Slow blogging this weekend, as yesterday was taken up with activities that will be blogged about later. Today promises to be a sticky and unpleasant day outside, so I’ll probably end up doing a lot of blogging in my nice, comfortable, air-conditioned home office. Of course, there’s not much point in posting lots of stuff… Continue reading New Physics Contest
Month: July 2006
Random Twenty
My plan was to spend yesterday and this morning doing deep and substantive blogging while sidelined by a medical test. That sort of fell through, which means I get to spend an extra day in the lab, but also means you get lazy blogging. And what could be lazier than the classic “Random Tracks from… Continue reading Random Twenty
Classic Edition: Stronger Than Old Hapless Gods
I was scheduled for a deeply unpleasant medical test yesterday, which I thought was going to leave me lots of time for blogging. yesterday afternoon and this morning. The preliminary test turned out to be so unpleasant (if anybody ever offers to stick a tube through your nose into your stomach, decline politely) that I… Continue reading Classic Edition: Stronger Than Old Hapless Gods
Maintenance Issues
There’s been some behind-the-scenes tweaking of the ScienceBlogs framework, which has caused some problems with commenting on other blogs (along with some other embarassing glitches, involving posts being blocked by spam filters, and fun stuff like that). I haven’t heard any complaints here, but it’s entirely possible that people have had comments blocked, and just… Continue reading Maintenance Issues
Local Economics of Higher Education
The Dean Dad, spinning off an article in the Chronicle, has some interesting thoughts on the economic benefits of colleges and universities: Apropos of my minor obsession with the economic conditions in Northern Town, the Chronicle of Higher Ed has a story noting that the University of Rochester is now the largest employer in Rochester.… Continue reading Local Economics of Higher Education
Across the Eighth Dimension
Over at Backreaction, Bee has posted a fairly readable introduction to extra dimensions, including a sort of taxonomy of different models. If you’re interested in that sort of thing, take a look. It almost makes up for the dreadful visual pun from a little while back. (There’s other good stuff there, including a list of… Continue reading Across the Eighth Dimension
Life During Wartime
There are two main reasons why I don’t write a great deal about politics here. The first, and most important, is that I tend not to like the way that I end up sounding when I go off on political topics. The second, only slightly less important, is that I rarely feel like I have… Continue reading Life During Wartime
Is Our Students Learning?
Over at Inside Higher Ed, there’s an article by Laurence Musgrove on whether student writing has really gotten worse in recent years. He suggests a good mechanism for how faculty might be fooled into thinking so: […] I think the main difference between students then and now exists mostly in our heads, since in many… Continue reading Is Our Students Learning?
World Cup Post-Script
Via Dave Sez, a Sports Illustrated columnist says that Zidane’s head-butt was understandable because of all the flopping other players do: So Zidane slammed a guy. He lost it. Writers all over the world are competing with themselves to heap scorn on France’s greatest player. You know something? I don’t blame him for getting sore.… Continue reading World Cup Post-Script
String Theory, RHIC, and Furr’s Law
An off-hand comment in my RHIC post has provided a lot more traffic and entertainment than I would’ve thought possible, and has also accidentally re-confirmed what we used to call “Furr’s Law” back in my Usenet days– namely, that the fastest way to get information on the Internet is to say something wrong, and let… Continue reading String Theory, RHIC, and Furr’s Law