Three comments on the second week of the NFL season: 1) Given that Brett Favre famously lay down to give Michael Strahan the single-season sack record, it seems only fitting that the Giants should roll over to give him the NFL wins record for a QB. If the clock hadn’t run out, he probably could’ve… Continue reading NFL Week 2
James “Robert Jordan” Rigney, 1948-2007
James Oliver Rigney, better known to the world by his Robert Jordan pseudonym, has passed away after a long illness. I didn’t know him personally– I met him very briefly once, at a signing– but the Wheel of Time books were ridiculously important in my life. I met a great many friends through Robert Jordan… Continue reading James “Robert Jordan” Rigney, 1948-2007
Mystery Anime Query
The last night of the Worldcon in Yokohama, I wound up in a conversation with a couple of Japanese fans and another American. At the suggestion of the other American (whose name I forget– sorry), we spent a while trading questions: we’d answer a question about the US, then they would answer a question about… Continue reading Mystery Anime Query
Ideas All Over the Place
Ethan Zuckerman has the sort of life that every academic dreams of: He travels all over the world going to conferences where really smart people, some of them famous, talk about interesting things. And he doesn’t even have to grade exam papers, or attend boring faculty meetings. His latest jaunt was to the Idea Festival… Continue reading Ideas All Over the Place
Buffalo Tom, LarkFest 2007
One of my favorite underappreciated bands of the mid-90’s is the Boston-based three-piece Buffalo Tom. They got a little bit of play with songs like “Sodajerk” and “Treehouse” (both of which have turned up in commercials, and the former apparently figured prominently in an epsidoe of “My So-Called Life”), but they had a string of… Continue reading Buffalo Tom, LarkFest 2007
Atheist Charity: The Final Chapter
A while back, I posted a call for non-religious charities, and donated $200 to two organizations recommended by readers. Having done that, I would be remiss in my duties as a blogger if I didn’t mention the ne plus ultra of atheist charities, the newly launched Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. Ten of… Continue reading Atheist Charity: The Final Chapter
The Story of Dark Matter
Speaking of science explanations in SF, or at least science explained by SF authors, there’s a very nice history of dark matter at SFNovelists.com by Mark Brotherton (via Tobias Buckell): The story of dark matter starts back in the 1930s with Fritz Zwicky, a brilliant but difficult Caltech astronomer, who was studying galaxy clustering. Galaxies… Continue reading The Story of Dark Matter
Teaching Science in SF
In a comment to my Worldcon wrap-up, “fvngvs” asks a question following up on the science in SF panel: So Chad, now that you’ve had some time to think about it, can you think of a list of books/stories with a really good treatment of science concepts? It’s a good question, and deserves a full… Continue reading Teaching Science in SF
Particle Physicists Have All the Blogs
The particle physics community in the US has rolled out a new site promoting the Large Hadron Collider, because, you know, there was a danger that we might forget that it’s there. As part of the site, they’re featuring four new physics blogs, by Monica Dunford, Pam Klabbers, Steve Nahn, and blogosphere veteran Peter Steinberg.… Continue reading Particle Physicists Have All the Blogs
True Lab Stories: Why I Am Not a Biologist
Every now and then, usually in the summer or early fall, when the sun is shining and it’s just pleasant to be outdoors, I find myself almost regretting my career choices. After all, had I chosen a career in the biological sciences, rather than laser physics, I could do my research outside in the nice… Continue reading True Lab Stories: Why I Am Not a Biologist