It’s apparently PZ Myers’s birthday, which has triggered an orgy of “happy birthday” posts on ScienceBlogs. It’s so, so… LiveJournal. Still, everybody else is doing it, so, hey, man, happy birthday. Celebrate with some spicy baked cuttledfish: (“Mr. Squid” image from this page of weird Asian snacks.)
Don’t Try This At Home
As a sort of cautionary counterpoint to the anecdote in my How to Tell a True Lab Story post, Derek Lowe has the story of somebody who pulled the same trick with a big commercial liquid nitrogen tank: The cylinder had been standing at one end of a ~20′ x 40′ laboratory on the second… Continue reading Don’t Try This At Home
They Can’t Handle the Truth
I’m generally sort of hesitant to take part in the various “meme” things that float around the Internet, because I’m just contrarian enough that it feels wrong to link to something just because everybody else is. Orac’s got a good one, though, for a worthy cause. Recently, somebody tried to burn down the Holocaust History… Continue reading They Can’t Handle the Truth
There Are Worse Problems to Have
Next term, I’m slated to offer one of our “Advanced Topics in Physics” upper-level elective classes. I was originally asked to do atomic physics, but looking at the syllabus and available texts, I decided I’d rather take a different tack, and agreed to develop a new course instead. I call myself an atomic physicist, and… Continue reading There Are Worse Problems to Have
Fred Hutchison: Teaching Opportunity
I’m not sure what I did to PZ Myers to make him draw my attention to Fred Hutchison, but whatever it was, I apologize. Mr. Hutchison is apparently a columnist writing for a web site run by Alan Keyes– the right-wing kook for people who find David Horowitz to be a little too sedate– and… Continue reading Fred Hutchison: Teaching Opportunity
Oscars Wrap-Up
Skot Kurruk explains the Best Picture result (below the fold, for those with sensitive ears):
Rule 11: Don’t Be Peter Woit
Via BioCurious, the Public Library of Science offers an op-ed titled Ten Simple Rules for Getting Published. The advice is aimed at biologists, but it’s broadly applicable. I especially like: Rule 4: If you do not write well in the English language, take lessons early; it will be invaluable later. This is not just about… Continue reading Rule 11: Don’t Be Peter Woit
Catfight Continued
Over at Jacques Distler’s blog, someone has posted what strikes me as an eminently sensible system for solving the Trackback problem with the ArXiv. I attempted to post a comment to that effect over there, and got the following message: Your comment submission failed for the following reasons: You are not allowed to post comments.… Continue reading Catfight Continued
Web Design Open Thread
There are active discussions among the ScienceBlogs bloggers and the folks at Seed about what features the main ScienceBlogs page ought to include. As you might expect, this has revolved around how best to draw traffic, both to the individual sites and in the aggregate. It occurs to me that people reading the site might… Continue reading Web Design Open Thread
Physics Catfight!
There’s a kerfuffle in the physics blogosphere these days over the somewhat arcane issue of TrackBacks to posts on the ArXiV, the commual preprint server where researchers can post drafts of the papers that they have submitted to research journals (or, if they’re working in high energy physics, post a paper and then call it… Continue reading Physics Catfight!