A little while after dinner last night, I started to feel achy and chilled and kind of light-headed, so I retired to bed. Where I had really spectacular fever dreams about… blogging. Somehow, I had come up with the greatest blog post in human history, or some such. I can’t recall what it was, but… Continue reading A Smell of Petroleum Pervades Throughout
Author: Chad Orzel
In Which I Commit Carpentry
Here’s a project from a couple of weeks ago, that I forgot to post: “Big deal,” you say, “It’s an ugly box.” Ah, but what’s under the box?
Merit Scholarships, Threat or Menace?
This will probably cause some eye-rolling on the part of my local readers, but there’s an interesting article in Inside Higher Ed on the real effect of merit scholarships, which is the term of art for “money given to students for reasons other than financial need.” This is a hot topic, as the article notes:… Continue reading Merit Scholarships, Threat or Menace?
Beyond the Standard (Cosmological) Model
There’s a meeting now underway in London on Outstanding Questions for the Standard Cosmological Model, which is the term for the current Big Bang/ Inflation/ Dark Matter/ Dark Energy/ Accelerating Universe view of the history of the universe. Tommaso Dorigo is attending, and reports on the talks on his blog (and also a description of… Continue reading Beyond the Standard (Cosmological) Model
College Admissions: Inside the Sausage Factory
It’s weird how I get into ruts here. I’m not usually obsessed with the subject of college admissions, but it came up recently, and now there’s just one article after another about it (because, of course, it’s college admissions season). I’m getting a little tired of it, but not so tired that I want to… Continue reading College Admissions: Inside the Sausage Factory
When Grad Students Snap
There’s a story in the New York Times today about a new movie on the infamous Iowa grad school shootings: On Nov. 1, 1991, outraged that his doctoral thesis had been passed over for an academic prize, a young physicist at the University of Iowa named Gang Lu opened fire at a physics department meeting.… Continue reading When Grad Students Snap
And You Thought Losing Your Office Pool Was Bad
(From PostSecret, via a mailing list.)
Planet Earth: Oooh, Pretty Pictures
I was pretty beat after returning from Boston yesterday, so I ended up watching bits and pieces of the much-ballyhooed Planet Earth tv show on the Discovery Channel. I can’t really assess it in detail, as I was flipping back and forth to the Dresden Files, but they certainly had some impressive footage of various… Continue reading Planet Earth: Oooh, Pretty Pictures
More Problems with SAT Writing Test
Inside Higher Ed provides another example of an essay receiving a perfect score on the SAT writing test: In the 1930’s, American businesses were locked in a fierce economic competition with Russian merchants for fear that their communist philosophies would dominate American markets. As a result, American competition drove the country into an economic depression… Continue reading More Problems with SAT Writing Test
Final Four
Hoops commentary has fallen off dramatically lately, but it’s not because my teams are out of the tournament. Or, rather, it’s not just because my teams are out of the tournament. Mostly, it’s because Kate and I were out of town for the weekend, on vacation in Boston, and I barely saw any of the… Continue reading Final Four