Links Dump
drorzel | June 26, 2008
Under the Same Sky
How far apart can you and your beloved be while standing under the same sky?
(tags: physics science math education literature)
Confessions of a Community College Dean: Systems and Silos
"[W]e don't have a [higher education] system. As in so many things, we have thousands of independent silos, each with its own internal politics."
(tags: academia education economics politics society US)
drorzel | June 25, 2008
Annals of Medicine: The Itch: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker
The neurobiology of itching. Sadly, it doesn't include a cure for hives.
(tags: medicine psychology science)
Swans on Tea » Ghostly Visages
Video of laser-cooled atoms in a trap with the magnetic fields not balanced. I used to spend half an hour a day tweaking the Xenon MOT using this sort of picture.
(tags: physics low-temperature atoms experiment science video youtube)
Plenty to Go Around :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, Views and Jobs
"A new book from Stanford University Press called…
drorzel | June 23, 2008
George Carlin, Splenetic Comedian, Dies at 71 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com
Say a prayer to Joe Pesci in his memory.
(tags: comedy society culture)
Law Blog - WSJ.com : In Texas-Arkansas Spat, Judge Orders Parties to Midfield
"Surely Defendant's corporate representative, a resident of Arkansas, would feel great humiliation by being forced to enter the home state of the University of Texas, where the legendary Texas Longhorns have wrought havoc on the Arkansas Razorbacks with
(tags: law sports football silly)
NOVA | scienceNOW | PBS
A new science "magazine" show, premiering Wednesday at…
drorzel | June 22, 2008
Postcards from Nowhere
"It is the artists, and a certain line of thinking about art, that have given the people with the cash permission to buy and sell what amounts to nothing, and to do so for ever larger and more insane sums of money."
(tags: art culture society stupid humanities)
drorzel | June 21, 2008
Earth Will Survive After All, Physicists Say - NYTimes.com
A new safety review says that the LHC won't really kill us all. I'm sure this will put the whole issue to rest for good...
drorzel | June 20, 2008
Experimental Realization of an Optical One-Way Barrier for Neutral Atoms
"[A] realization of Maxwell's demon [that] has important implications for cooling atoms and molecules not amenable to standard laser-cooling techniques."
(tags: physics articles science experiment news atoms optics)
Spatially Resolved Observation of Dipole-Dipole Interaction between Rydberg Atoms
A possible mechanism for making a quantum computer with neutral atoms.
(tags: science quantum physics articles news experiment)
High-Fidelity Gates in a Single Josephson Qubit
"By carefully separating out gate and…
drorzel | June 19, 2008
Redefining Where Salary Gaps Linger :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, Views and Jobs
"[M]en and women are being hired at four-year colleges at comparable salaries as they start their faculty careers, but there is one significant exception: research universities. At research universities, even controlling for variables such as discipline a
(tags: academia jobs gender economics education)
Gregg Easterbrook is - wait for it! - an idiot « The Poor Man Institute
"Nobody is stupid enough to make these mistakes by accident, and no liar would be brazen enough to cite a…
drorzel | June 17, 2008
June 18: Polar Land and Life Day
Happy birthday to me...
(tags: animals environment science news education biology geology)
Halo: The Cole Protocol (and welcome to all you new readers) at Tobias Buckell Online
"Project X" revealed.
(tags: books games SF blogs)
The Giant's Shoulders
A monthly science blogging event about classic science papers.
(tags: blogs science history)
Testing your free energy machine.
"Here therefore is the Built on Facts Protocol for testing perpetual motion or free energy. It is a literal instantiation of a black box test."
(tags: physics energy blogs)
drorzel | June 16, 2008
Disorder puts the brakes on matter waves - physicsworld.com
Using cold atoms in optical lattices to simulate "Anderson localization."
(tags: physics atoms optics low-temperature experiment materials news science)
drorzel | June 14, 2008
Acephalous: "Sleep is for the weak."
The weak and fuzzy, that is...
(tags: animals pictures silly)
drorzel | June 13, 2008
Optics basics: Polarization « Skulls in the Stars
What you need to know about light polarization.
(tags: physics optics blogs science education)
"Plutoids": the new name for Pluto-like dwarf planets - physicsworld.com
When, oh, when will the IAU stop jerking Pluto around?
(tags: astronomy planets science news)
PhotoshopDisasters: Washington Post: Unlikely
From the MC Escher Open
(tags: journalism pictures silly sports)
drorzel | June 11, 2008
xkcd - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language - By Randall Munroe
They forgot the philosophers, or maybe ran out of room in the right margin...
(tags: biology chemistry physics psychology science math comics)
drorzel | June 10, 2008
Do We Really Need a Few Billion Locavores? - Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog
"To eat locally grown food or, even better, food that you've grown yourself, seems as if it should be 1) more delicious; 2) more nutritious; 3) cheaper; and 4) better for the environment. But is it?"
(tags: blogs food economics environment society culture)
drorzel | June 6, 2008
'When We Left Earth' Shows When Man Stretched to Reach the Moon - NYTimes.com
"Like many gadget-happy Americans, NASA took lots and lots of home movies. For this series it threw open the doors of its film and video archives, which have been transferred to stunning high-definition format."
(tags: television space science history)
Physics of GPS relativistic time delay « Unused Cycles
More than you may have wanted to know about how relativity affects GPS.
(tags: physics science education blogs precision-measurement space relativity)
Crooked Timber » » Money talks and the social…
drorzel | June 5, 2008
Asking the Wrong Questions: Braaaaaaains
"I've been on the lookout for other works which, like Proof, feature characters whose lives are lived primarily in the mind, and who view the world, and interact with it most fully, through their intellect."
(tags: books literature science culture society)
Everyday Scientist » Plaigiarise an American? The French would never do that!
"Check out the papers yourself to see just how low people can go in science." Disgusting.
(tags: science plagiarism ethics physics optics journals publishing academia)
The Intersection: Science and the Entertainment…
drorzel | June 4, 2008
Christian Demand: Inflated phrases - signandsight
"Texts on art rarely explain what they profess to explain; they simply simulate the explainability of their theories."
(tags: art culture humanities)
Enrollment in Postsecondary Institutions, Fall 2006; Graduation Rates, 2000 and 2003 Cohorts; and Financial Statistics, Fiscal Year 2006
"This First Look presents findings from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) spring 2007 data collection, which included four components: Enrollment in Postsecondary Institutions, Fall 2006; Graduation Rates, 2000 & 2003 Cohorts; and…
drorzel | June 3, 2008
Confessions of a Community College Dean: Citibank to CC's: Drop Dead
A plea for a single-payer education system.
(tags: academia economics US society class-war culture)
drorzel | June 2, 2008
xkcd - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language - By Randall Munroe
"Six more weeks of winter."
(tags: kid-stuff silly comics)
Stanford Law Drops Letter Grades :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, Views and Jobs
"Those who support the change at Stanford argue that shifting from the precision of letter grades to broader categories will reduce some pressure and refocus students' and professors' energies on classroom learning. "
(tags: academia law education society)
drorzel | June 1, 2008
The gallery of failed atomic models, 1903-1913 « Skulls in the Stars
" Most people in physics are taught Thomson's 'plum pudding' model of the atom, but a little investigating* turned up no less than eight distinct pictures of atomic structure."
(tags: physics science atoms history blogs)
Fafblog! the whole world's only source for Fafblog.
"An obscure quirk of DNC bylaws forces the nomination to be settled by spelling bee. Hillary Clinton gets the word "cat," while Barack Obama is eaten by giant pill bugs."
(tags: US politics silly blogs)
The Show - Bro Knows Football - NYTimes.com
"In…
drorzel | May 27, 2008
Confessions of a Community College Dean: Academe and Parenting
"Part of the problem, I think, is the potentially infinite demands of the job. How much time does it take, per week, to prep and grade a typical class?"
(tags: academia kid-stuff society culture education)
The Traveling Taps Brigade - washingtonpost.com
""[F]aking taps just isn't good enough," Baldo said. "We're talking about people who served and sacrificed for our country. They should be buried with dignity and honor."
(tags: society culture war music)
Basics - New Curriculum Designed to Unite Art and Science - NYTimes.com…