Category: Links Dump

Boo! The optics behind “ghost” imaging « Skulls in the Stars “Ghost imaging is in fact a fascinating and relatively new technique in which a detector can produce an image of an object that it cannot see! The physics behind this effect is somewhat subtle, and resulted in at least one minor controversy since its… Continue reading Links for 2009-11-02

Another dumb article on why spaceflight is bad for you — KarlSchroeder.com “But really, people, think! This doesn’t mean that space flight is intrinsically dangerous. It means that badly shielded tin-can environments that aren’t spun for gravity are a bad idea. And that is quite a different conclusion.” (tags: space science sf economics blogs karl-schroeder)… Continue reading Links for 2009-11-01

A Plea for Peaceful Coexistence – The Pour Blog – NYTimes.com “Beer and wine are not in competition. Yet people in the wine business, who I assure you drink an awful lot of beer, don’t often take it seriously as a beverage. And people in the beer business, perhaps in reaction to not-so-imaginary slights, rarely… Continue reading Links for 2009-10-31

Pimp My Novel: Tip O’ the Week: Chasing Trends “If you’re currently penning a fantasy novel centering on a pious zombie vampire from an alternate 19th century in which science/alchemy/the Bible has predicted the earth’s impending doom, uh, please send it to me, because that could be awesome. More importantly, though, stop doing it.” (tags:… Continue reading Links for 2009-10-30

Sexist Beatdown: The Happy Hooker, Or Why Doesn’t Steven Levitt Suck Dick For a Living? – The Sexist – Washington City Paper “[E]ven though our two Steves are really brilliant economists, they just can’t figure out why most of us women don’t want to have sex for tons and tons of money. Why aren’t more… Continue reading Links for 2009-10-29

Op-Ed Contributor – Bring Back Basketball’s Little Big Men – NYTimes.com “[I]f the N.C.A.A. truly cared about improving colleges instead of settling for the extra year before eligibility that Stern is talking about, it should use its considerable influence to demand that both the N.B.A. and N.F.L. foot the college’s bill for training pro athletes… Continue reading Links for 2009-10-28

Elements I Have Yet to Use. In the Pipeline: “I wrote about this topic a few years ago, and thought I’d update it. Many chemists find themselves looking at a periodic table and wondering “How many of these things have I personally handled?” My list is up to nearly 45 elements (there are a couple… Continue reading Links for 2009-10-27

Historians Reassess Battle of Agincourt – NYTimes.com “Agincourt’s status as perhaps the greatest victory against overwhelming odds in military history — and a keystone of the English self-image — has been called into doubt by a group of historians in Britain and France who have painstakingly combed an array of military and tax records from… Continue reading Links for 2009-10-26

Quantum Physics in 60 Minutes Damian Pope’s talk at the Quantum to Cosmos festival. I’m tempted to steal the grain of sand thing. (tags: science physics video education quantum) Atlas Sucked — Crooked Timber “[I]t does raise the question of whether there are any genuinely good, genuinely political novels out there. Since we’re coming up… Continue reading Links for 2009-10-25

Deep Physics : Built on Facts You can think of the earth’s surface in New Mexico as subject to two superimposed sinusoidal periodic heat pulses. One has a period of 24 hours and corresponds to the heat rising and falling over the day/night cycle. The other has a period of 1 year and corresponds to… Continue reading Links for 2009-10-24