No blogging this weekend, and not even a Links Dump for Monday morning, because I was busy with non-blog stuff all weekend. Such as fencing in Lake Steelypips: OK, maybe that’s too grandiose a name for the little decorative pond in our back yard. It’s not all that large, but it is big enough to… Continue reading Busy Weekend at Chateau Steelypips
Category: Books
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Festive Update
There’s no rest for the wicked, as last weekend’s hectic running around is followed by another busy weekend, with some on-campus stuff on Sunday as part of our annual Accepted Students Days. More importantly, though, I will be on a panel at the Empire State book Festival on Saturday from 12:45-1:30 pm: BLOOK: Going from… Continue reading How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Festive Update
Radio DogPhysics: Northeast Public Radio Edition
I forgot to schedule a blog post to remind people to tune in to my appearance on WAMC’s “The Roundtable” yesterday morning, talking about How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. If you missed it, and have fourteen minutes to kill, they have the segment on their audio archive now. It went well, and I… Continue reading Radio DogPhysics: Northeast Public Radio Edition
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update and Upcoming Events
A flurry of things to kick off the new academic term. Reviews and news: A nice write-up on Wired’s GeekDad blog by Kathy Ceceri, about last week’s homeschool event. Includes a picture of me giving a tour of my lab. ZapperZ says that I’m not teaching physics, I’m teaching about physics. Which is probably fair,… Continue reading How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update and Upcoming Events
How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ‘n’ Roll by Elijah Wald [Library of Babel]
Lest you think that the previous couple of posts indicate that I’m just a cranky curmudgeon who doesn’t like anything he reads, let me put in a plug for Elijah Wald’s How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ‘n’ Roll. I read about half of this piecemeal over a couple of months, then finished it on the… Continue reading How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ‘n’ Roll by Elijah Wald [Library of Babel]
Science Fiction Disappoints Me
Spending less time reading blogs means that I have more time to spend reading fiction. Unfortunately, the fiction I’ve been reading has been letting me down. In particular, I’m very disappointed in the last two books I’ve (mostly) read. For one of the books, N. K. Jemisin’s The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (sample chapter),mit’s not entirely… Continue reading Science Fiction Disappoints Me
The Eerie Silence by Paul Davies
Somebody at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has a really high opinion of this blog, as they not only sent me an Advance Reading Copy of Paul Davies’s forthcoming book about SETI, The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence, they followed it up with a finished hardcover. I read the ARC on the plane on… Continue reading The Eerie Silence by Paul Davies
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update
Been a little while since I’ve done an Obsessive Update, but a few noteworthy things have come up recently: A very nice review at Pet Connection: “this brilliant and (relatively) simple book explains the basic premises of quantum physics in terms that dogs and most English majors can understand.” Which is not to say that… Continue reading How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update
Other People Need Your Help
Several items in the general category of charitable activity: Kate is running the Con or Bust auction again this year, with proceeds going to support people of color interested in attending SFF cons, principally Wiscon. Bidding is open through Saturday at 11:59pm ET, and items up for bid include many things that may be of… Continue reading Other People Need Your Help
Many Worlds, Many Treats: The Movie
Another dramatic reading of a chapter from How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, just because. This is Chapter 4, which is based on the original Many Worlds, Many Treats post that kick-started the whole thing: I’m sitting at the computer typing, when Emmy bumps up against my legs. I look down, and she’s sniffing… Continue reading Many Worlds, Many Treats: The Movie