Charlie Stross is one of the current Hot Authors in SF, but he’s been pretty uneven for me. I liked Iron Sunrise quite a bit, but thought the highly-regarded Accelerando was actually pretty bad, and I didn’t care much for The Hidden Family, the second volume in the Amber-with-Usenet-economics series. The cover copy of Glasshouse… Continue reading Charles Stross, The Jennifer Morgue [Library of Babel]
Unanswered Questions
Slate‘s Explainer presents a list of questions that were submitted but not answered. They propose to answer one of these, chosen on the basis of a reader vote. (Details at the bottom of the article.) Some of my favorites:
New Online Magazine: Inkling
A couple of the women behind Inkycircus have decided to launch a new online science magazine, called Inkling. As they put it, their mission is: [to] cover the science that pervades our life, makes us laugh, and helps us choose our breakfast foods. If you like the stuff you see in Seed, you’ll find similar… Continue reading New Online Magazine: Inkling
Modified Gravity Eliminates Dark Matter?
There’s a news squib from the Institutes of Physics this morning touting new results on a theory of modified gravity that the authors say can explain the structure of the universe without needing to invoke dark matter. This is a significant problem in cosmology, as the article explains: [O]ur theory of gravitation – Einstein’s theory… Continue reading Modified Gravity Eliminates Dark Matter?
All That I Want
A few weeks back, I was talking to my parents on the phone, and my mother asked “What do you want for Christmas?” “Tenure,” I said. Because, well, that’s what’s been on my mind.
Bose, Fermi, Hanbury Brown, and Twiss
Via Doug Natelson, a very nice paper from the arxiv on Hanbury Brown and Twiss experiments with atoms. The Hanbury Brown and Twiss experiment (that’s two guys, one with a double unhyphenated last name) is a classic experiment from the field of quantum optics, which can be interpreted as showing the bosonic nature of photons.… Continue reading Bose, Fermi, Hanbury Brown, and Twiss
Doyle and Macdonald, Land of Mist and Snow [Library of Babel]
That’s Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald, authors of the Mageworlds series of space opera novels, and a host of other books– they’re shorted on their first names, because I don’t really want to test the character limit for titles in Movable Type. Land of Mist and Snow has been in progress for some time–… Continue reading Doyle and Macdonald, Land of Mist and Snow [Library of Babel]
A Modest Proposal
Over at Inside Higher Ed, Edward Palm gets all Swiftian: The Department of Defense finds itself desperately short of troops with which to sustain what promises to be a long and increasingly unpopular, inconclusive war in Iraq. The Department of Education finds itself suddenly alarmed by the relatively low percentage of Americans pursuing postsecondary education… Continue reading A Modest Proposal
Know Your Science Labs
We recently acquired some lab space that was previously occupied by a biologist, and will be offering part of it to whoever we hire for our job opening. The space will probably need some extensive remodeling, both because it hasn’t been touched in years, but also because it was set up for biology work. Thinking… Continue reading Know Your Science Labs
John Scalzi, The Android’s Dream [Library of Babel]
The latest step in John “BaconCat” Scalzi’s project of world domination (or, at least, domination of the SF corner of the literary world), The Android’s Dream is set in an entirely different world than his Old Man’s War and sequels. It’s still very much a Scalzi book, though, insofar as the third published book by… Continue reading John Scalzi, The Android’s Dream [Library of Babel]