Rant
sb admin | August 25, 2007DRM stands for "digital restrictions management". (Those who are in the business of peddling it as something positive will tell you it's "digital rights management," but the former is really a better descriptive name.) It is software that prevents you from using some other software or digital files on your computer unless you meet certain criteria.
DRM has actually been with us for a long time. Back in the 1980's, games and other software you could buy for your Apple II or Commodore 64 came with "copy protection." These were tricks that the software publishers would use to make it…
sb admin | August 17, 2007I've only sampled a few outlets, so I can't say this definitively. However, the few electrical outlets I've sampled at the Nashville airport are not working.
I've read before at BoingBoing about Pay-per use electrical outlets at DFW.
I'm guessing (just guessing; again, I don't know, as I've only tested a few outlets) that some bean counter at BNA here pointed out "hey, we're spending $XXX on electricity every year for all those moochers in our airports charging up their laptops and cellphones while using the highly overpriced concourse Wireless they purchased and while waiting for all of…
sb admin | July 31, 2007A lot of people have commented on the fact that if you get an Apple iPhone, you have no choice but to get your phone service through AT&T. For a lot of people, this is a deal-killer. Why would Apple do this? Doubtless they got some sweet deal, but it doesn't seem to be a sweet deal for their customers. But, the hype surrounding the iPhone means that Apple is probably not really suffering much in the way of people not buying the iPhone because of this restriction. If there were a real competitor out there, perhaps things would be different.
So, strike one.
What about micropayments?…
sb admin | July 30, 2007
(This post is tagged for submission to the scientiae-carnival. I am sure there is a less obtrusive way to do this tagging... suggestions?)
A while back at this blog's former site, I wrote a post entitled A Career and a Life. Now that my career is on the precipice of undergoing a tremendous change, I thought it might be interesting to revisit that post.
First of all, everything I said before in there I still agree with.
But I want to go beyond that. As I described in that post, I willingly risked being seen as "not serious enough" by not allowing my faculty position to suck up all of my…
sb admin | July 24, 2007You may have heard about the amendment proposed to a Higher Education act by Harry Reid that would make colleges responsible for enforcing RIAA and MPAA policy. The text of the amendment is absolutely every bit as scary as the Inside Higher Ed article makes it sound. And, as one commenter (highlighted by Slashdot, even) notes, we shouldn't expect much sanity from the Democrats on this, because the government of the USA today is driven by the largest campaign donors, and of course the companies behind the music and movie industries are huge campaign donors to both parties. Indeed, the "…
sb admin | July 21, 2007Because, unlike what happens with copyright violation, students at Kansas University would at least be given due process and the right to a trial in which they could defend themselves if accused of murder.
Oh, and P.S., just like Josh's blog, if you're at KU and just read this, well, you're worse than a murderer, and under the rules of your University, your Internet access needs to be cut off. This page is, after all; under copyright. (For more info, see and click on the "Creative Commons" icon at the bottom of the left sidebar.)
Of course, if they abide by their rules, KU really out to…
sb admin | July 16, 2007So that people don't feel the need to threadcrap in other threads, I open this thread here for people to make their flames, comments, insults, dismissals, expressions of support, and so forth.
I have said before that I'm a Christian. I had my three-part (one, two, three) set of posts in the past about being such, about the role I see for Christianity in the modern scientific age, and why I am Christian specifically (given the wealth of religious traditions available). I repeatedly echoed what you can read on the NCSE website (at this link and in other places): that there need be no conflict…
sb admin | July 16, 2007Loved the teaching. Loved the science. Couldn't take the politics. Couldn't take the tenure stress. That about sums it up.
I am sending off today a signed offer letter for employment with Linden Lab, the folks who create and run Second Life. I will be an engineer or ops/developer or something... wait, hang on. Here we go, "Productions Operations Engineer" is the title listed in the offer letter. I will write more about this in the near future, and probably a lot more in the ongoing future. Let me say, though, that I'm very excited to be going to work for Linden. A lot of the rest of…
sb admin | July 13, 2007It wasn't doing anybody any good, and it was only causing uproar and unhappiness.
I did have one or two positive comments (amidst 150, mind you), and one or two private e-mails appreciating that somebody else has the same reaction as I. In the end, though, it was a mistake to publish it. Those who react similarly to me will do so regardless of what I say, and it's clear that the vast, vast majority of the readership here does not. As such, I'm not doing any good by expressing my frustration about what all of this says about scienceblogs.
I apologize to the other science bloggers for any…
sb admin | July 6, 2007Before I say this, let me preface my remarks with the statement that I understand the reasoning of the Time Allocation Committtee (TAC), and it's not an insane decision. It's as I predicted; they're worried that the observations are too hard because the targets are faint. My collaborator and I knew this going into the proposal, but thought it was worth a shot.
I just got back the NOAO TAC report for a proposal I wrote for 5 nights on the WIYN 3.5m telescope this year. I know form inside information that this semester, the telescope was not very oversubscribed-- the number of nights…
sb admin | July 2, 2007The current way we fund astronomy research in this country is
horribly flawed. There must be a better way. Let me suggest one that I
believe that we should consider.
Now, yes, you are all going to be cynical and say, "Rob thinks it's
flawed because he's had trouble getting funding, and the main flaw is
that he doesn't have any funding." While it is true that I have been
burned by the system, and am admittedly bitter about that, I think that
there are rational arguments for my case.
Let us consider the boundary conditions. Let's assume that there is
some drive to continue to perform…
sb admin | June 30, 2007Every day, reading the newspapers or listen to the radio, we are barraged with reminders of how screwed up our society, our country is. We see these things, and have a realization that there is little to no hope that they will change any time soon.
I can only take so much despair. I can only take so much reminder of just how screwed up things are. I have stopped listening to the radio on my way driving in to work in the morning, because too often the stories are about places in the world where horrible things are going on. Too often, that place is Baghdad, a place that was screwed up and…
sb admin | June 21, 2007In a recent post, I expressed frustration with the observation that those who sometimes question the tactics and language of some fighting for gender-equality then get lumped in with "everybody else who is clueless and oppressive," even if we care deeply about the issue. One of my complaints was irritation with the word "privilege," which generated a lot of hostility and confusion which, unfortunately, ended up obscuring my core point.
I would like to thank Annie (commenter in the previous thread, who continued the conversation with me in e-mail) for her calm and reasoned and non-attacking e…
sb admin | June 13, 2007Anybody who's been reading my blog for a while knows that I'm aware of, very concerned about, and even active in the plight of women and minorities in science. See, for example:
"Be nice to Shelly! She's cute and she likes birds!"
The Myth of the Meritocracy
A tale of egregious scientific male misbehavior
Intrinsic ability and women in science
Unconscious bias... even when we're conscious of it
Women in Physics : why do people do nothing? (This post was taken down at the request of my chair. You can find excerpts of the original post here and here. If you're clever, you might even be able…
sb admin | June 4, 2007CompUSA screws over a customer bigtime. They sell him an empty box, and when he comes back for a refund, they refuse. They think they can get away with this because, hey, who's he going to tell? Their customer base is so huge that if he and his friends get torqued off and never come back, it's no problem.
But, this is just the sort of thing we bloggers just love to trumpet about. Big company stepping on individual. It happens all the time, and it's crappy every time it happens... but now the word an spread a lot farther, a lot faster, and potentially the company might finally feel some…
sb admin | May 27, 2007I'm pretty sure that nowhere in the Bible does it say that the square root of 256 is 16. I happen to know that, yes, 16 squared is 256. Therefore, if I were to tell you and attempt to convince you that the square root of 256 is 22, I would be lying, in that I would be telling you something that isn't true.
But, the "mind" (I hesitate to use that word) behind the new Creation Museum, Ken Ham puts to shame even ultraliberal postmodernists who assert that the results of science are merely a social construction. He says:
Many of the media reps chuckled when I said that the people responsible…
sb admin | May 25, 2007Chad just posted a bit of pre-tenure advice, including the very important advice to take all advice with a grain of salt. I would say that also applies to the rest of his advice, because I'm about to post contradictory advice. You should also take my advice with a grain of salt. Be aware that it comes from somebody who has been beaten into being very cynical about the system. On the other hand, you can learn from my mistakes.
My advice here is specifically for faculty at a research University, most specifically Vanderbilt. It's primarily for physics and astronomy (indeed, primarily the…
sb admin | May 19, 2007Excerpts from the individual and panel reviews on my latest proposal:
The proposed work is very well motivated, well organized, with clear plans and goals.
There is also:
Guaranteed access to the CTIO 1.5 m, and an established track record with WIYN 3.5 m observations, add to the strength of the proposal. Preliminary work from both telescopes are presented, indicating that the proposed aims for the project are achievable.
And, indeed, in another one:
This is a well written proposal (though I found unnecessary details in places such as section 4).
I should note that the stuff I put in…
sb admin | May 16, 2007I'm in an interesting position. Having so recently posted my own bitch and whine about how my tenure case is in trouble, suddenly we learn that Intelligent Design advocate Guillermo Gonzalez-- somebody who, frankly, has been viewed as a thorn in the side of astronomy by a large fraction of astronomers-- has been denied tenure.
I'm in no position to comment, but will do so anyway, because that's my way.
My own whine and rant suggests (or, anyway, states) that I think that the reasons my tenure case is on the rocks aren't the greatest of reasons. I know I'm a good teacher, and I know that I'm…
sb admin | May 8, 2007I'd love to write something about the biggest-ass supernova ever observed, confirmed to be "something new" based on Chandra observations. There is a press release about it here.
Alas, my web-fu has not been good enough yet to turn up an actual preprint or scientific article. The press release says that the paper will appear in the Astrophysical Journal (ApJ, pronounced "ap jay", to those of us in the biz). That generally means the paper is accepted. Alas, I could not find the preprint on the arxiv.org preprint server. I hope that it's just a timing issue, and that the preprint will show…