One of the less attractive features of the New York Times is its tendency to feature little profiles of horrible people. They’re not presented that way, of course, but that’s the effect– I read these articles, and just want to slap everybody involved. Today’s story on marital tensions caused by environmental issues is a fine… Continue reading The Latest from Awful Yuppie Town: Green Divorce
Author: Chad Orzel
Academic Language Poll: Weekly Wossname
A comment on the earlier poll asked about regular series of departmental talks, which the author called a department seminar. We have such a series of talks, bringing in roughly one outside speaker per week, but we call it a colloquium. This calls for a poll to settle the question: An academic department has a… Continue reading Academic Language Poll: Weekly Wossname
Eucatastrophe in Physics
Before leaving Austin on Friday, I had lunch with a former student who is currently a graduate student at the University of Texas, working in an experimental AMO physics lab. I got the tour before lunch– I’m a sucker for lab tours– and things were pretty quiet, as they had recently suffered a catastrophic failure… Continue reading Eucatastrophe in Physics
Academic Poll: How Do You Like Your Interviews?
The always interesting Timothy Burke has a post on the economics of conference attendance, inspired by Brian Croxall’s essay about why he didn’t attend the MLA. The key problem for both of them is that the way the academic job market is structured inn the humanities forces job seekers to attend the MLA for “screening… Continue reading Academic Poll: How Do You Like Your Interviews?
Links for 2010-01-18
BOOK VIEW CAFE BLOG » It seemed like a good idea at the time: The Slushpile Smackdown “The traditional method of sifting slush is in-house – a job usually handed out to a junior because it’s time consuming and occasionally injurious to mental well being. Why? Because anyone with a word processor can submit a… Continue reading Links for 2010-01-18
Radio DogPhysics: Cincinnati Edition
Of special interest to Ohio-type readers: I’m scheduled to do an interview tomorrow, Monday the 18th with Jim Scott of WLW AM in Cincinnati. I’m scheduled to call in at 9:50 am, which looks like it’s after the regular show hours, and thus probably a taped interview. It says LIVE in the schedule I was… Continue reading Radio DogPhysics: Cincinnati Edition
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update (US Version)
The Barnes and Noble store finder finally indicated the presence of copies in the local stores yesterday, so we made a trip down to the Colonie Center, where they had a half-dozen face out in the Physics section, and probably 15-20 on the new releases table. Woo-hoo! (Now I can shift to fretting that they’ve… Continue reading How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update (US Version)
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Big in the Commonwealth
A couple of nifty bits of news from the British Commonwealth: The BBC’s Magazine Monitor blog noted my Seed article. Better yet, How to Teach Physics to Your Dog makes Smriti Daniel’s list of “the best books to emerge in 2009” in the Sunday Times of Sri Lanka. The other books on the list: The… Continue reading How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Big in the Commonwealth
Syracuse- West Virginia
It’s been a while since I did a basketball game recap here, mostly because it’s been a while since I saw a whole game. Thanks to the DVR, I saw the whole Syracuse-West Virginia game today, in which Syracuse narrowly escaped Morgantown with a win. They had a ten point lead with two and a… Continue reading Syracuse- West Virginia
Links for 2010-01-16
News: Duncan Challenges NCAA to Change – Inside Higher Ed “Education Secretary Arne Duncan pulled no punches in a high-profile address here Thursday at the annual convention of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, proposing a series of policy changes that he said could rid college sports of the “tiny minority” of bad actors that “stains”… Continue reading Links for 2010-01-16