Between unpleasant work stuff and the Dread Stomach Bug wiping out the better part of five days, I only got my student evaluation comments for my winter term class last week, and I’m only getting around to writing the post-mortem now. This was, for those who may not have been obsessively following my course reports,… Continue reading A Brief History of Timekeeping: Final Notes
Author: Chad Orzel
Links for 2012-04-10
Gymkata proves that tiny gymnasts make tough heroes | Film | Films That Time Forgot | The A.V. Club Plot: At the height of the Reagan era, someone had the bright idea to turn diminutive, soft-voiced, mulleted gymnast Kurt Thomas into an international action star. How? By positing him as a master of “gymkata,” a… Continue reading Links for 2012-04-10
How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog: A Review Is In
I’m trying not to be Neurotic Author Guy and obsessively check online reviews of How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog every fifteen minutes. I’ve actually been pretty successful at it, so successful that I didn’t notice the first posted review at Amazon until my parents mentioned it to me. It’s a really good one,… Continue reading How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog: A Review Is In
Jake and the Overly-Analytical Parents
SteelyKid has recently become obsessed with the Disney Junior show Jake and the Never Land Pirates, demanding to watch it all the time. Thanks to her two recent bouts with this year’s stomach bug, I’ve had to watch, or at least listen to her watching in the next room, every episode that Time Warner offers… Continue reading Jake and the Overly-Analytical Parents
Easter 2012
Today is Easter Sunday, which we celebrated in the manner of my people, by chasing soap bubbles around the backyard: OK, that’s not an actual tradition, but it was a beautiful day today, and SteelyKid got a big bottle of bubble stuff from her great-grandmother, so it seemed like the right thing to do. So… Continue reading Easter 2012
Links for 2012-04-07
The murky water of chastising and celebrating NFL violence – Grantland Of course, it’s 2012 — the Year of Internet Self-Righteousness — which means we need to feign disgust, pile on the Saints, argue for Williams to receive the NFL’s death penalty and basically freak out that a football coach would ever do that. So… Continue reading Links for 2012-04-07
Musical Poll: Lyrical Crimes
I’m killing time waiting for something I can’t talk about yet, so here’s a silly poll to pass the time, brought to you by a couple of songs served up on the radio this morning while I was running errands: Which of these awkward song lyrics is the worst lyrical crime against English grammar? I… Continue reading Musical Poll: Lyrical Crimes
The Story of the One Little Pig, the Nice Wolf, and Materials Science
I want a story. The story about one little pig, and the wolf. I’ll need you to help me with it, OK? Yeah. OK, once upon a time, there was one little pig, and he… What did he do? He built a house out of straw. Right. He was a little bit silly, so he… Continue reading The Story of the One Little Pig, the Nice Wolf, and Materials Science
Links for 2012-04-06
Texts from Hillary “So then I sent her a text saying I think I left my favorite sunglasses in the desk.” Swans on Tea » Do You Have My Back? So this whole “get back to doing science” kind of hits me where I live. I’ve seen budgetary fallout from recent events, and I know… Continue reading Links for 2012-04-06
Union College in the “Frozen Four”
While none of the college basketball teams I root for made the Final Four in their respective tournaments, I probably really ought to note that there is a team that might loosely be termed “mine” that’s playing in the national semifinal. Then again, since they’ve gotten this far without me saying anything about them at… Continue reading Union College in the “Frozen Four”