December 2, 2010
NYU Carter Journalism Institute, ProPublica Team Up to Enhance an Essential Form of News Coverage-- "The Explainer"
"New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and ProPublica, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning investigative journalism non-profit, have formed a joint project to enhance…
December 1, 2010
The JCC, where SteelyKid goes to day care, is having a book sale, so the lobby has been full of books for sale the last few days as we've headed out. Getting SteelyKid away from the books is pretty difficult, as you would expect from our daughter.
We've mostly avoided getting anything, but…
December 1, 2010
I hadn't heard anything about Dance of the Photons: From Einstein to Quantum Teleportation before it turned up in my mailbox, courtesy of some kind publicist at Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, otherwise I would've been eagerly anticipating it. Anton Zeilinger is a name to conjure with in quantum optics…
December 1, 2010
Slate's 80 Over 80: The most influential octogenarians in America (2010). - - Slate Magazine
"For the second year in a row, Mormon President Thomas S. Monson stands atop the list. As the divine prophet, seer, and revelator for 5.5 million Americans and more than 12 million people around the world…
November 30, 2010
At least, that's the obvious conclusion from the Royal Society's Science Sees Further page. The introduction touts it as "a series of articles on some of the most exciting areas of science today," but what's striking to me is that none of the twelve topic listed (Ageing Process, Biological…
November 30, 2010
Somebody asked a question at the Physics Stack Exchange site about the speed of light and the definition of the meter that touches on an issue I think is interesting enough to expand on a little here.
The questioner notes that the speed of light is defined to be 299,792,458 m/s and the meter is…
November 30, 2010
What correlates with problem solving skill? | Casting Out Nines
"About a year ago, I started partitioning up my Calculus tests into three sections: Concepts, Mechanics, and Problem Solving. The point values for each are 25, 25, and 50 respectively. [...]
I did this to stress to students that the…
November 29, 2010
I'm a big fan of (American) football, but a lot of people are surprised to learn that I never played organized football. It was largely a matter of timing-- the coaches when I was in junior high were not people I'd've been interested in playing for, and when they hired a good guy to run the program…
November 29, 2010
Our Boring Future | Mother Jones
A variant on Joe Fitzsimon's comment on Twitter: "How to be a futurist in 1 easy step: confuse logistic curves for unbounded exponential growth."
(tags: society social-science politics blogs kevin-drum)
Making Light: "We live underground. We speak with our hands…
November 28, 2010
TopatoCo: Dinosaur Comics Dry Erase Whiteboard (Temporarily Out of Stock)
Something to get for that person who has always wanted to write their own dinosaur comics, but is too lazy to PhotoShop their own text in.
(tags: comics internet silly gadgets)
Surviving the World - Lesson 813 - One View…
November 27, 2010
Why hasn't the war against terrorism produced any great First Amendment cases? - By Dahlia Lithwick - Slate Magazine
"There seems to be no one answer to why there hasn't been a single important First Amendment protest case in the last decade. It's certainly not that the court is reluctant to rule…
November 26, 2010
Today is "Black Friday," the semi-ironic name given to the day after Thanksgiving when major retailers roll out Incredible! Deals! to draw shoppers in at an ungodly early hour. Personally, I don't plan to come within a mile of a mall today, but if that's what floats your boat...
Of course, if you'…
November 26, 2010
The first rule of Short Story Club is that you must talk about Short Story Club...
So, the Short Story Club run by Niall Harrison over at Torque Control is finished, and Niall's asking for concluding thoughts. I meant to write this up last night, but SteelyKid had a major meltdown just before…
November 26, 2010
Gender gap in physics exams reduced by simple writing exercises, says CU-Boulder study
"Women are underrepresented and on average perform more poorly than men in introductory physics. But a recent study finds that this gap arises predominantly from differential preparation prior to college and…
November 25, 2010
Today is Thanksgiving, and while we're not doing the full glutton thing until Saturday (it's more convenient for family members to travel up here then), it's still a good time to reflect on the things we're thankful for. Right at the top of the list, of course, is SteelyKid, who is bright, curious…
November 25, 2010
It's Thanksgiving here in the US, so blogging will be light to nonexistent. For the sake of those looking for a quick escape from the chaos of a family gathering, or, you know, those poor benighted souls in other countries for whom this is just another Thursday, here's a thematically appropriate…
November 25, 2010
Surviving the World - Lesson 811 - Thanksgiving Parenting
"Thanksgiving is the perfect time of year to evaluate how well you have done as a parent..."
(tags: comics internet silly holiday)
John Scalzi - Saying Thanksgiving Grace, the Science-fictional Way - Filmcritic.com Feature
"We also thank…
November 24, 2010
Given that I'm currently working on a book about relativity, I'm spending a lot of time idly thinking about various relativistic effects. Many of these won't end up in the final book, but they're fun to think about.
One thing that occurred to be earlier, while thinking about something else entirely…
November 24, 2010
From the Editor's Desk: Quantifying Outreach to the Cult of Science | Deep Sea News
"Science needs a reality check too. It has tried to exist in an academic vacuum for much of its existence. The OCD nature science needs behavioral therapy, to be forced to confront its discomfort of engaging with…
November 23, 2010
I've probably gotten a dozen pointers to Gregory Petsko's open letter in support of the humanities, addressed to the President of SUNY-Albany, over the last couple of weeks (the link is to a reposting of the letter at Inside Higher Ed; it was originally on Petsko's own blog). I haven't linked to it…
November 23, 2010
Kevin Drum posted an anti-rant about the TSA, which argues that the new scanners and pat-downs aren't an outrage because they really mean well:
I'm not trying to defend everything TSA has put in place. Some of the stuff they do, like the penknife and nail clipper bans, really is stupid. And maybe…
November 23, 2010
Confessions of a Community College Dean: The Sick Kid Shuffle
"This weekend The Girl got hit by a nasty stomach bug, so nobody got much sleep and our Sunday plans were discombobulated. It brought back memories of those times when TW still worked outside the house, and we had to do the Sick Kid…
November 22, 2010
I don't think this one requires any explanation:
Hello:customer surveys
Staying up watching the Giants game last night was not conducive to getting anything useful done this morning.
November 22, 2010
I'm giving the final exam in my introductory E&M class this morning, which means spending a couple of hours sitting in a room full of students taking a test and doing my best not to fall asleep. As far as I'm concerned, getting rid of exam proctoring is the best argument for an honor code…
November 22, 2010
Are you a highly skilled worker? (Blog) - physicsworld.com
"But what's this? Kostya's only got 75 "attribute points" (not counting the 10 each for speaking English and having £800), and he needs 80 to qualify as a highly skilled worker. Bad luck, Kostya! Better go do your Nobel-prize-winning…
November 21, 2010
Friday Night Videos!: The Hits of 1990 | Popdose
"Aerosmith - Janie's Got A Gun: With this video and Madonna's "Oh Father," director David Fincher was cornering the market on music videos about child abusers. Also note the prominent use of dudes in hats before backlighting, presaging Det.…
November 20, 2010
The final Short Story Club story is "Throwing Stones" by Mishell Baker. Once again, I find myself without a whole lot to say about it.
This is a gender-reversed Asian-flavored fantasy story. The nameless narrator lives in a city with canals and teahouses in an Empire with rigid class and gender…
November 20, 2010
Here's the clip from my live-via-Skype appearance on tv in Sacramento this morning. Unfortunately, the Chateau Steelypips Internet connection slowed way down for some reason, and Skype froze up then dropped the call. But we did get a few minutes of me talking about Goodnight Moon and SteelyKid.…
November 20, 2010
A presumption of guilt makes people angry : Thoughts from Kansas
"The virtual strip searches and actual pat-downs now performed by TSA are not selective. Everyone is treated like a terrorist. The pat-down is the same one given to a suspect being arrested, and the strip search is even more…
November 19, 2010
I keep forgetting to mention this here, but a while back I was contacted by a tv host in California about the Goodnight Moon post. Anyway, I will be appearing via Skype tomorrow morning at 9:20 my time on the Good Day Sacramento program, to talk about bedtime stories, dog physics, and such things.…
