Misc
apalazzo | May 3, 2006OK I'm back from the west coast where we visited friends, family and the desert. My laptop has been resurrected and NO MORE RERUNS, I promise. Also I've seen that trackback spam has evolved (well perhaps intelligently evolved is closer to the truth).
Northern California was great (although in the past few weeks a bit wet). If I had sum up southern California in a word it would be "car", but in reality L.A. is quite elusive and massive. After parading around LA for a couple of days we saw a great documentary at the Egyptian, called L.A. Plays Itself. It's a tad on the long side, but for…
stoat | May 1, 2006
If JA can blog about Azaleas, I don't see why I shouldn't mention narrowboating. So we chugged up the Cam (/Ouse) to Ely to visit the cathedral again, it repays multiple visits. Happily the choir were practicing, and then they had a choral service, with unbelievers like us allowed to listen.
And the next day down Reach Lode to Reach May Fair (its been going since the 1200's, folks, though I doubt they had climbing walls and walls of death there then). Reach Lode, as the pic shows, gets very very thin towards the end (worryingly so, if like us you've never been there before) but there is a…
stoat | April 29, 2006Yes, only in Japan... See James Annan.
Somewhat more seriously, John Fleck praises Benny Peiser (don't worry folks, its not for his climate-type opinions, which remain junk, but for finding some interesting papers on impacts).
And over at RealClimate, even more seriously, the long-awaiting post pointing out what von S did wrong in Science is now out. Better get editing at wiki...
Phenology (sp?): its been a cold spring here. Despite being unusually far behind with my digging, the weeds haven't overtaken me yet. And the bees are slow. Sloe in blossom.
As you may have noticed, I don't have much…
maggie wittlin | April 27, 2006You may have seen the rather exciting NY Times article this morning: "Judge Embeds a Puzzle in 'Da Vinci Code' Ruling." Apparently, Judge Peter Smith stuck 40 bold/italic letters into his ruling on a suit against Dan Brown (Brown won). The first ten letters spell out SMITHY CODE, giving us a clue that there is meaning in the madness. I've gone through and picked out the rest of the letters, checked them against some bloggers, and now I present them to you:
Jaeiextostgpsacgreamqwfkadpmqzv
Beautiful, ain't it? So...what are you waiting for? Solve the Smithy Code! According to the Times,…
ksharpe | April 25, 2006I find it funny, somehow, that I learned it's National Poetry Month by reading ScienceBlogs. 'The web's largest conversation about science' seems a strange place to find contributions to a celebration of poetry, but maybe it's not. Scientists and poets are alike in being keen observers of the world. Perception and description are the poet's, and the scientist's, stock in trade.
So perhaps it's apt for a science-minded blogger to call me out of the hustle and bustle of my day for a moment, by giving me a poem that makes me percieve the world just a little more deliberately.
Following, a…
joshua roebke | April 21, 2006A while back, I wrote what some might call a fairly provocative article on the promiscuity of famous physicists entitled Getting Physical. Besides getting picked up by a porn site or two and this possibly NSFW link (So what if you've been on Slashdot? How many science articles can claim this distinction, huh?), I received quite a few responses from some rather aghast SEED lovers questioning the veracity of my claims.
Let me just say this: I am equally SHOCKED. You fell into that tired stereotype that scientists are all asexual freezy pops? Sorry people, don't want to ruin your next…
maggie wittlin | April 21, 2006Here's a question for all the ScienceBloggers in the house:
Which scientist (in your field or beyond) has been most seriously shafted? This could be taken two ways:
Who deserves to be more recognized, revered and renowned today than he or she is?
Who got passed over, ridiculed, etc. the most while he or she was alive?
(more below the fold...)
I'd love answers to either or both. I think in the long run (i.e., posthumously), mathematicians get the shortest end of the (multi-dimensional) stick. Gauss should probably be a household name, but who hears of the man before high school E&M? Lise…
ksharpe | April 21, 2006You know what they say about great minds.
In the April 14 issue of Science Magazine, two environmental scientists opine that scientists can, and must, become active bloggers and readers of blogs, for two main reasons. First, hard-blogging scientists will ensure that sound scientific information makes it to a wide public audience (while by shunning blogging, the scientific community will cede the conversation to other voices and other interests). Second, scientists have, in the blogosphere, an unprecedented tool for sharing and soliciting ideas, data, and hypotheses. A blog-literate scientific…
ksharpe | April 20, 2006Non-U.S. Stochastic readers, we've heard you. You tried to answer the Seed survey, tried to fill in the questions about where you live, and all you got was a lousy selection of U.S. states to choose from.
We're sorry. Seed knows (and loves) that we have readers all over the world, and we're working on a revised version of the survey with an expanded list of places that will, we sincerely hope, include the one you call home.
Thanks so much for your responses.
britt peterson | April 20, 2006In my former life, long before I had even heard of Seed, I studied 17th century English literature and dipped occasionally into history of science. One of my favorite figures in 17th century science was mad, bad Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle, who lived from 1623-1673.
Cavendish wrote poems, plays, and novels, as well as scientific tracts. The best and most bizarre thing she wrote was a utopian novel called "The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing World," meant to be an addendum to her more serious work, "Observations on Experimental Philosphy," a critique of Robert…
sb admin | April 20, 2006Has anybody been following the Letters page of The New Yorker recently?
Quick recap: TNY writes something about Capote, which film includes a character named William Shawn, who was in fact the editor of TNY for a great many years, and who enjoys a tremendous reputation for excellence among the literary lights of New York.
(The actor is the same guy who played both the head of NBC on "Seinfeld," and the son of the head of the folk-music record company in "A Mighty Wind." So if you need someone to play a media executive, you know who to call.)
The sons of William Shawn, one of whom is the…
cmims | April 19, 2006
Y'all may have noticed that there are a bunch of us blogging on Stochastic.
That's because there are a bunch of us working at Seed.
Here's my (and a little bit of our) story:
My name is Christopher. I was hired as a writer. Now I'm an editor, managing editor, web producer, writer, project manager, graphic designer, human/systems interface designer, information architect and general layabout.
On the masthead I'm listed as a web editor. But everyone wears more than a few hats here at Seed, according to our respective abilities. For instance our Science Blogs editor also coordinates podcast…
ksharpe | April 19, 2006Seriously. Who are you, yeah you, the one reading ScienceBlogs, right now?
Seed wants to know, and we're hoping that you'll tell us, by replying to the brief survey that you can find in the right-hand column of the ScienceBlogs homepage.
As though love alone weren't enough to motivate you, survey completers will be entered for a chance to win an iPod nano.
Go on, get clicking. Answer the questions, help us improve.
lee billings | April 19, 2006At 4:20 in the afternoon, on April 19th, 1943, the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann deliberately ingested 250 micrograms of LSD-25, a substance he had discovered during experiments with alkaloids of the fungus ergot. Despite the vanishingly small dosage, he soon found himself stricken with dizziness, euphoria, and an inescapable compulsion to laugh. Within the hour, he could barely write or speak intelligibly, and fearing he'd poisoned himself, rode his bicycle to his nearby home, called a doctor, asked for a glass of milk and collapsed on a sofa. What happened next is best described by Hofmann…
apalazzo | April 16, 2006Yesterday we made a quick stop in central park with our photoblogger friend.
To see the result of these action photos click here.
We then went to the Whitney for the Biennial. The main theme for most exhibits - anti-war. Overall it was weaker than the last show.
Some photos we managed to take when the guards weren't looking:
Speaking of photos, Stochastic has nice ones from the recent Seed gathering.
ksharpe | April 14, 2006On Tuesday, April 4, Boston-area Seed friends and contributors gathered for dinner and conversation at Cambridge's Oleana restaurant.
Seed founder and editor-in-chief Adam Bly hosted the event. Steven Pinker, Seth Lloyd, Irene Pepperberg, Jonah Lehrer, Karl Iagnemma, and Alex Palazzo were some of the guests in attendance at dinner, an event designed to connect friends of Seed throughout the area.
"The idea" of the evening, writes attendee Palazzo on his blog, The Daily Transcript, "was to throw together scientists from various disciplines and Seed contributors, and observe the resulting…
apalazzo | April 13, 2006Yesterday I attended Seed/Harvard Bookstore/The Edge's sponsored event: What do you believe to be true even though you cannot prove it. The discussion narrowed down to key topics ... consciousness, free will ... etc.
Here's a link to a Harvard Crimson article about the whole affair: Profs Debate Consciousness.
(I'll write a longer entry on the whole "What do you believe to be true even though you cannot prove" lecture later today.)
One tidbit that came out: apparently Freeman Dyson (noted cosmologist and member of the faithful) had some nasty things to say about Daniel Dennett. When I find…
ksharpe | April 12, 2006Seed's daily science news aggregator, phylotaxis.com, has been nominated for a Webby Award in the category of 'Best Navigation/Structure.'
Designed for Seed by artist Jonathan Harris, phylotaxis is based on the mathematical elegance of the Fibonacci Sequence, and the ordered growth of leaves on a plant stem. The appearance of the phylotaxis represents the integration of science's rationality and order with culture's energy and unpredictability. Result? A stunning visual arrangement continuously gathering and transmitting science news as it breaks on the web.
Bestowed annually since 1996, the…
tlambert | April 12, 2006
Ever since Lott started at the American Enterprise Institute there have been people there who have wanted to get rid of him.
I was forwarded a copy of Lott's final email to AEI staff. It suggests that he was abruptly forced to leave:
From: John Lott
Sent: Sun 4/2/2006 4:00 AM
To: Everyone
Subject: Goodbye
Dear Everyone:
Friday was my last day at AEI. It has been great to get to know many of you over the past four-and-a-half years. If I can ever be of help or you just want to say hello, I can be reached at: johnrlott@aol.com. I wish you all every success. Thanks.
Best,
John
No…
stoat | April 11, 2006Before the main post, here is Daniels joke of the day: what do you call a fly with no wings? Answer...
...a walk!
Anyway, on the BBC 10 o'clock news a brief throwaway comment: the Iranians have made some enriched uranium, "with the help of god" (thats not an exact quote, but it was something like that). Which makes me wonder, why force god to go through all the tedium of pretending to do the science? Why not just pray for a nuclear warhead (ahem... or a working nuclear reactor, if thats what you are aiming for), and cut out the middle stages, if you're expecting miraculous help?