The Case of M. S. El Naschie | The n-Category Café I wouldn’t’ve started a blog if I’d known I could get Elsevier to give me my own journal… (tags: science publishing academia journals stupid) Backreaction: Technetium-99 "what a strange element is technetium in the first place, as without stable isotopes, it marks a gap… Continue reading links for 2008-11-12
Month: November 2008
Physics Books for Middle Schoolers?
Sometime commenter “Dr. Pain” asked, on a mailing list, for book recommendations for his son, who “wants to read up about physics, especially weird modern physics.” He adds some qualifications: Kid’s books on physics are way too elementary for him, but the typical “naive adult” book is over his head. Does anyone have any good… Continue reading Physics Books for Middle Schoolers?
Fixing Education Is Expensive
Edward Glaeser has an op-ed in the Boston Globe arguing for more education funding: The clearest result from decades of education research is the importance of teacher quality. My colleague Tom Kane finds that students who are lucky enough to get a teacher in the top quarter of the teacher-quality distribution jump 10 percentile points… Continue reading Fixing Education Is Expensive
Many-World vs. Multiverse
In the recent discussion of Many-Worlds and making universes, Jonathan Vos Post asked what science fiction treatments of the idea I like. The answer is pretty much “none,” because most SF treatments are distractingly bad. For example, last night I finished Neal Stephenson’s Anathem, a whopping huge brick of a book setting up an incredibly… Continue reading Many-World vs. Multiverse
links for 2008-11-11
Mars Lander Succumbs to Winter – NYTimes.com Farewell, Phoenix, thou good and faithful servant. (tags: space planets science astronomy news) Deep Secrets of ‘The Daily Show’ – City Room Blog – NYTimes.com "Mr. Remnick asked the writers and producers what a typical day at “The Daily Show” is like. Based on their responses, here is… Continue reading links for 2008-11-11
What’s the Matter With Your Definitions?
Over at Slate, Daniel Gross has a really dumb piece on rich people voting for Obama “against their own economic interest”. There are many dumb things about this article, starting with the fact that it doesn’t even attempt to answer the question in its title, but the main thing that’s dumb is the framing of… Continue reading What’s the Matter With Your Definitions?
Hands of Science
SteelyKid has recently begun to figure out her hands. As I noted last week, within the last couple of weeks, she’s started to be able to reliably grab things near her. Just within the last few days, she’s discovered that she has two hands, and they can interact with each other: She’s started grabbing one… Continue reading Hands of Science
Imminent Death of the Blogosphere Predicted, .GIF at 11
The announcement of Cosmic Variance’s sell-out has prompted some people to link to Nicholas Carr’s lament for days gone by: Blogging seems to have entered its midlife crisis, with much existential gnashing-of-teeth about the state and fate of a literary form that once seemed new and fresh and now seems familiar and tired. And there’s… Continue reading Imminent Death of the Blogosphere Predicted, .GIF at 11
links for 2008-11-10
Warnock’s Dilemma – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "[T]he problem of interpreting a lack of response to a posting on a mailing list, Usenet newsgroup, or Web forum. It occurs because a lack of response does not necessarily imply that no one is interested in the topic, and could have any one of several different implications,… Continue reading links for 2008-11-10
links for 2008-11-09
Highlights: Newsweek’s Special Election Project | Newsweek Politics: Campaign 2008 | Newsweek.com I’m about the one millionth person to recommend this, but their series of articles about the election really is excellent. (tags: news politics US society history journalism) The New Adventures of Mr Stephen Fry "[A]bove all let there be pleasure. Let there be… Continue reading links for 2008-11-09