Kate’s father passed away today. He’s been battling cancer for while, so this was not unexpected, but the end was still surprisingly fast. He was at least at home with loved ones, including Kate and SteelyKid, who went down there yesterday. He will be missed.
Author: Chad Orzel
Lab Grading Macros
A partial list of phrases I would like bound to a macro key, to save myself typing them over and over again as I mark up student lab reports (not all of these apply to the current crop of students): Not only were you able to [verb] the [noun], you did [verb] the [noun]. Say… Continue reading Lab Grading Macros
links for 2009-03-01
Cowbirds in Love Mad science vs. mad engineering (tags: science comics silly) Analysis of the price of a piece of a lego set | Dot Physics There’s nothing you can’t do with a least-squares fit. (tags: blogs math statistics kid-stuff toys dot-physics)
Bonus Baby Blogging
Because everybody could use some extra baby pictures, a reminder from SteelyKid that a baby’s reach should exceed her grasp… … but not for too long.
Moses Viney
This week was Founder’s Day at Union, one of the three big academic-procession events of the year (the others being Convocation in the fall, and Commencement in June), and this year’s event had a clear theme about race and equality, with the keynote speech being given by James McPherson on Union’s connection to the abolitionist… Continue reading Moses Viney
Wire Like a Physicist
One of last year’s physics majors is spending the year in rural Uganda working at a clinic/ school there. He’s keeping a blog, which is intermittently updated by western standards, but remarkably up-to-date given where he is. This week, he blogged about putting his physics education to use: I have been doing a lot of… Continue reading Wire Like a Physicist
links for 2009-02-28
Setshot: Basketball for the Aging and Infirm: "That guy is better than he looks": Appearance vs. ability "Here’s a topic I think about all the time: What factors most affect opinions about players’ skills, and by what process do those opinions change? In pickup basketball, there are often unknown players rotating into the playing roster.… Continue reading links for 2009-02-28
Nationalism and Science
Via email, Mike Steeves points me to an Ars Technica article about a Thomson Reuters report on the “decline in American science”: The US is beginning to lose its scientific dominance. That’s the message from Thomson Reuters, the people behind EndNote and impact factors. According to a report in their publication ScienceWatch, the US’ science… Continue reading Nationalism and Science
All Courses Are Not Created Equal
The Dean Dad is annoyed with the New York Times, for an article about how the recession is affecting the humanities. The whole piece is worth a read, but he singles out a quote from the former president of my alma mater: Some large state universities routinely turn away students who want to sign up… Continue reading All Courses Are Not Created Equal
links for 2009-02-27
362 – Greek To Me: Mapping Mutual Incomprehension « Strange Maps ""Has there been a study of this phrase phenomenon, relating different languages on some kind of Directed Graph?â Well apparently there has, even if only perfunctorily, and the result is this cartogram. When a Hellenophone has trouble understanding something, his or her preferred languages… Continue reading links for 2009-02-27