April 26, 2007
No, I'm not talking about the sort of thing where teams play cooperative, non-competetive games, and everybody gets a trophy at the end. I'm talking about academia, here, and specifically the recent flurry of colleges and universities offering child care support:
In the last week, both Stanford…
April 26, 2007
Every now and then, you run across things on the Internet that make you say "Wow, this is really cool!" For example, the fake trailer for Greg Bear's Eon (via Tobias Buckell). I haven't read the book in years, but that trailer looks amazing.
And, of course, every now and then, you encounter…
April 26, 2007
Shelley Batts at Retrospectacle got a nasty letter from a publisher over a blog post in which she reproduced a part of a figure and one data table from a paper. It's more than a little surprising to me that the publisher thinks this is a good use of their time, but who knows? Maybe they're overrun…
April 25, 2007
I'm currently on a committee that's investigating whether to switch to an honor code system for academic honesty issues, and possibly social violations as well. This is about as much fun as it sounds like.
For those not up on the internal practices of academia, schools with honor codes require…
April 25, 2007
The other day, I was talking to our neighbor in the back, and she said "Your flowers are coming in really nicely."
"Um, thanks," I said, "but I sort of think those might technically be weeds..."
They are pretty, though:
Close-up below the fold:
Of course, even if they are weeds, I can't really…
April 25, 2007
I have two labs on Tuesdays, which is even more exhausting than it sounds, so I went to be early last night. And woke up to find a whole new planet. You guys need to give me some warning about these things...
Anyway, the planet in question orbits a red dwarf star a mere 20 light years from Earth,…
April 24, 2007
From an all-campus email this morning:
A non-specific bomb threat was discovered overnight in [Building]. A note was discovered at 4:16 a.m. Following our emergency response plan, the Schenectady Police were immediately notified. A sweep of the building was conducted by the Schenectady Police,…
April 24, 2007
Until I get around to making an iTunes run, I'm listening to the four-and-five-star playlist, which is much better fodder for the "Random Ten" thing than a bunch of filler tracks off really recent albums. We'll do this in guess-the-lyrics fashion because, well, because I can.
Despite the title,…
April 24, 2007
Another way of reading some of what I said last week would be as a statement that I would say something about the Virginia Tech killings, and what I think they mean in policy terms. This is really tough to do, in part because I still think it's kind of tacky to be making political points with this…
April 24, 2007
An important discovery in Arkansas:
You would think that members of Congress would have considered the warming effect that an extra hour of daylight would have on our climate. Or did they ?"
Via James.
April 23, 2007
I usually listen to music on the computer using the "Party Shuffle" feature of iTunes on a playlist consisting of recently acquired music. It gives me a chance to get a good feel for new albums, and then when I'm at work or on the road, I listen to the four-and-five-star playlist.
I haven't bought…
April 23, 2007
SFWA, your source for train-wrecky goodness on the Internet has indirectly caused International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day:
On this day, everyone who wants to should give away professional quality work online. It doesn't matter if it's a novel, a story or a poem, it doesn't matter if it's…
April 23, 2007
So, back when I was cussing a lot about the premature politicization of the Virginia Tech shootings, I threatened to give my real opinions on the subject of gun control on Monday. It's Monday, and I try to be good to my word, so, this is that post.
Dipping back into my shady past on Usenet, there's…
April 22, 2007
Whenever I post about the music I listen to, I get a comment or two from people commenting that they've never heard of any of the bands I talk about. This is always a little surprising to me, because I don't think I'm all that much of a High Fidelity type.
As proof, let me note that I really have…
April 22, 2007
The highlighted article in Friday's Physical Review Letters is something Peter Woit has been going on about for months: "Cancellations Beyond Finiteness in N=8 Supergravity at Three Loops". It's been on the ArXiv for ages, but I'm old school, and don't think of papers as real until they're actually…
April 22, 2007
I've seen several people link to the Scientific American piece on how to make your own "quantum eraser" experiment, which also includes a list of components and a detailed set of instructions, with pictures. There's a great "living in the future" kick to an article which assumes that you just have…
April 21, 2007
One of my Christmas presents was a small mileage/ speed calculator for my bike, because there are few activities that can't be improved by making them nerdier. Thus, I am able to report on today's ride:
Total Distance: 17.1 miles
Maximum Speed: 23.5 mph
Average speed: 13.4 mph
I'm actually a…
April 21, 2007
I went to school with a crazy person.
Well, OK, that in and of itself is not surprising, given the amount of schooling I have, and the subject I majored in. I almost certainly went to school with a lot of crazy people, and I can easily come up with several people who probably count as crazy in one…
April 20, 2007
There's a concert on campus this evening by Third Eye Blind, best known for the doo-doo-doo chorus of "Semi-Charmed Life" from about ten years ago. I wasn't aware that they were still together, but they're apparently here, and playing a show on the court where we usually play our pick-up basketball…
April 20, 2007
I want to see ample funding for scientific research, or failing that, at least adequate funding for scientific research. Good experiments should not have to go begging for research funding.
I want to see funding priorities set on scientific criteria, based on what projects and programs have the…
April 20, 2007
Since I'm going to be voting for the Hugos this year, I feel obliged to actually read as many of the nominated books as possible, and Michael Flynn's Eifelheim was readily available, so I picked up a copy and read it a little while back.
The novel mixes two plot threads, one in a near-future…
April 20, 2007
Via James Nicoll, a post he describes as "someone actively working in a particular field of science talk[ing] about how they went from embracing wingnuttery to more fruitful activities," in this case regarding the "Face on Mars."
Sadly, other than a couple of passing mentions (he name-checks…
April 19, 2007
It's Decision Season in academia.
Across the country, high-school students are losing sleep at night worrying about where to go to college next year. We've had our annual Accepted Students Open House days (the second was Monday, with the turnout significantly reduced by the bad weather), at which…
April 19, 2007
One of the things that I always have to explain toward the end of my laser cooling spiel is that the technique only works well for particular atoms. Somewhere on the high side of twenty different elements have been laser cooled and trapped, but the standard techniques don't generalize well to even…
April 19, 2007
The other night, while ranting to Kate between my posted rants about Virginia Tech (have I mentioned that she's way too good to me?), I mentioned in passing that the gun control debate is one of the two great brain-sucking quagmire arguments of American politics, where even a passing mention ends…
April 18, 2007
Orac is struggling to understand the problem with "framing," and thinks he has the answer:
I've concluded that a lot of issues underlying this kerfuffle may be the difference between the "pure" scientists and science teachers (like PZ and Larry Moran, for example), who are not dependent upon…
April 18, 2007
I've got another long lab this afternoon, so I'm stealing an idea for an audience-participation thread from James Nicoll:
Name five things we didn't know in the year that you were born that make the universe a richer place to think about.
This is actually a really interesting exercise for showing…
April 17, 2007
I'm sick and tired. Not metaphorically, literally. I had two labs today, and the cold I thought I had shaken back when classes started has come back with a vengeance, so I'm all congested and coughing. So here's something silly to pass the time, via Kate among others:
The following are "plot…
April 17, 2007
Mike Dunford didn't like my previous post, and says that it's important to talk about gun control right now:
But we also cannot forget that people are dead. We cannot forget that people have been murdered. We cannot forget that many - too many - lives have been brought to a sudden, random end. We…
April 16, 2007
Like everybody else, I'm horrified by the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech. It's the sort of nightmare situation you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy.
Of course, the bodies aren't even cold yet, and already the blogosphere is a-flutter with people touting this as proof that the US needs to change…
