If you’ve had trouble accessing the site in the last couple of days, sorry about that. Scienceblogs.com has been under a cross-site script attack for a while, and we only recently figured out what was going on. Efforts are underway to deal with the problem. We’re re-targeting the orbital mind control lasers even as I… Continue reading Technical Difficulties
Month: September 2006
Know Your Blogosphere
Simon Owens of Bloggasm has conducted an unscientific survey of diversity in the blogosphere by emailing a bunch of bloggers to ask them demographic questions. He emailed 1,000 bloggers, and on that basis, has constructed a quick profile of the “blogosphere”: Male: 69% Female: 31% *** White/Caucasian/European: 73% Black/African: 9% Asian: 10% Middle Eastern/Arab: 1%… Continue reading Know Your Blogosphere
The Path to Woo
My pseudonymous colleague Orac makes it part of his mission to lampoon “alternative medicine” wherever he encounters it, so this may well piss him off: For the last several weeks, I’ve been taking a daily dose of pseudoscience. Why? I blame the medical establishment, but you’re going to have to click below the fold to… Continue reading The Path to Woo
Quick Geek Notes
I’m vaguely relieved that I didn’t make the Top Five in the Nerd-Off. Just to prove that I’m still plenty nerdy, though, here are a few links: First, a new(ish) physics grad student blog, Tales from the Learning Curve, by Jen Fallis. I noticed her blog a while abck when she ran into everyone’s favorite… Continue reading Quick Geek Notes
Money and Meetings
Two quick academic links: First, Eugene Wallingford on fundraising, which these days extends down to the departmental level. He has good thoughts on the raising of money, and the issues he talks about sound awfully familiar. I’d add one thing to his advice– if you’re pursuing big gifts, make sure the donor is as specific… Continue reading Money and Meetings
Wait ‘Till Next Year
The “Genius Grants” for 2006 have been announced, and as usual, your humble correspondent is not among the winners. Damn. You know, if I were a MacArthur trustee, I’d be sorely tempted to throw one grant a year to somebody completely bizarre– $500,000 to Giblets for excellence in Fafbloggery– just for the hell of it.… Continue reading Wait ‘Till Next Year
The Norman Greenbaum Award
You know the song. It’s instantly recognizable, even without the slightly daft religious lyrics. The fuzzed-out guitar, the chugging riff, the weird little noises in the background. But who recorded “Spirit in the Sky” (now playing in a Nike commercial near you…)? The guy’s name is Norman Greenbaum, and this is one of those useless… Continue reading The Norman Greenbaum Award
Fun With Linear Extrapolations
Alternate title: Imminent Death of High-Tc Superconductivity Predicted. Film at 11. PhysicsWeb has a story about a study of condensed matter papers that has been posted to the arxiv, predicting the imminent death of high-temperature superconductivity: The new study was carried out by Andreas Barth from the FIZ Karlsruhe and Werner Marx from the Max… Continue reading Fun With Linear Extrapolations
Blogger SAT Challenge Update
As of this morning, the Blogger SAT Challenge has been looked at by 177 people. The number of completed essays is considerably smaller– Dave estimates somewhere around 40– and so far, everyone I’ve heard from has said that it was a lot harder than they thought it would be. Even Kate thought it was tough,… Continue reading Blogger SAT Challenge Update
Mirror Image Football
I root for the Giants, and Kate roots for the Patriots, and at times in the last few years, it’s seemed like they had a zero-sum relationship. When the Giants win, the Pats lose, and when the Pats are playing well, the Giants look awful. Yesterday wasn’t zero-sum, but the games were practically mirror images… Continue reading Mirror Image Football