I’ve been up late all this week grading things, and I have lab all morning, so I’m not going to do any detailed blogging about subtle aspects of physics. So here’s something from the pop culture side: I was listening to Bill Simmons’s ESPN podcast with Chuck Klosterman yesterday, and at one point, they talk… Continue reading Sports and Music Poll: Super Bowl LIV
Category: Pop Culture
Two-Word Lyrics Quiz #7
I was up until almost midnight grading labs, and I have forty-odd grant proposals to read today, so I’m going to be unplugging from the Internet and working on, well, work. For entertainment while I’m paying for my procrastination, here’s another two-word lyrics quiz. These two-word phrases each uniquely identify a pop song (I hope).… Continue reading Two-Word Lyrics Quiz #7
Flash Forward, Left Behind
I’ve watched the first few episodes of “Flash Forward” more or less as they aired– I’ve been DVR-ing them, but watching not long after they start, so I can fast-forward through the commercials, and still see it. I could just let them sit on the DVR, but at least for me, the DVR tends to… Continue reading Flash Forward, Left Behind
Imagine Science Film Festival
Both Physics Buzz and the X-Change Files are noting the Imagine Science Film Festival starting tomorrow in New York City. As the Buzz notes: This is only the film festival’s second year, but it’s already attracted the attention of major sponsors. Last year the journal Nature co-sponsored the festival, and this year the American Association… Continue reading Imagine Science Film Festival
Many Worlds, Many Comics
The Digital Cuttlefish looks at the Archie comics, and waxes poetic: Two paths play out in a comic book, When Archie walks down memory lane “The road not taken” is the hook; So now, the writers take a look And re-write Archie’s life again, This time with Betty as his bride; Veronica the woman spurned,… Continue reading Many Worlds, Many Comics
Stargate: Universe and the Myth of the Lone Genius
As you may or may not have heard, there’s a new Stargate franchise on the SyFy channel with John Scalzi as a creative consultant. It may have slipped by without you noticing, because John is too modest to hype it much… Anyway, given the Scalzi connection, I checked out the pilot on Friday, and it… Continue reading Stargate: Universe and the Myth of the Lone Genius
A. O. Scott Is an Ignoramus
Via His Holiness, there is an aggressively stupid paragraph in a New York Times movie review today: Did you hear the one about the guy who lived in the land of Uz, who was perfect and upright and feared God? His name was Job. In the new movie version, “A Serious Man,” some details have… Continue reading A. O. Scott Is an Ignoramus
Mysticism and SF
Over at SciFi Wire, the house magazine of the Polish syphilis channel, Wil McCarthy has a piece with the eye-catching headline “Is Mysticism Overtaking Science in Sci-Fi?“ What really excites me right now–and not in a good way!–is the recent spate of superficially sci-fi movies that are not merely scientifically illiterate, not merely unscientific or… Continue reading Mysticism and SF
Don’t Be Such a Scientist by Randy Olson
This book is, in some ways, a complement to Unscientific America. Subtitled “Talking Substance in an Age of Style,” this is a book talking about what scientists need to do to improve the communication of science to the general public. This is not likely to make as big a splash in blogdom as Unscientific America,… Continue reading Don’t Be Such a Scientist by Randy Olson
The Strangest Man by Graham Farmelo
There has been a fair amount of discussion of Graham Farmelo’s The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom— Peter Woit reviewed it on his blog, the New York Times reviewed it a couple of Sundays ago, Barnes and Noble’s online review did a piece on it, etc.. Nearly all… Continue reading The Strangest Man by Graham Farmelo