As you may or may not recall, some time back we did a fundraising challenge to raise money for the educational charity Donors Choose. Uncertain Principles readers donated a little over $1,200, and ScienceBlogs in general raised about $34,000. When I kicked in my money, I forgot to un-check the option to have thank-you notes… Continue reading Happy Children Thank You
Science on the Tree
I remarked to Kate the other night that it’s a shame we don’t have any science-themed ornaments for the Christmas tree. She responded that I just wasn’t thinking hard enough about what we do have, and she’s right– with a bit of effort, it’s not hard to come up with scientific symbolism for the ornaments… Continue reading Science on the Tree
Comment on Comments
Over at Cosmic Variance, Sean is pondering comment policies: So the question is: how can the comment sections be better? To decode this for our more innocent readers: how can we increase the signal-to-noise ratio? Increasing the signal is one obvious way, but that’s hard. The real question that I’ve been wondering about (haven’t consulted… Continue reading Comment on Comments
The MLA on Tenure
Inside Higher Ed had a story on Friday about a Modern Language Association study on tenure and promotion. The study group just released its final report (available for download here. Given that I’m waiting to hear the results of my own tenure case (a decision could come at any time, starting this week), there’s no… Continue reading The MLA on Tenure
Deism’s Just Alright With Me
Over at Bora’s House of Round-the-Clock Blogging, we find the sensational headline Beaten by Biologists, Creationists Turn Their Sights On Physics. On seeing that, I headed over to the editorial in The American Prospect that it points to, expecting to be scandalized. When I got there, I found this: U.S. creationists have changed tactics. Though… Continue reading Deism’s Just Alright With Me
Weekend Sports Round-Up
There were several sporting events worth commenting on this weekend, none of which I saw in their entirety. Hence, the combo recap post. Maryland-BC The Terps got beat by Boston College in a game that I didn’t realize was on TV until Kate told me about it about midway through the second half. I’m still… Continue reading Weekend Sports Round-Up
String Theory Is a Bunch of Crap
At least, that’s the inescapable conclusion to be drawn from the fact that not one string theory result has been nominated for either the Physics Result of 2006 or the Astronomy Result of 2006…
‘Tis the Season
A Personality Test I Can Endorse
Seen here and there around the Interwebs, the Brutally Honest Personality Test. It’s pretty much a standard Meyers-Briggs four-component personality test, except without all the happy touchy-feely crap talking up your positive qualities: Commander – ESTP 73% Extraversion, 46% Intuition, 66% Thinking, 33% Judging It’s all about action with you, isn’t it? You’re outgoing and… Continue reading A Personality Test I Can Endorse
The Christmas Tunes Experiment
As previously established, I don’t much care for Christmas music. Last year, I compiled the few holiday songs I owned, and came up with a whopping ten, and that required stretching things a bit. Based on comment thread recommendations, I expanded that to 22 songs (mostly by adding Sufjan Stevens tracks), but it’s still not… Continue reading The Christmas Tunes Experiment