I ordered a tablet PC a little while back (Lenovo X61, with all the options maxed out, because, well, book advance). It shipped a couple of days ago, so I’ve been tracking it via UPS, where it has experience some odd delays. The strangest by far is this message from today: LOUISVILLE, KY, US 10/31/2007 […]
Month: October 2007
One Game Too Many
The phenomenon is familiar to anybody who plays pick-up basketball. (It might be unique to pick-up hoops– none of the other sports I play regularly involve multiple discrete games.) You get a bunch of players together, and you play a game to 15. Then a second game to 15. And, hey, that’s a pretty good […]
Race, Class, and Graduation Rates
There are a couple of stories in Inside Higher Ed today talking about college graduation rates. One is a passing mention that the NCAA has released complete graduation rate data for Division I schools through its impressively awful web site (the statistics are available as a series of one-page PDF files, one for each institution, […]
Last Day of DonorsChoose
If you’ve been putting off donating for some reason, today is your last chance to contribute to the ScienceBlogs DonorsChoose fundraiser, and my challenge entry in particular. Their server appears to be getting whacked at the moment, so you might have trouble getting through to donate– charity delayed is charity made annoying. If you’ve been […]
links for 2007-10-31
Overheard in New York | The Giant Ones Who Live in the Sewers Are Especially Nasty A little something for the atheists. (tags: silly religion) Pure Pedantry : The Moral Problem of New Atheism vs. Religion -or- The Majesty of Creation ScienceBlogs’ best writer on science and religion and politics. (tags: religion politics science) D-squared […]
Physics for Everyone (for Some Value of “Everyone”)
In today’s New York Times Natalie Angier has a nice story about increased interest in physics: Many people wring their hands over the state of science education and point to the appalling performance of America’s students in international science and math competitions. Yet some of the direst noises about our nation’s scientific prospects may be […]
Peer Reviewed Blogging
You may start seeing these little icons showing up on your favorite science blogs. So, what’s the deal? Dave Munger of Cognitive Daily has been marking posts that discuss published articles in detail for quite a while now, but there was mroe general interest in having a service to tag and vet such articles. So, […]
The Dressed State Picture
I’ve never been one for costumes, but if you lean that way, and still don’t know what you’re going as tomorrow, Jennifer Ouellette offers some physics-themed Halloween costumes: Schrödinger’s Cat, Maxwell’s Demon, and BEC: If you’re looking for something a bit less mainstream, how about dressing up as a Bose-Einstein condensate this Halloween? That’s what […]
links for 2007-10-30
Aspie-quiz Do you have an autism-spectrum disorder, or are you neurotypical and just kind of an asshole? (via Scalzi) (tags: science psychology society blogs) The Dragaeran Cycle of Houses by ~Silversaff on deviantART So… A lyorn is a Labrador Retriever with a horn? (tags: books art SF) Laelaps : The good, the bad, and the […]
DonorsChoose Payoff: Changing Categories
An anonymous donor asks a tricky question, namely: how apparently successful research faculty … can best make the transition to a small teaching/research institution? This is a tricky question not only because anything relating to academic jobs is tough, but also because I don’t have a great deal of experience with it. I’ve been in […]