I’m currently the president of the local chapter of Sigma Xi (an honor society, not a fraternity, thankyouverymuch), and as such have been collecting RSVP’s and dues for this year’s new inductees. As part of this process, I’ve been struck by how many students don’t have checks– I’ve had a couple of students give me… Continue reading Banking in the Future
Category: Society
Malcolm Gladwell Is No Charles Barkley
I’m never quite sure what to make of Malcolm Gladwell. Lots of smart people seem to be favorably impressed by his writing and ideas, but whenever I actually read anything by him, there doesn’t seem to be much there. Take, for example, this New Yorker piece on basketball as a metaphor for innovation. As seems… Continue reading Malcolm Gladwell Is No Charles Barkley
Actions Are Less Fun Than Words
Over the weekend on FriendFeed, Paul Buchheit posed an interesting question: Assume that I’m going to get rid of $20,000 and my only concern is the “common good”. Which of these is the best use of the money: give it to the Gates foundation, buy a hybrid car, invest it in a promising startup, invest… Continue reading Actions Are Less Fun Than Words
How Much Information Is Too Much Information?
In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, we instituted a complicated emergency alert system, involving sirens, loudspeakers, text messages, and emails. The whole thing gets tested far more frequently than it really needs to– every few weeks, we get a barrage of emails warning us that a test is coming up, then another barrage… Continue reading How Much Information Is Too Much Information?
“Will He Need Oxygen?”
Twenty-five-ish years ago, my father and I went on a fishing trip in the Florida Keys with a very dear friend of the family, who had been going their for years. I’ve written about him before, because he had a severe case of polio shortly before Salk’s vaccine was developed, and needed a good deal… Continue reading “Will He Need Oxygen?”
Definitions
My computer is starting to run slow in that way that indicates that either Microsoft has released an important update, or it’s just been on too long without a reboot. Either way, I need to clear some browser tabs before restarting, and there are a bunch of articles that I thought were too interesting to… Continue reading Definitions
Wire Like a Physicist
One of last year’s physics majors is spending the year in rural Uganda working at a clinic/ school there. He’s keeping a blog, which is intermittently updated by western standards, but remarkably up-to-date given where he is. This week, he blogged about putting his physics education to use: I have been doing a lot of… Continue reading Wire Like a Physicist
Good Writing Needs Editing
Inspired by Leigh Butler at tor.com, I’ve been re-reading Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time books. This happened to coincide with my recent vicious cold, which is good, because they’re great sickbed reading. Most of my re-reading has been done on my Palm, which miraculously came loaded with electronic copies of all the books. These are… Continue reading Good Writing Needs Editing
Asteroids Killed Newspapers, GIF at 11
This week’s Science Saturday on bloggingheads.tv features Carl Zimmer and Phil “Bad Astronomy” Plait: It’s a wide-ranging conversation, covering topics in astronomy, why people believe crazy things, how the Internet can help, and the death of newspapers and their eventual replacement by blogs. Plait is really energetic (he spends a couple of minutes talking over… Continue reading Asteroids Killed Newspapers, GIF at 11
Wanted: News Smoothing
Back in the fall, I got all caught up in the election, like everybody else, and I added a bunch of blogs to my RSS feeds in Google Reader. I’m thinking that I might need to cut back to pre-election levels, if not lower, though. Following too many political blogs is giving me whiplash. This… Continue reading Wanted: News Smoothing