There’s been a copy of Snake Agent at the local Borders for a while now, but it kept narrowly losing out to other books. On a recent shopping trip, though, I was buying enough stuff that throwing another trade paperback on the pile was just a small perturbation, so I picked up a copy. The… Continue reading Liz Williams, Snake Agent [Library of Babel]
Month: March 2007
Belief Narratives
I’m always sort of fascinated by articles in which people talk about why they believe what they do, particularly in a religious context. I basically never find them persuasive (my own inclinations are Apathetic Agnostic– I don’t care if there’s a God or not), but when they’re done well, they’re really interesting reading, in sort… Continue reading Belief Narratives
Rob Thurman, Nightlife [Library of Babel]
Back at Boskone, I went to a panel consisting of a number of revieweres recommending books that we might not have heard of. Toward the end, one of the panelists rattled off a list of authors writing urban fantasy (what he described as “Laurel Hamilton without all the porn”), and Rob Thurman was on the… Continue reading Rob Thurman, Nightlife [Library of Babel]
NCAA Tournament 2007: That’s More Like It
Saturday finally saw some good action in the NCAA tournamnet. Three of the eight games went to overtime, and four of the remaining five were decided by seven points or less. VCU and Xavier came up short against Pitt and Ohio State, but made fantastic runs to get the games into OT, and #6 seed… Continue reading NCAA Tournament 2007: That’s More Like It
NCAA Tournament 2007: Day Two, More Chalk
I saw very little basketball on the second day of the tournament, because I had a meeting at 1:00 that ran until almost 3:00. I watched a bit of the second set of games between that and going to a faculty-student St. Patrick’s Day event at 4:30, and then dozed off during the games after… Continue reading NCAA Tournament 2007: Day Two, More Chalk
Slide Rule Update
A few days back, commenter igor eduardo kupfer compiled the log5 predictions for the first round, and tried to come up with a test of their validity. We didn’t agree on anything, but for the sake of intellectual honesty, here’s a breakdown of how those predictions fared, binned in 10% groups (so 0.5-0.6 collects those… Continue reading Slide Rule Update
Robert Putnam to the White Courtesy Phone
Via Inside Higher Ed, a story about a unique attempt to address student problems at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai: One of India’s top engineering schools has restricted Internet access in its hostels, saying addiction to surfing, gaming and blogging was affecting students’ performance, making them reclusive and even suicidal. Authorities at the… Continue reading Robert Putnam to the White Courtesy Phone
Spring Showdown: This is ScienceCenter
Muiscal intro, fancy CGI effects Anchor 1 (voiceover): The Showdown begins! Four regions, eight games each, sixty-four top science concepts in a fight to the finish. Anchor 2: In today’s Orbit region action, two titans of Newtonian physics collide– will Universal Gravitation maintain its orbit, or will the upstart Second Law change its momentum for… Continue reading Spring Showdown: This is ScienceCenter
Trustees vs. Faculty
The Dean Dad posts lots of very interesting things that I end up not having time to link to– you should be reading his blog every day, if you’re interested in how academia operates. This one is too good to not link, though– a discussion of Boards of Trustees and how they operate. I particualrly… Continue reading Trustees vs. Faculty
NCAA Tournament 2007: Chalk on Day One
The first day turned out to be a little disappointing, from a fan’s perspective. There were only two upsets by seed, and one of those was an 8-9 game. Other than that, the higher seed won all the games, and most of them weren’t all that close. CBS demonstrated a real gift for switching to… Continue reading NCAA Tournament 2007: Chalk on Day One