Via Arcane Gazebo (who adds a category), an entertainingly snarky taxonomy of lab scientists: Weird and Whacky Consider the “mad scientist” of popular fiction, someone so obsessed with their subject that they forget to dress and show up to the lab in their pyjamas. Without wishing to indulge in stereotypes there are scientists who are […]
Month: August 2006
Pick a Definition, Already!
This morning’s Times bring a story saying that astronomers are still dithering about Pluto. The latest plan would create a new category of “dwarf planets,” and presumably get the International Astronomical Union eaten by Cthullu. My immediate response is: “Jesus, people, make up your frickin’ minds!” Look, the joke is over, ok? The Pluto story […]
Media Demographics of the Construction Industry
The classroom across the hall from my office is currently being remodeled into interview rooms for the Psychology department (we traded it for some laboratory space in the basement). As a result, my usual office soundtrack of KEXP streaming over the web has been supplemented by, well, whatever the guys doing the remodeling happen to […]
What Do You Mean by Normal?
Over at Pure Pedantry, Jake has a nice post about a study showing that the ever-popular Body Mass Index measure is not a good predictor of the risk of heart disease. He’s got a lot of details about the study, including this graph of risk vs. BMI: Now, here’s the thing. This is the second […]
Vernor Vinge, Rainbows End [Library of Babel]
Opinions differ about Vernor Vinge’s latest book, Rainbows End (the apostrophe was intentionally left blank), and mostly seem to be correlated with how people approached the book. For example, Mike Kozlowski approached it from the standpoint that it’s a new Vinge book, and thus expected to be as good as A Deepness in the Sky, […]
Actual Basketball
I want to take a quick moment to echo what Dave Sez about the World Basketball Championships: Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’ve seen the US play in past years and have been underwhelmed and maybe a bit disgusted. I’m with you. I felt the same way. Ever since the Dream Team in 1992, […]
Relativity and Tiananmen Square
there’s a fascinating article in the TimeS this morning about Chinese physicist Xu Liangying, a man who has led an interesting life, to say the least: The first time he was purged, Xu Liangying was 27, an up-and-coming physicist, philosopher and historian and a veteran of the Communist underground. He had to divorce his wife, […]
In the Dark No More
As hinted last week, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory has some new results conclusively showing that dark matter is a real, physical thing. This is big news, because the previous evidence for dark matter was all indirect, and based on inferring the mass distribution of galaxies and clusters of galaxies from looking at their motion. These […]
Science Fantasy Camp
60 MinuteS last night had an interview/profile thing on Michael Jordan, shot mostly at his fantasy camp for rich middle-aged guys. For those who haven’t encountered the concept before, this is a pseudo-basketball-camp thing where investment bankers pay $15,000 apiece to spend a few days playing basketball with Michael Jordan. Or, based on the shots […]
Guster at SPAC, 8/17
Every summer, we go to a concert or two up at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC). We already had lawn seats for Springsteen, and last week, we had indoor seats for Guster and Ray Lamontagne. We ended up not using the actual seats, thanks to some exceptionally drunk college girls in the row behind […]