Michael Bay And Shia LeBeouf Spitball Transformers 2 Ideas | Film | A.V. Club "Michael Bay: Okay, so boom goes the sphinx. Boom goes the pyramid. Boom! Boom! Boom! Go the HondaCivicstrons we positioned all around the entrance to the tomb. And then, whhhhhhhhiiiiiiirrrrr, click, clack, crunch, sweepy spin thwaaaack! Here comes Beefy, our hero, […]
Month: April 2009
Pop Culture Interlude: A Good Name for a Band
A little while ago, I was pointed to Jim Munger’s blog, which is full of ranting about various topics. Not quite to the standards of alt.peeves, back in the day, but some of it is entertaining. It also includes several mentions of his band, Better Than Abstinence. There seemed to be something wrong with the […]
Women, Fast Cars, and Physics
I’m speaking, of course, about this past weekend’s Bloggingheads conversation between Jennifer Ouellette and Diandra Leslie-Pelecky. They both blog at Cocktail Party Physics, and Diandra has written The Physics of NASCAR. It’s a good Bloggingheads, covering a wide range of topics related to physics, sports, and entertainment. Jennifer talks about the work of the Science […]
links for 2009-04-23
Particulate pollution cuts carbon dioxide, model shows – physicsworld.com "Falling levels of aerosol pollution could make it much harder to curb the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. That is the conclusion of climate researchers in the UK and Switzerland, who have found that pollution in the form of aerosol particles gives a dramatic […]
Eight Months and Counting
The official release date for How to Teach Physics to Your Dog is December 22nd, exactly eight months from today. It’s probably a little too early to go into countdown mode, but I thought I would mention a couple of recent developments with the book. First, the book itself continues its steady progress toward publication. […]
Academic Poll: Bribery
No, I’m not talking about students bribing faculty for good grades, but the reverse: faculty bribing students to attend events outside of class. For example, I offered the students in my class five bonus points on tomorrow’s mid-term exam if they attended last night’s Alan Lightman lecture. I’m fairly certain that 12 of the 16 […]
The Art and Science of Naming Things
We had a talk last night by Alan Lightman of MIT, a theoretical physicist and novelist, best known as the author of Einstein’s Dreams. He spoke for about an hour about his own background, and the similarities and differences between the worlds of science and the arts. One of the differences he mentioned was the […]
links for 2009-04-22
Pop Quiz – Advanced Placement – Education Life – Interactive Quiz – A.P. Economics – Interactive Graphic – NYTimes.com I got 14/18, which isn’t all that bad if you consider that I never took economics at any level. (tags: economics business quiz) Think Progress » TAKE ACTION: Tell Congress To Hold Impeachment Hearings Against Judge […]
Strunk and White Is Not for You
I tagged Geoffrey Pullum’s rant against The Elements of Style for del.icio.us a few days back, because it struck me as interesting, but I didn’t have time to say more. In the subsequent days, I’ve seen a bunch of “Preach it, Brother Pullum!” responses, most recently from revere. I’ve also received the copyedited manuscript of […]
Technology Query: Making Animation?
The book-in-production will be released eight months from tomorrow, which means that I’m thinking of ways to promote it on-line. One obvious possibility would be some sort of YouTube video type thing, showing a conversation with the dog about physics. This runs into problems, though, given that the dog is, well, a dog, and thus […]