OK, not really a betting pool, as there will be no cash wagered. This is strictly for amusement. The projected arrival date for FutureBaby is July 28th, which is two weeks from tomorrow. Of course, the actual arrival date could be any day in the next month or so. We also don’t know the sex… Continue reading FutureBaby Betting Pool
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
What Kate said, basically. The visuals are spectacular, the plot is pretty silly, the gender politics are kind of irritating. The director, Guillermo Del Toro, is supposedly going to direct The Hobbit, and given the impressive look and feel of this movie, I’m sure he’ll do cool things with Middle-Earth. Kate remarked on the way… Continue reading Hellboy II: The Golden Army
links for 2008-07-13
Thin-film dyes boost solar cells – physicsworld.com “Scientists in the US have shown how to multiply the power output of photovoltaic (solar) cells by up to ten times using organic dyes to concentrate sunlight.” (tags: science physics optics chemistry energy environment news) Swans on Tea » The Right Tool For the Job See also: Five-Minute-Epoxy.… Continue reading links for 2008-07-13
Graduate Networking and Science Cartoons
A couple of links about things that have turned up in my email recently: — As a follow-on to yesterday’s post about grad school, I got an email a little while ago about Graduate Junction, a social networking/ career building site aimed at graduate students. I’m coming up on ten years of being out of… Continue reading Graduate Networking and Science Cartoons
links for 2008-07-12
The Quantum Pontiff : Ways To Do Fundamental Theoretical Physics I like option three… (tags: science theory silly physics blogs) » It’s post-a-rejection-letter Friday! >>Nostalgia For Infinity: Literature, Gaming, Punk Rock (and all that) “Apropos of the ridiculous focus on whether or not posting rejection letters is common practice/professional/legal/cuddly/appropriate/blue rather than on the exposure of… Continue reading links for 2008-07-12
Don’t Go to Grad School (in the Humanities)
Matt at Built On Facts spots an Inside Higher Ed article that I missed, showing that grad students at South Carolina get $9,500 a year, and uses it as a starting point to comment about grad school salaries: The difficulty of living as a graduate student varies heavily on what you’re studying. Take at the… Continue reading Don’t Go to Grad School (in the Humanities)
Saying “Sheet Head” Is Uncool
Tobias Buckell brought the whole sordid racist rejection letter episode to my attention a couple of days ago. This has apparently decided to become the “Violet Blue” episode for this week, and today, Toby dredges through the sewers of the Asimov’s forums to find a few real gems of sexist and racist filth. I hadn’t… Continue reading Saying “Sheet Head” Is Uncool
links for 2008-07-11
The Reality-Based Community: Economics and Fundamentalism “A very hard puzzle for the intellectual historians of the future will lie in determining how economics remained the queen of the disciplines when it made so many wrong or simply irrelevant predictions.” (tags: academia economics social-science society)
Science Marches On (Magnetic Moments Edition)
I’m currently revising the book chapter based on the original “Bunnies Made of Cheese” post, which deals with virtual particles and Quantum Electro-Dynamics. The best proof of the power of QED is the measurement of the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron, where experiment and theory agree to something like thirteen decimal places. In double-checking… Continue reading Science Marches On (Magnetic Moments Edition)
How to Lie With Incompetent PhotoShopping
Via Matt Yglesias, the following pair of pictures purports to show that “an equal number of people can fit into a vastly smaller space if they’re riding a bus than if they’re in single passenger cars.” See if you can spot the problem: Answer below the fold: