October 29, 2010
Polson High School students use primitive bows to study physics
"It's one thing to put Montana's Indian Education for All Act to work in a social studies classroom.
Physics? That would seem to be a whole 'nother matter.
And it is. But certainly not, as Polson High School teacher Jon Petersen is…
October 28, 2010
Inspired by the anti-flash-photography article in the morning's links dump, this week's Toddler Blogging offers you a choice of two different pictures. Here's one with the flash:
And one without:
(Appa's been feeling self-conscious about SteelyKid's growth lately, and asked for a little forced…
October 28, 2010
The Times Higher Education magazine in the UK, that is. They ran a review of my book a couple of weeks ago, which I've only just noticed:
The approach is quite entertaining. The tone of the book is chatty and contains some truly awful puns involving dogs, which, if you can stand them, make it an…
October 28, 2010
I finished Jennifer Ouellette's new book a few weeks ago, shortly after my trip to Alabama, but it's taken me a long time to get around to reviewing it due to a combination of too much work and being a Bad Person. There's finally a tiny break in the storm of work, though, so here's a slightly…
October 28, 2010
Take better photos of friends and family: Turn off your flash. - By Steven I. Weiss - Slate Magazine
"The flash didn't go off" has been shorthand for photographic failure for more than 100 years, but the conventional wisdom on lighting is now being challenged by advances in camera technology. The…
October 27, 2010
It's late October, which means that the thoughts of small children and adults who have never quite grown up turn to selecting appropriate costumes for Halloween. In the spirit of these literary suggestions and these abstract concept suggestions, I thought it would be useful to offer some…
October 27, 2010
I'm spending a good chunk of the morning grading the exam that I gave yesterday, so here's a poll on what you might call exam philosophy. Our classes are small, so the bulk of our exams are free-response problems, and we tend to break those problems into sub-parts (1a, 1b, 1c, etc.). There are two…
October 27, 2010
Video: Fingerless Robotic Hand Can Pick Anything | Wired Science | Wired.com
"The simple gripper is made of a bag of coffee grounds and a vacuum, though other grains such as couscous and sand also work, says study coauthor Eric Brown of the University of Chicago. To pick something up, the bag of…
October 26, 2010
Last night's Giants-Cowboys game was not one of the finer displays of football you're ever see-- the score makes it seem like a close game, but the Giants turned the ball over five times and gave up a punt return for a touchdown, basically handing the Cowboys 28 points. Other than that, you know,…
October 26, 2010
Should Students buy an iPad or a Year's Supply of Pot Noodles? | blog@CACM | Communications of the ACM
"Suppose you gave up washing clothes for a year, or relied on your mum to do it for you. According to the budgeting guide this would save £222, just about half of the iPad. You could go with…
October 25, 2010
I almost forgot something that I need to do today, so no lengthy and detailed blogging this morning. Instead, a quick poll regarding Neil Gaiman's suggestion of giving kids scary books for Halloween:
Neil Gaiman suggests giving kids scary books for Halloween. What do you think?online surveys…
October 25, 2010
Hugo Nominees: Introduction | Tor.com | Science fiction and fantasy | Blog posts
"I haven't, of course, read every single book nominated for the Hugos since 1953. (What have I been doing with my time?) If I haven't read it, I shall say so, and I shall say why. Otherwise I shall talk briefly about…
October 24, 2010
In yesterday's post about the experience of science, I mentioned that I had both a specific complaint about the article by Alexandra Jellicoe (which I explained in the post) and a general complaint about the class in which the article falls. I want to attempt to explain the latter problem, partly…
October 24, 2010
Between my long-ago high-school French and Google Translate, I can tell that this is a good review of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. It does note, though, that reading the book requires knowledge of English to understand it, which is a problem. And, as far as I know, French translation rights…
October 24, 2010
Hey, Tea Partiers, this wine's for you! - By Mike Steinberger - Slate Magazine
"In response to the advent of the Tea Party movement, some people have demanded to know where all these deficit hawks and defenders of the Constitution were during the Bush years. I have a different question: "Where's…
October 23, 2010
This week's Short Story Club entry is a Tor.com story, "The Cage" by A. M. Dellamonica. This is a story about a general contractor and the Most Adorable Werewolf Pupppy Ever.
In the world of the story, supernatural monsters are "out," known to the general public (though I don't think it mentions…
October 23, 2010
Some time back, I took issue with an article about "masculine" and "feminine" approaches to science that struck me as a little off. The author of the original post, Alexandra Jellicoe, has a new post on the same topic that she pointed out in comments to my original post.
I have two major problems…
October 22, 2010
On the way in to work, I heard yet another example of the deplorable trend of taking the vocal tracks of slow songs-- in this case, "The Kids Don't Stand a Chance" by Vampire Weekend-- and replacing the musical backing with a 120 beats-per-minute dance beat that sounds like it was generated by a…
October 22, 2010
As promised, an answer to a question from a donor to this year's DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge. Sarah asks:
Chad, can I get a post about how you (or scientists in general) come up with ideas for experiments? You've covered some of the gory detail with the lab info posts, but I think it would be…
October 22, 2010
US LHC Blog » I've Invented a New Theory, What Do I Do Now?
Surprisingly, "Start a kooky-looking webpage, and make a million dollars" isn't one of the options. Probably an oversight.
(tags: physics theory experiment lhc-blogs science blogs particles)
...My heart's in Accra » The ley lines of…
October 21, 2010
This week, we see Appa and SteelyKid with all the essential elements of bedtime:
From right to left, we have: Goodnight Moon, the Winnie-the-Pooh collection I've started reading to her after her bottle, and the brown-and-white doggie she has adopted as her essential comfort animal. This was…
October 21, 2010
I haven't been flogging the DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge as hard this year as in past year, but I do want to post a reminder that the challenge is ongoing. If you donate, the money will go to help deserving school kids; if that's not enough, it can also earn you cool stuff like:
The largest…
October 21, 2010
Melissa at Confused at a Higher Level has a nice post on the tension between faculty research and teaching:
Malachowski writes, "We all know that working with undergraduates is time consuming and in some cases it slows down our research output, but work with undergraduates should be supported,…
October 21, 2010
Views: The Real Cost Equation - Inside Higher Ed
"All of these arguments place the higher education system at the center of the universe worth examining. Holding up a magnifying glass to the industry can indeed yield a wealth of detailed information, but without context that information is…
October 20, 2010
As a sort of follow-up to yesterday's post asking about incompetent teachers, a poll on what you might call the "Peter Threshold," after the Peter Principle. Exactly how many incompetent members can an organization tolerate?
The acceptable level of incompetence in any organization (that is, the…
October 20, 2010
In Kansas, Climate Skeptics Embrace Green Energy - Series - NYTimes.com
The power of framing in action.
(tags: science politics environment energy society culture religion media communication nytimes)
Physics Buzz: Twin Paradox a Paradox in Low-Earth Orbit
"Relativity enthusiasts will be…
October 19, 2010
As mentioned in the previous post, there has been a lot of interesting stuff written about education in the last week or so, much of it in response to the manifesto published in the Washington Post, which is the usual union-busting line about how it's too difficult to fire the incompetent teachers…
October 19, 2010
There have been a bunch of interesting things written about education recently that I've been too busy teaching to comment on. I was pulling them together this morning to do a sort of themed links dump, when the plot at the right, from Kevin Drum's post about school testing jumped out at me. This…
October 19, 2010
Confessions of a Community College Dean: Tossing Bottles
One of the staples of 80's teen movies was the moment when the screwup hero realized that he had imbibed (or allowed others to imbibe at a forbidden party) much of what was in the parents' liquor cabinet -- these houses always had well-…
October 18, 2010
As you may or may not be aware, we are once again in the middle of a DonorsChoose fundraiser to support public school students and teachers. The good news is, the Uncertain Principles entry for the 2010 Challenge is in second place among ScienceBlogs blogs with $373 in donations thus far; the bad…
