Category: Links Dump

Surviving the World – Lesson 821 – Santa Claus Many Worlds, many presents. (tags: comics surviving-world physics silly quantum science) On jargon, and why it matters in science writing | Not Exactly Rocket Science | Discover Magazine “The bottom line is that you educate people by explaining complex ideas in a simple way, not by… Continue reading Links for 2010-12-06

YouTube – MST3K – Patrick Swayze Christmas A carol to move the hardest of hearts… (tags: silly music movies television youtube video) Not Even Not Even Wrong – Stephen Hawking’s The Grand Design : Built on Facts “Isaac Newton, when he wasn’t revolutionizing mathematics and almost single-handedly inventing physics as a systematic discipline, wrote some… Continue reading Links for 2010-12-05

The 12 Days of Christmas | The Language of Bad Physics “On the fifth day of Christmas, My PI gave to me: Five Ci-ta-tions… 4 revisions, 3 rejected drafts, 2 data sets, And a pile of papers to read.” (tags: academia education silly music blogs kavassalis) A is for Ackbar | brandonpeat.com “When my wife… Continue reading Links for 2010-12-04

Cocktail Party Physics: books, books, books galore! “A couple of weeks ago, an editor asked me to name my favorite science book from 2010 for a year-end round-up her magazine was putting together. My incredulous response: “You mean you want me to pick just one?” Because let’s face it, 2010 has been a banner year… Continue reading Links for 2010-12-03

NYU Carter Journalism Institute, ProPublica Team Up to Enhance an Essential Form of News Coverage– “The Explainer” “New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and ProPublica, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning investigative journalism non-profit, have formed a joint project to enhance the genre of “The Explainer,” a form of journalism that provides essential background knowledge to follow… Continue reading Links for 2010-12-02

Slate’s 80 Over 80: The most influential octogenarians in America (2010). – – Slate Magazine “For the second year in a row, Mormon President Thomas S. Monson stands atop the list. As the divine prophet, seer, and revelator for 5.5 million Americans and more than 12 million people around the world, he’s the most powerful… Continue reading Links for 2010-12-01

What correlates with problem solving skill? | Casting Out Nines “About a year ago, I started partitioning up my Calculus tests into three sections: Concepts, Mechanics, and Problem Solving. The point values for each are 25, 25, and 50 respectively. […] I did this to stress to students that the main goal of taking a… Continue reading Links for 2010-11-30

Our Boring Future | Mother Jones A variant on Joe Fitzsimon’s comment on Twitter: “How to be a futurist in 1 easy step: confuse logistic curves for unbounded exponential growth.” (tags: society social-science politics blogs kevin-drum) Making Light: “We live underground. We speak with our hands.” “Somewhere in our brave new century, somebody actually pays… Continue reading Links for 2010-11-29

TopatoCo: Dinosaur Comics Dry Erase Whiteboard (Temporarily Out of Stock) Something to get for that person who has always wanted to write their own dinosaur comics, but is too lazy to PhotoShop their own text in. (tags: comics internet silly gadgets) Surviving the World – Lesson 813 – One View Of The Afterlife Know your… Continue reading Links for 2010-11-28

Why hasn’t the war against terrorism produced any great First Amendment cases? – By Dahlia Lithwick – Slate Magazine “There seems to be no one answer to why there hasn’t been a single important First Amendment protest case in the last decade. It’s certainly not that the court is reluctant to rule on First Amendment… Continue reading Links for 2010-11-27