Bristol Palin and two kinds of virginity | TPMCafe "Prior to the Palin blow-up, the evangelical wing and the traditional upper crust WASP wing of the party had a pretty basic agreement about the value of pure white virgin daughters. Having a few of these hanging around on podiums made politicians look good, and preserving… Continue reading links for 2009-04-16
Month: April 2009
Six Questions (an attempt at a musical “meme”)
The other day, I wanted to hear the seasonally-appropriate Hold Steady song “How a Resurrection Really Feels” (“She crashed into the Easter Mass, with her hair done up in broken glass, She was limping left on broken heels and she said ‘Father, can I tell your congregation how a resurrection really feels?’”), so I punched… Continue reading Six Questions (an attempt at a musical “meme”)
Transporting Ions Through an X-Junction: Quantum Computing Inches Closer
Physics World has a nice news article about a new experimental development in quantum computing, based on a forthcoming paper from the Wineland group at NIST in Boulder. I’d write this up for ResearchBlogging, but it’s still just on the arxiv, and I don’t think they’ve started accepting arxiv papers yet. The Physics World piece… Continue reading Transporting Ions Through an X-Junction: Quantum Computing Inches Closer
Academic Poll: Uniqueness
A recurring problem in academic science is trying to correctly identify a single author. For example, I was reviewing a grant that made reference to a group, but not a specific paper, and needed to sift through a few pages of search results in order to determine which of the people with that surname was… Continue reading Academic Poll: Uniqueness
links for 2009-04-15
EzraKlein Archive | The American Prospect "If you indeed instituted the calls to flatten out the federal tax distribution, the influence of state and local taxes would leave you with an incredibly regressive tax structure, not a slightly less progressive tax structure. Which is something to keep in mind next time you read a Wall… Continue reading links for 2009-04-15
Academic Poll: Person and Voice
Over at Faraday’s Cage, Cherish has had a Huck Finn moment with regard to paper writing style: I know that I’m not supposed to use the first person plural when writing papers. Frankly Scarlet, I don’t give a damn. I am going to say, “we did this” and “we did that”. This made me blink… Continue reading Academic Poll: Person and Voice
Actions Are Less Fun Than Words
Over the weekend on FriendFeed, Paul Buchheit posed an interesting question: Assume that I’m going to get rid of $20,000 and my only concern is the “common good”. Which of these is the best use of the money: give it to the Gates foundation, buy a hybrid car, invest it in a promising startup, invest… Continue reading Actions Are Less Fun Than Words
links for 2009-04-14
EDSBS » Archive » CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS COVERS THE NATIONAL TITLE GAME "Like the tyrant who conjured a territory whole from the aether, so have we on this field two imaginary kingdoms wrenched forth from geographic oblivion. Florida, were it not for the intervention of a few real estate scamsters in the â20, the discovery of… Continue reading links for 2009-04-14
Questions for Howard Dean?
Howard “Yaaaaah!” Dean, the former governor of Vermont, Presidential candidate, and head of the DNC, will be speaking on campus tonight. It’s exceedingly unlikely that I’ll ask him any questions, because I prefer to leave that to students when possible, but if anybody has any really brilliant suggestions of things he ought to be asked,… Continue reading Questions for Howard Dean?
More Is Difficult
I’ve remarked several times that I think condensed matter physics gets slighted in public discussions of the field, especially relative to its usefulness. Particle physics gets all sorts of press, but in practical terms, it is essentially useless– whether CERN or Fermilab locate the Higgs boson or not will make absolutely no difference in the… Continue reading More Is Difficult