October 18, 2010
The Trouble with Scientists | Speakeasy Science
"Scientists won't talk to journalists; they don't want to waste their time "dumbing it down"; they don't see it as "making us smarter." So many of the good stories in science don't get covered at all. Or the stories get covered only for an already…
October 17, 2010
I'm always taking pictures of SteelyKid going about her business, so a little turnabout is fair play:
The "camera" she's using is actually a small calculator that my mom gave her. She also uses this like a phone, to carry on lengthy conversations with her great-grandmother and sometimes friends…
October 17, 2010
It's Time To Forgive George Lucas
"I cannot defend the prequels, despite their many laudable qualities: often wonderful if no longer industry-defining special effects; Jedi Knights that are warriors to be feared and respected; a glimpse of a splendid Republic of majestic alien races, a galaxy…
October 16, 2010
This week's short story club entry is Carol Emshwiller's "No Time Like the Present," a sort of timeless time-travel story. It's narrated by a teenage girl in an unnamed town somewhere in the US whose town sees a sudden influx of tall blond people who behave very oddly. While it's pretty obvious to…
October 16, 2010
Scale of Universe - Interactive Scale of the Universe Tool
A spiffy interactive guide to the scale of things.
(tags: science astronomy physics biology measurement computing internet)
slacktivist: Hold on to the good
"Test everything. Hold on to the good.
That's from the Apostle Paul, actually.…
October 15, 2010
A big and important argument about religion and science has flared up again on Twittter. It occurs to me, though, that nobody has taken the obvious step of polling people about their actual beliefs, so let's see if we can't settle this question with (social) SCIENCE!:
I would prefer to be a member…
October 15, 2010
Standing around in the cold for a few hours yesterday, then driving for almost five hours has given the cold SteelyKid had a week or so ago the opening it needed to infect me, so I'm all hoarse and achy this morning. Which means you get silly blogging, such as this poll inspired by some edits I had…
October 15, 2010
Kung Fu Hustle | Film | The New Cult Canon | The A.V. Club
"Stephen Chow seems to understand the limits and potential of CGI action better than anyone. If CGI is fundamentally inadequate in giving realistic action the same punch it has with real stunts and practical effects, then why not go…
October 14, 2010
I didn't think I'd make it back in time for this week's Toddler Blogging, but things wrapped up earlier than expected in Buffalo, so I made it home in time for dinner. And a celebratory reading of Moo, Baa, La La La:
That's really about all I have the energy for. In case you didn't know already,…
October 14, 2010
Emmy and I are in Buffalo today, after a long drive last night, made longer by the NY Thruway authorities decidin to randomly sprinkle lane closures along the westbound portion of I-90. They also made the sadistic move of putting on the "tune to this radio station for information" flashers before…
October 14, 2010
James Burleigh Morton ⺠at museums, he is allowed to touch the art
One of Union's Watson Fellows from last year, blogging his trip around the world taking pictures of international shipping.
(tags: world travel academia awards pictures business blogs)
Out of the Kitchen and Into the Fire |…
October 13, 2010
Melissa at Confused at a Higher Level offers some thoughts on the relative status of experimental vs. theoretical science, spinning off a comprehensive discussion of the issues at Academic Jungle. I flagged this to comment on over the weekend, but then was too busy with SteelyKid and football to…
October 13, 2010
Gay Sex vs. Straight Sex « OkTrends
"Gay issues have been in the news a lot lately, from the debate over same-sex marriage in Congress to a sickening rash of gay-bashing here in New York City. We see a lot of emotion out there, instead of information, and we wanted to provide some data-based…
October 12, 2010
SteelyKid is a big fan of the classic children's book Goodnight Moon, which, if you haven't spent the last sixty-odd years in a cave, you probably know features a bunny saying goodnight to a variety of objects in a great, green room. The attentive toddler will find a lot to look at in the pictures…
October 12, 2010
It's that time of year again, which is to say "October, when we raise money for DonorsChoose." As you may or may not know, DonorsChoose is an educational charity which has teachers propose projects that would make their classrooms better, and invites donors to contribute to the projects of their…
October 12, 2010
Pimp My Novel: Here Be Dragons
"[Myth:] Amazon is going to kill the independent/second-hand book store. While I can't say for sure this is 100% false, I'm very confident that Amazon will not kill independent, local, and second-hand book stores; there's no substitute for their ambience,…
October 11, 2010
SteelyKid, like most toddlers, knows a few songs, and likes to sing them over and over. Her repertoire is limited to "ABCDEFG" (the alphabet song, but that's how she requests it), "Twinkle, Twinkle," "Some man" ("This Old Man," which I only figured out this weekend), and "Round and Round" ("The…
October 11, 2010
Via Tom, a site giving problem-solving advice for physics. While the general advice is good, and the friendly, Don't-Panic tone is great, I do have a problem with one of their steps, Step 7: Consider Your Formulas:
Some professors will require that you memorize relevant formulas, while others will…
October 10, 2010
Oddly enough, it turns out that writing a book with a rambunctious toddler in the house is a much slower process than writing a book pre-toddler. Imagine that.
Anyway, as I did during the writing stages of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, I thought I would post occasional updates on the progress…
October 10, 2010
YouTube - Sesame Street: Smell Like A Monster
The monster your monster could smell like.
(tags: youtube video kid-stuff silly)
October 9, 2010
I missed last week's installment of Short Story Club while traveling, but want to get caught up again with this week's story, "Miguel and the Viatura." I'm not sure this will be posted in time to get into the discussion post, but we'll see.
The title character, Miguel, lives in a future city that…
October 9, 2010
This is a couple weeks old, but I only just got around to uploading it. It should give you some idea of what it's like reading books with SteelyKid, though:
That's Kate and SteelyKid going through some of Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks and Things That Go. SteelyKid is big into pointing things…
October 9, 2010
Via Sheril, Science Friday on NPR needs money:
We at SciFri are facing severe financial difficulties, i.e. raising money. NSF [National Science Foundation] has turned us down for continuing funding, saying they love what we do, we are sorely needed, but it's not their job to fund us. At the same…
October 9, 2010
Goodnight to Goodnight Moon? « Easily Distracted
"When experts in education, childhood, psychology, economics, what have you, venture forth into the public sphere to say that our schools are failing to do something utterly essential, or that tomorrow's children must absolutely have some skill…
October 8, 2010
With Halloween coming up, some scary stuff seems appropriate:
Boo!
(The explanation of where this comes from.)
October 8, 2010
On the way to get SteelyKid from day care last night, I flipped on ESPN radio in the vain hope of getting a baseball score, but wound up listening to former Mets manager and freelance jackass Bobby Valentine talking about how difficult batting is, which included the statement:
And the whole thing…
October 8, 2010
A Nobel prize for levitating a frog - The Dayside
"Unlike the graphene discovery, frog levitation hasn't begotten a vast worldwide research effort whose fruits include thousands of research papers and scores of patents. Nevertheless, as Novoselov recounted in an interview with ScienceWatch, the…
October 7, 2010
SteelyKid has a new friend, who she shows off in this week's Toddler Blogging:
She's a huge fan of Goldbug in Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks and Things That Go, so when we found out that there's a plush Goldbug toy available on the Internet, it was a real no-brainer. She recognized it…
October 7, 2010
I'm shamelessly stealing this question from James Nicoll, who asked it about science fiction. The question is a play on the famous comment that only of order a thousand people bought the first Velvet Underground record, but every one of them went on to start a band.
So, the question is, who is the…
October 7, 2010
Between travel and general work craziness, I completely forgot to note that the UK version of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog has gone on sale:
The title for this edition is How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog, and the vanity search keeps turning up mentions to it in the Guardian Bookshop,…
