Among other things, pointing me to silly bits of pop-culture ephemera that I haven’t noticed before. Such as, for example, The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny: this is the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny good guys, bad guys, and explosions as far as the eye can see and only one will survive, I wonder who… Continue reading What Students Are Good For
Month: July 2006
Readercon: Social Class and Speculative Fiction
Having spent the weekend at Readercon, I feel like I should talk about it a little. For those who have never been to a SF convention, it’s not all people dressing up like space aliens and fairy princesses– in fact, the cons Kate and I go to tend not to have all that much of… Continue reading Readercon: Social Class and Speculative Fiction
Readercon: Embracing the Uncomfortable
Having spent the weekend at Readercon, I feel like I should talk about it a little. For those who have never been to a SF convention, it’s not all people dressing up like space aliens and fairy princesses– in fact, the cons Kate and I go to tend not to have all that much of… Continue reading Readercon: Embracing the Uncomfortable
Physicists in the Culture War
This month’s Physics Today has an article by Murray Peshkin on “Addressing the Public About Science and Religion”, that is both a nice change of pace (as physicists don’t do much of that sort of thing), and a reminder of why a lot of physicists don’t do that sort of thing. It’s not that he… Continue reading Physicists in the Culture War
Extremely Dorky Poll
Rob Knop offers a nice discussion of the speed of light, in response to last night’s question. This post is not about that, though you should go read it. This post is about my odd reaction to Rob’s title: “‘Speed of Light’ : a bad name for a great fundamental constant?” The notion of a… Continue reading Extremely Dorky Poll
It’s a Bird-Plane!
Via See You at Enceladus, a Canadian team has succeeded in making a flapping-wing airplane: Yesterday Dr. James DeLaurier, an aeronautical engineer and professor emeritus at the University of Toronto’s Institute for Aerospace Studies, fulfilled a lifelong dream, seeing his manned mechanical flapping-wing airplane, or ornithopter, fly ? a dream first imagined by Leonardo da… Continue reading It’s a Bird-Plane!
World Cup Wrap-Up
I didn’t get to see either of the weekend’s games, other than about five minutes at the start of the second half of the championship, so I have very little to say. I haven’t even seen highlights, as I had to spend the morning at the hospital for an intensely boring test, and they didn’t… Continue reading World Cup Wrap-Up
Why Do They Always Ask Tough Questions?
I was away at Readercon this weekend, which meant a fair amount of hanging out in a hotel bar socializing with writer types. One of whom was working on a novel that will have some hard-science elements to it, and had been looking for a physicist to ask questions of. Having just sat down, and… Continue reading Why Do They Always Ask Tough Questions?
Ask a ScienceBlogger: Easiest Question Ever
This week, Seed asks: On July 5, 1996, Dolly the sheep became the first successfully cloned mammal. Ten years on, has cloning developed the way you expected it to? Answer behind the cut:
The Chopped Liver Accelerator
I had errands to run this morning before work, which meant that I didn’t have time to queue up the usual handful of blog posts to appear during the day. I don’t want to have the site go dark, though, so I’ll throw up a post or two on my lunch hour, to note some… Continue reading The Chopped Liver Accelerator