Blogs
drorzel | January 11, 2007One year ago today, Uncertain Principles went live on ScienceBlogs. In honor of the anniversary, here's the first year at the new site, in one graph:
Well, ok, that's not that informative. In fact, for all you know, that could be an NMR trace from a chem experiment-- the little bump to the right is the reactant, the little bump on the left is the product, and the two big spikes in the middle are solvent. A more informative version is below, along with a few of my favorite posts:
Like a good physicist, I've re-done it as a semi-log plot (which is appropriate, given that the traffic numbers…
drorzel | January 10, 2007Janet reminds me that this has been declared National De-Lurking Week. If you're in the habit of reading this blog, but don't usually comment, here's a made-up holiday you can celebrate by leaving a comment here. You'll need to put in a name (it needn't be yours) and an email address (I promise it won't be spammed as a result), but then you can type anything you like (within reason) into the comment box, and post it here.
If you'd prefer something concrete to say, I'll give you a topic: How 'bout this weather we're having?
drorzel | January 10, 2007PhysicsWeb provides me with yet another blog post topic today, posting a lament about the death of letter writing, which makes life more difficult for historians:
Now that e-mail has replaced letter writing as the principal means of informal communication, one has to feel sorry for future science historians, who will be unable to use letters and telegrams to establish facts and gauge reactions to events. In addition to the Copenhagen episode, another example of the role of letters is Stillman Drake's startling conclusion, based on a careful reading of Galileo's correspondence, that the…
drorzel | January 4, 2007I've got lab this morning, so I don't have time for detailed physics blogging today. Happily, there's a new edition of the physics-centered blog carnival Philosophia Naturalis posted today, which should provide plenty of physics content to get your day off to a good start.
drorzel | January 3, 2007The January issue of Physics World magazine has just hit the electronic newstands, and they're doing a special issue on physics on the web. Among the free on-line offerings, they have a discussion of blogs and Wikipedia with various comments pro and con, and an essay about physics blogging by Sean Carroll.
Oh, yeah, and they also profile some blogger guy...
(By a weird coincidence, I already had posts scheduled for today that cover most of the range of stuff I post here, so new visitors will get the full Uncertain Principles experience, as it were...)
(Also, the specific post quoted in the…
drorzel | December 27, 2006While I was out of town for the holidays, Bora announced that he's putting together an anthology of high-quality science blogging to go with the Science Blogging Conference that's happening in January. He's looking for something like fifty posts to be compiled and published using Lulu.
He's collecting nominations over at A Blog Around the Clock, so if you have strong opinions about the best science-related blog posts of the year, you might want to head over and leave some suggestions (they could use more physics to go with all the philatelics). Or, you could just look at it as a great source…
drorzel | December 18, 2006I don't usually read blog carnivals much, and it's probably a good thing. Scott's cryptic version of the History Carnival led me to spend a really ridiculous amount of time reading blog posts about cavalry tactics in the English Civil War (that's the first of several). And, really, I have no need to know this...
Still, it was a much more interesting read than what I was supposed to be doing. I also liked the ancient Egypt in ten minutes link, and...
Dammit, I have my own job to do. Stop posting things that are more interesting than the application folders I have to read!
drorzel | December 16, 2006The forthcoming issue of Seed will include a big spread on ScienceBlogs, and the online version is already up. They got pictures of all the bloggers (with stand-ins for the pseudonymous), and turned a caricature artist loose on us, leading to the motley mob scene at the top of that page.
The cartoon will be in the magazine, along with excerpts from some particularly interesting blog posts, which are listed at the lower right of that page. I haven't seen the print magazine yet, so I don't know exactly what form it will take, but I'm happy to see that one of my posts made the list. Given that…
drorzel | December 13, 2006If you can, consider throwing it to help with the maintenance of Mixed States and the other science-themed feed aggregators at Something Similar. Mixed States is back after a long absence (long enough that I had stopped checking), and it's reminded me what an excellent resource this is.
The proprietor is looking for $135 to move to a better web host for the next year. If you like reading physics blogs, and like having that made easier for you, throw him some change.
drorzel | December 9, 2006Seen here and there around the Interwebs, the Brutally Honest Personality Test. It's pretty much a standard Meyers-Briggs four-component personality test, except without all the happy touchy-feely crap talking up your positive qualities:
Commander - ESTP
73% Extraversion, 46% Intuition, 66% Thinking, 33% Judging
It's all about action with you, isn't it? You're outgoing and right to the point. Fast moving, fast talking and often fast spending. Your motto is "Just DO it."
Wow. You move faster than the Flash on a treadmill. (Yes. I could have thought up something cleverer than that. But…
drorzel | December 7, 2006I've solicited nominations for a bunch of "Year's Best" categories, with varying degrees of success. Best Pop Song was great (and has added a few songs to the list of things to check out the next time I hit iTunes), but I was hoping for more from the best physics results. Was it really that slow a year?
Anyway, here's a request for some outside-the-box thinking:
In your opinion, what was the best thing of 2006 that doesn't fall into one of the previous categories?
This could be a cultural work ("Best DVD Release of 2006: Pinky and the Brain"), a physical thing ("Best dessert of 2006:…
drorzel | December 3, 2006I have a tablet PC that I am borrowing from work to see if I like the way it works. As a test of it's usefulness, I'm going to attempt to live-blog at least part of the Giants same. So, let's see how this works...
The Giants score on their first posses, on, after Dallas missed a FG. Guess Vanderjagt doesn't look so bed...
Wacky play - INT by Romo, followed by a fumble. Kiwanuka just can't catch a break. Still, you can't drop that ball.
Dallas TD, after a weak pass interference call. So much for the shut-out...
More below :
So far, so good. The hand writing recognition i5…
drorzel | November 28, 2006Professor Office Sex is trying to study the real-time dynamcis of the blogosphere, by manufacturing a "meme" that he'll then track:
While you do that, a script I've written will track this meme (via Technorati) across the internet in 10 minute intervals. It will record the number of links to this post, register their authority and create a database the very size of which will cause my poor processor to fall tumbling, in flames, down a steep cliff. (So be it. We all must makes sacrifices in the name of science.)
Of course, like any good graduate student, he's also afflicted with angst:
My…
drorzel | November 24, 2006Yesterday's quickie photo-blog post came during the short break between running around preparing for house guests, and the arrival of said house guests (about fifteen minutes after I posted, while I was in the shower). Other than that, I was way too busy to even read blogs, let alone post.
So, crawling out from under my turkey hangover, and surveying the Internets, what do I find?
Sniping about whether string theory is good for anything.
Doctrinal arguments about whether a lack of enthusiasm for calling religious people stupid is a mortal sin or only a venial one.
(I'm linking to Mike's post…
drorzel | November 18, 2006Sean Carroll of Cosmic Variance and Jennifer Ouellette of Cocktail Party Physics have gotten engaged. All together now: Awwwwww....You crazy kids with your falling in love over the Internet and all.
Actually, we here at Chateaue Steelypips heartily approve of both the institution of marriage and the idea of meeting spouses through the Internet. Sincere congratulations to both Jennifer and Sean, and best wishes for the future.
drorzel | November 15, 2006Fred Clark at Slacktivist is probably the best writer in blogdom, when it comes to matters of religion and the intersection between religion and politics. This might sound like damning with faint praise, given how screechingly awful most blogospheric writing about religion is, but it's not intended that way. He's a terrific writer by any standard, and he's at his very best when it comes to religion. Supporters of liberal engagement with Christianity could do a lot worse than just pointing everyone they meet to his blog.
So, when blogdom's best writer on religion writes a post about the best…
drorzel | November 14, 2006The Female Science Professor (whose pseudonym I find unwieldy, but I'm not going to make a TLA out of it...) raises an interesting question in describing a language class experience:
By far the strangest experience was when we had to show and talk about photographs of our family and friends. Many of the other students got out their laptops and opened their Facebook pages. It was just like what I've read about -- endless flash photos of drunken parties with people hanging off each other whilst holding alcoholic beverages. This might have presented opportunities for learning some words and…
drorzel | November 10, 2006I would post some sort of wrap-up about the Lisa Randall chat yesterday, but Discover is broken. They don't have a link to a transcript on the site-- in fact, they haven't updated the front page to reflect the fact that the chat was yesterday, and is now over. There was a link that would sort of give you access to a transcript, but it's broken now, or at least doesn't work in either Opera or Firefox on my home computer.
It's pretty much of a piece with the chat itself, actually-- I thought it was pretty sharp of them to email physics bloggers with invitations to the chat, but the chat itself…
drorzel | November 1, 2006Well, vote for a ScienceBlog, anyway. Shelley is a finalist for a student blogger scholarship.
Weirdly, the outcome appears to be determined by a popular vote, which seems like it's just asking for Internet Drama. But if you're interested in student blogging, go read the nominees, and vote for one.
drorzel | October 29, 2006I got a comment to my recent "Classic Edition" post on peer review asking permission to translate the post into French, and put it on a French-language blog. Needless to say, I was kind of flattered that anybody would think it was worth that much work, so I agreed, and now it's appeared. Cool stuff.
I took four years of French in high school, and remember very little of it, but then I wrote the original article, so I can just about make sense of what it says. I can't assess the quality of the translation, but really, does it matter?