fireball from space! - The Planetary Society Blog | The Planetary Society
"It seems that no one in Sudan was able to record the 2008 TC3 fireball; the only image I've seen that was shot from the ground was one very tiny pixel in the sky seen from a beach in Egypt. But in this day and age, there are…
drorzel | October 9, 2008
slacktivist: False Witnesses 2
"Far more interesting than those greedy sleazeballs, though, are the members of the much larger group of gossips who enthusiastically spread [rumors about Satanism at Proctor and Gamble]. This larger group has no financial interest at stake, so what's in it for them? What motivates someone to accept the invitation to participate in deception, to accept an obvious lie and then to voluntarily tie their own credibility to something so incredible?"
(tags: society culture stupid psychology religion)
drorzel | October 8, 2008
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2008 - Speed Read
A two-minute explanation of this year's prize.
(tags: physics particles Nobel news science theory)
The Collapse of Peer Review « The Scholarly Kitchen
"Is peer review in decline? Glenn Ellison, an economist at MIT, is beginning to question the added value of being published in top journals, at least for high-ranking authors."
(tags: science publishing economics social-science)
Kevin Drum - Mother Jones Blog: Feedback Pedantry
"I know that a lot of people use this term during a crash because "negative" is the same thing as "down," but I don'…
drorzel | October 7, 2008
The full story of Earth-impacting asteroid 2008 TC3 - The Planetary Society Blog | The Planetary Society
"All in all, I think the episode of 2008 TC3 has proven that the world's astronomical community, at least, is prepared to respond when an object on a collision course is detected. Within just a few hours of its discovery, the digitally connected world knew exactly where and when the object would hit, and also that it posed no threat. It was a wonderful simulation of the first part of the call to arms when a truly threatening object is detected."
(tags: science astronomy physics blogs)…
drorzel | October 5, 2008
The politics of girliness - Ultrabrown
"Last night, Palin winked at the camera, scrunched up her nose and added a smiley timbre before thrusting any rhetorical daggers. In these moments she resembled an anime character. Kawaii ne!"
(tags: US politics stupid gender society blogs)
slacktivist: Connections
"[W]hen I say that these baseless and illegitimate attacks "don't prove anything," that's not quite accurate. They don't prove anything about the person being attacked, but they do prove quite a bit about the people making the attacks. They prove the attackers to be capable of the level of…
drorzel | October 4, 2008
...My heart's in Accra » Cultural appropriation of the kick-ass kind
The haka comes to Texas.
(tags: rugby football culture society sports)
VOTD: I Love Sarah Jane (Zombie Short Film) | /Film
"Jimbo is 13. All he can think about is one girl, Sarah Jane. And no matter what stands in his way - bullies, violence, chaos, zombies - nothing is going to stop him from finding a way into her world."
(tags: video movies SF)
The Shakespeare Programming Language
"The design goal was to make a language with beautiful source code that resembled Shakespeare plays. There are no fancy data or control…
drorzel | October 3, 2008
Ideas: Prediction vs Explanation: A Puzzle
"We do ten experiments. A scientist observes the results, constructs a theory consistent with them, and uses it to predict the results of the next ten. We do them and the results fit his predictions. A second scientist now constructs a theory consistent with the results of all twenty experiments.
The two theories give different predictions for the next experiment. Which do we believe? Why?"
(tags: science psychology statistics games blogs)
Daily Kos: Sarah Palin Debate Flow Chart
(tags: politics US stupid blogs)
Improbable Research
This year's…