Links Dump
drorzel | July 19, 2010
Language Log » The "pound sign" mystery
"Yesterday, in discussing Kevin Fowler's song Pound Sign, there was some debate about the origin of the term "pound sign" for the symbol #. I suggested that it all started with the substitution of # for £ on American typewriter keyboards, but others argued that # was a standard symbol for pound(s) avoirdupois. I've heard this theory before, but I expressed skepticism about it because I've never actually seen the symbol used that way.
Today, after some further research, I'm still not completely sure. But I've found a new theory, which I think has a…
drorzel | July 18, 2010
Physics Education Research Group (UMD) / Scientific Community Labs
"Scientiifc community labs (SCL) are designed to give students the experience of participating in a model of a realistic scientific community at an early stage in their scientific training. In traditional labs, students often receive very detailed guidance, allowing them to complete the lab and get a reasonable result even if they have no understanding of what is being done or why. Traditional labs often appear to the students to be set up for the purpose of "demonstrating the truth of the theory you were taught in lecture…
drorzel | July 17, 2010
News: Technologically Illiterate Students - Inside Higher Ed
"The assumption that today's student are computer-literate because they are "digital natives" is a pernicious one, Zvacek said. "Our students are task-specific tech savvy: they know how to do many things," she said. "What we need is for them to be tech-skeptical."
Zvacek was careful to make clear that by tech-skeptical, she did not mean tech-negative. The skepticism she advocates is not a knee-jerk aversion to new technology tools, but rather the critical capacity to glean the implications, and limitations, of technologies as they…
drorzel | July 16, 2010
Mightygodking.com » Post Topic » Grading every country's national anthem, part one
"Burundi. Sounds more like a movie soundtrack than a national anthem - a really awesome movie, though, about African cowboys looking out over the savannah as the sun sets over the elephants, and then maybe they fight evil white people from some European country bent on exploitation, and of course there would be a good white person, possibly played by a Baldwin. But, yeah, this anthem is not very anthemic. Nice, though. 67"
(tags: world music silly blogs)
The Analogizer « Tom Scott
"Journalists! Do you…
drorzel | July 15, 2010
Mightygodking.com » Post Topic » What if Bertie Wooster, rather than being a mere layabout, was also Batman?
""Good morning, sir. I have prepared a breakfast of scrambled egg, kippers and bacon, as per your request."
"Fantastic, Jeeves! I tell you truly, I've worked up a massive appetite and that's no mistake."
"Am I to assume that tonight's excursion went well, sir?"
"Well, it started off a bit sticky. My cape got all tangled when I went to punch this one hooligan in the face."
"Ah, yes. The cape."
"Jeeves, we've had this discussion twice now. The cape is part of the ensemble."
"We have…
drorzel | July 14, 2010
Can I build an ansible to communicate across the cosmos?
"In this week's Ask a Physicist, we answer a question that's on everyone's mind: Can we use quantum entanglement to make a mockery of the speed of light, and create intergalactic communications devices like Le Guin's "ansible"?"
(tags: science physics quantum sf education blogs io9)
Confessions of a Community College Dean: When Technology Doesn't Help
"In most industries, new technology is adopted because it's expected to lower costs and/or improve productivity (which lowers costs over time). It doesn't always succeed, of course,…
drorzel | July 13, 2010
Scientists vs. Engineers - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences
"In the past, I have heard there was conflict between the "two cultures" of science and the humanities. I don't see a lot of evidence for that type of conflict today, mostly because my scientific friends all are big fans of the arts and literature. However, the two cultures that I do see a great deal of conflict between are those of science and engineering. "
(tags: science engineering culture academia)
Abstruse Goose » College Friend
"The less you know about your doctor the better."
(tags: silly comics internet…
drorzel | July 11, 2010
LaserFest | Videos of Lasers in Art & Entertainment
A collection of videos showing the use of lasers in art, movies, and television.
(tags: lasers science physics video television movies outreach art)
Home - emergentuniverse.org
A small but well-designed site dedicated to giving the public an interdisciplinary look at the science of emergent phenomena, including medicine, physics, neuroscience, and computing.
(tags: science education physics biology condensed-matter computing technology internet outreach)
Small changes steer kids toward smarter school lunch choices
"In the school…
drorzel | July 10, 2010
Energy Secy advances nano science in spare time - San Jose Mercury News
"This is Chu's second such meaty scientific paper in recent months, both published in the journal Nature.
The first, published in February, was following Albert Einstein's general relativity theory and better measuring how gravity slows time. Both were published while he has been energy secretary, but started long before he took the job in January 2009. A third study is in the pipeline, Chu said.
None of this is the sort of thing Cabinet secretaries usually read, let alone write. For the Nobel Prize-winning physicist,…
drorzel | July 9, 2010
Using the General Social Survey | Gene Expression | Discover Magazine
Notes on how you, too, can be a social scientist. Or at least noodle around with statistics.
(tags: social-science blogs statistics surveys)
Science in the Open » Blog Archive » It's not information overload, nor is it filter failure: It's a discovery deficit
"We don't need more filters or better filters in scholarly communications - we don't need to block publication at all. Ever. What we need are tools for curation and annotation and re-integration of what is published. And a framework that enables discovery of the…
drorzel | July 8, 2010
slacktivist: The Indignant Household Budget
"[T]he pitiable thing is that here in reality -- as opposed to the smug fantasy world of this stock speech -- overtime and second jobs are exactly what many of those poor cheering fools in the audience are actually doing to try to make ends meet. The indulgent spendthrift luxuries the Indignant Politician condemns aren't things his audience ever "cut" from their household budgets, because they weren't things their household budgets had ever been able to afford in the first place. Sure, they know how to cut costs and cut coupons, but in real life,…
drorzel | July 7, 2010
Physics - Keeping atoms synchronized for better timekeeping
"Atomic clocks often have a limited coherence time due to the interactions between the constituent atoms. While it is usually very easy to use fewer atoms to reduce the interactions, this leads to lower signal-to-noise and less precise measurements. This tension between strong interactions and noise seems unavoidable and limits the accuracy of the world's best cesium clocks, the keepers of international atomic time. As reported in a paper in Physical Review Letters, Christian Deutsch and coworkers at three laboratories in Paris,…
drorzel | July 6, 2010
YouTube - Look Around You - Maths (With download)
"I happened upon this inspired bit of British comedy after watching Goodness Gracious Me (hit and miss). I was curious why there would be a ten minute show on TV. At first, I actually thought it was a children's instructional science program. Indeed, it is easy to to be fooled. The tone, pacing, narration, are all uncannily like those insipid PBS programs I'd watch when home sick from school or when the teacher wanted a hour off during class."
(tags: nostalgia science education silly video youtube)
And Now We Go to the Mattresses; or,…
drorzel | July 2, 2010
Bill Simmons: World Cup's 20 questions - ESPN
"Question No. 9: But you'd still love the NBA to incorporate the yellow/red card system for flagrant fouls and technical fouls, correct?
Sure. Much better than an official leaning over a scorer's table and telling them what the technical or flagrant was, then trying to guess what he said. Bring out yellow/red cards and we'd know right away. I also like the concept of an official not having to explain why he called what he called -- like the ref who robbed the U.S. of the winning goal in the Slovenia game and never explained why. It's really the…
drorzel | July 1, 2010
What, If Anything, Is Big Bird? | The Loom | Discover Magazine
Determining the species and ancestry of every kid's favorite giant flightless crane.
(tags: kid-stuff television silly biology video talks)
Reflections on American Academy's Report: Do Scientists Understand the Public? : Framing Science
Detailed comments on the inexplicably controversial Mooney article, from everybody's second-favorite science communications blogger.
(tags: science politics communication blogs social-science)
The Last Airbender :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews
""The Last Airbender" is an agonizing experience in…
drorzel | June 30, 2010
The Kagan Hearings: Elena Kagan does her best John Roberts impression. (1) - By Dahlia Lithwick - Slate Magazine
"Yet the ghost of [Thurgood] Marshall himself comes in for tremendous abuse today at the hands of Republican members of the committee. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., starts the ball rolling by accusing Kagan of having clerked for "a well-known liberal activist judge." John Kyl, R-Ariz., tears into Kagan for respecting Marshall's emphasis on protecting the underdog and says she "enthusiastically embraces" Marshall's philosophy by labeling it a "thing of glory." Not to be outdone, John…
drorzel | June 29, 2010
slacktivist: Rendering unto Krugman
"But knowing their hypocrisy, he said unto them, "Why are you putting me to the test? Bring me a dime and let me see it."
And they brought one. Then he said to them, "Whose head is this -- FDR's or Herbert Hoover's?"
They answered, "Roosevelt's."
And he said unto them, "Right. So shut up. Have you morons already forgotten the 20th Century? When the choice is between imitating what worked and what really, really didn't work, why are you pretending it's terribly complicated?"
And after that, no one dared to ask him any question."
(tags: economics politics…
drorzel | June 28, 2010
Power and making § Unqualified Offerings
"A colleague was complaining yesterday about the way that some faculty are treated better than others. Not so much in my department as in certain other departments. Some people, for a variety of reasons, probably do get a better deal (even if not to the extent that he thinks). I won't go into the reasons why, mostly because I think the politics is complicated enough that I can't venture a theory with any great confidence. (My colleague would beg to differ, but I think he's only seeing one dimension of a complicated problem.) However, I said to…
drorzel | June 26, 2010
Testing the Best-Yet Theory of Nature « Berkeley Lab News Center
""[I]t should be remembered that the Standard Model is not a final theory of all phenomena, and is therefore inherently incomplete," says Dmitry Budker, a staff scientist in the Nuclear Science Division of the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley.
Budker has long been interested in testing widely accepted underpinnings of physical theory to their limits. In the June 25 issue of Physical Review Letters, he and his colleagues…
drorzel | June 25, 2010
Sci-Fi Airshow :: Home
"The SCI-FI AIR SHOW's purpose is to preserve and promote the rich and varied history of Sci-Fi/fantasy vehicles. Through display and education we seek to celebrate the classic design and beauty of these ships and the rich imaginations that created them. When the cameras stopped rolling, many of these proud old ships were lost and forgotten. Please join us in working to keep these rare and beautiful birds soaring! "
(tags: movies television culture nostalgia sf silly)
Dumb Astronomy Acronyms
"Dumb Or Overly Forced Astronomical Acronyms Site (or DOOFAAS)"
(tags:…