bcohen | January 23, 2008Wilkins had a post that linked to a Monty Python sketch. So why not watch (or re-watch, if that be your angle) another sketch, pasted below for your viewing ease? Always good fun.
worldsfair | January 23, 2008
Well, maybe not. It's just that... is it me, or is this Oscar (will it happen will it not?) thing everywhere in the news these days? There's such media saturation that it brought to mind the following thought I had the other day.
Say I was an alien coming down to Earth, and I wanted to help, you know, fix things. I want to do this because it's a "highly advanced being with super powers and super technology" sort of thing. Depending on where I land and who I would have contact with first, I can imagine that one scenario is for an informed Earthling to say:
"Well, if you want to help,…
bcohen | January 22, 2008Preface | Pt. 1 | Pt. 2 | Pt. 3 | (Sidebar 1) | Pt. 4 | Pt. 5 | Pt. 6
Pt. 7 | (Sidebar 2a) | (Sidebar 2b) | Pt. 8 | Pt. 9 | Conclusion
As I was saying, I love that Morris gets peeved at the expert's claims for certainty. It reminded me immediately of the grad student seminar experience--and any humanities or social science grad student has certainly had it, if not all graduate students--where the one student defends his philosophical premise by stating that it is "obvious." Says Morris, in words I wish I'd pulled together in Philosophy of Science 6504:
Nothing is so obvious that it's…
bcohen | January 21, 2008Preface | Pt. 1 | Pt. 2 | Pt. 3 | (Sidebar 1) | Pt. 4 | Pt. 5 | Pt. 6
Pt. 7 | (Sidebar 2a) | (Sidebar 2b) | Pt. 8 | Pt. 9 | Conclusion
Here's a supposition, as I continue this series of posts on seeing and knowing: those Morris essays about Fenton's Crimean War photographs at a road outside Sebastopol are a precis for studies of science and technology in society (STS). Inside his essays is a sort of mini-history of the field of that name. A particular and limited story, to be sure, but nonetheless it goes somewhere by following the ever deeper demands of developing context. I'll start in…
bcohen | January 18, 2008"On this broad but synthetic continent of plastics, the countries march right out of the natural world - that wild area of firs and rubber plantations, upper left - into the illimitable world of the molecule. It's a world boxed only by the cardinal points of the chemical compass - carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen."
This is from Fortune, 1940 (I found it here and here.) Click on the map for a larger view to find that Rayon "is a plastic island off the Cellulose coast, with a glittering night life."
No doubt. Better snatch up a beachside condo before the mortgage rates get even worse.
(…
bcohen | January 17, 2008"Curiosity is a vice that has been stigmatized in turn by Christianity, by philosophy, and even by a certain conception of science. Curiosity, futility. The word, however, pleases me. To me it suggests something altogether different: it evokes 'concern'; it evokes the care one takes for what exists and could exist; a readiness to find strange and singular what surrounds us; a certain relentlessness to break up our familiarities and to regard otherwise the same things; a fervor to grasp what is happening and what passes; a casualness in regard to the traditional hierarchies of the important…
worldsfair | January 17, 2008In my hunt for things to incorporate in a lecture later today, I came across this great video (Ma and Pa Kettle) on the mathematics divide.
In the end, I won't actually be using it, but hey, I wonder if it also feels about right to those continually addressing the skeptics.
worldsfair | January 17, 2008Today at the SCQ, we've put up a journal club entry (i.e. full citation details and you can also get the pdf of the first page of the article at that link).
It's kind of an obvious one, which simply shows data whereby you're more likely to exert energy when playing Nintendo Wii vs the XBOX (which doesn't have the motion detection thing going on). Just to clarify, the paper also goes to show that, in addition, you're more likely to exert energy when playing the real sport as compared to playing its simulation on the Wii. Who funds this kind of stuff, I don't know.
Anyway, what turns out…
worldsfair | January 15, 2008Going from a previous comment in my brainspace post earlier this week...
This is kind of sad really. Here is what it looks like. The axes imply relative number of searches since it doesn't seem like you get hard numbers on this (from Google Trends).
What's kind of interesting is that you can kind of see (for Britney and Paris, anyway) where the major news events occurred. In Britney's case, there are two large peeks which actually correspond to her head shaving and some bad performance at an awards show. I'll leave it up to you to figure out what the Paris peaks are, but I would guess it…
bcohen | January 14, 2008Preface | Pt. 1 | Pt. 2 | Pt. 3 | (Sidebar 1) | Pt. 4 | Pt. 5 | Pt. 6
Pt. 7 | (Sidebar 2a) | (Sidebar 2b) | Pt. 8 | Pt. 9 | Conclusion
I wrote earlier (here, to be precise) that there are numerous ways a picture can manipulate its viewers, but most break down into two: a modification of an image after it's taken or staging an image before it's taken. The first way a picture can manipulate its viewers--modifying an image after it's taken--is mostly seen as downright deception and corruption. Someone takes a picture of Fabio and Photoshops George Bush's head on it. It is easy to dismiss and…
worldsfair | January 11, 2008Last night, we rolled in the new course (Arts Science Integrated Course - ASIC 200) and it was a lot of fun (a little odd for me doing what was essentially a history speel, but there you have it). Anyway, one of the first things I got to do was play a little game with the class. It's actually something I do quite often when working with the general public and trying to hone in on the disparity of brain "airtime" devoted to what are essentially trivial things, versus things that really you'd hope everyone was comfortable or literate in.
(Click on the movie to move through slides)
- - -…
bcohen | January 11, 2008The 10,000 member Ecological Society of America released a position statement "that offers the ecological principles necessary for biofuels to help decrease dependence on fossil fuels and reduce carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global climate change."
Supplying the emerging biofuels industry with enough biomass to meet the U.S. biofuel energy target - replacing 30 percent of the current U.S. petroleum consumption with biofuels by 2030 - will have a major impact on the management and sustainability of many U.S. ecosystems. Biofuels have great potential, but the ecological impacts of…
worldsfair | January 10, 2008What better way to keeping it real than showcasing a talk that discusses ways the Earth could end? This one is aptly titled, "10 ways the world could end"
First class starts tonight (woo hoo!)
bcohen | January 10, 2008Preface | Pt. 1 | Pt. 2 | Pt. 3 | (Sidebar 1) | Pt. 4 | Pt. 5 | Pt. 6
Pt. 7 | (Sidebar 2a) | (Sidebar 2b) | Pt. 8 | Pt. 9 | Conclusion
This post was written by new guest blogger Jason Delborne.*
George Cruikshank (1836), A London Audience, from Hulton Archive/Getty Images
The notion of the "public" often surfaces when we think about science. What does the public understand about science? How can we improve the scientific literacy of the public? Is there such a thing as public-interest science? How should the public hold science and scientists accountable? How do research findings affect…
bcohen | January 10, 2008Flight of the Conchords = Mr. Show + Tenacious D + Extras
=
+
[forgoing the Tenacious D You Tube clip for the sake of the children]
+
___________
Somebody must have been given a Conchords DVD over the holidays, you think?
bcohen | January 8, 2008By Guest Blogger: Oronte Churm. (See here for Mr. Churm's prior guest post and mini-bio.)
As an undergrad, I once attended a seminar where a prof from Berkeley, if I recall correctly, showed us an animated model of the learning path of a neural network. The Navy had funded the program in hopes of developing an autonomous undersea robot that could discern rocks from explosive mines, for obvious reasons. The visual was oddly gorgeous, similar to a leaf falling erratically down though an tall cylinder--each undulation marking a self-correction--until it reached a point at bottom center, which…
bcohen | January 8, 2008Preface | Pt. 1 | Pt. 2 | Pt. 3 | (Sidebar 1) | Pt. 4 | Pt. 5 | Pt. 6
Pt. 7 | (Sidebar 2a) | (Sidebar 2b) | Pt. 8 | Pt. 9 | Conclusion
"Pictures are supposed to be worth a thousand words. But a picture unaccompanied by words may not mean anything at all. Do pictures provide evidence? And if so, evidence of what? And, of course, the underlying question: do they tell the truth?" -- E. Morris
There are numerous ways a picture can manipulate its viewers, but most break down into two: a modification of an image after it's taken or staging an image before it's taken. The documentary maker Errol…
worldsfair | January 7, 2008This is too cool. Dave S. over at terry.ubc.ca launched a sustainable gingerbread house contest in mid December and in the span of a less than three weeks, was able to cull a total of 19 entries (plus one latecomer).
Anyway, here's one by Anne from Inkling, but see all of them at this easy to peruse link. See the mother load (all 85 photographs at this Flickr portal).
Thanks to everyone that played. We're currently working on luring some luminary judges (3 for 4 so far), and will get back to you regarding the winners.
You know, this was so cool, I think a Science Scout badge is in order…
bcohen | January 7, 2008The writer, blogger, teacher, and, we're proud to say, World's Fair guest contributor Oronte Churm has a remarkable small essay over at The Education of Oronte Churm, called The Calculus of Military Service. He writes of his own past military experience and his own dawning awareness of the effects of military training on the subsequent lives of soldiers. That subject is vast, but in this well-researched small piece Churm brings it together with grace and clarity. When reading it I thought, this is either an example of (a) why and how blogging can actually be a legitimate literary and…
bcohen | January 5, 20082007 SCIENCE SHOWDOWN PRESS CENTER
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