Category: Links Dump

slacktivist: Gerbils and polar bears "What I’m trying to say here is a bit tricky, because it involves to some extent comparing those Palin supporters to Grandin’s neurotic gerbils, and I don’t suppose anyone likes being compared to neurotic gerbils. And it probably doesn’t help that I’m prefacing this by saying that I mean no… Continue reading links for 2009-01-15

Haidinger’s brush: the unknown sense "Yes !!! With some effort you can learn to see what remains invisible to most people! Without the help of any instrument you will be able to tell not only if the light you look at is strongly polarized or not, but also if it is linearly polarized or circularly… Continue reading links for 2009-01-14

Lin leads Harvard to 82-70 upset over No. 17 BC – College Basketball – Rivals.com Score one for the smart kids. Don’t talk to me about Maryland. (tags: sports basketball) Michael Nielsen » Three myths about scientific peer review "The myth that scientists adopted peer review broadly and early in the history of science is… Continue reading links for 2009-01-09

The Quantum Pontiff : Relatively Right in Front of Your Nose "In other words, there is a reference frame in which what is "right under your nose" is far far away, and just seconds after the big bang (let’s ignore cosmology for now.) " (tags: science physics blogs relativity) The Best Jobs in the World… Continue reading links for 2009-01-08

Discovering Biology in a Digital World : Another reason why science education sucks "According to the article almost 40% of the 59 science education specialists, surveyed in the California University system, were "seriously considering leaving" their current jobs and some (20%) were considering leaving the field entirely." (tags: science education stupid academia) Squeezing and over-squeezing… Continue reading links for 2009-01-07

EzraKlein Archive | The American Prospect "The middle fifth of the income distribution begins at a yearly income of $34,738 per household. Assume they pay 20 percent in total taxes (it’s probably a bit higher), and they’re left with $27,798 to live on. That’s fairly rough if you’re raising a family. The top 0.01 percent,… Continue reading links for 2009-01-06

Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind: Donald Westlake, R.I.P. With links galore. (tags: books writing mystery) A question of mass? « Physics and cake "The Penrose interpretation of quantum mechanics… …states that the mass of a system affects the system’s ability to maintain quantum coherence. This is the basis for some theories of quantum gravity. Above… Continue reading links for 2009-01-05

TheStar.com | Entertainment | Cultural resolutions: bigger, better, closer, stronger "No offence to those of you who buy all your books online, but whenever anyone asks why I invariably prefer to purchase my reading matter in a bricks-and-mortar establishment, I have one simple answer: because I don’t want to live in a world without bookstores."… Continue reading links for 2009-01-04

So it goes.: A Day in the Life "I wake up to the sun’s early morning glow or from the Luganda streaming through my mosquito net, which I’m not sure. It is another day in Uganda, a handful of kilometers beneath the equator. I can easily recall the first days in Africa when the sun… Continue reading links for 2009-01-02

slacktivist: Clean shoes "Getting down on his knees and taking unclean things in his hands was more than just a pattern with Jesus — it was something like an obsession. This goes beyond a mere motif or refrain in the Gospels. Jesus looked at the purity codes and the holiness codes and the long lists… Continue reading links for 2009-01-01