January 8, 2008
Commenter "Matt" wrote a comment that pissed me off, and while it's probably futile to take on union-bashing again, it does highlight a couple of the things that make this so frustrating.
In response to several people observing that teaching is not the cushy 8-to-3, summers-off job that lots of…
January 8, 2008
Tonight at 8pm (Eastern) is the premier of the NOVA program "Absolute Zero". This is the first of two one-hour specials talking about the physics and technology of ultra-low temperatures. I haven't seen nearly enough hype for this on the Internet-- actual results aren't as sexy as wild speculation…
January 7, 2008
Economists Say Movie Violence Might Temper the Real Thing - New York Times
"From 6 p.m. to midnight on weekends -- when the largest numbers of people are in theaters -- violent crimes decreased 1.3 percent for every million people watching a strongly violent movie, the study found. Violent crimes…
January 7, 2008
I unwisely agreed to cover the first class for one of my colleagues with a late-arriving flight back from break before finding out when the class met, which was 8:00 this morning. As a result, my whole morning blog routine was disrupted.
I'm saved from having the site go completely dark, though, by…
January 7, 2008
On Friday, Steinn was playing dictator of the universe, and presented a modest proposal to reform US public education. It's a mix of pretty good idea and cosmetic changes to make things more like Europe, and I agree with a good deal of it. I do want to highlight one thing, though:
Teachers could…
January 6, 2008
BBC NEWS | Magazine Monitor
100 things the BBC didn't know until last year.
(tags: culture politics review society science education environment humanities history)
January 6, 2008
Myers:
There are atheists who look on a tragedy and cry, "There is no god," in despair. But we are atheists who look on beauty and complexity and awesome immensity and shout out, "There is no god!" and we are glad.
That's the distinction we've got to get across. We are fulfilled, happy atheists who…
January 6, 2008
The context for this would take too long to explain, so I'll just throw it out there:
Can anyone think of an example of an Internet troll changing their opinions or behavior because of the savage wit of people responding to their comments?
I ask this because I spent a good seven years on rec.arts.…
January 6, 2008
... because it's evidently a bad weekend for teams Jim Henley is rooting for.
(Edit: typo fixed.)
(Also, their secondary continues to suck.)
January 5, 2008
World Hum | Travel Books | The Trouble With 'Smile When You're Lying'
Thoughts about what's wrong with travel writing, and why.
(tags: travel writing books review journalism)
What if the BCS Ran the NFL - FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog
"Cowboys fans are upset that they have been shut out of the Bud…
January 5, 2008
A couple of years ago, I decided to lose some weight. Because I'm a big ol' nerd, this involved keeping a more-or-less daily record of my weight, and inevitably, I made a graph of it. Here's the latest version-- the blue points are from 2006, the green from 2007:
(It's not science without graphs…
January 5, 2008
Tommaso Dorigo, in reviewing an assessment scheme for science projects:
Ironically, in the same table Knuteson includes the SBFB ["Scientific Bang for the Buck" factor] of the experiment of flipping a coin: the SBFB of the experiment is zero, not that different from the global search for new…
January 4, 2008
Report on Evaluating Scholarship for Tenure and Promotion
"In the aggregate, PhDs in the fields represented by the MLA appear to have about a 35% chance of getting tenure."
(tags: academia education humanities jobs)
Crooked Timber » » Closing the books
A list of the arguments Daniel Davies is…
January 4, 2008
Wow, am I cranky today, or what?
To make up for the previous three tediously political posts, here's a more light-hearted physics poll question:
What's the dorkiest term in physics?
Physicists have no real flair for naming things-- either you get dull and prosaic names ("up" and "down" quarks), or…
January 4, 2008
Over at the Whatever, Scalzi has some acid comments for Prof. Will Barrat's Social Class on Campus diagnostic tools, particularly the step forward exercise (I've linked the Web version-- John refers to the Word file):
[F]or the purposes of this exercise -- showing indicators of privilege and class…
January 4, 2008
One of the many annoying things about the Iowa caucus coverage is that what's really a faintly absurd and kind of trivial process gets magnified into this huge and all-consuming Event that bumps other, much more important, stories down the queue. Kevin Drum highlights what might be the perfect…
January 4, 2008
The Iowa caucuses are finally over, and Daily Kos has the scoop:
Finally, primary season is over, and it couldn't come soon enough. After a week of conflicting polls and a flurry of last minute campaigning by all parties, ______ has (narrowly / decisively) won the Iowa caucuses.
Numerous factors…
January 3, 2008
The Invisible Ingredient in Every Kitchen - New York Times
Harold McGee on heat.
(tags: food science)
Inside college parties: surprising findings about drinking behavior
"A uniquely designed study instead had researchers visit college parties, gathering data on the spot. Findings revealed that…
January 3, 2008
As nearly everybody with a blog has already noted, the annual "World Question Center" question has been posted, with answers from the usual huge range of thinkers. This year's question:
When thinking changes your mind, that's philosophy.
When God changes your mind, that's faith.
When facts change…
January 3, 2008
1) Kate and I went to a New Year's party at the home of a colleague in Math, whose kids got a Wii for Christmas. We spent a while playing with it, and it's way more interesting than any other gaming system I've seen in years.
2) Windows Vista sucks ass. Evidence: It is incapable of switching…
January 3, 2008
Timothy Burke is disgusted with the New York Times, and soliciting nominations of people who would be more interesting on the Op-Ed page than the Times's current stable of established writers:
As an extension of my last post, let me start the nominations for online writers that you feel like could…
January 2, 2008
A Wily Road Warrior's Airport Tips
Frank Luntz on how to survive modern air travel.
(tags: travel society US)
Drivers on cell phones clog traffic
I am shocked-- shocked!-- to learn that talking on the phone impairs drivers.
(tags: psychology US stupid science news)
Jon Swift: Best Blog Posts…
January 2, 2008
Over at Inside Higher Ed, they've posted a report on the job market in history, which finds that there are more jobs than new Ph.D.'s, but that American and European history are overrepresented in the candidate pool, relative to the number of jobs. It also includes this comment about the number of…
January 2, 2008
As a Christmas present for her grandparents, Kate put together a coupld of albums of pictures from our Japan trip, including this shot of What Japanese Commuter Trains Look Like to Me:
(That was taken standing up looking straight ahead on a train from Tokyo to Yokohama. The Japanese have the best…
January 1, 2008
Pop Culture News: Popdose.com
The new group music/ pop culture blog from Jeff Giles, Jason Hare, Py Korry, and others. Future home of Chart Attack! and Adventures Through the Mines of Mellow Gold. Adjust your RSS feeds accordingly.
(tags: music culture blogs television movies)
The World…
January 1, 2008
Because it's not science without graphs:
That's the traffic for this blog for 2007. If you integrate the area under the curve, you get a total of 833,275 page views for the year, which is, frankly, kind of astonishing. That's up from last year's total of 574,676, so I guess the goal for 2008 is to…
December 31, 2007
Popless Week Zero: Stopping In The Name Of Love | The A.V. Club
Noel Murray plans to spend 2008 not listenins to any new music-- old songs only.
(tags: music review culture)
Jobs, News and Views for All of Higher Education - Inside Higher Ed :: God, Fashion, Affect
The hot new books at the MLA…
December 31, 2007
There's really no global significance to January 1-- it's not even universally acknowledged as the start of a new year-- but it's good now and then to take a little time to reflect on things. As a culture, Americans tend to be fairly bad at this (we're a low albedo nation), but we've built two such…
December 30, 2007
The Bush administration's dumbest legal arguments of the year. - By Dahlia Lithwick - Slate Magazine
"3) Alberto Gonzales: I am forced to put the former attorney general into his own category only because were I to attempt to round up his best legal whoppers of the calendar year, it would…
December 29, 2007
Crooked Timber » » Science, and anti-science, in action
The saga of the peppered moth as an example of evolution in action.
(tags: biology experiment politics science)
Some Road Songs
The official government list of songs that mention highways.
(tags: music travel US silly society culture…
