Category: Links Dump

The Least Essential Albums Of 2007 | The A.V. Club “Every year produces great music and a nearly equal amount of terrible music. Then there’s the not-so-creamy middle, the albums that have no real reason to exist, but nonetheless find their way to music-store shelves and online music stores.” (tags: music review culture) The Best… Continue reading links for 2007-12-28

Changing Courses at the Food Network – New York Times No more Emeril Live, but still more Rachel Ray. (tags: food television culture society economics) Polarization technique focuses limelight Rayleigh scattering off small particles in the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet produces a detectable polarization signal, and allows measurements of the size and composition of… Continue reading links for 2007-12-27

The Muckraker’s Progress: Politics & Power: vanityfair.com “[Bob Livingston] said he thought I was a bottom-feeder. So they called me for a comment and I said, ‘Yeah, that’s right, but look what I found when I got down there.’ ” –Larry Flynt (tags: politics US society stupid) scifantasy: Bimbos And Zombies, or Getting Away… He’s… Continue reading links for 2007-12-23

E Y E W E A R: The Failure of Interest In Poetry In Our Time Today’s nominee for Pompous Ass Comment of the Year: “The fact that poetry does not interest most people suggests most people are no longer interesting.” (tags: academia culture poetry literature books) Christmas with Christopher Hitchens | The A.V. Club… Continue reading links for 2007-12-22

COROT surprises a year after launch Stellar seismology and a new extrasolar planet. (tags: astronomy news science planets) The quest for a new class of superconductors An article positing superconductors in which electrons pair up through something other than phonon interactions. (tags: physics science news low-temperature materials) Boston College physicists find new explanation for superconductivity’s… Continue reading links for 2007-12-21

The Year In Film 2007 | The A.V. Club I don’t see enough movies to do a sensible “Year’s Best” list any more, but the AV Club is one of the most reliable review sites out there. (tags: movies) Are We Not Men? Jon Zobenicaoverthinks Playboy and Maxim (tags: culture gender journalism sex society) Ampere… Continue reading links for 2007-12-20

Monkeys perform arithmetic as well as college students I knew that. (tags: academia education biology math psychology news science) Merck Manual for Pet Health – Ferret Hit by an Arrow? Here’s a Book for You – New York Times The Merck/Merial Manual for Pet Health: Home Edition: Because hypochondriacs have pets, too. (tags: animals medicine… Continue reading links for 2007-12-19

Video Clip – The Nobel Prize Award Ceremony 2007 If you have 86 minutes to kill, go ahead. I watched the 1997 ceremony, which is where I learned that you don’t need to speak the language to identify a boring speech. (tags: Nobel video) St. Lawrence University: All-Nighters Equal Lower Grades ‘ “The data indicate… Continue reading links for 2007-12-18

Bell Labs Is Gone. Academia Steps In. – New York Times The pros and cons of partnerships between major corporations and research universities. (tags: academia economics science industry) Matter-Wave Interferometry with Phase Fluctuating Bose-Einstein Condensates A new paper from the Ketterle Empire, on interference between different parts of a split BEC. (tags: physics low-temperature experiment… Continue reading links for 2007-12-17

The best music of 2007 | The A.V. Club The top 25 albums, as voted on by AV Club writers. (tags: music review)