The hot topic of the day is, of course, the big shake-up at Scientific American’s blog network. The official statement is, of course, very carefully worded, but the end result is that they’re shedding a bunch of blogs and instituting a standard set of guidelines for those that remain. A more detailed breakdown of who’s […]
Category: Blogs
Uncertain Dots 27
After a loooong hiatus due to incompatible work schedules, Rhett and I are back with our intermittent hangout series. We talk about space programs, the engineering mindset, and cool stuff you can do with liquid nitrogen. Amazingly, we didn’t actually talk about our current (well, recently-completed, in my case) classes. That might be a first […]
On Replacing Science Online
That’s “Science Online” as in the conference that folded, not “science, online” as in the practice of trying to understand the universe from in front of a networked computer. Specifically, I’m posting about David Zaslavsky’s call for help in putting together a replacement meeting. There was a lot of talk about this right when Science […]
Uncertain Dots 25: The Lightning Round
I got the time for the regular hangout wrong, and then we had some weird computer difficulties, so we only had ten minutes for Uncertain Dots this week. Which was enough time for me to say disparaging things about comic book movies, so, you know, if that interests you… Here’s the making of Interstellar story […]
On Not Talking, for the Right Reasons
Over at Backreaction, Bee has a nice piece on our current age of virality. Toward the end, she discusses some of the ways this applies to science, specifically a quote from this Nature article about collaborative efforts to measure “big G”, and a story about a Chinese initiative to encourage collaboration. She writes of the […]
Uncertain Dots 24
If you like arbitrary numerical signifiers, this is the point where we can start to talk about plural dozens of Uncertain Dots hangouts. As usual, Rhett and I chat about a wide range of stuff, including the way we always say we’re going to recruit a guest to join us, and then forget to do […]
Uncertain Dots 23
Our semi-regular video hangout returns. In this episode, I’m wearing a tie, because I gave the department colloquium this week, and for psychological reasons I always dress up a bit to give talks. This was recorded under an hour after my talk, which probably explains why I’m a little more punchy than usual… I’m not […]
Metaphors and Style
Two language-related items crossed in the Information Supercollider today: the first was Tom’s commentary on an opinion piece by Robert Crease and Alfred Goldhaber, the second Steven Pinker on the badness of academic writing. All of them are worth reading, and I only have small dissents to offer here. One is that, unlike Tom and […]
Uncertain Dots 22
After a long absence due to travel (some of which is discussed), Uncertain dots returns! Rhett and I talk about recent travels, how people going into internet-based physics outreach these days would probably do better to make videos than blog, physics in science fiction, celestial navigation, and as always, our current courses. Some links: — […]
Uncertain Dots 20
In which Rhett and I talk about awful academic computing systems, Worldcon, our Wikipedia pages, and AAPT meeting envy. Some links: — Rhett’s Wikipedia entry — My Wikipedia entry — The 2014 AAPT Summer Meeting — LonCon 3, this year’s Worldcon — My puzzling Worldcon schedule We have some ideas for what to do next […]