Random
kbonham | December 15, 2010Scicurious has a great post about free will, and how most people think they have more free will than others.
It doesn't matter whether we HAVE free will or not, our daily lives seem to make us FEEL that we have it. We make many decisions, consider many options every day, some big, some small, but in most of them, we feel like we have a choice, and that we are making that choice of our own free will.
But what's funny is that we don't seem to feel that way about OTHER PEOPLE. While we often feel we have free will in our choices, we don't really feel like our friends do.
Apparently this isn't…
kbonham | December 11, 2010The "Science and the Public" story of the year might just be Arsenic using bacteria. Certainly, Alex's critique has been the most popular post on this blog since we started and has received quite a bit of attention from other bloggers as well as in conventional media.
This might be a teachable moment in science communication, but even though it's clear that this wasn't handled particularly well, it's hard to see how things can be done better in the future. Heather's follow-up post is a great summary of how science works in the real world, but I think it also illustrates a fundamental…
kbonham | December 8, 2010Sorry for the radio silence on my part lately. My house got broken into... again... and I'm dealing with the fallout.
I'm thinking about a post on knowledge, where it comes from, what it's good for and if it matters. But before I write it, I'd like to get your input.
What do you think "knowledge" is? Is it different than Truth?
Do you agree with the idea, "Ignorance is Bliss"? Is it ever? What about, "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise?"
What does it mean to be wrong?
catdynamics | December 7, 2010From Earth to the Universe was a brilliant outreach project for the 2009 International Year of Astronomy, displaying online, and in real life, some of the best astronomical images around.
Now we have the Year of the Solar System coming up, who knew, and more and better images are needed!
From Earth to the Solar System
FETTSS will be an online collection of images that can be freely downloaded and exhibited by organizations worldwide in whatever manner they choose.
In celebration of NASA's Year of the Solar System, the images will showcase the excitement and discoveries of planetary…
kbonham | November 11, 2010Ever wonder what exactly a Toxic Asset is? Follow the engaging story of Toxie the toxic asset on This American Life.
This is just the latest in a series of amazing reporting on the financial crisis from a radio show that is not generally concerned with what would be traditionally thought of as "news." "The Giant Pool of Money," which started this series, is still the best break-down of what caused the financial crisis that I've seen. And a follow-up piece a year later gave even more perspective.
If you read or hear news about the financial crisis but just don't quite get what it all means…
kbonham | November 11, 2010... the first thing he'll do is start [bubbling?] for revenge:
Alas, this is essentially what the new leaders of congress often sound like.
catdynamics | November 9, 2010A missile was, allegedly, fired off the California coast, near Los Angeles monday night, to some consternation.
It was most likely a US Navy launch of a realistic target missile for an Anti-Ballistic Missile test underway over the last few days with the Japanese Navy.
It was, most certainly, despite any denials and claims from the Navy, a US Navy missile, probably being fired as part of an interesting ongoing exercise.
NBC video with video from CBS traffic helicopter.
Notice to Mariners, 45/2010 has a clear warning:
434/10(18). EASTERN NORTH PACIFIC. CALIFORNIA. MISSILES. 1.…
kbonham | November 8, 2010My house got broken into last week, and then we had a rock thrown through a window a few days later (possibly related). So I had to deal with a bunch of stuff last week, and am still dealing with stuff today, and I need to catch up at work, yada yada yada....
All of which is to say the post I wanted to write about TLR's being involved in itching sensation (me? neuroscience?), might have to be postponed until tomorrow. In the mean-time, I hope you enjoy this song I've been listening to a lot recently.
What sort of music do you listen to to get through stressful/eventful times?
catdynamics | November 1, 2010
Wee Beasties
Wee Hairy Beasties?
We, Beasties!
Wee Hairy Beasties!
All Around the Town!
catdynamics | October 29, 2010Stayin' Alive in The Wall!
Final Teen Spirit!
Best mashup ever!
From Wax Audio (AU)
Also:
Final Teen Spirit!
kbonham | October 18, 2010This post was originally published at webeasties.wordpress.com
Have you noticed the recent spate of people coming down with terrifying bacterial infections contracted at Apple stores? Yeah, me neither. Still:
A leading Australian expert in infectious diseases says people who use display iPads and iPhones at Apple stores are risking serious infections and the company should do more to maintain hygiene[...]
"You wouldn't have hundreds of people using the same glass or cup, but theoretically if hundreds of people share the same keyboard or touch pad, then effectively that's what you're doing,"…
catdynamics | October 13, 2010ok, I give, I'm ready to join the tween decade
signed up to twitter username is steinly0
we'll see how it goes
catdynamics | October 6, 2010One of three best XKCD ever
No, you must click through to enlarge
A finite fraction of my online communication now consists of "XKCD:###"
where ### gives the appropriate xkcd number.
catdynamics | September 30, 2010So, what do we make of the NRC Rankings?
What drives the different rankings, and what are the issues and surprises?
First, the R-rankings really are reputational - they are a bit more elaborate than just asking straight up, but what they reduce to is direct evaluation by respondents without evaluating quantitative indicators.
Doug at nanoscale puts it well - the S-Rankings are really generally better indicators...
A new index W = R - S has been named the "hard work" index.
BTW - you can't take (R+S)/2 and call it a rank - you need to rank the resulting score and count the ordinal position…
catdynamics | September 29, 2010Dear Computer Science departments of the United States:
I am very sorry that commercial citation services do not adequately follow those conference proceedings in Comp Sci, in which your best work is traditionally published.
Since it is important to you to know, why do you not set up a tool to automatically do citation indexing for your own field.
We did.
You can then let the citation services data mine your tool to import the data that you want put out there, or not.
You have the tools, you have talent, you have the people.
Just do it.
Love,
Astronomy & Physics.
PS: feel free to hack…
catdynamics | September 28, 2010And BU wins the prize for being first to crack and breaking the NRC rankings embargo...
h/t Leiter Report
catdynamics | September 28, 2010With about 100,000 metrics collected on 5,000 or so program, there are bound to be errors.
In particular, a lot of the metrics are of the form:out of N people, how many, k, do/do not have the property we are measuring
This is then reported as percentages.
These percentages must be of the form: (1 - k/N)*100
where k, N are integers.
Yet they are clearly not.
There are several explanations for this, all of which are likely correct:
First of all, there are what look like clear transcription errors; reversed digits, or duplicate or omitted digits. Somebody entered these numbers by hand on…