tqa | April 4, 2009
Nothing too serious today - I pulled this one from my old blog when I was looking for things to repost:
"Try to get it near the center, daddy. That's the good spot."
-my daughter [then age 8], in all seriousness, as I'm playing darts.
tqa | April 4, 2009
Since I'm currently out of town, original content is going to be in short supply for a few days. Fortunately, there are a few things I've written over the years that I think people might still enjoy (or at least tolerate). Since they didn't get read much when I first posted them, I thought I'd give them another chance. This one was originally posted at the old blog in August of 2005.
I took these pictures, showing the screen of a Sega video game, at a nearby* Chuck E. Cheese today**. I think they definitely help answer Bush's question about education.
*at the time the post was…
tqa | April 3, 2009
"The trouble with you, Ibid", he said, "is that you think you're the biggest bloody authority on everything."Terry PratchettPyramids
tqa | April 3, 2009
I'm heading out of town today, so original content is going to be in short supply for a few days. Fortunately (for me) there are a few things I've written over the years that I think people might still enjoy (or at least tolerate). Since they didn't get read much when I first posted them, I thought I'd give them another chance. Today's entry was first written back on 25 August, 2005. I'd just started work as a teaching assistant, and quickly discovered that I had a lot to learn about teaching and about students.
Yesterday, I got my first chance to TA a lab. I've got a nice deal this…
tqa | April 3, 2009
This is just a picture I took someplace. Where should be easy to guess. True geeks will also be able to identify each of the prominent man-made structures on the horizon, and determine which direction I was facing when I took the picture.
As always, you can click the picture for a larger version.
tqa | April 2, 2009
The article ends with Vanity Fair astrologer Michael Lutin saying that he will consider the newcomers, but remains skeptical of their influence over our daily affairs due to their location at the outer reaches of the solar system: "UB313 is never going to tell you whether Wednesday is good for romance." Actually, neither will anything else in the sky, unless it's an asteroid headed toward Earth, scheduled to hit on Wednesday.
Please tell your children to stay in school.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson"The Pluto Files"
Obama "Indicted" by Georgia "Citizen Grand Jury" That's Amusingly Ignorant of Basic American History
tqa | April 2, 2009
The wackier inhabitants of WingNutDaily are apparently thrilled by the news that some nutjob in Georgia scoured his home state until he found 24 other people nuttier than himself, swore them in as a "Citizen Grand Jury", took "sworn testimony" from various birther loons, and "indicted" President Obama. (He won't say what they indicted him for, citing the need to maintain secrecy so as to not impede the forthcoming prosecution.) They've "served" the "indictment" on various Federal and Georgia officials, and are threatening that unless action is taken within 40 days, they may:
...distrain…
tqa | April 2, 2009
A new life:
Laysan albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis) with very recently hatched chick.Ka'ena Point, Oahu29 January 2006
tqa | April 2, 2009
Politico's Manu Raju wrote an interesting article on the Energizer Bunny Election in Minnesota yesterday. His analysis of the situation focused on the political bind that Minnesota's Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty seems likely to find himself in within the next month or two: if and when the Minnesota Supreme Court rejects Norm Coleman's election contest, who does he decide to piss off:
Franken won big Tuesday when a three-judge panel allowed the review of no more than 400 absentee ballots in a race he currently leads by 225 votes. Coleman's camp says an appeal to the Minnesota Supreme…
tqa | April 1, 2009
Our ancestor was an animal which breathed water, had a swim-bladder, a great swimming tail, an imperfect skull & undoubtedly was an hermaphrodite! Here is a pleasant genealogy for mankind.
Charles DarwinLetter to Charles Lyell10 Jan 1860
tqa | April 1, 2009
We've reached the point where reality has become so completely absurd that sheer absurdity is no longer a reliable indicator that a news item or blog post is actually an April Fools gag. I don't know whether I should laugh, cry, or crawl into a hole and hide.
Think I'm kidding? Here are a few of the stories I've noticed so far today. Try and guess which ones are April Fools jokes, and which are real. I'll put the answers and links to the sources - I think I've got them all right - below the fold.
1. Minor volcanic eruption in Yellowstone Caldera.2. Following hospitalization of student as…
tqa | March 31, 2009
Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. I have only begun to learn content and peace of mind since I have resolved at all risks to do this.
Thomas Henry HuxleyLetter to Charles Kingsley23 September 1860
Children (Homo sapiens) and Western Lowland Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla).London Zoo, 6 Sep 2008
As always, you can click on the image for a larger version.
tqa | March 31, 2009
With all precincts reporting, Democrat Scott Murphy leads Republican Jim Tedisco by 65 votes (77,344 to 77,279). It looks like this one might not be finalized for a while. According to the AP, there are 6000 absentee ballots to count, and ballots will be coming in until 13 April. So I wouldn't sit up late waiting for the final on this one.
tqa | March 31, 2009
Just a quick programming note:
Starting tomorrow, and running through at least all of April, I'm going to try something new. Every day, I'm going to post one quote and one picture. The pictures will all be my own, the quotes obviously will not be. In some cases (like tomorrow's), the quote and the picture will appear in the same post. On other days, they'll be two separate posts.
I've promised (but not delivered) regular features before, but this time is different. (I might have said that before, too, but I mean it this time.) I've already picked the first month's worth of pictures, and…
tqa | March 31, 2009
Your sink is leaking all over your bathroom floor. Whose advice do you take on how to fix it - your plumber's or your accountant's? I suspect that the sane among us would typically go to the plumber. If we were suspicious about the first plumber's advice, we'd probably call another plumber. Similarly, the rational among us would not look to a plumber as a source for informed commentary on the economy, foreign affairs, or journalism.
We understand that expertise matters.
We don't consider experts to be infallible, we don't bow down and worship at their feet, or uncritically accept…
tqa | March 30, 2009
Last night, Matt Nisbet posted a section from the first draft of a new book chapter he's working on. In this particular chapter, he says he's trying to "lay out a detailed ethical framework" for science communications. At least in theory, that's an interesting concept. Are there ethical responsibilities involved in communicating science?
The material that Matt self-quotes is a bit light when it comes to explaining just why we should think there are ethical responsibilities involved in science communication. About the closest he comes is this brief passage:
Surveys indicate that Americans…
tqa | March 27, 2009
The New York Times has recently taken some flack as the result of Nicholas Dawidoff's New York Times Magazine profile of Princeton physicist Freeman Dyson. Times science blogger Andrew Revkin has also received some less than favorable reviews of a post he wrote about the article. The bulk of the criticism revolves around the treatment given to Dyson's views on climate change, and is well warranted.
Neither Dawidoff nor Revkin apparently thought it necessary or desirable to subject any of Dyson's views or proposals to any sort of reality check. This is at least somewhat strange. Dyson's…
tqa | March 27, 2009
It looks like there are quite a few police officers in Germany with egg on their face right now. They spent several years, thousands of man-hours, and over $14 million trying to track down a criminal mastermind, only to discover that they were chasing lab contamination. Sadly, I am serious about this. From a 2008 Telegraph article:
Police in Germany have stepped up the hunt for a serial killer nicknamed "the woman without a face".
The mystery woman has been linked by DNA to six murders and a string of thefts in a 15-year spree in three countries. Her latest victims may be three second-hand…
tqa | March 26, 2009
Like many people, I was amused by the "budget" that the Republicans in Congress unveiled today. If you count both the front and back covers, it's 19 pages long - but even that's a generous estimate. Three of the pages are cover pages for sections of the document. Random figures with little to no relationship to anything in the text are used to fluff out the space, margins are suspiciously large in places, font size varies - basically, think of anything you've done to a term paper at 3 am the morning it was due when you were five pages short and out of ideas.
But there are plenty of other…