There’s a Kenneth Chang article in the New York Times this morning on the ever popular topic of “If the globe is warming, why is it so darn cold?” It’s a good explanation of the weather phenomenon that’s making the morning dog walk at Chateau Steelypips so unpleasant. This reminded me of something I’ve wondered… Continue reading Climate, Weather, and Public Opinion
Month: January 2010
The Internet Is Making Me Hate Your Website
Every year, John Brockman asks a big selection of smart people to answer some question or another, and posts it on the Internet to provoke discussion. This year’s question is “How is the Internet changing the way you think?“ This always seems like a better idea than it ends up being in practice, because the… Continue reading The Internet Is Making Me Hate Your Website
Links for 2010-01-10
Philip Guo – On Popularity “In sum, whether you are popular in middle and high school is largely out of your control, so it is unreasonable to aspire to become popular if you are not already popular. From my experience, the happiest teenagers are the ones who have accepted their status in the high school… Continue reading Links for 2010-01-10
Zitterbewegung!
One of the few sad things about the recent American domination of physics (says the American physicist) is that new physical phenomena are now mostly given boring, prosaic American English names. Don’t get me wrong, I like being able to pronounce and interpret new phenomena, but when the pre-WWII era of European dominance faded away,… Continue reading Zitterbewegung!
Links for 2010-01-09
The Atlantic Online | January/February 2010 | What Makes a Great Teacher? | Amanda Ripley “Until now, Teach for America has kept its investigation largely to itself. But for this story, the organization allowed me access to 20 years of experimentation, studded by trial and error. The results are specific and surprising. Things that you… Continue reading Links for 2010-01-09
Idiotic Football Physics: The Highest Point
Picking on stupid things that sports commentators say is the ultimate “Fish. Barrel. BLAM!” sort of activity, but this morning on the way to drop SteelyKid at day care, Mike and Mike kept repeating one of the absolute dumbest things that football commentators say. They were talking about Larry Fitzgerald of the Arizona Cardinals, and… Continue reading Idiotic Football Physics: The Highest Point
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update
Two new links for today’s Obsessive Update: The first is a nice article from Union’s press office, with the headline “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but what about physics?”. I spent half an hour or so talking with one of the staff writers (who has a science background, which is a nice… Continue reading How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update
Links for 2010-01-08
Strange Horizons Reviews: Avatar, reviewed by Roz Kaveney “As well as being the Great White Saviour, Jake is that most useful of plot devices, the protagonist who has to be told things; he is also the Man Who Learns Better, and discards earlier convictions; he is also someone who cheerfully signs up for complicity with… Continue reading Links for 2010-01-08
Thursday Cinderella Blogging 010710
SteelyKid is seventeen months old today, and how does she celebrate? By scrubbing the floors in the mud room: Honest to God, she does this all on here own. I think it’s driven by the same impulse as the tissue relay— she’ll grab a tissue or a paper towel, run into the mud room, and… Continue reading Thursday Cinderella Blogging 010710
How to Teach Physics to Your… Lizard?
Not much news on the book front this morning– various promotional things are in progress, including an on-campus thing tomorrow afternoon, but there’s nothing new to link to. We do, however, have the first non-mammal added to the DogPhysics Pet Gallery: a lizard, sent in by Marcella McIntyre. It’s not actually a pet, per se,… Continue reading How to Teach Physics to Your… Lizard?