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cwilcox | January 18, 2011I arrived in North Carolina on Thursday night at around 6 pm. The next morning, I was barely coherent, after an amazing keynote speech, open mic night, and far too late an evening involving ocean bloggers and alcohol. I managed to cup some coffee, then make my way to my first blogging related event of the conference: "Death to Obfuscation: on the use of language in science writing" by none other than the power-packed duet of Ed Yong and Carl Zimmer.
It's hard to walk into a room containing these two brilliant writers and not feel a little self-conscious. They are, in the science blogging…
cwilcox | January 18, 2011Trying to describe the experience of Science Online to someone who has never been is like trying to explain the taste of a pineapple. You can get vague details across - tangy, sweet, juicy - but the full experience can never be imparted verbally. I'm not even going to try to explain what it was like to be at this year's conference, but I do have some thoughts that have arisen out of four days of fantastic dialogue with new and old friends and, of course, excessive sleep deprivation.
I found there was a fascinating negative correlation between the amount of time the moderators spent talking…
gregladen | January 16, 2011Firefox Four is nearing readiness for your use. There are a massive 661 bug fixes, a number people are very excited about, but you've got to ask: How do you get that many unfixed bugs to begin with??? One of the features I'm looking forward is tabs in the title bar. I'm tired of giving up vertical screen real estate to the title bar, a few tool bars, a menu bar, a tab bar, and then within the web site, a banner add, a fancy decorative banner I don't need to see, etc. etc. When I look at my own blog on my lap top, I have to scroll down to see the title of the post! Tabs in the otherwise…
gregladen | January 15, 2011A blog carnival is a moving periodic blog posting collecting current entries in a particular topic, designed to give blog readers a list of things to do that they really do want to do. Current carnivals of which I'm aware are Berry Go Round, which is about plants; Carnival of the Blue, which is about stuff in the ocean; I and the bird, which is about birds, Festival of the Trees, which is about, you guessed it, trees; and Circus of the Spineless, which is about invertebrates such as insects and slugs and so on.
Visit these carnivals, click on the links therein, and enjoy.
mikethemadbiologist | January 15, 2011It's cold. Very cold. Warm up with some links. Science:
The House Anti-Science Committee?
My, Oh My, Oh MiSeq!!
Genomes too cheap to meter (not sure I agree, but worth reading)
Other:
Where Is the Love
Quote of the Day: Jenny McCarthy Helps Kill Children
Gabrielle Giffords' Arizona shooting prompts resignations
I Hope Erick Erickson Lives A Long and Miserable Life Afflicted By At Least Six of the Ten Plaugues*
A gentler and more logical economics
Paid Sick Leave and Public Health
The Tea Party and the Tucson Tragedy: How anti-government, pro-gun, xenophobic populism made the Giffords…
gregladen | January 15, 2011Tom W. Clark, director of the Center for Naturalism and author of Encountering Naturalism: A Worldview and Its Uses, will appear on Atheist Talk radio Sunday Morning.
Free will, as you know, does not really exist, and this has important implications for thinking about morality and so called "world views." Naturalism is a philosophy that addresses this seeming difficulty. The interview will be conducted by Atheist Talk Radio producer and host, Mike Huabrich. With Miked in the interview seat, Scott Lohman will host the show. Details are here.
gregladen | January 14, 2011King was born in 1929, and assassinated in 1968, on April 4th at the age of 39.
When he was killed, someone asked "what kind of nation are we?"
cwilcox | January 14, 2011Last night was the first night of Science Online 2011. The food and keynote were fantastic, but the real party was back at the hotel afterwards for the Open Mic Night! At the request of many, here are the lyrics to the song I sang:
Extinctionʼs A Bitch
(to the tune of ʻBitchʼ by Meredith Brooks)
Biodiversity
all kinds of creatures from the mountains to the seas
all arising through a process of selection thatʼs been altering their genes
for a million centuries
Evolutionʼs what I mean
Itʼs changing organisms gene by gene by gene
so theyʼre stronger or theyʼre faster or theyʼre smarter…
mspringer | January 14, 2011Well, last time we were looking about the classical probability density for a bouncing ball, and the quantum mechanical probability distribution for the same. They looked not even a little bit alike. This is kind of a problem, since we know from experience that classical physics works pretty well, and from more modern work we know quantum mechanics works pretty well also.
However, despite their apparent inconsistency it turns out that we're just not looking close enough. The quantum nature of things is usually (though not quite always) apparent when the energy level of the system in question…
gregladen | January 13, 2011Right now, the FCC and Department of Justice are preparing to approve the NBC/Comcast merger -- something that would have dire consequences for years to come.
Sign the petition.
gregladen | January 12, 2011The Internet (or at least the network of tubes it runs through) has eventually gotta give as our collective demands grow, and there are signs of this happening. There is a limited amount of bandwith and until that problem is relieved we are heading steadily towards a point where our stuff just won't fit. A while back Comcast said it would stop allowing users to use Roku or similar devices. Now, in England, T-Mobile has slashed the amount of bandwith its customers can use to levels that would allow normal broadband use down to something more like email with the occasional attachment levels…