Month: February 2008

links for 2008-02-27

quantum-entanglement.gif (GIF Image, 650×374 pixels) Toothpaste for Dinner identifies the first application of large-scale quantum teleportation. (tags: comics physics silly quantum) getfuzzy20183366080226.gif (GIF Image, 600×204 pixels) “Take Bigfoot. You only ever see him in campgrounds and parks: he’s clearly on vacation.” (tags: basketball comics silly) Stretching – Muscle Soreness – Injury – New York Times… Continue reading links for 2008-02-27

Published
Categorized as Links Dump

Notes for a Discussion of Physics and Politics

The local fraternities and sororities hold occasional dinners/ discussions with faculty, to demonstrate that they’re engaged with the intellectual life of the college. One of my students invited me to dinner at the Change in Kinetic Energy fraternity tomorrow night, and I agreed to do a discussion of physics and politics. That’s a vague topic,… Continue reading Notes for a Discussion of Physics and Politics

Class Is Not a Footnote

On the subject of silly things said about academia, Matt Yglesias does a quick pass over “assessment,”, and in the process recommends Alan Kruger’s research that claims the benefits of elite colleges are all from selection effects. He links a Newsweek article on the topic, which contains this paragraph: Dale and Krueger then compared graduates… Continue reading Class Is Not a Footnote

Academic Science Isn’t That Bad

For some reason, the infamous “Don’t Become a Scientist” rant by Jonathan Katz has bubbled up again, with Scott Aaronson giving his take. I commented on this a while back, and the intervening year and a half hasn’t really improved my opinion of the piece. The discussion in Scott’s comments is better than the rant… Continue reading Academic Science Isn’t That Bad

Published
Categorized as Academia

The Infamous 123 Meme

That “post three sentences from page 123 of the book closest to you” Internet “meme” has come around again, with Bora calling me out in hopes of getting a short preview of Bunnies Made of Cheese (or whatever the book ends up being called). Unfortunately for him, I blog from a desk heaped with books,… Continue reading The Infamous 123 Meme

Published
Categorized as Books

links for 2008-02-26

SMU’s Deal With Bush :: Inside Higher Ed :: Jobs, News and Views for All of Higher Education ‘”What self-respecting university would accept a censored library?” said Rev. William McElvaney, a professor emeritus of preaching and worship at SMU’s theology school, and one of the leading critics of the library.’ (tags: US politics academia stupid)… Continue reading links for 2008-02-26

Published
Categorized as Links Dump

Social Networking… of SCIENCE!

There’s been some discussion recently of ScienceBlog reader get-togethers, and the question was raised of what ScienceBlogs ought to do to facilitate this. Of course, this is exactly the sort of thing that Facebook is useful for, and there is, in fact, a ScienceBlogs Facebook group. If you’re a Facebook user, and interested in that… Continue reading Social Networking… of SCIENCE!

Published
Categorized as Blogs

Theory of Blogging Faculty

Over at evolgen, RPM is wondering about the disciplinary distribution of bloggers: I have an intuition, backed up by absolutely no evidence, that my particular area of interest (evolutionary genetics) has more faculty blogging about stuff related to their research than other fields. This is most likely the result of my interest in those blogs,… Continue reading Theory of Blogging Faculty

Roller Coaster Pregnancy

Thanks again to all the people who left congratulations and well-wishes on last week’s ultrasound picture post. The positive thoughts are much appreciated, especially since it’s been a bit of a roller-coaster here in Chateau Steelypips. As you can guess from the fact that the ultrasound looks fairly baby-ish, we’ve known about this for quite… Continue reading Roller Coaster Pregnancy

Published
Categorized as Personal