Mars Lander Succumbs to Winter – NYTimes.com Farewell, Phoenix, thou good and faithful servant. (tags: space planets science astronomy news) Deep Secrets of ‘The Daily Show’ – City Room Blog – NYTimes.com "Mr. Remnick asked the writers and producers what a typical day at “The Daily Show” is like. Based on their responses, here is… Continue reading links for 2008-11-11
What’s the Matter With Your Definitions?
Over at Slate, Daniel Gross has a really dumb piece on rich people voting for Obama “against their own economic interest”. There are many dumb things about this article, starting with the fact that it doesn’t even attempt to answer the question in its title, but the main thing that’s dumb is the framing of… Continue reading What’s the Matter With Your Definitions?
Hands of Science
SteelyKid has recently begun to figure out her hands. As I noted last week, within the last couple of weeks, she’s started to be able to reliably grab things near her. Just within the last few days, she’s discovered that she has two hands, and they can interact with each other: She’s started grabbing one… Continue reading Hands of Science
Imminent Death of the Blogosphere Predicted, .GIF at 11
The announcement of Cosmic Variance’s sell-out has prompted some people to link to Nicholas Carr’s lament for days gone by: Blogging seems to have entered its midlife crisis, with much existential gnashing-of-teeth about the state and fate of a literary form that once seemed new and fresh and now seems familiar and tired. And there’s… Continue reading Imminent Death of the Blogosphere Predicted, .GIF at 11
links for 2008-11-10
Warnock’s Dilemma – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "[T]he problem of interpreting a lack of response to a posting on a mailing list, Usenet newsgroup, or Web forum. It occurs because a lack of response does not necessarily imply that no one is interested in the topic, and could have any one of several different implications,… Continue reading links for 2008-11-10
links for 2008-11-09
Highlights: Newsweek’s Special Election Project | Newsweek Politics: Campaign 2008 | Newsweek.com I’m about the one millionth person to recommend this, but their series of articles about the election really is excellent. (tags: news politics US society history journalism) The New Adventures of Mr Stephen Fry "[A]bove all let there be pleasure. Let there be… Continue reading links for 2008-11-09
Negative Information Transfer
SteelyKid was a little bit fussy yesterday, and would only be quiet when carried in the “airplane” position. There are a limited number of ways to pass the time when doing this, so I had the tv on, and while channel-surfing past MSNBC, caught something saying that Obama would be giving his first news conference.… Continue reading Negative Information Transfer
links for 2008-11-08
Study finds many motorists don’t see need to heed speed limits A result that will surprise approximately nobody with a driver’s license. (tags: social-science news law silly) Better Late Than Never?: Titanic | The A.V. Club "If only every woman in the world was periodically forced to choose between two fantastically beautiful men–one rich and… Continue reading links for 2008-11-08
The DiVincenzo Code
If, like me, you have long thought that the world needs more thrillers based on quantum physics, the students and post-docs of the Ultrafast Group at Oxford have got a short film for you: The DiVincenzo Code, in six parts on YouTube. It doesn’t make any less sense than a Dan Brown novel, and the… Continue reading The DiVincenzo Code
What’s the Matter with Making Universes?
In a comment on a post from last week, Neil B. Asks a good question about my snarky response to the “make-your-own-universe” kit: [Y]ou never explained why this “universe creator” could be considered based on a misapprehension. Considering the way multi-worlds QM theory is usually presented, IIUC; why would you (anyone?) say it doesn’t work… Continue reading What’s the Matter with Making Universes?