Over at Unqualified Offerings, “Thoreau” offers some musings about peer review. I saw this and said, “Aha! The perfect chance to dust off an old post, and free up some time…” Sadly, I already recycled the post in question, so I feel obliged to be less lazy and contribute some new content. I generally agree […]
Month: November 2007
links for 2007-11-28
John Cusack | The A.V. Club “You try to make it as good as you can, but with an action movie or whatever it is, you’re doing it so you can get leverage to go do Grace Is Gone or whatever these other ones are. So there’s a ceiling on how good you can make […]
If Popularizers Are Treated Like Kooks, Only Kooks Will Be Popularizers
Over at Backreaction, Bee has a long and thoughtful post (they don’t do any other kind) about the interaction between science and the popular imagination. She says a lot of interesting things, but I think she comes to the wrong conclusion at the end, when she writes: However, despite this general trend, what worries me […]
Science Is Not Notable
Scott Eric Kaufman draws my attention to the fact that the New York Times has posted its Notable Books for 2007 list. The list is divided into “Fiction & Poetry” and “Non-Fiction,” and Scott correctly notes that the “Fiction & Poetry” books all have terrible blurbs, but I’d like to point out a much larger […]
links for 2007-11-27
Alliance Announces 2nd Annual High School Essay Contest | Alliance For Science Write about evolution, win money (if you’re a high school student, anyway). (tags: science education biology politics) Jobs, News and Views for All of Higher Education – Inside Higher Ed :: Benefits for Pets, Not Partners A new low in contemptuous policies towards […]
Bleg: Physics History
I distinctly recall reading a quote from somebody talking about the debates between Bohr and Einstein, in which Einstein invented ingenious thought experiments to measure two non-commuting observables (position and momentum, or energy and time) and Bohr poked holes in them. The comment was something along the lines of “Of course, Einstein was much smarter […]
Turtles and Strings: Where Does Science Stop?
The infamous Davies op-ed has been collected together with some responses at edge.org, and one of the responses is by Sean Carroll, who reproduces his response at Cosmic Variance. Sean’s a smart guy, and I basically agree with his argument, but I’m a contrary sort, and want to nitpick one thing about his response. He […]
How Do You Falsify Rationality?
I said I wasn’t going to write anything about the Paul Davies thing, but it’s been the hot topic for the last day or two, and I’ve found myself reading a bunch of the responses in blogdom. I basically agree with most of what various science bloggers have said, but being a contrary sort, I […]
links for 2007-11-26
outside the (toy) box » Little Man. Watching My Son’s Socialization. or “Gender – it’s wicked constructed” Gender socialization through toys. (tags: gender society toys) Giro.org » The Big Scary Idea A modest proposal for bringing the SF magazines into the Century of the Fruitbat (tags: books SF) Looking for ‘Green’ Lights in the Suburbs […]
Liquid Turkey
… or, Emmy’s Best Thanksgiving Ever! We did the traditional turkey-and-trimmings dinner Saturday with both sets of parents. Again, we brined the turkey overnight, following the Good Eats recipe, and other than a small glitch with the thermometer placement, everything went very well. The turkey was nicely roasted, moist, and juicy. And that’s where the […]