“Dude, what is your deal?” “What? I’m just taking a couple of pictures.” “A couple? You’ve taken, like, forty pictures of me already today. You’re cramping my style. I’m trying to go for a walk, here. I’ve got bushes to sniff, lawns to pee on, critters to chase– I don’t have time for photography.” “Sorry,… Continue reading Ready for Her Close-Up
Month: September 2007
Free Money from Six Apart
If you like free money, Six Apart (owners of Movable Type and LiveJournal) have an offer for you: send them an email, and they’ll send you $30. “What’s the catch?” you say. Because there has to be a catch… And, indeed, there is a catch: the $30 is in the form of a gift certificate… Continue reading Free Money from Six Apart
The Importance of “Framing”
The selection of a smaller subject area for viewing, and the contrast between the dim interior and the bright exterior really enhance the aesthetic experience of the garden: What?
In Which I Play With Social Network Applications
I haven’t even had a book contract for a month, and already I’m engaging in Authorial Avoidance Behavior… I spent a while this morning messing around with setting up a del.icio.us account. This does actually have a worthwhile goal, namely to be an improvement over my current system of keeping a hundred tabs open in… Continue reading In Which I Play With Social Network Applications
Giant Machine Creates Science
America’s Finest News Source has the last word in generic science articles: According to the scientists, the electromagnetic science-maker will make atoms move and spin around very quickly, though spectators at the hearing said afterward they could not account for how one could get some atoms to move around faster than other ones if everything… Continue reading Giant Machine Creates Science
Reality Lets Me Down, Again
From the “You Read Too Much SF” file: I was really disappointed by the press release that went with the headline: Mysterious energy burst stuns astronomers A headline like that really ought to involve bodies strewn about a remote observatory, and enigmatic alien forces roaming free, perhaps being hunted by menacing government agents. Sadly, it… Continue reading Reality Lets Me Down, Again
Lazy Video Post: Head Butt!
Via a mailing list, two giraffes beating each other up: I’m sure that an actual biologist could explain something about what this odd behavior signifies, and there’s probably some fascinating biophysics in the way that they whip their necks around like that. But, really, in the end, my main reaction is “Dude! Head-butting giraffes!” (YouTube,… Continue reading Lazy Video Post: Head Butt!
Superconducting Quantum News
Physics World had a news story about developments in quantum computation, covering two new papers in Nature: Coupling superconducting qubits via a cavity bus from the groups of Steve Girvin and Rob Schoelkopf at Yale, also described in this press release. Coherent quantum state storage and transfer between two phase qubits via a resonant cavity… Continue reading Superconducting Quantum News
Direct Instruction: Scripts are Not the Issue
The libertarian side of the blogosphere is all abuzz about “Direct Instruction” at the moment, thanks to a Marignal Revolution post by Alex Tabarrok touting the method: Ayres argues that large experimental studies have shown that the teaching method which works best is Direct Instruction (here and here are two non-academic discussions which summarizes much… Continue reading Direct Instruction: Scripts are Not the Issue
Requiem for the Space Age
The New York Times is commemorating the 50th anniversary of Sputnik with a huge clump of articles about, well, space. I’m a little surprised that I haven’t seen more said about these– they turned up in my RSS feeds on Tuesday, but I’ve been both busy and slightly ill, and haven’t gotten around to blogging… Continue reading Requiem for the Space Age