My flight to Texas tomorrow leaves ungodly early, requiring me to leave for the airport around 6:30 or so. That’s earlier than I like to be up, but it’s a bit late by my father’s standards– he always books flights that leave at 7am or thereabouts. This seems like a good topic for a poll:… Continue reading Air Travel Poll
The Bozo Condensate
I’m standing in the kitchen, sipping tea and watching snow blowing across the back yard. It’s cold enough that the digital thermometer has stopped working, which puts it in the single digits Fahrenheit. I’m not looking forward to walking the dog in this. “Pretty cold, dude,” she says. “Yeah,” I say. “It’s cold, all right.”… Continue reading The Bozo Condensate
Links for 2010-01-12
Technology Review: Blogs: arXiv blog: Neutrino Telescope Measures Temperature of the Ozone Layer “The IceCube neutrino observatory is a kilometre-scale array of photon detectors buried under the ice at the South Pole. When neutrinos pass through the ice, they occasionally bump into atoms creating particles called muons. These muons then generate light as they pass… Continue reading Links for 2010-01-12
Fitness Requires Challenge
Depending on what you read at ScienceBlogs other than this blog, you may have noticed a New Year’s fitness theme. Blame Ethan. So, now, everybody’s posting workout tips and the like. Which means, of course, that I’m obliged to post my Fitness Secrets here for free, when I could be charging money for them to… Continue reading Fitness Requires Challenge
Austin, We Have a Problem
The problem is, “What is Chad going to do in Austin, Texas on Thursday night?” I have recently been appointed to the APS Committee on Informing the Public, which is having a meeting in Austin this Thursday, January 14th. Of course, as neither Austin nor Albany is a major airport, the travel to and from… Continue reading Austin, We Have a Problem
A Lot of Knowledge Is a Dangerous Thing
I was looking at some polling about science over the weekend, and discovered that they helpfully provide an online quiz consisting of the factual questions asked of the general public as part of the survey. Amusingly, one of them is actually more difficult to answer correctly if you know a lot about the field than… Continue reading A Lot of Knowledge Is a Dangerous Thing
Dog Physics and Academic Blogging
I’ve made a few references to book-related things that were in the pipeline in recent Obsessive Updates. The first of those has just gone live, an opinion piece for Inside Higher Ed on how the book came about and why more academic scientists should have blogs: When I started my blog in 2002, I had… Continue reading Dog Physics and Academic Blogging
Links for 2010-01-11
Cut This Story! – The Atlantic (January/February 2010) An essay about how newspaper articles are too long. In keeping with the Iron Laws of the Internet, it could probably stand to be cut down a little. (tags: journalism writing media internet politics) Writing About Writers: An article by Bob Thompson | The American Scholar “I… Continue reading Links for 2010-01-11
Climate, Weather, and Public Opinion
There’s a Kenneth Chang article in the New York Times this morning on the ever popular topic of “If the globe is warming, why is it so darn cold?” It’s a good explanation of the weather phenomenon that’s making the morning dog walk at Chateau Steelypips so unpleasant. This reminded me of something I’ve wondered… Continue reading Climate, Weather, and Public Opinion
The Internet Is Making Me Hate Your Website
Every year, John Brockman asks a big selection of smart people to answer some question or another, and posts it on the Internet to provoke discussion. This year’s question is “How is the Internet changing the way you think?“ This always seems like a better idea than it ends up being in practice, because the… Continue reading The Internet Is Making Me Hate Your Website