This is the final Best Novel Hugo nominee of this year’s field, and given James Nicoll’s immortal description of Watts’s writing (“When I feel my will to live getting too strong, I pick up a Peter Watts book” or words to that effect), I wasn’t terribly enthusiastic about picking up Blindsight. I was on something… Continue reading Peter Watts, Blindsight [Library of Babel]
Month: July 2007
Science Rock
“Darkmatter,” Andrew Bird “21st Century (Digital Boy),” Bad Religion “Some Fantastic,” Barenaked Ladies “Desolation Row,” Bob Dylan “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” Bonnie Tyler “Gravity Fails,” the Bottle Rockets “Protons, Neutrons, Electrons,” The Cat Empire “Alien,” Chris Whitley “Under the Milky Way,” the Church “White Russian Galaxy,” the Crimea “Ziggy Stardust,” David Bowie “Monkey to… Continue reading Science Rock
Outrage is Good
Via Big Media Matt, a video that’s too good not to share: I have a lot more respect for Pat Leahy now. I wouldn’t’ve been able to respond to that without a few F-bombs.
Small Talk, High Stakes
Inside Higher Ed today features an opinion piece by a lecturer about the excruciating awkwardness of job interviews: [T]he banal yet innocuous questions faculty members do ask — “Where was I from?” “How did I get interested in this topic?” — become loaded with a significance out of proportion to their actual content. Together, my… Continue reading Small Talk, High Stakes
Revenge of the Humorless Dorks
Via Backreaction, I find that there’s a paper on the Arxiv titled “Hollywood Blockbusters: Unlimited Fun but Limited Science Literacy,” whose authors feel that the best way to counter bad pop-culture science is with equations: (That’s from a section discussing the bad physics in the ending of the first Spiderman movie. There are places where… Continue reading Revenge of the Humorless Dorks
Water, Water, Everywhere
There’s a new paper in Nature announcing the detection of water vapor in the atmosphere of a “hot Jupiter” orbiting a distant star. There’s also a story on Physics Web and a press release from the Spitzer Telescope group, if you’d like some stuff you can read without a subscription to Nature. The idea here… Continue reading Water, Water, Everywhere
What’s Up With RHIC
Peter Steinberg is lecturing at a summer school in Florida, and has posted the slides for the three lectures he gave about recent work at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider on Long Island. The first lecture is linked from that post, and the other two are available (at the moment) from links on the sidebar.… Continue reading What’s Up With RHIC
Frat Boys Need Counseling Too
The Weasel King posted a link to the classic Five Geek Social Fallacies essay, which you have no doubt already read. If you haven’t, and you’re reading blogs, you really should, because you’re bound to recognize some of what it says. Of course, that article dates from 2003, so it wouldn’t be worth noting, had… Continue reading Frat Boys Need Counseling Too
Political Bias of Faculty
There’s a new Zogby Poll on political bias in academia that should warm whatever it is that David Horowitz uses as a heart: As legislation is introduced in more than a dozen states across the country to counter political pressure and proselytizing on students in college classrooms, a majority of Americans believe the political bias… Continue reading Political Bias of Faculty
Urban Legends Confirmed, Children’s TV Edition
A man in Oregon tied 105 helium balloons to a lawn chair, and flew into Idaho, 193 miles away. Do you believe that? A man tied 105 helium ballons to a lawn chair, and flew into Idaho! He flew 193 miles. In a lawn chair, with balloons tied to it. He used 105 balloons. That’s… Continue reading Urban Legends Confirmed, Children’s TV Edition