FemaleScienceProfessor posted a few days ago about “intense” editing of scholarly writing, and the different reactions students have to the experience: Although an individual student’s response to being intensely edited can vary with time and mood, there tend to be typical responses from each student. These typical responses are no doubt related to very deep […]
Month: January 2009
links for 2009-01-26
Gold saved! RSC Italian Job competition is won | RSC Blog After all that waiting, you can finally know what Charlie Croker was thinking in the most famous cliffhanger in film history. (tags: science physics silly movies) Analysis of a head of a beer over time | Dot Physics Making physics relevant to student concerns. […]
13 Things That Don’t Make Sense, by Michael Brooks
Michael Brooks’s 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense turned up on a lot of “Best science books of 2008” lists, and the concept of a book about scientific anomalies seemed interesting, so I ordered it from Amazon. It’s a quick read (a mere 210 pages, and breezily written), but ultimately a frustrating book. It took […]
Science Is What Makes Us Human
In his inaugural address, President Obama pledged to “restore science to its rightful place.” Following up on that, the Corporate Masters have launched the Rightful Place Project, asking bloggers, readers, and scientists to define the rightful place of science. Many of these responses will focus on narrow matters of policy, but as many have said […]
links for 2009-01-25
nanoscale views: What is a polaron? "One common example of a quasiparticle is the polaron. When a charge carrier (an electron or hole) is placed into a solid, the surrounding ions can interact with it (e.g., positive ions will be slightly attracted to a negatively charged carrier). The ions can adjust their positions slightly, balancing […]
“Must-Read” SF Novels
Via a bunch of people, but most directly Matt Ruff, the Guardian has published a list of “1000 Novels Everyone Must Read“. Which has triggered the usual flurry of procrastinatory blog posts indicating which books from the science fiction and fantasy sub-list one has and hasn’t read. I have other things I really ought to […]
Eating Without Pain in Grad School
Over at Neurotopia, the Evil Monkey is offering advice on how to earn extra money in graduate school: The key to more than mere culinary survival in graduate school is to volunteer for research studies. I took part in more projects than I could count. Some don’t pay squat. I once spent 2 hours a […]
links for 2009-01-24
McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Sestina: How to Build a Sestina Template in Microsoft Excel. " Open a new Excel workbook. In cell B1, write your title. Leave row 2 blank. In cells A3 through A8, place the letters A through F. These letters are the cues for your repeating words (teleutons). Leave row 9 blank to […]
Course Report: General Relativity and Black-Body Radiation
The last course report covered the first six classes of the relativity unit. This week, we had the final two relativity lectures, and today was the start of quantum mechanics.
Belated Baby Blogging 012309
Baby Blogging is late this week, because SteelyKid has come down with the cold virus that’s going around the JCC day care center. Snotty, crying, coughing babies aren’t all that photogenic. I finally got a decent picture of her emerging from her sling after a two-hour nap: It’s a little tough to say whether the […]