OK, Daddy, guess what? Here’s my idea. We get a stick of wood and we put a timer on it, then we get a big rock and put it on the end. We have to put feet on the big rock, so it can stand on the stick. Then when the rain comes down, down,… Continue reading Why, SteelyKid? What Are We Going to Do Tomorrow Night?
Author: Chad Orzel
Against Kaku-ism
I had lunch with Ethan Zuckerman yesterday, and we were talking about technology and communicating science to a mass audience, and Michio Kaku came up. Specifically, the fact that he’s prone to saying stuff that’s just flat wrong, if not batshit crazy– see this angry post from 2010 for an example. It was amusing, then,… Continue reading Against Kaku-ism
On College Matching
We’re entering the heart of College Admissions Season– the offers are out, and students are doing the high-stress decision thing– which means it’s time for the New York Times to begin their annual series of faintly awful reports on the state of academia. And right on cue, there’s this weekend’s article about poor students who… Continue reading On College Matching
The Problems of Science Media Are Not Unique
On Twitter and blogs, we’re having another round of complaints about sensationalism and hype in science stories– Matthew Francis and Gabrielle Rabinowitz are the latest to cross my social media feeds. I’ve also seen some stories recently (that I’m too lazy to dig up) complaining about the latest Higgs Boson stuff, and I’m sure if… Continue reading The Problems of Science Media Are Not Unique
In Which I Struggle With Popular Music
The kids are off at Grandma and Grandpa’s, so Kate and I went out for a nice dinner Thursday night, and I found myself with a bit of time to blog… but no particular substantive ideas. The whole “publishers behaving badly” theme of last week seems to have run its course, between Random House re-thinking… Continue reading In Which I Struggle With Popular Music
Uncertain Principles on Twitter
What with all the angst lately over the impending death of Google Reader, I finally got over my inertia and am testing out the WordPress auto-tweet feature, because that’s apparently how the kids get their blog feeds these days. I sort of hate Twitter feeds that are nothing but blog post links, though, so I’ve… Continue reading Uncertain Principles on Twitter
Science Communication: The Audience Exists
In the twelve years I’ve been at Union, there are only two times I’ve tried to go to an evening speaker and been turned away. Once was 4-5 years ago, when Maya Angelou spoke on campus, the second time was last night, when Bill Nye the Science Guy spoke. I managed to make it to… Continue reading Science Communication: The Audience Exists
Science Kids, Fictitious Forces, and Frictionless Surfaces
SteelyKid has started to demand Sid the Science Kid videos, which of course we are implacably opposed to around here. One of the recent episodes available online was “Slide to the Side,” talking about friction. While this partakes a bit of the Feynman “Energy makes it go” problem, it was generally pretty good, and prompted… Continue reading Science Kids, Fictitious Forces, and Frictionless Surfaces
Long-Overdue Kid Blogging
WordPress’s upload is broken, so here’s a link to the photo: SteelyKid and The Pip. February was… not a good month, in a lot of ways. Let’s leave it at that. One of the unfortunate consequences of this was that I went just about the entire month without even taking any pictures of the kids,… Continue reading Long-Overdue Kid Blogging
Asking Questions and the “Finkbeiner Test”
There was a lot of re-sharing yesterday of an article about the “Finkbeiner Test” to be applied to profiles of women scientists. This is analogous to the “Bechdel Test” in pop culture, which asks “Do two women talk to each other about something other than a man?”, only because we’re scientists, it’s more complicated, hitting… Continue reading Asking Questions and the “Finkbeiner Test”