silliness
drorzel | March 15, 2007Is this video a deplorable example of cruelty to animals, or an entertaining way of dealing with bushy-tailed vermin?
(It's unquestionably the work of somebody with way too much free time. It's much simpler to just let the dog out back, and let her chase the squirrels out of the yard. Though she might enjoy catapulting them...)
Video via Timothy Burke.
drorzel | March 14, 2007
Announcing the first round games of the Orbit Region of the 2007 Science Showdown: These games match central physics concepts against one another, in a bid to determine the greatest physics idea, which will eventually face and humiliate ideas from other fields of science.
I'll be announcing the winners on Friday, but ehre's your chance to contribute: The eight first-round match-ups are shown in the graphic above: Which do you think should win? Leave your votes in the comments, and help determine the outcomes.
The games:
1) Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation vs. 16) Newton's Second Law of…
drorzel | March 14, 2007Posting has been basketball-heavy of late because, well, there isn't much else going on that I find all that interesting at the moment. More importantly, though, it's the Season of the Bracket...
I'm not the only one affected, of course, though many people who don't care about hoops have to find other outlets for the impulse to construct match-ups between various concepts, and arrange them in a single elimination tournament:
Locally, there's the Science Spring Showdown. I'll be announcing the first-round winners in the "Orbit" bracket on Friday, and while my decisions are final, they are…
ksharpe | March 13, 2007This just deserved a greater calling-out: the evil geniuses over at The World's Fair have put together a "Science Spring Showdown", aka "the thinking person's ccomplement to the NCAA tournament!"
Take a look at the brackets, and thrill to such potential match-ups/epic battles as 'Darwin vs Jesus,' 'Caffeine vs High-speed internet,' and 'Fossil fuels vs Logic.' How are these rivalries going to get decided? Ben and Dave might have no idea, but that's all part of the fun. Head over there for a PDF of the bracket, fill it out, tape it to your computer and play along all spring.
ksharpe | March 9, 2007While I wouldn't be surprised if he'd seen all the good cephalopod kitsch before, I would like to offer, in honor of squid-loving blogger PZ Myers' birthday today, an image of this scientifically-inaccurate but highly awesome painting of a T-Rex, a sperm whale, and a giant squid having it out in a dark and choppy sea—with a lightning bolt in the background.
The painting was done by Brandon Bird, whos work can be admired on his webpage.
Image: 'Bad Day on the High Sea,' by Brandon Bird, by permission of the artist.
drorzel | March 8, 2007This idea is stolen from Colin Cowherd, a pinhead on ESPN Radio, but even a blind pig finds the occasional acorn. I'm going to list a bunch of abbreviations below, and you tell me which are the initials of conferences in Division I basketball, which are agencies of the US Government, and which could be either.
For example, "MVC" would be the Missouri Valley Conference, which is a basketball conference, while "NACIC" would be the National Counter-Intelligence Center, a government agency. "ACC" could be either the Atlantic Coast Conference or the Air Combat Command.
The full list of twenty…
drorzel | March 2, 2007Over at metadatta, Sujit has video of Jim Carrey and Conan O'Brien talking about experimental physics.
(There are a bunch of more serious things that I really ought to be posting-- I owe Dave an answer to his questions about X-Ray lasers, for example-- but there's an ice storm, I have a class to teach and an NSF progress report to write, and my brain appears to have turned to cheese, so you're getting fluff this morning. Maybe later I'll have something to say about science.)
ksharpe | March 1, 2007Do you feel unsatisfied, irritated, impatient with yourself? Ever?
Do you not always enjoy activities that you once enjoyed? Do you feel older than you used to be?
Stop right there—you could be suffering from a serious problem called Dysphoric Social Attention Consumption Deficit Anxiety Disorder (DSACDAD).
Don't be afraid: millions do. And help is on the way, in the form of—what else?—a pill. That would be Havidol®, the trade name of Avafynetime HCl. As the Havidol package insert reminds us, "No prescription drug can promise endless happiness." But with Havidol, you can achieve the "terminal…
ksharpe | February 23, 2007Nerds have seldom been held up as paragons of romantic prowess, and that's generally gone double for those of the female persuasion.
But an essay in the Boston Globe by historian of the family Stephanie Coontz uses demographic evidence to punch a few holes into the popular idea that over-educated women have a hard time finding mates.
Entitled "The Romantic Life of Brainiacs," the essay argues that, contra to stereotype, highly-educated women are more likely to be married, to enjoy lasting marriages, and to be sexually satisfied than their less-educated counterparts.
"The myth of the bitter,…
maggie wittlin | February 22, 2007Global climate change may melt glaciers, slash biodiversity, and displace countless coastal dwellers, but there's one thing rising temperatures will never boil away: Our sense of style! That's the message Diesel (the jeans company, not the fuel) hopes to spread with its newest advertising campaign, "Global Warming Ready." When the Earth—and, apparently, all of its inhabitants—gets totally hot, we'll be able to sunbathe by a beachy Mount Rushmore, motorboat off the coast of London, and slash our way through the jungles of gay Paris, all in our hip Diesel threads. Oh dear.
(video below the fold…
drorzel | February 14, 2007Over at Inside Higher Ed, Scott McLemee celebrates everybody's favorite annoying holiday with a look at two scholars of sex: the late Gershon Legman who coined "Make love, not war" back in 1963; and Blaise Cronin, who currently studies the more respectable sort of pornography at Indiana. Personally, I half think the real purpose may have been to give him the chance to write the sentence about Legman:
Any scholar publishing a book called Oragentialism: Oral Techniques in Genital Excitation may be said to have contributed something to the sum total of human happiness.
but there is a larger…
sarahdasher | February 9, 2007An estimated 14,000 buyers from 7,000 retailers will descend on New York City this weekend to attend The American International Toy Fair. Thirteen hundred exhibitors--Richard Simmons among them--will be present to pedal their wares.
Electronics are an increasingly dominant presence at this event. According to market research firm NPD Group, U.S. toy sales in 2006 crept up to $22.3 billion from $22.2 billion, driven by 22 percent growth in the youth electronics category.
But don't bemoan the sedentary millenium childhood just yet. Piggy-backing on the runaway success of the Nintendo Wii,…
drorzel | February 5, 2007Cognitive Daily proves it scientifically.
I love it when life imitates Brust.
drorzel | January 28, 2007Travis at Arcane Gazebo suggests a game: Six Degrees of Wikipedia
Go to Wikipedia.
Click the random article link in the sidebar.
Open a second random article in another tab.
Try to find a chain of links (as short as possible) starting from the first article that leads to the second.
Lacking other bloggy inspiration, I tried it out. My two pages to connect were Kings Contrivance, Columbia, Maryland and Home Alone (video game), because God hates me. I did find a chain between them, though:
Kings Contrivance, Columbia, Maryland
Planned Community
United States
Cinema of the United States
List…
drorzel | January 27, 2007The dog is standing at the window, wagging her tail excitedly. I look outside, and the back yard is empty. "What are you looking at?" I ask.
"Bunnies made of cheese!," she says. I look again, and the yard is still empty.
"There are no bunnies out there," I say, "and there are certainly not any bunnies made of cheese. The back yard is empty."
"But particles are created out of empty space all the time, right?"
"Have you been reading my quantum physics books again?"
"It's boring here when you're not home. Anyway, answer the question."
"Well, yes, in a sense. They're called 'virtual particles,'…