The random pla feature on my iPod coughed up Warren Zevon’s cover of “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” this morning, which got me wondering. I own at least four different versions of that song (Dylan, Clapton, Zevon, G’n’R), and iTunes offers over a hundred different versions (not counting the twenty-odd different takes by Dylan himself). There… Continue reading Idle Dylan Question
Month: July 2007
Recommend Some Genre Trash
Next weekend will mark the start of Vacation Season here at Chateau Steelypips. Or, rather, out of Chateau Steelypips, as we’ll be spending four of the next seven weeks in other places. This, of course, will require books for me to read on the various airplane flights needed to reach our vacation destinations. And while… Continue reading Recommend Some Genre Trash
True Lab Stories: Evil Professor Tricks
A week or two ago, one of my students measured the power output of a grating-locked diode laser, and came into my office saying “I think I may have killed the laser.” The power output was much too low for a laser of that type, which is a bad sign. So, we went down to… Continue reading True Lab Stories: Evil Professor Tricks
Heresy and Humiliation
John Scalzi makes a startling admission: I’ve never read a Harry Potter book. In the same post, he also links to an old piece expressing the heretical opinion that the Lord of the Rings movies are better than the books. He’s got reasons for both of those, and you can go read them, but what… Continue reading Heresy and Humiliation
American Science In Decline?
Inside Higher Ed reports on two new NSF studies showing a decline in American scientific publishing. Sort of. What the studies found, however, was that besides the well-known decrease in the relative share of journal articles originating from the United States, there was a slowdown in absolute numbers as well. This “plateau,” as the reports… Continue reading American Science In Decline?
Thursday Night Dog-Blogging
Emmy says “Boring posts about religion and politics make me sad. You should post more about me.” There’ll be news to make her happy in the next week or so. Until then, here’s a picture.
Not Your Mother’s Title IX Argument
Because it seems to be a good day for psoting about totally non-controversial political topics that I will undoubtedly not have time to follow up on, here’s an article from Inside Higher Ed that takes a dim view of current arguments about Title IX: Right now, the situation is getting us nowhere. Ultimately, all we… Continue reading Not Your Mother’s Title IX Argument
Clark on Sullivan on the “God Gap”
Fred Clark at Slacktivist is the best writer in blogdom on issues of politics and religion in America, bar none. So when he takes up Amy Sullivan’s Time article on the “God Gap”, you know it will be worth a read. He actually has two posts on the subject, the first making a good point… Continue reading Clark on Sullivan on the “God Gap”
Thoughts on Clarke’s Laws
Speaking of dubious and oft-cited “Laws”, I’ve run into a number of citations of “Clarke’s Laws” recently. Of course, these were apparently subliminal mentions, because I can’t seem to locate any of them again, but it put the subject in my mind, which is partly why I was primed to be annoyed by the subject… Continue reading Thoughts on Clarke’s Laws
Internet Laws and Framing
Despite efforts to avoid such foolishness, Kevin Beck inadvertently drew my attention to what people are calling “Blake’s Law,” which apparently briefly had its own Wikipedia page, but now appears to redirect to the Pharyngula page. Blogdom really needs a killfile. Anyway, the Internet “Law” in question is stated as: In any discussion of atheism… Continue reading Internet Laws and Framing