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gregladen | August 20, 2010Wanted: All toolbars that can be on top should also be able to be on bottom or side, in any software, any system, anywhere, and function properly while there.
See the whole "WANTED" list here.
gregladen | August 20, 2010.... Particularly disturbing is the adoption of the PowerPoint cognitive style in our schools. Rather than learning to write a report using sentences, children are being taught how to formulate client pitches and infomercials. Elementary school PowerPoint exercises (as seen in teacher guides and in student work posted on the Internet) typically consist of 10 to 20 words and a piece of clip art on each slide in a presentation of three to six slides -a total of perhaps 80 words (15 seconds of silent reading) for a week of work. Students would be better off if the schools simply closed down on…
illconsidered | August 20, 2010The question:
Do you believe that human-caused global warming exists? If so, how do you propose reducing the amount of carbon that enters the atmosphere. If not, please explain why you do not believe it exists.
And Tom Mullins' answer:
No. Carbon is organic and carbon is the basis of all life. Our federal government is attempting to regulate not just the breath we exhale, but is also infringing upon our very livelihood. Affordable energy is a critical component of New Mexico's economic development. The residence of CO2 in the troposphere is about 5 years, rather than the 50 to 200 years…
gregladen | August 19, 2010I was thinking something like "Imma let you finish being stupid and all, but first I want to review the preponderance of evidence for evolution. But you may also like to see Genie Scott's take on it:
tlambert | August 19, 2010Arthur Smith details a pattern of deception in Keith Kloor's writing. Kloor's response in comments completes the case -- he takes offence at the very first sentence and uses that as pretext for avoiding the criticism.
Update: Kloor responds again, projecting:
I sense their intent is to harm my reputation
gregladen | August 19, 2010The heretofore unknown events that led to an investigation of Dr. Marc Hauser of Harvard University, which led to a recently completed investigation of Hauser's scientific conduct.
You cann read the article here. I hope you can access that document (it may be fully or partly behind a firewall). At the moment, I'm out in the middle of the forest so I can't summarize it for you, but let me know if it is not generally viewable and I'll rectify that later assuming I am not eaten by bears.
kbonham | August 19, 2010[This post was originally published at webeasties.wordpress.com]
I've played video games most of my life. Starting with Tom Sawyer's Island and Matterhorn Screamer (both released in 1988), the early Final Fantasies and Secret of Mana  on Super Nintendo in middleschool, games like Starcraft and Half-life (Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat etc) in high school, and Halo in college. Grad school finally ended my 3 year love affair with World of Warcraft. I've always played for fun, but two papers in last week's Nature show how video games can be put to even better use (both are behind pay-walls…
dolittle | August 18, 2010I love YouTube! If I could just sit and watch it for eight hours a day, seven days a week, I could probably win a Nobel Prize in Comparative Physiology.
When you get a Nobel Prize, you get the prize itself, a diploma (as though I need another diploma), and of course the Swedish Kroners. I pledge now that should they ever create a Prize in Comparative Physiology, and should I win it, I will donate half of the Kroners to animal research. I am now on record.
Now back to reality.
I just finished watching UCLA's Peter Narins' lecture on frog communication. I learned a lot. Most interesting of all…
mspringer | August 18, 2010A few days ago there was an interesting math problem posed on the right-leaning lawprof blog The Volokh Conspiracy. It's a cute problem in itself, and it makes a nice discussion example about the role of computers in modern physics. The problem is this:
Find a ten-digit number with the following two properties (in base 10, of course): A. The number contains each digit (from 0 to 9) exactly once. B. For every N from 1 to 10, the first N digits of the number are divisible by N.
Thus, for instance, 1234567890 doesn't work; while 1 is divisible by 1, 12 is divisible by 2, and 123 is divisible by…
gregladen | August 17, 2010Don't be a dick.
Phil Plait - Don't Be A Dick from JREF on Vimeo.
Cribbed from here where you will presumably eventually find Part II.
stoat | August 17, 2010I don't think I mentioned that last summer we dragged the kids off to the Stubai (Franz Senn and Sulzenau), and they liked it enough that we did it again this year (FSH and Neue Regensburger). Stuff from that when I have time, but in the meantime I know I *have* mentionned my shiny new GPS watch which I took with me. And here is one result (Westliche Seespitze from the Neue Regensburger Hutte):
Cutesy, eh? Note that the embed is a bit stupid, so you'll have to click on "satellite" to see stuff, and then zoom in on the peak for the most interesting stuff. But I wish I'd known the shape of the…
pharyngula | August 17, 2010Take a break from the amorphous thread for something pretty.
(Current totals: 10,849 entries with 1,092,105 comments.)
gregladen | August 17, 2010Well, not yet, but wait for it. This story and this story describe "tracking" of the Democratic Candidate by the Teabagging Republican, which is also discussed by Jim in this story from the point of view of an insider.
gregladen | August 16, 2010Do check out this series of guest posts at Quiche Moraine, written by by Jim Emery, which detail the events associated with a recent campaign for the US Congress in a hotly contested district in Minnesota.
Inside the Political Process: Jim Emery and the Madia Campaign
Inside the Political Process: The Role of Communication
Inside the Political Process: Framing the Debate
jgoldman | August 16, 2010There's also a shortage of clean water. Friend of the blog Melissa Rowley is working to fix that.
She writes:
When I see photographs of children in developing countries, I ponder what my life would have been like had I not been adopted. My being here, here and now, and not roaming the streets of Korea or ending up as a sex trafficking tragedy, is more than a coincidence. It's a miracle. The longer I live the more certain I am that I was put on this planet to help those who need compassion, care, and a call to action to help them help themselves.
...the women who are mothers and nurturers…
mikethemadbiologist | August 16, 2010
Alford: What Kind of Science Should Economics Be When It Grows Up? (actually mentions physics envy among other things)
Why are there so few female chess grandmasters?
Living fossils don't exist...
Other:
Michal Kalecki - The Political Aspects of Full Employment (long, but very good)
Identifying Psychopathic Fraudsters: These Men Know 'Snakes in Suits'
Resisting Reforms: On Diane Ravitch
Afghan Women Have Already Been Abandoned
Left Ed: If Robert Gibbs Pissed You Off, i3 Should Too, And Vice-Versa
A Tale Of Two Expenses