A cosmologist, a science writer, three best-selling science fiction authors, a best-selling mystery novelist, and a Nobel laureate walk into a bar– Oh, wait, that’s not the opening to a joke. That’s the list of people who have provided blurbs for my book… Kind of an eclectic bunch, but I’m pretty psyched. I’m not quite… Continue reading Book Report: Blurb-tastic
Links for 2009-08-14
A Burning Dog Needs No Chimney – White House unveils death panel “After a week of unconvincing denials, the Obama administration reversed course today and released photos of the “death panel” that would, under a proposed new health-care system, make decisions about “when to pull the plug on grandma”:” (tags: politics health-care medicine silly pictures… Continue reading Links for 2009-08-14
Thursday Baby Blogging 081309
It’s getting harder and harder to get good SteelyKid pictures, because she’s always in motion (see digital camera complaints in the previous post). So, we have to resort to tricks like putting her in her babypod and holding Appa up next to her: Fortunately, she doesn’t mind too much… Actually, she sits in the babypod… Continue reading Thursday Baby Blogging 081309
Pimp Me Digital Cameras
The vast majority of the SteelyKid pictures posted here have been taken with our Canon PowerShot A95 camera, which is around five years old at this point. It’s served us well, but is getting old, and has a few sub-optimal features, in particular the lag time between pushing the button and actually taking the picture–… Continue reading Pimp Me Digital Cameras
Physics for Dragons
One of our poetry contest winners has been reading his proof copy of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, and posted some comments. Actually, it was posted last week, but I was at Worldcon, and not dealing with much of anything else. The comments are pretty positive, but he asks a couple of questions… Continue reading Physics for Dragons
Links for 2009-08-13
Physics and Physicists: On the Role of the Michelson-Morley Experiment: Einstein in Chicago “The conventional thought, based on many accounts given by Einstein in his later years, is that he can’t quite remember if he was aware of it, and thus, it didn’t play any influential role in his formulation of the principles of relativity.… Continue reading Links for 2009-08-13
Links for 2009-08-12
Pimp My Novel: Genre-Specific Sales, Part 1 of 8: Fantasy “The good news, however is this: fantasy is actually doing all right, and in many instances, sales of fantasy books are up over last year’s sales. Without quoting you exact BookScan numbers, I can tell you that fantasy book sales are up at my house… Continue reading Links for 2009-08-12
Majors Are a Choice, Not an Obligation
ZapperZ links to an interview with David Saltzberg about careers for students with an undergraduate degree in physics. As is often the case, ZapperZ proclaims himself “disappointed” with things that I think are about right. In particular, he writes: [W]hen asked on why one should major in physics, is the best that can be answered… Continue reading Majors Are a Choice, Not an Obligation
The Blighted Hellscape of Socialized Medicine
Tobias Buckell had some heart issues a while back, and the stress of Worldcon aggravated things a bit: By Sunday morning, I was feeling completely sapped, and not getting enough sleep. I tried to nap before the pre-Hugo ceremony, but felt like I’d hit a brick wall by the time I’d walked over. I had… Continue reading The Blighted Hellscape of Socialized Medicine
Worldcon Wrap-Up
We are back in Niskayuna now, where SteelyKid is using her new powers of bipedal locomotion to help me burn off some of the excess calories from the weekend in Montreal. She’s only been walking for a couple of weeks, but she can really move. I’m pretty fried, even after napping for two hours earlier… Continue reading Worldcon Wrap-Up