silliness
drorzel | February 3, 2010In the wake of recent political developments, there has been a lot of hand-wringing about why Democrats in Congress are so spineless, and have been unable to pass meaningful legislation despite huge majorities. After thinking about my travel plans last night, I think I have the key to the Grand Unified Theory of American politics.
The problem is not that Democratic politicians are uniquely craven, or venal, or anything like that. The problem is Washington, DC.
No, this is not a prelude to some right-wing rant about how the Real America can be found only in states with more livestock than…
drorzel | January 29, 2010We had a parent-teacher conference this morning with SteelyKid's teacher at day care, who confirmed that she is the cutest and cleverest baby in the universe. OK, not in those words, but that's how I interpreted them. In honor of that, here's a poll:
Fish?(poll)
There's probably another stanza worth of choices, but unlike my parents, I don't have this one memorized. This ought to do for now.
drorzel | January 28, 2010I have to go to the Happy Fun Meeting this afternoon, which will be both Happy! and Fun! To keep things lively while I'm there, here's a question that is dorky, but not in the usual way for this blog: What superpower would you most like to have to help you deal with annoying meetings?
The most useful meeting-related superpower to have would be:(survey software)
Bonus essay question: How does the Justice League/ Legion of Doom function when all the attendees at their regular meetings have superpowers? Wouldn't that get out of hand in a hurry?
drorzel | January 25, 2010The great thing about using Google to vanity search for articles about How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, or at least one of the great things about it, is that it's world-wide. Thus, this Dutch roundup of new books, which includes mine. This is what they have to say:
Een erg geestig boek is 'How to Teach Physics to Your Dog'. Chad Orzel gebruikt scenarios uit de echte wereld om kwantummechanica uit te leggen. Dit doet hij dankzij conversaties met zijn hond Emmy. De leuke gesprekken zorgen er voor dat veel vragen worden opgelost over kwantummechanica. Het boek is niet voor de absolute beginner…
drorzel | January 24, 2010I'm currently a bit less than halfway through Sean Carroll's From Eternity to Here, which has leaped to the top of the literary inbox because I'll be hosting a Book Salon at firedoglake next Saturday evening. If you want to see how my limited typing skills work in a live chat setting, be sure to stop by. (I plan to type out a bunch of questions in advance, and then cut-and-paste them as needed.)
A little while back, somebody on Twitter referred to this as "Sean's arrow of time fetish book," which is a little unkind, but also funny and memorable. Sort of. My subconscious, trained by spending…
drorzel | January 24, 2010... are welcome in the DogPhysics Pet Gallery. Even aquatic ones:
We've currently got seventeen dogs, six cats, two horses, a lizard, and these fish. If you've got a pet, of whatever species, and a copy of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, take a picture of the one with the other, and send it to queen_emmy@steelypips.org, and we'll add it to the Gallery.
drorzel | January 21, 2010I'm getting considerably more email from people I don't know these days, which has me wondering about the ways people address one another. Hence, a poll:
You are writing an email to a person you have never met before, who you know to be employed by a college or university. What salutation do you use?(survey software)
All of the serious answers are risky:
1) Not all doctors are professors.
2) Not all professors are doctors.
3) Some misters and mizzes strongly prefer to be doctors or professors.
4) Many people react poorly to the automatic first-name basis.
5) Some dawgs you shouldn't "Hey."
It…
drorzel | January 12, 2010My flight to Texas tomorrow leaves ungodly early, requiring me to leave for the airport around 6:30 or so. That's earlier than I like to be up, but it's a bit late by my father's standards-- he always books flights that leave at 7am or thereabouts. This seems like a good topic for a poll:
When do you like to fly?(surveys)
This is an ideal-world situation, where you have your choice of flights leaving at any time of day, so don't leave comments complaining about the lack of "whenever the airlines say I can go."
drorzel | January 7, 2010Not much news on the book front this morning-- various promotional things are in progress, including an on-campus thing tomorrow afternoon, but there's nothing new to link to.
We do, however, have the first non-mammal added to the DogPhysics Pet Gallery: a lizard, sent in by Marcella McIntyre. It's not actually a pet, per se, but it's shown reading up on the Uncertainty Principle, so at least it has a healthy curiosity.
If you've got a copy of the book, and you have pets, send a picture of your pet(s) with the book to queen_emmy@steelypips.org, and we'll add it to the Gallery. And if there's…
drorzel | January 6, 2010I forgot to include an option about this in the previous Dorky Poll, but this is one of the best ways I know to sort out righteous physicists from heathen mathematicians:
How do you like your angular coordinates?(polls)
Choose wisely.
drorzel | January 6, 2010Today's lecture in intro mechanics is a whirlwind survey of vectors. While I struggle to clear my head enough to be able to teach this stuff, here's a Dorky Poll to pass the time:
What's your favorite three-dimensional coordinate system?(survey)
This is a strictly classical subject, so please choose only one.
drorzel | December 31, 2009A couple of days ago, the LHC Blog asked about the future funding of the arxiv pre-print server, currently hosted at Cornell. Cornell is looking to get some external funding, though:
Currently the plan is to ask the "heaviest user institutions" (other university library systems) to voluntarily contribute to support arXiv operational costs. The FAQ states that the library has already secured commitments from 11 of the 20 institutions that make the most use of the arXiv. (I've seen an unofficial list; these include many of the 'big name research institutes' around the world.) In return, besides…
drorzel | December 27, 2009The DogPhysics Pet Gallery is up to seven dogs, but as yet nobody has sent in a picture of a non-dog pet learning physics from How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. Emmy thinks this is because other pets are dumb, but I think she's getting a little conceited. You can prove her wrong by sending in a picture of your non-dog pet (birds, ferrets, hedgehogs, fish-- even cats are welcome) posing with a copy of the book, like this photo of my parents' Yellow Lab Bodie:
Send pictures to queen_emmy@steelypips.org, and prove her wrong.
drorzel | December 15, 2009I'm spending today doing some Christmas shopping, god help me. So here's a seasonally-appropriate poll for you all:
The worst part of going to a mall in December is:(polls)
Please choose only one. No returns or exchanges.
drorzel | December 11, 2009You know, if somebody were to put together an application that would periodically check the Amazon sales rank of a given book and generate a Google Analytics style time series graph, and charge authors $5/book to see the output, I bet they'd make a bunch of money.
Granted, it would put that person on the same moral level as a crack dealer, but I imagine a big pile of $5 bills would go a long way to soothe that...
ejohnson | December 8, 2009If your loved ones are at a loss this holiday season as to what shiny objects might most set your cardiac muscle aflutter, quick! You're running out of time. But you are not alone! It's tougher to shop for science nerds than might be imagined. After all, a Sagan lover is not a Kevin J. Anderson lover is not an Arthur C. Clarke lover, and you really have to be careful even with generic gifts - you wouldn't want to send a fruit basket to a psychologist, would you?
And of course, as geeky as some of us truly are, nobody really needs a periodic table shower curtain or a cheeky mug. We like…
drorzel | December 1, 2009Back during the DonorsChoose fundraiser, I promised to do a re-enactment of the Bohr-Einstein debates using puppets if you contributed enough to claim $2,000 of the Hewlett-Packard contribution to the Social Media Challenge. I obviously aimed too low, because the final take was $4064.70, more than twice the threshold for a puppet show.
So, I put together a puppet show. It took a little while, because I couldn't find any Niels Bohr puppets (maybe in Denmark?). I found an acceptable alternative, though, and put together a video of the Bohr-Einstein debates, using puppets. Here's the whole thing…
drorzel | November 25, 2009The Onion kindly provided this Patton Oswalt demolition of the "Christmas Shoes" song. while it's funny, it is a reminder that we have reached the time of year when radio stations across the country will begin inflicting holiday "cheer" on their listeners. which seems like an excellent subject for a poll:
Which of these holiday songs is the most excruciating?(opinion)
This is thrown together very quickly between steps in the food preparation for tomorrow's Thanksgiving dinner, so I'm sure I've forgotten several horrible songs that belong on the list. Please feel free to offer your own least…
milhayser | November 13, 2009
Shakespeare wrote that "past is prologue," but it's not always that easy to read. Brian Switek on Laelaps tells the tale of P. H. Gosse, a man who tried to reconcile the fossil record with the Book of Genesis, at the same time Darwin was writing his Origin of Species. Convincing no one, Gosse estranged even the faithful with his image of God as "a trickster who planted gags to fool geologists." But given the ample evidence that dinosaurs were once alive, the debate continues: were they warm-blooded? On Not Exactly Rocket Science, Ed Yong shows us a new study which says yes, based on the "hip…
ejohnson | November 2, 2009
In honor of Halloween this weekend, we scared up some classic spooky ScienceBlogs posts. Brian Switek of Laelaps discusses ghosts, UFOs, psychics, witchcraft and other "paranormal rot" many people use to explain "rather ordinary phenomena." On SciencePunk, Frank Swain contemplates the mathematical improbability of vampires due to sure vampire population explosion. However, Frank also points out "Efthimiou's conjecture doesn't rule out the possibility of vampires--just that the outbreak hasn't happened yet." The not-so-obvious origins of witches flying on broomsticks is covered on Terra…