Next Time, Fail Better – Commentary – The Chronicle of Higher Education Humanities students should be more like computer-science students. I decided that as I sat in on a colleague’s computer-science course during the beginning of this, my last, semester in the classroom. I am moving into administration full time, and I figured that this […]
Month: May 2012
Genre Fiction and the Real Problem With Philosophy of Science
There’s been a bunch of discussion recently about philosophy of science and whether it adds anything to science. Most of this was prompted by Lawrence Krauss’s decision to become the Nth case study for “Why authors should never respond directly to bad reviews,” with some snide comments in an interview in response to a negative […]
Links for 2012-05-10
A rare interview with former no. 1 overall pick Greg Oden about his injury-plagued career – Grantland He was just … Greg. For instance, as we were finishing our meal, three separate groups of fans approached him and asked for autographs and pictures. Like always, he granted their requests with an annoyed expression, didn’t say […]
Exploring Space: Don’t Sell Robots Short
One final thought on the Big Science/ Space Chronicles stuff from last week. One of the things I found really frustrating about the book, and the whole argument that we ought to be sinking lots of money into manned space missions is that the terms of the argument are so nebulous. This is most obvious […]
Links for 2012-05-09
Confessions of a Community College Dean: Adjuncts on Food Stamps The general idea isn’t new, of course, but the numbers are. The story notes a threefold increase just from 2007 to 2010 in the number of people affected. I have to admit that my first response was “there but for the grace of God.” Anyone […]
The Crappy Science of Comic-Book Movies
I go back and forth about the whole question of scientific accuracy in tv shows and movies. On the one hand, I think that complaining “Explosions don’t make noise in space!” is one of the worst forms of humorless dorkitude, and I’m generally happy to let bad science slide by in the service of an […]
Ten Years Before the Blog: 2005-2006 (Part I)
Continuing the blog recap series, we come to the “split year” of 2005-2006. The blog was initially launched in late June, so that’s when I’m starting the years for purposes of these recaps, but ScienceBlogs launched in January 2006, so this year was half Steelypips and half ScienceBlogs. This post will cover the Steelypips half, […]
Links for 2012-05-08
A Visual Approach to Simplifying Radicals (A Get Out of Jail Free Card) | Reflections in the Why Consider a square with an area of 24. The side has length â24. This square can be divided into 4 smaller squares, each with an area of 6. The sides of these smaller squares have length â6. […]
For Extra Credit, Estimate Your Chances of Winning: Ballparking Giveaway
Some time back, I reviewed a cool book about Fermi problems by Aaron Santos, then a post-doc at Michigan. In the interim, he’s taken a faculty job at Oberlin, written a second book on sports-related Fermi problems, and started a blog, none of which I had noticed until he emailed me. Shame on me. Anyway, […]
We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties
Since I’ve gotten a bunch of questions via email and Twitter, this probably deserves its own post: Yes, I’m aware that the ScienceBlogs front page and the Last 24 Hours and ScienceBlogs Select RSS feeds have gone dead. Here’s the story: The crack technical team and ScienceBlogs Headquarters is working around the clock to upgrade […]