Pop Culture
drorzel | January 8, 2010Two new links for today's Obsessive Update:
The first is a nice article from Union's press office, with the headline "You can't teach an old dog new tricks, but what about physics?". I spent half an hour or so talking with one of the staff writers (who has a science background, which is a nice bonus) on Wednesday, so it's a fast turnaround, too.
The second is a passing mention in a possibly skeevy Russian site's article about the golden retriever physics video that went around a couple of months ago. Amazing what the vanity search turns up...
The sales rank, for those who care, continues to…
drorzel | January 6, 2010Not a whole lot new, but it's been a few days. Also, it's a challenge to remain ambulatory at the moment, thanks to this cursed cold, so I'm not really prepared to turn out Significant Blogging.
-- This morning's vanity search (why yes, I am searching for "How to Teach Physics to Your Dog" on a daily basis. Aren't you?) turned up this Current Geek podcast, which talks about the book. They haven't read it yet, but picked up the BoingBoing mention, and are enthusiastic about the idea. They pretty well nail the thinking behind the book.
-- The vanity search also turned up this discussion of my…
drorzel | January 4, 2010Today is the first day of classes, and to celebrate, I've come down with the Martian death virus that Kate and SteelyKid have had the last few weeks. Joy.
This calls for a How to Teach Physics to Your Dog update, to distract myself from the cotton balls and vacuum pump oil that have apparently been stuffed into my sinuses:
The primary news is that Peter Woit has posted a review, in which he says mostly good things:
While Brian Greene in his Elegant Universe Nova special introduced general relativity by trying to discuss it with a dog, concluding that "No matter how hard you try, you can't…
drorzel | January 2, 2010In talking to a reporter about How to Teach Physics to Your Dog on Wednesday, I learned of a mistake in the text of the book-- a footnote on page 71 says that Scientific American published an article on how to make your own "quantum eraser" in April 2007, when in fact it was May 2007.
If that's the worst mistake in the published book, I'll be very happy. It is a mistake, though, and needs to be corrected. This also reminded me that I never did post the scholarly references that go with the book, so maximizing the birds killed per stone, I have added a References and Errata page to DogPhysics.…
drorzel | January 2, 2010Most of my fiction reading at the moment is done while rocking SteelyKid to sleep at night, using a Palm as an e-book reader. This does not really lend itself to the reading of weighty Literary Novels, but rather lightweight genre trash. Which means I've been reading a bunch of "urban fantasy," because that is the default mode of trashy genre fiction at the moment.
I'm kind of souring on the (sub)genre at the moment, though. I've read a bunch of Patricia Briggs's Mercy Thompson novels, whose "My Awesome Werewolf Boyfriend" interludes are really beginning to grate. I barely made it through the…
drorzel | January 1, 2010There isn't all that much news for a real obsessive update, so I'll lump in a few writing-related items of possible interest to people who read books other than mine.
A real obsessive update item: BradDeLong doubts my book can help his dog.
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog gets four out of five stars as part of a good books round-up in the Timmins Daily Press in Ontario. (Google News search is nifty).
A fortuitous discovery thanks to, of all things, an ad in GMail: QM for cat lovers, part of an old blog of imaginary conversations with Einstein. I doubt this will change anybody's mind about…
drorzel | December 31, 2009Everybody with an opinion seems to be doing a decadal wrap-up of one sort or another, but I'm too tired to do anything serious. So, I'll let you do it for me: here's a list of ten songs that are, in my mind, inextricably bound up with the events of the decade. Which of them do you like the best?
Which of these songs of 2000-2009 is your favorite?(survey)
I'm not claiming that these are necessarily the best songs of the decade-- some of them aren't even the best song on their album-- but these are songs that, years from now, I'll hear and it will instantly be 200x in my head. Which ought to…
drorzel | December 30, 2009 I should probably start date-tagging these updates about miscellaneous How to Teach Physics to Your Dog news. I don't really mean this to become a second daily links dump, but it's kind of looking that way...
-- As a general matter, it's dangerous for authors to acknowledge the existence of Amazon customer reviews (acknowledgment leads to responding, responding leads to madness), but the half-dozen customer reviews already posted are really good. These three especially. There are also a couple that aren't much more coherent than comment spam, so go figure.
-- At the risk of setting up a…
drorzel | December 29, 2009If you're still not sure whether you should be teaching physics to your dog, here's another good reason: Superconductors.
The "super" in "superconductor" refers to the fact that these materials conduct electric current with absolutely zero resistance, better than the best ordinary metals. This has obvious applications in the green technology field (which dogs should definitely be interested in, as discussed in a previous installment)-- if you could remove the resistance of power lines, you would lose less energy on the way from the generating plant to your home, increasing the energy…
drorzel | December 29, 2009 Today's miscellaneous information about How to Teach Physics to your Dog:
-- Following on yesterday's discussion about Barnes & Noble, which seems to have numerous in-store copies everywhere but New England, where I am, it's not some system-wide issue-- B&N stores have a healthy number of copies, and have sold a pretty reasonable number of them already. It's probably just a matter of shelving/ distribution associated with the holidays.
-- I couldn't really be the only blogger to think of connecting dogs and physics, and, indeed, I'm not. A bloodhound in Manhattan named Wimsey offers…
jstemwedel | December 28, 2009While the sprogs were hanging out at the aquarium with the Grandparents Who Lurk But Seldom Comment, my better half and I went to see a 3-D IMAX screening of Avatar. My big concerns going in were that all the 3-D IMAX goodness would make me motion-sick, and that if that didn't get me, then the story by James Cameron might make me lose my lunch.
I am happy to report that neither of these outcomes came to pass. Not that the plot here is especially sophisticated, nor the characters terribly complex, but they weren't as dreadful as I had feared from the Twitterati and the Facebookers.
The main…
drorzel | December 28, 2009When I saw the data generated by the sales rank tracker Matthew Beckler was kind enough to put together, I joked that I hoped to someday need a logarithmic scale to display the sales rank history of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. Thanks to links from Boing Boing, John Scalzi, and Kevin Drum, I got my wish:
For those not familiar with the concept, a log scale plots values on a scale that represents each order of magnitude as a fixed distance. So, the top horizontal line on that plot represents a sales rank of a million, the line below that a hundred thousand, the line below that ten…
drorzel | December 28, 2009Various and sundry updates regarding How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, now available wherever books are sold:
Well, ok, that last sentence is a slight exaggeration. I spent a little while punching ZIP codes of places I've lived into the Barnes and Noble page, and couldn't find any stores that have copies in stock. Grumble, mutter, grump. Borders on the other hand, has sporadic availability. At least one copy has been sold in-store at the Clifton Park Borders, because a friend bought one there last week (the web page now lists it as "Out of Stock" for that store, so maybe they only had the…
jstemwedel | December 26, 2009... once my fingertips holler "Uncle!" and tell me to take a break from my new ukulele.
To help you pass the time, some uke players who are way better than the n00b that I am on day 2 of my musical odyssey:
jstemwedel | December 24, 2009To the young people wandering around Casa Free-Ride singing Christmas songs (not just the refrains but all of the verses):
None of the canonical reindeer is named Connor. And Santa does not have a reindeer named Nixon.
Love,
Dr. Free-Ride
P.S. The last batch of cookies will be out of the oven in one minute. But you need to let them cool before you sample them -- just like the other batches.
drorzel | December 24, 2009A couple of quick book-related items that I can't resist posting, even while on vacation:
First, the sales rank cracked the top 500 on Amazon last night, peaking at 396. I don't know if this is just a matter of relative sales volume being low, or what, but it's a huge kick all the same. For the moment, it's the top seller in the Physics category, and #35 in Science as a whole. Statistical fluctuation or not, that's very cool.
Even better is this excellent online review from New Scientist:
Talking quantum physics with a dog may seem a tad eccentric, but Orzel's new book is a true delight to…
drorzel | December 23, 2009Janet has a post grappling with the ethical implications of telling children about Santa Claus. SteelyKid is too young for this to be an issue yet, but on this issue, like many others, I turn to my favorite literary philosopher, Terry Pratchett:
"All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little--"
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE…
drorzel | December 22, 2009Not that I'm obsessed, or anything (current Amazon rank: 1106), but here are the results from my incomplete survey of local book stores regarding How to Teach Physics to Your Dog:
Barnes & Noble: "Out of Stock" in all local stores. Has never been in stock, really.
Borders in Crossgates Mall: "Likely in store" according to the book finder computer, but if they actually put any out, either they sold them, or they're well hidden.
The Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: Two copies prominently displayed in the top row of the "new arrivals" case, between David Byrne's book about bicycling and John…
jstemwedel | December 22, 2009Possibly related to the last post. The lyrics are original.
(For this, you need to imagine the younger Free-Ride offspring humming in the background as the elder sings.)
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
We're sorry that we killed ya.
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
At least we didn't grill ya.
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
Our only Christmas casualty.
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
Be thankful we don't "nil" ya.
drorzel | December 22, 2009I'm typing this from the local Barnes and Noble, waiting for the dealership next door to finish changing my oil and inspecting my car. Sadly, they don't have How to Teach Physics to Your Dog on the shelves in their (rather small) science section. Grump, grump, grump.
The disappointment at not immediately finding it on the shelves is tempered a bit by seeing it featured in The Big Idea at Scalzi's blog:
Want a Big Idea that's about a really big idea? Well, this week's book is about quantum physics, and it doesn't get much bigger than that (well, given the scale quantum physics works on, it…