Category: Links Dump

A Bedtime Story | Easily Distracted “Now this is a new thing in my lifetime, I grant you: a Congressman who is going to run on the argument that it’s time for America to take its place among the poor and struggling nations of the world. I don’t have to study go to Zimbabwe any… Continue reading Links for 2011-07-26

nanoscale views: Einstein, thermodynamics, and elegance “Recently, in the course of other writing I’ve been doing, I again came to the topic of what are called Einstein A and B coefficients, and it struck me again that this has to be one of the most elegant, clever physics arguments ever made.  It’s also conceptually simple… Continue reading Links for 2011-07-25

Katie Baker on the New York Times wedding section – Grantland “This renewed series will attempt, through a rigorous quantitative method detailed below, to determine the following: Which couple best exemplifies both the unique spirit and impossible standards of everything the New York Times “Weddings/Celebration” section stands for? Back in the day I used a… Continue reading Links for 2011-07-24

Quantum Diaries At the moment anyone who has even a passing interest in particle physics is thinking about the results being presented that European Physical Society High Energy Physics 2011 conference (referred to as simply “EPS”.) It is at EPS that we hear news about the search the Higgs boson, and the news is tantalizing!… Continue reading Links for 2011-07-23

If your website’s full of assholes, it’s your fault – Anil Dash “As it turns out, we have a way to prevent gangs of humans from acting like savage packs of animals. In fact, we’ve developed entire disciplines based around this goal over thousands of years. We just ignore most of the lessons that have… Continue reading Links for 2011-07-22

Towards an Opt-Out Button in Left-Liberal Debates | Easily Distracted “Here’s what I want and I think maybe a lot of people, both Americans and otherwise, want. I want what my colleagues Barry Schwartz and Ken Sharpe call “good enough”. I don’t want to grab for the brass ring, be the alpha male, see my… Continue reading Links for 2011-07-21

The Strategic Plan: Neither Strategy Nor Plan, but a Waste of Time – Commentary – The Chronicle of Higher Education “This interchangeability of visions for the future underscores the fact that the precise content of most colleges’ strategic plans is pretty much irrelevant. Plans are usually forgotten soon after they are promulgated. My university has… Continue reading Links for 2011-07-20

Views: Perspective in Math and Art – Inside Higher Ed “As a mathematician, I expect that people at parties will tell me that they’re no good at math. I’m used to my fellow professors confessing their ignorance of my subject. I understand that many of my students think math is hard and scary. That’s why… Continue reading Links for 2011-07-19

Guest Blog: Why Is Quantum Gravity So Hard? And Why Did Stalin Execute the Man Who Pioneered the Subject? In fact, the field of quantum gravity was born in 1916, even before physicists had properly explained the other fundamental forces, electromagnetism and the nuclear forces. Twenty years later, a young Russian physicist by the name… Continue reading Links for 2011-07-15

Jamie Leigh Jones verdict: Jury trials aren’t always satisfying, but they’re better than angry mobs. – By Dahlia Lithwick – Slate Magazine As Alan Dershowitz explained last week: “A criminal trial is never about seeking justice for the victim. If it were, there could be only one verdict: guilty. That’s because only one person is… Continue reading Links for 2011-07-14