Over at Cocktail Party Physics, Jennifer Ouellette offers her Top Ten events at the upcoming World Science Festival in New York City the week after next. The full program is at the festival site, and it looks like there’s even something for the stamp collectors. Probably to keep the cool physics-themed events from being overcrowded.… Continue reading Festive Physics
Category: Pop Culture
NYC Trip: Bad and Ugly at the Met
Having done a whirlwind and somewhat disappointing swing through the Museum of Natural History, I strolled across Central Park to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to get me some culture. I guessed correctly that it was less likely to be choked with middle-school kids, and I never fail to find something interesting to look at.… Continue reading NYC Trip: Bad and Ugly at the Met
Novels of Science
Writing in Scientific American, Mark Alpert argues that we need more novels about science: A good work of fiction can convey the smells of a laboratory, the colors of a dissected heart, the anxieties of a chemist and the joys of an astronomer–all the illuminating particulars that you won’t find in a peer-reviewed article in… Continue reading Novels of Science
Iain M. Banks, Matter [Library of Babel]
The latest book by Iain M. Banks proudly proclaims itself to be a Culture novel– part of a loosely connected series of novels and stories about humans living in a vast and utopian galactic civilization– which makes its opening in a castles-and-kings milieu somewhat surprising. Well, all right, technically it opens with a prologue in… Continue reading Iain M. Banks, Matter [Library of Babel]
Film Festival Query
Having suggested an on-line pro-science film festival a little while ago, I should report that there are discussions underway (or at least in the works) about trying to make something happen. If it goes anywhere, it may look different than the original suggestion, but I’m kind of curious about one aspect of the original idea.… Continue reading Film Festival Query
A Pro-Science Film Festival: Why Not?
Over at Shifting Baselines, Randy Olson posts a comment suggesting how to combat anti-science movies like Expelled: You want to know how to start — why doesn’t somebody run a film festival for pro-evolution films? THAT is how you reach out to tap into new voices, new blood, new perspectives. THAT is what is desperately… Continue reading A Pro-Science Film Festival: Why Not?
Non-Dorky Poll: Political Documentaries
The release of Expelled has generated all sorts of chatter, almost certainly more than it deserves on its merits as a film. It’s also produced repeated mentions of the fact that it’s the eight highest-grossing political documentary of all time– most recently, Tara Smith writing at Correlations. That claim reminds me of a long-ago student… Continue reading Non-Dorky Poll: Political Documentaries
Non-Dorky Poll: Drinking Songs
I’m feeling pretty harried this week, because I’m teaching using a new curriculum, which requires all-new lecture slides and notes and homework assignments. I’m also going away this weekend, to Williamstown for the celebration marking the 50th anniversary of the founding of my college rugby club. As a result, I’ve been losing more mental processor… Continue reading Non-Dorky Poll: Drinking Songs
John Scalzi Should Be Ashamed of Himself
I’m not sure whether he’s making some kind of obscure point, or just trolling, but John Scalzi gave a recent installment of his “Big Idea” series over to the witterings of “Vox Day,” talking about his book The Irrational Atheist. Curse you, Scalzi, for getting me to even look at that. And it’s not just… Continue reading John Scalzi Should Be Ashamed of Himself
Deep Questions from Pop Music: Commas
Today’s question come to us courtesy of Ivy League white-reggae band Vampire Weekend: So, who gives a fuck about an Oxford comma, anyway? Well, John Scalzi, obviously, but the real question is: why? Why does this simple piece of punctuation engender such strong negative feelings in people who are otherwise mostly sensible? Personally, I lean… Continue reading Deep Questions from Pop Music: Commas