It’s Labor Day weekend here in the US, so we’ve come down to my parents’ for an end-of-summer weekend. The kids are, of course, thrilled to be visiting Grandma and Grandpa’s house where they can bask in the warmth of… Transformers cartoons on Grandma and Grandpa’s Netflix subscription. (I’d say “Kids these days,” but if… Continue reading 004/366: Tech Support
003/366: The Mountains, the Mountains
Last weekend, while the kids were at my parents’, Kate and I decided to go over to Williamstown and look at some art. We originally intended to go to the Clark Art Institute, but it was mobbed, so we drove on to MassMoCA instead. I told several different people about that, all of whom said… Continue reading 003/366: The Mountains, the Mountains
002/366: Boids
I spent a while this morning typing on my laptop on the deck, and brought the new camera out with me for occasional procrastination. The shady spot at that hour has a nice view of the bird feeder, and I snapped a few shots of these guys feeding (using a telephoto lens): (I cropped and… Continue reading 002/366: Boids
On Advising Students to Fail
Slate’s been doing a series about college classes everyone should take, and one of the most heavily promoted of these has been a piece by Dan Check urging students to take something they’re terrible at. This is built around an amusing anecdote about an acting class he took back in the day, but as much… Continue reading On Advising Students to Fail
001/366: New Camera, Photo Blogging, Regal Dog
Today, I officially stopped being department chair, and started my sabbatical leave. I also acquired a new toy: My old DSLR camera, a Canon Rebel XSi that I got mumble years ago, has been very good for over 20,000 pictures, but a few things about it were getting kind of flaky– it’s been bad at… Continue reading 001/366: New Camera, Photo Blogging, Regal Dog
On the Need for “Short Story Club”
So, the Hugo awards were handed out a little while ago, with half of the prose fiction categories going to “No Award” and the other half to works I voted below “No Award.” Whee. I’m not really interested in rehashing the controversy, though I will note that Abigail Nussbaum’s take is probably the one I… Continue reading On the Need for “Short Story Club”
Friday Giant Children Blogging 082815
SteelyKid starts second grade next week, and her summer project was to read Julius, the Baby of the World and make a poster with baby pictures of herself. This, of course, led to looking at a lot of old photos of SteelyKid, including many of the Baby Blogging shots I took back in the day… Continue reading Friday Giant Children Blogging 082815
Physics Blogging Round-Up: College Advice, Teleportation, Spin, and Bell Tests
I seem to be settling into a groove of doing about two posts a week at Forbes, which isn’t quite enough to justify a weekly wrap-up, but works well bi-weekly. (I’m pretty sure that’s the one that means “every two weeks” not “twice a week,” but I always struggle with that one…) Over the last… Continue reading Physics Blogging Round-Up: College Advice, Teleportation, Spin, and Bell Tests
The Real “Two Cultures” Divide in Academia
A couple of articles came across my feeds in the last day or two that highlight the truly important cultural divide in academia. Not the gap between sciences and “humanities,” but the much greater divide between faculty and administration. This morning, we have an Inside Higher Ed essay from Kellie Bean on the experience of… Continue reading The Real “Two Cultures” Divide in Academia
Physics Blogging Round-Up: Two Weeks’ Worth
I forgot to do this last week, because I was busy preparing for SteelyPalooza on Saturday, but here are links to my recent physics posts over at Forbes: — What ‘Ant-Man’ Gets Wrong About The Real Quantum Realm: On the way home from the Schrödinger Sessions, I had some time to kill so I stopped… Continue reading Physics Blogging Round-Up: Two Weeks’ Worth