August 14, 2009
A Burning Dog Needs No Chimney - White House unveils death panel
"After a week of unconvincing denials, the Obama administration reversed course today and released photos of the "death panel" that would, under a proposed new health-care system, make decisions about "when to pull the plug on…
August 13, 2009
It's getting harder and harder to get good SteelyKid pictures, because she's always in motion (see digital camera complaints in the previous post). So, we have to resort to tricks like putting her in her babypod and holding Appa up next to her:
Fortunately, she doesn't mind too much...
Actually,…
August 13, 2009
The vast majority of the SteelyKid pictures posted here have been taken with our Canon PowerShot A95 camera, which is around five years old at this point. It's served us well, but is getting old, and has a few sub-optimal features, in particular the lag time between pushing the button and actually…
August 13, 2009
One of our poetry contest winners has been reading his proof copy of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, and posted some comments. Actually, it was posted last week, but I was at Worldcon, and not dealing with much of anything else.
The comments are pretty positive, but he asks a couple of questions…
August 13, 2009
Physics and Physicists: On the Role of the Michelson-Morley Experiment: Einstein in Chicago
"The conventional thought, based on many accounts given by Einstein in his later years, is that he can't quite remember if he was aware of it, and thus, it didn't play any influential role in his…
August 12, 2009
Pimp My Novel: Genre-Specific Sales, Part 1 of 8: Fantasy
"The good news, however is this: fantasy is actually doing all right, and in many instances, sales of fantasy books are up over last year's sales. Without quoting you exact BookScan numbers, I can tell you that fantasy book sales are up at…
August 12, 2009
ZapperZ links to an interview with David Saltzberg about careers for students with an undergraduate degree in physics. As is often the case, ZapperZ proclaims himself "disappointed" with things that I think are about right. In particular, he writes:
[W]hen asked on why one should major in physics,…
August 12, 2009
Tobias Buckell had some heart issues a while back, and the stress of Worldcon aggravated things a bit:
By Sunday morning, I was feeling completely sapped, and not getting enough sleep. I tried to nap before the pre-Hugo ceremony, but felt like I'd hit a brick wall by the time I'd walked over. I had…
August 11, 2009
We are back in Niskayuna now, where SteelyKid is using her new powers of bipedal locomotion to help me burn off some of the excess calories from the weekend in Montreal. She's only been walking for a couple of weeks, but she can really move.
I'm pretty fried, even after napping for two hours…
August 11, 2009
(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too…
August 11, 2009
(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too…
August 10, 2009
(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too…
August 10, 2009
(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too…
August 10, 2009
Tor Books founder and publisher Tom Doherty is one of the several Guests of Honor Who Aren't Neil Gaiman at this year's worldcon, and as such there was a panel titled "Locus interviews Tom Doherty." Which might better have been titled "Tom Doherty Tells Cool Stories About His Career in Publishing,…
August 9, 2009
The "Philosophy of Science" panel I moderated was surprisingly well-attended, and got some decent discussion going. Kate took notes, at least for a while, and I'll post a link if she writes it up on LiveJournal.
The "Knights who Say Fuck" panel was in a very remote room that was much too small to…
August 8, 2009
My talk was Friday morning at 10am, on the title given above. This wasn't my choice-- when I volunteered to be on programming, I said some general areas that I'd be willing to talk about, and left it at that. Somebody else made up the title and description for the talk, which made it very slightly…
August 7, 2009
(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too…
August 6, 2009
(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too…
August 6, 2009
(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too…
August 6, 2009
Even though Kate and I are en route to Montreal, dodging Assassins des Fauteuils Rollents, through the miracle of post scheduling, you get your Thursday Baby Blogging. To get around the problems posed by her new mobility, we'll fall back on a classic: the sleeping-baby picture:
If you look at the…
August 5, 2009
(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too…
August 5, 2009
(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too…
August 5, 2009
I'm going to be off at Worldcon for the next several days, but fear not, the blog will still be active. I have scheduled non-academic scientist interviews to post every weekday while I'm gone. There are two posts each for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Monday, and Tuesday, so you'll have plenty of…
August 5, 2009
Large Hadron Collider Struggles, Adding to the Mysteries of Life - NYTimes.com
"Many of the magnets meant to whiz high-energy subatomic particles around a 17-mile underground racetrack have mysteriously lost their ability to operate at high energies.
Some physicists are deserting the European…
August 4, 2009
The Worldcon program has been posted, but only as a giant, confusing PDF. I was getting cross-eyed trying to figure things out, so I ended up creating my own blank grid sheets, and making notes on those.
The following is a by-no-means comprehensive list of things I think look interesting enough to…
August 4, 2009
Last week, Sean raised the critical academic question of when to serve food associated with a seminar talk. He did not, however, address the more important question, namely what to serve at a seminar talk. So I'll do it, scientific-like:
Which of the following items should be served at an event…
August 4, 2009
Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch - NYTimes.com
Some decent points, but as with all NY Times Magazine articles, it's crawling with annoying class assumptions. There's a passing acknowledgment that the decline in cooking is related to the increase in hours worked, and then it's back to somewhat…
August 3, 2009
I'm a late addition to a Sunday panel at Worldcon:
Science Blogging - The New Science Journalism?
Touted as a new way of reaching the public, has science blogging matched its initial promise? Has it caused more problems than it solves?
Well? What do you all think?
August 3, 2009
Last weekend, I was talking with Ethan Zuckerman at a party, and we talked a little bit about the TED conferences and similar things. A few days later, there was an editorial in Nature suggesting that scientists could learn a lot from TED:
[P]erhaps the most critical key to success is the style of…
August 3, 2009
We don't have SteelyKid watching any kind of baby-oriented tv, because I'd rather be stabbed with a fork than have to listen to the Tellytubbies. We do frequently have the tv on while she's playing in the living room, though, as we try to catch up on DVR'ed programs. This has led directly to…
