SteelyKid has recovered her usual energy level, as you can tell by the giant debris field she’s created in the living room: Looking at her there, among the scattered toys with Appa, you might be saying “Boy, what a great big baby she is!” It’s all a matter of perspective, though:
Poll: Threats and Menaces
SteelyKid’s nearly over her coxsackie virus, but has just enough spots left that we can’t take her to day care. Which means another day of baby wrangling, and another poll question chosen by the dog: What is the biggest single threat to your household security?(surveys) Emmy is convinced that we’re insufficiently serious about home defense.
A Literary Theory
There is a fairly prominent strain of SF fandom which vehemently rejects all but the most superficial forms of literary analysis. This mostly seems to be due to bad experiences with English Lit classes in high school and/or college, at least based on the long rants they used to uncork on Usenet, back in the… Continue reading A Literary Theory
Hugo Voting
Just a reminder, if you’re someone who’s eligible to vote for this year’s Hugo Awards, the deadline to do so is tomorrow. Of course, you probably already know that– they sent out reminder emails last night. They want me to vote so badly, in fact, that I got four reminder emails last night, two with… Continue reading Hugo Voting
links for 2009-07-02
Newton, P.I. | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine "Happily, Tom Levenson (of The Inverse Square, and one of our honored guest bloggers) has provided us with a fascinating peek into a telling episode in Newtonâs later life â his career as a criminal investigator. Not really âP.I.â, as Newton was acting in his capacity as… Continue reading links for 2009-07-02
Baby Swimwear Note
Whoever came up with the idea of making little string bikinis in infant sizes should be beaten to death with Barbie dolls. Seriously. The world does not need 6-9 month size versions of the useless “swimwear” that gets modeled in Sports Illustrated. We barely need the adult versions.
Plagiarism, Garbling, and Superluminal Motion
I no longer recall who pointed me to this current.com post titled “Scientists Make Radio Waves Travel Faster Than Light “— somebody on Facebook, I think. As it would be a pretty neat trick to make light move faster than light, I took a look. The opening is fairly standard semi-gibberish: Scientist John Singleton insists… Continue reading Plagiarism, Garbling, and Superluminal Motion
Infinite Jest: My Favorite Footnote
The Infinite Summer people got me to start re-reading Infinite Jest, but I’m not really going to attempt to hold to their proposed reading schedule. Not because I find it hard to find time to read, but because I have trouble putting it down to go to sleep, let alone in order to keep pace… Continue reading Infinite Jest: My Favorite Footnote
links for 2009-07-01
Acephalous: Infinite Summer: Morbid? Culturally Imperial? Morbidly Culturally Imperial? "In the end, whatâs interesting about the 25-year-old Kleinâs post about the 46-year-old Foster Wallaceâs novel is the notion that someone who was 18 years old when the Clash first performed in America and someone who was 18 years old the year Joe Strummer died can… Continue reading links for 2009-07-01
Should Undergraduate Research Be Required?
Over at Confused on a Higher Level, Melissa has been thinking about undergraduate research: As a member of the Physics and Astronomy Division of the Council of Undergraduate Research (CUR), over the past few months I’ve gotten several e-mails about the effort by CUR, the Society of Physics Students, the American Astronomical Society, and the… Continue reading Should Undergraduate Research Be Required?