Everybody is all abuzz about Harry Potter these days, what with the release of the final book coming this weekend. Scott McLemee takes up the really important question, though: what do professional academics think about everybody’s favorite boy wizard? In the years since the author introduced her characters to the public, they have become beloved… Continue reading Harry Potter and the Total Loss of Perspective
Month: July 2007
Subhuman Behavior in the NFL
I’ve never been a big fan of Michael Vick as a football player, and his indictment for running a dog-fighting business pretty much wipes out any chance he ever had of winning me over. Steve Verdon notes that, if convicted, Vick could be fined up to $350,000 and face as much as six years in… Continue reading Subhuman Behavior in the NFL
Career Guidance
A comment I made at a meeting yesterday that I think is worth reproducing out of context: A big part of making it from junior faculty to tenure is deciding which bits of unsolicited contradictory advice you’re going to ignore.
Finishing the Ph.D.
Inside Higher Ed reports on a new study of Ph.D. completion rates by discipline. The original data are available as PowerPoint files that I haven’t looked at, but IHE provides a summary in tabular form. Because everything looks more scientific as a graph, I cranked them into Excel and after the requisite ten minutes spent… Continue reading Finishing the Ph.D.
Why Basketball is Better Than Golf
While on vacation in Michigan, I played a round of golf, which I do a few times a year. I shot reasonably well, when you consider that it was my first round of the year, and it was pouring rain. I even birdied one hole, by chipping in from about thirty feet off the green,… Continue reading Why Basketball is Better Than Golf
My Hugo Ballot
Having finished all of the fiction nominees, I’m now basically ready to submit my votes for the Hugos. Though it occurs to me that I’ve actually seen two of the five movies up for “Best Dramatic Presentation,” so I might Netflix the others, and check off yet another category. At any rate, I’m sure you’re… Continue reading My Hugo Ballot
Farewell and Hail
Rob Knop is leaving academia to design galaxies for Second Life (or some such). On his way out, he’s getting a lovely parting gift: a share of the Gruber Prize in Cosmology. Stop by and offer congratulations, or condolences, or both, as you feel appropriate.
Peer Instruction
The Paper of Record today features an interview with Eric Mazur of Harvard, a physicist who is probably best known for his pedagogical work. He talks aabout how typical science teaching sucks, and why we need to change it: From what I’ve seen, students in science classrooms throughout the country depend on the rote memorization… Continue reading Peer Instruction
The Canon by Natalie Angier
The Powers That Be at Seed were kind enough to send all the ScienceBlogs bloggers copies of the new book by Natalie Angier, The Canon, which is being pushed fairly hard by the publisher. I’ve been reading a lot more pop-science stuff recently, for self-interested reasons, and this was pretty attractive, so I carried it… Continue reading The Canon by Natalie Angier
What’d I Miss?
Kate and I went out to Michigan this past weekend, to unwind a bit at the summer home of some friends from college. It was an Internet-less weekend for me– there was Internet access at the house, but I fought through the incipient datastarve, and resisted the temptation to log in. (This means that a… Continue reading What’d I Miss?