Author: Chad Orzel

Frickin’ Lasers

I haven’t posted much about life in the lab lately, because even though I’m getting to spend a bit of time in the lab, I’ve been so fried from this past term that I haven’t had much energy for blogging. Things are finally settling into the summer routine, though, and I’ve gotten a little rest… Continue reading Frickin’ Lasers

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Categorized as Physics

Academic Advising

Two links containing important advice for the academic set. First, Derek Lowe reminisces about summer in graduate school: When I was in graduate school, I had a law student as a neighbor for a while. We were both pretty quiet, and got along fine in our respective dinky efficiency apartments, but we couldn’t help but… Continue reading Academic Advising

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Categorized as Academia

This Isn’t SportsCenter

Miscellaneous sports-related items (mostly soccer talk, because other than the World Cup, there are no sports going on now worth watching): Before getting to soccer, some really important sports news: Williams College won its tenth Sears Cup in the last eleven years, as the best athletic program in Division III. They also topped the US… Continue reading This Isn’t SportsCenter

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Categorized as Sports

Terraforming the Earth

There was an interesting article in the Times today about the possibility of “geoengineering”: In the past few decades, a handful of scientists have come up with big, futuristic ways to fight global warming: Build sunshades in orbit to cool the planet. Tinker with clouds to make them reflect more sunlight back into space. Trick… Continue reading Terraforming the Earth

Sub-Genius Social Hedonist

My traffic has been down a little in the past couple of weeks, which of course can’t possibly be because I haven’t posted anything really interesting in that time. No, clearly, it must be that I’m not playing the game right. Thus, I have performed an extensive study or high-traffic blogs, to determine what it… Continue reading Sub-Genius Social Hedonist

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Categorized as Silliness

You Might Be a Scientist If…

An open thread comment over at Making Light triggered a discussion of what words and phrases could serve as reliable markers of SF fandom. (It continues for a good while, but at times is nearly buried in discussion of Japanese knotweed.). This got me to wondering about what phrases would serve as similar markers for… Continue reading You Might Be a Scientist If…

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Categorized as Science

Poke, Poke, Poke

Last week’s attempt to shame people into donating to the DonorsChoose fundraiser produced a flurry of donations that brought us up to a respectable $896.02 and third place on the leader board. Which is pretty cool– thanks to all who have donated. The official challenge runs through July 1 (that is, Saturday), and it’d be… Continue reading Poke, Poke, Poke

Blogroll Update

I’m a very, very lazy blogger, and I’m particularly bad about updating my sidebar links. I finally got around to putting a few months’ worth of new science-y blogs into the sidebar, though, so you might want to check them out, if you don’t already read them: Angry Physics “Presenting the “other” side of academic… Continue reading Blogroll Update