Every year, Kate runs a fundraiser to help support SF fans who want to attend Wiscon, which takes the form of an auction of various cool items, such as a signed book about quantum physics. You can find a big listing of everything at the Con or Bust community on LiveJournal, but some items of […]
Month: February 2011
Links for 2011-02-28
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Fracking | The Intersection | Discover Magazine “I just watched this video of Cornell University engineering prof Anthony Ingraffea giving a lecture on fracking-a long, long lecture. But it’s tremendously informative, gives more perspective than I’ve found anywhere else, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants […]
An Analogy Too Far?
A few lines of dialogue that I wrote today: “So, the treats I eat represent the matter falling into the black hole, while my poop–“ “You are not coming to my class and pooping to demonstrate Hawking radiation. Don’t even think about it.” “I guess that means you don’t want to hear my take on […]
Links for 2011-02-26
Go To Hellman: HarperCollins and the Suspension of eBook Disbelief “A good business requires a good story. The customer needs to understand the story of how the business can help solve a problem or deliver a benefit. There are many ways of telling a business story. Some stories are utilitarian; others are romantic or inspiring. […]
Belated Snowy Toddler Blogging
We’re having our umpteenth winter storm here, which means everybody has to work at clearning snow away. And I do mean everybody: OK, I did most of the work of clearing a path to the door, but SteelyKid insisted on helping sweep some snow up with her little broom afterwards. The color’s a little wonky […]
Programming Note
Since people have asked about the lack of Thursday Toddler Blogging to this point, here’s an update: We had a bit of a meltdown last night at dinner, which ended with SteelyKid asking to go to bed an hour earlier than usual. This morning, she slept in, and we got a bunch more snow overnight, […]
Links for 2011-02-25
Caltech Scores First Conference Victory Since 1985 – NYTimes.com “The team’s 46-45 home victory over Occidental, in the final game of the season, was the first Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference victory for Caltech since a 1-point win over La Verne more than 26 years ago, before any of the current players were born. Ryan […]
Trends in International Math and Science: Mostly Downward
My talk at the AAAS meeting was part of a symposium on the results from the 2008 Trends in International Math and Science Survey (TIMSS) Advanced. This is an international test on math and physics given to high-school students in nine different countries (Armenia, Iran, Italy, Lebanon, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Slovenia, Sweden), and this is […]
Links for 2011-02-24
Pseudoteaching | Action-Reaction “Pseudoteaching is something you realize you’re doing after you’ve attempted a lesson which from the outset looks like it should result in student learning, but upon further reflection, you realize that the very lesson itself was flawed and involved minimal learning. We hope that though discussion, we’ll be able to clarify and […]
Links for 2011-02-23
A Science Fair Project about Science Fairs | Wired Science | Wired.com “I can’t say no. People ask me to be a science fair judge. If they have good food, I am there. Of course there are problems with the science fair. Students tend to focus on non-important things like the materials they used. There is […]