Category: Links Dump

The Atlantic Online | January/February 2010 | What Makes a Great Teacher? | Amanda Ripley “Until now, Teach for America has kept its investigation largely to itself. But for this story, the organization allowed me access to 20 years of experimentation, studded by trial and error. The results are specific and surprising. Things that you… Continue reading Links for 2010-01-09

Strange Horizons Reviews: Avatar, reviewed by Roz Kaveney “As well as being the Great White Saviour, Jake is that most useful of plot devices, the protagonist who has to be told things; he is also the Man Who Learns Better, and discards earlier convictions; he is also someone who cheerfully signs up for complicity with… Continue reading Links for 2010-01-08

slacktivist: Genie in a bottle “Saudi Arabia’s laws against sorcery, it seems to me, are incompatible with its laws against heresy. The heresy laws are based on the idea that there is one and only one true religion. The sorcery laws are based on the idea that other religious beliefs may be powerfully true, but… Continue reading Links for 2010-01-07

Owl City and the Slow Earth : Built on Facts “Does planet Earth turns slowly? It depends on how you look at it. At the equator it’s roaring along at more than 1000 miles per hour. This is pretty fast by terrestrial standards, and perhaps what Owl City had in mind. But on the other… Continue reading Links for 2010-01-06

America: Too Stupid To Cook | Ruhlman.com “That one sentence crystallized the issue for me, turned my frustration from a wall into a lens. Americans are being taught that we’re too stupid to cook. That cooking is so hard we need to let other people do it for us. The messages are everywhere. Boxed cake… Continue reading Links for 2010-01-05

Remembering the giddy futurism of Omni magazine. – By Paul Collins – Slate Magazine “The magazine was a lushly airbrushed, sans-serif, and silver-paged vision dreamed up by Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione and his wife, Kathy Keeton. It split the difference between the consumerist Popular Science–which always seemed to cover hypersonic travel and AMC carburetors in… Continue reading Links for 2010-01-04

Ringing in Kepler’s Year : Built on Facts “Happy new year! While we’re thinking about years, why don’t we think about one of the first guys to explore the physical reason behind the year?” (tags: science astronomy planets education math blogs built-on-facts) The Universe within 12.5 Light Years – The Nearest stars A handy reference… Continue reading Links for 2010-01-03

Interstellar Cyclers — KarlSchroeder.com “To me, the idea that you should expend billions or trillions of dollars to accelerate a starship, only to decelerate it again, is pure lunacy. 90% of the ship’s mass is support structures–either power or life support systems. The key to viable interstellar transport, in my view, is simple: if you’ve… Continue reading Links for 2010-01-02

Giro.org » Grace, Internets. Internets, Grace. “Grace is snoozing away in Anne’s arms while our lunch (rice and dumplings) and dinner (roast chicken with pesto) cook away. This will be the first non-hospital food we’ve had in two days, though I recall us sneaking in a patty melt and milkshake from Izzy’s the night she… Continue reading Links for 2010-01-01

Sketches and Paintings by Richard Feynman | Amusing Planet “Richard Feynman started taking art lessons at the age of 44, and continued drawing for the rest of his life. These include portraits of his close friends, wife and daughter and professional models that posed for him at his friend’s studio. Feynman was also an avid… Continue reading Links for 2009-12-31