Lots of people are down on physics or physicists these days: Cosma Shalizi is down on power-law fits, or, more precisely, annoyed at people who misuse power-law distributions. He’s written a paper about how to use them correctly, and provides a handy list of take-home points on his blog. Travis Hime is down on the… Continue reading Nattering Nabobs of Negativity
Month: June 2007
Top Science Fiction Movies
Via Jeff “jefitoblog” Giles, who wrote the Editor’s Notes, the collaborative review site Rotten Tomatoes has generated a list of the top 100 science fiction films, based on their user ratings. It’s split over 100 individual pages, and tarted up with lots of slow-to-load graphics, so here are their top twenty films: 20) Mad Max… Continue reading Top Science Fiction Movies
Graduation Day
Today is, at long last, Commencement at Union. At around the time this is posted, I’ll be parading around in academic robes, or possibly listening to a variety of boring speeches. Of course, I can’t really claim that I don’t enjoy this. After all, Kate and I drove back here from Boston last night after… Continue reading Graduation Day
We Live to Serve
Inside Higher Ed has an opinion piece today in which a a provost and a professor talk about service, which is the catch-all category of faculty activities that aren’t teaching and research. As the title of the piece says, this is a particularly unloved area: Yet this is the area that is least discussed in… Continue reading We Live to Serve
Hugo Nominees: Best Short Story
As Kate and I will be attending the Worldcon in Japan, we’re eligible to vote for the Hugos this year. In an effort to be responsible voters we downloaded the electronic version of the short fiction nominees that are available from the official nominations site, and I’ve been working my way through them. To this… Continue reading Hugo Nominees: Best Short Story
End of Term Shuffle
I’m turning in my grades today, which means another year has come to an end. Also, I’m on sabbatical next year. Woo-hoo! To celebrate, here’s a silly random songs post. In honor of the end of the term, iTunes chose to serve up a set of songs with lyrics that are either completely insipid or… Continue reading End of Term Shuffle
Marriage News from Massachusetts
As several of you know very well, Kate and I were married five years ago in Massachusetts, near where her family lives. Which, of course, means that our marriage was totally cheapened and rendered meaningless by today’s vote against an anti-gay-marriage amendment to the state constitution. Or– wait, let me check– no, no it wasn’t.… Continue reading Marriage News from Massachusetts
Don’t Sound So Disappointed
Since it seems to be a good day for posting things that may be unwise, I’ll throw this out. In the middle of a news release dump from the APS, there’s a story about a new study of physics pedagogy that found gender gaps persisting in spite of “active learning” techniques. This is in contrast… Continue reading Don’t Sound So Disappointed
College Makes Students More Religious
According to Inside Higher Ed, that’s what sociologists found when analyzing data from a longitudinal study of more than 10,000 young Americans. Those who went to college were more likely to remain religious than those who didn’t attend college, with 76% of the non-college group reporting a decline in attending religious services, compared to only… Continue reading College Makes Students More Religious
Lawyers Kill
According to Inside Higher Ed, a new report about the Virginia Tech shooter puts the blame on college lawyers: “Throughout our meetings and in every breakout session, we heard differing interpretations and confusion about legal restrictions on the ability to share information about a person who may be a threat to self or to others,”… Continue reading Lawyers Kill