What with one thing and another, I forgot to tag anything for the links dump yesterday, which means no links dump this morning. But that’s all right, because Fred Clark’s post about humorless prigs deserves a more prominent link. The proximate cause is yet another story about a crazy religious group working themselves into a… Continue reading Humor Matters
Category: Society
None Dare Call It Treason
As usual, the most sensible commentary on the Southern organizations celebrating the 150th anniversary of secession comes from the Daily Show. Specifically, Larry Wilmore: The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c The Daily Show on Facebook This whole business makes me think the British have the right idea regarding the… Continue reading None Dare Call It Treason
How to Sell Me a Picture Book
The JCC, where SteelyKid goes to day care, is having a book sale, so the lobby has been full of books for sale the last few days as we’ve headed out. Getting SteelyKid away from the books is pretty difficult, as you would expect from our daughter. We’ve mostly avoided getting anything, but yesterday, I… Continue reading How to Sell Me a Picture Book
Physics Is No Longer Exciting
At least, that’s the obvious conclusion from the Royal Society’s Science Sees Further page. The introduction touts it as “a series of articles on some of the most exciting areas of science today,” but what’s striking to me is that none of the twelve topic listed (Ageing Process, Biological Diversity, Cognition and Computation, Cultural Evolution,… Continue reading Physics Is No Longer Exciting
The Problem of the Humanities
I’ve probably gotten a dozen pointers to Gregory Petsko’s open letter in support of the humanities, addressed to the President of SUNY-Albany, over the last couple of weeks (the link is to a reposting of the letter at Inside Higher Ed; it was originally on Petsko’s own blog). I haven’t linked to it or commented… Continue reading The Problem of the Humanities
Rock Stars of Science
So, if you look at this picture: You might be asking yourself “Why does Debbie Harry rate Secret Service protection?” But no, this isn’t a photo from some alternate universe where the lead singer of Blondie went on to become leader of the free world, it’s part of the Rock Stars of Science campaign by… Continue reading Rock Stars of Science
The Diagonal Parking Theorem
(With apologies to Georg Cantor) Theorem: There are an infinite number of stupid ways to park. Definition: We define as stupid any parking method that places any fender of a car outside the legal lines bounding the space. Proof:Consider a line L through the center of a legal parking space, parallel to the lines bounding… Continue reading The Diagonal Parking Theorem
Pre-Veterans Days
I usually have ESPN on as background noise in the morning, but I turned it off today because their increasingly fulsome tributes to Veterans Day were getting on my nerves. I’m all in favor of honoring the sacrifices made by members of the military, but a little decorum would be nice at the same time.… Continue reading Pre-Veterans Days
The Problem With Innate Differences
In yesterday’s post about the experience of science, I mentioned that I had both a specific complaint about the article by Alexandra Jellicoe (which I explained in the post) and a general complaint about the class in which the article falls. I want to attempt to explain the latter problem, partly because I think it… Continue reading The Problem With Innate Differences
Science Is Solitary?
Some time back, I took issue with an article about “masculine” and “feminine” approaches to science that struck me as a little off. The author of the original post, Alexandra Jellicoe, has a new post on the same topic that she pointed out in comments to my original post. I have two major problems with… Continue reading Science Is Solitary?