It’s almost finished now, so this is a little late in being posted, but the Washington Post has been running a week-long series of on-line chats with noted “futurists,” under the title Beyond the Future. I’m a little dubious about most “futurism,” but reading about people’s predictions for future trends and gadgets can be a […]
Month: June 2006
World Cup Post-Mortem
So, the US lost to Ghana yesterday, ending the World Cup for the Americans. I watched most of the second half, and it was pretty frustrating. Amazingly, Ghana was actually more theatrical than Italy, with the flopping and the flailing and the writhing on the ground as if in agony– there should’ve been about fifteen […]
Commenting Issues?
There’s been some behind-the-scenes talk of the resurfacing of the annoying comment bug, which we had thought was fixed. I haven’t noticed any problems myself, but I have noticed that the comment traffic is down a bit. I just attributed that to the fact that I haven’t written much lately that was comment-worthy, but if […]
Ask a ScienceBlogger: Cartoon Edition
OK, it’s not an official Ask a ScienceBlogger question (that answer will show up next week), but over at the World’s Fair, they’ve raised an important scholarly question via a scene from The Simpsons: Marge: Homer? Homer: Yelloh? Marge: There’s a man here who thinks he can help you. Homer: Batman? Marge: No, he’s a […]
Science and Religion Update
I’m not about to stay up all night to post to every channel on the front page, but I will make a brief appearance in the “Culture Wars” channel, not my usual space, to note two science and religion items: 1) Rob Knop offers lecture slides on the scientific method, and the difference between scientific […]
Old Tunes Update
Two music-related follow-up items: Over on her LiveJournal, Kate has a more complete concert report from the Springsteen show, including a full set list, and some links to Springsteen resources. Elsewhere in blogdom, the Blog on Bach is unhappy with my Old Tunes Experiment. The author seems to take the whole thing a little too […]
Assume a Spherical Cow
Over at bento-box, there’s a nice response to my recent post about simulations. He makes the very good point that the Sandia press release in question could sensibly be read as referring to the fact that recent computer technology requires fewer simplifying approximations: Well, it isn’t really until quite recently that computers have gotten fast […]
Correlation, Causation, and Sleep
Over at the Examining Room of Dr. Charles, one of the newer ScienceBlogs, there’s a post reminding me that I want nothing to do with medical research. I mean, how do you sort out what’s a cause, and what’s an effect in data like this: Another recent study, published in Diabetes Care this past March, […]
Physicists Are Cheap
That’s the inevitable conclusion to be drawn by anyone looking at the DonorsChoose Leaderboard at the moment. So far, we’ve had ten donations to my challenge, raising a total of $395 for deserving school teachers and students, which is good, and I thank those who have contributed. But, man, we’re getting our clocks cleaned in […]
Aging Hoopsters
The Miami Heat won the NBA title last night, led by young superstar Dwyane Wade, and obtained championship rings for a bunch of guys who have been around for years without winning, like Gary Payton and Alonzo Mourning. It’s alo another title for Shaquille O’Neal, which probably gives him a conclusive victory over Kobe Bryant […]