The Supreme Court’s 100 percent dirt-free exploration of potty words. – By Dahlia Lithwick – Slate Magazine "Perhaps it’s true that the Supreme Court can take away our F-bomb. But they cannot touch our dirty, dirty minds." (tags: US politics language law society culture) Watching the election. – By Troy Patterson – Slate Magazine "I… Continue reading links for 2008-11-05
Author: Chad Orzel
Non-Election Live Blogging
It seems like everybody with a blog has put up a live-blogging/ open comment thread about the election. I can’t really type fast enough to compete in this sort of thing, and anyway, it seems cruel to leave foreigners and apolitical types out of the fun. So, for the benefit of those who can’t vote… Continue reading Non-Election Live Blogging
Stop Hitting Refresh!
There aren’t any results yet. Turn off the computer. Go vote. Already voted? Watch some silly videos. Eat a sandwich. Do some freakin’ thing. Just stop reloading FiveThirtyEight and Talking Points Memo, already.
Dance Like a Monkey
As you know, even if you’re not Bob, I promised to “dance like a monkey” if my DonorsChoose challenge passed $6,000 in donations, which it did. Thus, I am obliged to dance like a monkey. You might think this would be a simple matter of capering about in a loose-limbed, vaguely simian manner, but it’s… Continue reading Dance Like a Monkey
links for 2008-11-04
Fafblog! the whole world’s only source for Fafblog. ""All we really need is some kind of simple technological solution," says Giblets, "like a garbage-powered weather machine or a synthetic source of God."" (tags: fafblog science environment silly blogs) McCain Refusing To Tell Voters What’s In Box Unless Elected | The Onion – America’s Finest News… Continue reading links for 2008-11-04
The Importance of Temperment
Kevin Drum is amused by a historical comparison: THEN AND NOW….In 2004, everyone complained that John Kerry was an old-media plodder who didn’t react quickly enough to conservative attacks. What a dunce! In 2008, everyone is praising Barack Obama for keeping his composure and not letting conservative attacks knock him off his message. What a… Continue reading The Importance of Temperment
Quantum Computing Candidates: Liquid State NMR
Continuing the series of descriptions of candidate technologies for making a quantum computer (previous entries covered optical lattices and ion traps), we come to one that’s a little controversial. It’s the only remaining candidate I can describe off the top of my head without doing some more background reading, though, so I will plunge ahead… Continue reading Quantum Computing Candidates: Liquid State NMR
Advantage: Comic-o-sphere
Is it just me, or is this New York Times article on undecided voters just a more genteel version of this Daily Show segment on undecided voters? (Personally, all the people in the Times sound like they want to vote for McCain, but know there’s no good reason to do so. They’ll talk themselves into… Continue reading Advantage: Comic-o-sphere
links for 2008-11-03
Tor.com / Science fiction and fantasy / Blog posts / World Fantasy Awards Winners! Congratulations to all the winners. (tags: books sf awards literature) CDF Ghost Muons | Cosmic Variance More thoughts on the maybe-a-particle, maybe-a-background-effect news from Fermilab. (tags: science physics experiment particles news blogs) The Happiness Project: Paradoxes of Happinesss: the sadness of… Continue reading links for 2008-11-03
Early Voting, By the Numbers
With the election nearly upon us, I’ve started regularly following Talking Points Memo again. Late last night, Josh Marshall wrote about the early voting results: Among those who’ve already voted, it’s Obama 57%, McCain 38%. And that number is not inconsistent with numbers coming out of a lot of the early voting states. CBS says… Continue reading Early Voting, By the Numbers