Bill Simmons: World Cup’s 20 questions – ESPN “Question No. 9: But you’d still love the NBA to incorporate the yellow/red card system for flagrant fouls and technical fouls, correct? Sure. Much better than an official leaning over a scorer’s table and telling them what the technical or flagrant was, then trying to guess what… Continue reading Links for 2010-07-02
Thursday Toddler Blogging 070110
Ah, the busy life of a modern homeowner: making phone calls, dealing with the mail, and doing some washing up: Meanwhile, outside the house, Emmy ponders whether it would be worth the effort to huff and puff, or if trying to blow the house down would just get her scolded. This isn’t the greatest Appa-for-scale… Continue reading Thursday Toddler Blogging 070110
Uncomfortable Questions: Time Management
Back in the uncomfortable questions post, crowther asks: This is an excellent blog, but the volume of posts leaves me with a mixture of envy and annoyance (to be unnecessarily honest, perhaps). How in the world do you find the time to do so much blogging and reading of others’ blogs? Aren’t you supposed to… Continue reading Uncomfortable Questions: Time Management
Links for 2010-07-01
What, If Anything, Is Big Bird? | The Loom | Discover Magazine Determining the species and ancestry of every kid’s favorite giant flightless crane. (tags: kid-stuff television silly biology video talks) Reflections on American Academy’s Report: Do Scientists Understand the Public? : Framing Science Detailed comments on the inexplicably controversial Mooney article, from everybody’s second-favorite… Continue reading Links for 2010-07-01
I Am Baffled Regarding Chris Mooney
The kerfuffle of the moment in the science blogosphere once again relates to Chris Mooney, who is pretty much a kerfuffle looking for a place to happen at this point. This time around it centers around a Washington Post op-ed that is basically the executive summary of a American Academy of Arts and Sciences paper… Continue reading I Am Baffled Regarding Chris Mooney
Hugo Reading: Unpleasant Short Fiction
I have now finished all of the short fiction on this year’s Hugo Award ballot (links to most nominees are available here), and I have to say, the pickings here are pretty slim. The stories that aren’t forgettable or preachy are deeply unpleasant, leaving me wanting to put a lot of stuff below “No Award.”… Continue reading Hugo Reading: Unpleasant Short Fiction
Links for 2010-06-30
The Kagan Hearings: Elena Kagan does her best John Roberts impression. (1) – By Dahlia Lithwick – Slate Magazine “Yet the ghost of [Thurgood] Marshall himself comes in for tremendous abuse today at the hands of Republican members of the committee. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., starts the ball rolling by accusing Kagan of having clerked for… Continue reading Links for 2010-06-30
Bad and Good Presentation Graphs
I gave a short introduction to how to give a presentation today to the students who will be presenting their research in our twice-weekly Summer Student Seminar Series. This included examples of a data slide that is bad in the ways that students’ first attempts at data slides tend to be bad, and the same… Continue reading Bad and Good Presentation Graphs
World Cup Update and Poll
The dogphysics karma joke is pretty much dead, as countries with current or future editions of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog have gone a dismal 1-3-0 in the first round of elimination play. I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did, honestly. The big story of the World Cup at the moment… Continue reading World Cup Update and Poll
Big News in Tiny Physics
A couple of significant news items from the world of particle physics: There was a conference on neutrino physics recently, and the big news from there is that two experiments measure something funny with neutrino oscillations, namely that the oscillations seem to proceed at different rates for neutrinos and antineutrinos. This is a really surprising… Continue reading Big News in Tiny Physics