So, last week’s SAT Challenge rollout got picked up by Slashdot, which led to a great big spike in traffic. How big? Well, here’s a graph: “Big deal,” you say, “It’s not that big a spike.” Thing is, that’s a semi-log plot. The top of the spike represents almost a factor of twenty more visits… Continue reading This Is Your Blog on Slashdot
Le Morte de MacArthur
Having just posted an extremely cranky comment, I should compensate with something happy. So, , um… here: Jo Walton posted a poem about General MacArthur in Faerie. Because, as she puts it, “If the American Right think they own Churchill, I can definitely write about MacArthur in Faerieland.” The poem was commissioned as part of… Continue reading Le Morte de MacArthur
Life Imitates Blogging
We had a general faculty meeting today at work. As a general rule, I don’t talk about the details of internal campus politics, and I am not going to discuss the substance of the meeting here. The new SAT was brought up, though, and a couple of people made comments of the general form “Nobody… Continue reading Life Imitates Blogging
Lee Smolin, The Trouble With Physics
Lee Smolin’s The Trouble With Physics is probably the hot physics book of the year. Granted, that’s not saying very much, relative to whatever Oprah’s reading this week, but it’s led to no end of discussion among physics types. And also, frequently, the spectacle of people with Ph.D.’s squabbling like children, so reviewing it is… Continue reading Lee Smolin, The Trouble With Physics
The Hard Life of Science Journalists
In a weird example of synchronicity, Dr. Free-Ride posted about science journalism yesterday, and Inside Higher Ed offers a viewpoint piece by Michael Bugeja on the same topic this morning. You might almost think it was one of those “meme” things. They both agree that there’s a problem with science reporting, but come at the… Continue reading The Hard Life of Science Journalists
Nice Music Library, It’d Be a Pity If Anything Happened to It…
Henry Farrell thinks he sees a parallel between music critics and the Mafia: I think that there’s a similar problem in the relationship between music artists and music consumers, in which critics play a key brokerage role, just as the Mafia does in a rather different sphere of commercial relations. Critics serve to guarantee to… Continue reading Nice Music Library, It’d Be a Pity If Anything Happened to It…
Campus Visit Season
It’s college application season, and the New York Times style section ran a nice article Sunday about parents touring colleges with their children. It’s mostly about the bonding that goes on on such trips, which is probably instantly recognizable if you’re the sort of wealthy Northeasterner who is the target demographic of the Sunday New… Continue reading Campus Visit Season
Radio Simulation
Thinking a little more about the soundtrack post from a couple of weeks ago, I was struck by the fact that I don’t seem to have the same strong associations with more recent songs that I do with some older stuff. It’s not that I’m buying less music, I don’t think, but rather that iTunes… Continue reading Radio Simulation
(String Theory Backlash) Backlash
So, I recently finished The Trouble With Physics (initial comment here, full review forthcoming) and I read Not Even Wrong a little while ago (review here). I suppose I could dig up Lawrence Krauss’s book, and go for the String Theory Backlash trifecta, but I could also hit myself in the head with a brick…… Continue reading (String Theory Backlash) Backlash
SAT Challenge Update
The Blogger SAT Challenge made the front page of Slashdot last week, making a huge spike in the traffic here, and bringin this blog to the attention to this blog– I’ve had a half-dozen emails and comments from students and colleagues who hadn’t seen the blog before. Of course, after a blitz of posts associated… Continue reading SAT Challenge Update