Steve Cook suggests a holiday for computer nerds: Far better than World Hello Day would be Hello World Day, celebrating 32 years of every programming manual’s stock first example. Global diversity could be honored by recognizing our rainbow of programming languages, from Pascal to Brainfuck, and when we were done we could all sing a… Continue reading Nerd Holidays
Month: November 2006
Fall Colors
Not much commentary required here. This is the ornamental maple in front of our house, taken a couple of weeks ago. It’s also a reminder of why fall in New England is one of my favorite seasons, at least when it’s not miserably cold and raining…
The Secret to Dealing with Missionaries
PZ links to a video of a couple of guys dressing like missionaries and knocking on doors for atheism in Salt Lake City. Like most ambush comedy, the concept is better than the execution– in particular, there’s an opening rant about Mormons that goes on way too long. There’s some moderately clever stuff, but it’s… Continue reading The Secret to Dealing with Missionaries
Fire Is Cool
There’s a nice article in the Times today about Mythbusters as science television. As is typical of the Times, it sort of overreaches with some of the conclusions: Their delight in discovery for its own sake is familiar to most scientists, who welcome any result because it either confirms or debunks a hypothesis. That sense… Continue reading Fire Is Cool
How Predictable
New Scientist has decided to commemorate their 50th anniversary by asking a large number of scientists to predict what will happen in the next 50 years. As you might have predicted, the list of responses includes a large number of short essays of the form: Exciting new developments in my own field of research will… Continue reading How Predictable
UnSuggestions
Following up on the weekend’s reading suggestions, I should point to John Horgan’s list of the Ten Worst Science Books. These aren’t obscure self-published tracts on the Theory of Everything, either– Stephen Jay Gould, Malcolm Gladwell and E. O. Wilson make the list, and there are more best-selling suggestions in the comments.
Wieman on Science Teaching
Inside Higher Ed has a short piece today on a lecture given to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching by Carl Wieman on how to teach science. Though, from the sound of it, it was mostly about how not to teach science. During the talk on Friday, Wieman said that traditional science instruction… Continue reading Wieman on Science Teaching
The Ex Files
Over in LiveJournal land, there’s this “meme” going around about describing fandoms as relationships. It’s not really my sort of thing, but it did lead Rachel Manija Brown to ask why so many people are so mad at The X-Files: I had a different experience: I drifted away slowly, I think during the sixth season… Continue reading The Ex Files
Would You Like Something to Read?
We’re out of town for the weekend visiting family, so if you usually depend on this blog for entertainment, you’ll need to find something else to do. How about a good book or two? You can’t decide what to read? Well, the Internet is here to provide suggestions. You might, for example, think about the… Continue reading Would You Like Something to Read?
Maryland-Michigan State
Thursday night’s shellacking of St. John’s seemed to be mostly about the ineptitude of the Red Storm, rather than an indicator of greatness for the Terps. I fully expected them to come out and lose to Michigan State, who beat a ranked Texas team in their half of the semifinal bracket. Much to my surprise,… Continue reading Maryland-Michigan State