worldsfair
Posts by this author
June 20, 2008
This is straight from the minds of the young: I just had to highlight today's piece at the Science Creative Quarterly. It's a letter composed during one of our Science Creative Literary Symposia sessions, detailing a secret force of woodpeckers issuing an ultimatum to Canada's leader.
Anyway, it…
June 19, 2008
Once again, Chris Jordan with a commanding use of aesthetics. This is as remarkable as it is horrendous. Go below the fold to zoom into the image.
June 18, 2008
This is kind of neat. A web tool called www.mixwit.com that allows you to post high quality mixed tapes online. Here's a sample of a three song mix that took me 15 minutes to make. Thanks by the way for suggestions (on the blog and off) for the previous post.
June 16, 2008
So... In an attempt to procrastinate some time away, I've put in the effort to collect all of the silly science humour pieces I've written over the years (as well as some of the few non-humour pieces I've written) into one easy to visit website.
After doing this, I can't believe how much stuff is…
June 11, 2008
I usually make a music mix about 4 times a year, with the culmination of those mixes becoming a more focused annual mix. This is something I've done since 2002, and it's always great to go back in time and check out a particular mix for a particular year.
Anyway, things have been so busy the last…
June 11, 2008
Right now, I'm reading a gem of a book called Mortification, writers' stories of their public shame. It essentially has 70 or so mini-pieces from a wide variety of writers, at various stages of their careers. These pieces share humiliating anecdotes as it relates to the life of a writer: Here, the…
June 10, 2008
Part of the reason for this post is just to say that I've finally been able to put up the Richard Dawkins' talk at the terry.ubc.ca site. This is essentially his "God Delusion" speech, and it happens to be available at a relatively high resolution (two files totalling about 350Mb) - if you have an…
June 6, 2008
I quite enjoyed this Shouts and Murmur piece (reprinted below in full). It's called My Nature Documentary (by Jack Handey)
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"Show monkey in a tree. Narrator says, "The monkey, proud and smart, in his native habitat. But one thing he does not have . . ." Show a giraffe. ". . . is a long neck,…
June 6, 2008
Lately, my kids have really gotten into the whole Star Wars thing, which, of course, brings me great pleasure. It also brings to mind a silly question: that is whether affinity for all things Star Wars is at all related to an affinity to all things science (ah Popper and Kuhn, where are ye now…
June 6, 2008
So it would seem my last post on pinatas needs to be corrected on two fronts. Firstly, my piece at McSweeney's and its marriage of science and pinatas is not such a unique concept, and secondly, after doing a bit more homework, it's clear that the best blogging category to unite these two terms is…
June 5, 2008
Ben just alerted me of one of my humour pieces going up today at McSweeney's. Like the post title suggests, it's about science and pinatas. The key question, of course, is why did I categorize this post in the "humanities and social sciences," but to be honest, I'm not sure of that answer myself…
June 5, 2008
Having just returned from a visit to the magic kingdom, the above was a question that continually haunted my consciousness. Disneyland was remarkably pristine in that cookie cutter, artificial, yet aesthetically pleasing way, but it must be a major sink in terms of waste, energy consumption,…
June 2, 2008
Part of the joy of running a website, is being able to recycle old pieces. Up on the SCQ today, "Stem cell Barbie."
June 2, 2008
Well, maybe the post title is a little on the hyperbole side of things.
Anyway, many apologies for being more or less absent from this blog for the last couple of weeks. As usual, the end of term chaos is partly to blame, but basically the last month or so has been especially time sucking due to…
May 28, 2008
Or at least, I'm pretty sure this is the world's largest collection of poems specifically on chromatography. Anyway, they can be viewed here, here, here, and (12 of them) here.
This, of course, is all good work from the Science Creative Literacy Symposia, we held a few weeks back. This is the…
May 19, 2008
Seriously, this chemistry movie rocks. I've put it below the fold so that it doesn't slow this main page, but it's definitely worth checking out. (hat tip to Creative Review)
May 16, 2008
I've got a piece up at the SCQ today, which is (another) failed attempt at publishing at Seed's print magazine. Here, a few months back, I was asked to have a go at their "Why I do Science" section but in the end it wasn't for the editors.
Overall, it sounded like they were hoping for "something…
May 2, 2008
A couple months back, I wrote a grant for one of my main educational projects (Terry), that would ask for funding to host a student conference here at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Terry, as some of you already know, is aimed to build an interdisciplinary undergraduate community, with…
April 28, 2008
I wrote about this over at Terry, but will reprint here as well
This is interesting, if not a bit alarming. Essentially, this story follows a trail of individuals that even Kevin Bacon would be proud of.
The cast includes: a UBC student, her sister (also a UBC student), a senior level biology…
April 18, 2008
Today at the SCQ, there's an awesome piece that imagines Charles Darwin being brought back to life for next year's bicentennial celebration. As well, the piece is written in the context of him checking out the proposed (and, hopefully by then, built) replica of the H.M.S. Beagle. Better still, it…
April 17, 2008
About a month ago, I was lucky enough to partake in a speaker event, where noted economist Paul Collier gave a great talk.
Who is Paul Collier? Two titles to throw at you: Professor of Economics, in the Oxford University Economics Department; as well as the Director of the Centre for the Study of…
April 14, 2008
Presumably, art and sciences interact a little like this?
The Science Creative Literacy Symposia is a new fieldtrip program offered at the University of British Columbia, and is designed to provide an engaging outreach experience for students at the Grade 6/7 level. Here, the intent is to combine…
April 9, 2008
Recently, I picked up a copy of the latest 3x3 Annual (No. 4 to be exact), and was perusing through the great artwork that it compiles. Here the entries (about 250 pages worth) are essentially on display via a competition format, and if looking at a wonderful array of graphics is your kind of…
April 3, 2008
...and maybe he's a little on the bitter side.
Anyhow, Timon Buys has been doing a great job of looking after the Science Creative Quarterly's FILTER site, and today he put up something that is all kinds of awesome. link (also to hi-res version)
I'm curious - for those of you in the research…
April 1, 2008
"It's all about the pork products..."
April 1, 2008
We had a humour piece go up at Terry today that was just too cool. Since, the Terry website isn't as visible as the Science Creative Quarterly, i thought I would highlight it here. It's called:
Microcredit Isn't Right for Everyone (by Mike Richardson-Bryan)
Oh yeah, Terry has a contest, open to…
March 28, 2008
Boy, talk about consumption. Great music video featuring the digital art prowess of Chris Jordan.
We offer this as a follow-up to last summer's "What We Waste," a post on Jordan's work that was part of a larger discussion of consumption patterns and energy (cf. E-trash , What We Eat, and this…
March 27, 2008
(see the show here - go to video 6)
Just got back from some time off, where my wife (Kate) and I had a week to explore the city of New York. It was the first time for us, and it was a pretty busy week where we tried to fit in as many of the sights and sounds as we could. Anyway, one of those days…
March 17, 2008
Food is a big issue these days - none more so than where I live in Richmond (at this very moment).
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To: GCL Public Hearings, Richmond, BC
Attn: Richmond City Clerk
Re: Public hearing on the Garden City Lands, 5555 No. 4 Road, Richmond
To whom it may concern
This letter is to state my personal…
March 14, 2008
Not just exceptional, but awesome...
Thanks go to Phil Hieter, Jane Roskams, Brett Finlay, Jaymie Matthews, Daniel Pauly, Joanne Fox, UBC Let's Talk Science, the many volunteers within the Michael Smith Laboratories, and the 100 or so high school folks who came out for the day.
So doing this again…