I spent most of yesterday huddled under a pile of blankets on the couch– being feverish and light-headed is great if you’re in a Pink Floyd song, but not so much if you’re trying to be a functioning adult. It seems to be the Thing That’s Going Around this term, though, and while I’m feeling… Continue reading Pop Culture Interlude: Left-Field F-Bombs
Month: April 2009
links for 2009-04-09
The physics of why bicyclists hate stop signs – Hard Drive "In their essay "Why Bicyclists Hate Stop Signs," University of California physics professor Joel Fajans and Access transportation journal editor Melanie Curry write that requiring cyclists to follow the same complete-stop rules as motorists defies science. "While car drivers simply sigh at the delay"… Continue reading links for 2009-04-09
Matter and Interactions and Dark Matter for Kids
New ScienceBlogger and American Gladiator Ethan Siegel of Starts With a Bang has a couple of nice posts about dark matter and how we know it’s there (one, two). These posts reminded me that I never did follow up on the discussion following my post about Magic World Media, who are looking to publish kids’… Continue reading Matter and Interactions and Dark Matter for Kids
links for 2009-04-08
Brigham Young U.’s Student Newspaper Is Pulled After Embarrassing Typo – Chronicle.com "The caption described a photograph illustrating the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saintsâ General Conference, and it referred to the groupâs âQuorum of Twelve Apostatesâ rather than âApostles.â Rich Evans, editorial manager of The Daily Universe, the student paper, told the Tribune it… Continue reading links for 2009-04-08
Congratulations to the Tar Heels
Between the sleep deprivation caused by being home alone with the baby, and the new Jim Butcher book, I realized that I almost forgot to mention North Carolina’s defeat of Michigan State for the NCAA basketball championship. I’m glad to see it for two reasons: their victory let me win two of the basketball pools… Continue reading Congratulations to the Tar Heels
CBS: Polling for the Innumerate
Via Matt Yglesias, a new CBS/ New York Times Poll has been released, accompanied by quite possibly the stupidest graphics ever. The pseudo-pie-chart at right is one of three, all of which have the same glaring flaw as this one. Somebody really ought to lose their job for this. There’s just no excuse for putting… Continue reading CBS: Polling for the Innumerate
The Importance of Perspective
SteelyKid is eight months old today, and to celebrate… Kate went down to the City for an oral argument. So, SteelyKid and I had our first night at home without Mommy. Fortunately, there was a basketball game last night, and she slept peacefully on my lap through the whole game. I did cop out a… Continue reading The Importance of Perspective
links for 2009-04-07
After North Carolina, Hansbrough Faces a Skeptical N.B.A. – NYTimes.com âYou guys make it out like I just came back to school just to win a national championship,â Hansbrough said. âI came back to school because I enjoy college.â (tags: academia sports basketball)
The Process Is as Important as the Answer
Over at the First Excited State, the quasi-anonymous proprietor laments the tendency of basketball replays to focus on the shot rather than the play that set up the shot, and compares this to a maddening student habit: Students in introductory physics classes inevitably place too much focus on the final numerical answer of the problem,… Continue reading The Process Is as Important as the Answer
links for 2009-04-06
Cocktail Party Physics: brew masters "I seem to have collected an impressive array of items on various science-y aspects of beer, which forms the topic of today’s monster post. Benjamin Franklin once observed, "Beer is living proof that God wants us to be happy," and we’re all about sharing the joy here at the cocktail… Continue reading links for 2009-04-06