Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
bcohen | December 15, 2009Continuing on with the ten best from half of the World's Fair, as noted earlier, this is a reprint of a post that first ran in August 2006. When Dave and I got to take part in Roald Hoffman's Entertaining Science last year, I read it there too.
Dale Peck Reviews Einstein's Latest---
Pedestrian crap. Albert Einstein's "General Theory of Relativity" (Annalen der Physik, Leipzig: Verlan Von Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1916) is crap. It's oblique, it's opaque, it's bloated with transparent effort. Salted, sanctimonious effort. I literally fidget turning the pages. Einstein is the worst physicist…
worldsfair | December 14, 2009Yesterday, we had a little bit of snow fall in my neck of the woods. What was cool was how the conditions must have been just perfect so that what you saw falling was actually "little six sided snowflakes." I mean, it was like a scene from a Christmas special, with flakes often as big as 3mm in diameter. Seriously, it was magical almost, and my kids and I spent a good chunk of time just looking at them as they rested on our clothes, our hair, or on the terrain around us.
I tried to take photos, but my camera is not well suited for macro work. Still, I think this picture gives the general…
bcohen | December 14, 2009Continuing on with the ten best from half of the World's Fair, as noted earlier, this is a reprint of a post that first ran in January 2009. I had a lot of agro-food posts, many of them about Food Miles, but picked just one from that category for this list (and this one not about food miles).
In The Landscape of History, John Lewis Gaddis writes about the difference between reductionist research methods and ecological ones. Gaddis is a well-known and influential Cold War historian at Yale. This accessible and undergrad-suitable book is a brief foray into historiography and the practice of…
bcohen | December 13, 2009I'm threading the needle between eight days of Hanukkah, twelve days of Christmas, Top Ten lists, seven deadly sins, and any other enumerations with this eleven-item top ten list. So, as promised earlier, to continue on this Marlowe-esque Long Goodbye here is a reprint of a post I enjoyed writing. It first ran here in February 2007.
I mean the title in a different sense than most science bloggers or SciBlog readers will likely presume. I mean it as one who studies science, not one who practices it - given the complexity, esteem, importance, and promise of the scientific enterprise, such…
bcohen | December 11, 2009I am ending my tenure here at The World's Fair, the blog Dave and I started back in June 2006. I'll finish up and sign off for good by the end of the month. Between now and then, I'll be posting my top ten favorites from these past three years. Since you can't throw a stick without hitting someone contriving a "ten best of the decade" list here at the end of the first decade of the century, let me claim that this is the "Ten Best of the Decade from One of the Two Guys at The World's Fair."
I'll be moving on to Blogger Emeritus status. That means I still have an office but don't take…
bcohen | December 9, 2009The Onion reports on the market-definition of technological progress. Like the new technological breakthrough that fixed the problems of the previous breakthrough, this new device promises to make everything better.
Said one customer: "Its higher price indicates to me that it is superior, and that not everyone will be able to afford it, which only makes me want to possess it more"
More below the fold.
"New Device Desirable, Old Device Undesirable"
December 3, 2009 | Issue 45â¢49
SEATTLE--With the holiday shopping season officially under way, millions of consumers proceeded to their nearest…
worldsfair | November 30, 2009Or rather, what word do you see first?
Ready?
Give your answer below...
(scroll down)
Now, mark off your answer in this poll.
This is what I see...(opinion)
Thanks for answering.
If you're wondering what this is all about, I'm just curious whether there's a particular word that crops up in people's mind the most. I'm trying to design a slide that has a humorous element and can also segue to a discussion on bias.
Note: Just added the word "HIST" to the poll as well (might take a minute to appear on the online poll). Missed that one myself - not sure if that's a reflection of a certain…
worldsfair | November 29, 2009So, the other day on television, I caught a rather nice rendition of Lennon's "Imagine." It was during an episode of Glee, which is newish show that has a lot of musical theatre elements (it's a favourite of my wife's).
Anyway, this episode had a plot that focused around the highschool glee club (of which the entire show is based around) meeting a choir for the deaf. And the song in question was this really great collaboration of spoken word (from the deaf choir) and singing (from the glee club). It was quite moving really, since it nicely showcased the sentiment of Lennon's iconic song…
worldsfair | November 27, 2009Nov 27, 2009
Dear lovers of science, badges, and various degrees of alcohol consumption
Today, I'll be scanning the comments at the Facebook group to create a few more Science Scout badges to put up sometime tomorrow, but if you've got a great idea best way is to send via my twitter account (@dnghub).
I'll also make a habit of sending this sort of request out more frequently by twitter in the future.
Thanks, (and may your repute always be exemplary and your physique above average),
Science Scout Dave Ng
worldsfair | November 24, 2009Since playing around with twitter for the last couple of days, I think I'm starting to a hit this threshold that's feeling a little like "twitter fatique." So, of course, this makes me curious as to whether such a thing has been studied. You know, in terms of behavioural sciences, but with the hope that someone has looked at it with some full-on neuroscience thrown in.
So, what does one do if one is keen to track this stuff down? Well, for starters, you can go to PUBMED, and search for the keyword "twitter."
And lo and behold, you do find a few papers. Most of them about scientific…
worldsfair | November 20, 2009... because I have tuesday afternoon cleared for updating the science scout site a bit. Plus, although I'm a bit apprehensive jumping into this media (more from a time suck perspective), I am keen to see if it has any utility in general for some of the programs I run.
Anyway, say hello @dnghub
worldsfair | October 7, 2009Let me explain...
First take a peek at this:
I actually posted this earlier, but basically, what you're seeing here is the promotional video for a student conference, called TEDx Terry talks. This, we just finished up the other day (it was amazing and you can see the synopsis here).
Anyway, we actually launched the video way back in early September - the first day of school to be exact. We even had a booth and stuff where the video was playing, and had quite a few spritely 1st year university students walk by, look at it curiously, watch it, chuckle at it, etc. You'll note that…
worldsfair | September 8, 2009Just saw the tally on the blog, and it seems that the last time I wrote here was well over two months ago. Well, most of that has to do with a trip to Ibadan, Nigeria, and an extended bout with jet lag, but I'm back into the blogging mood again.
To start with, I thought I'd have a hand at a Harper's Index type post, detailing some of the things I saw and discovered at my trip. Also take a gander at some of photos I took below.
- - -
Some points to consider.
Topic of workshop delivered by author of post (and his colleague Joanne Fox) - Molecular Biology and Bioinformatics;
Number of…
bcohen | July 28, 2009Not the best title for a post, and by best, I mean most accurate. If you'd like to get to the bottom of it, though, try this new dispatch over at McSweeney's: "The Elevator to Room 1028." It has elevators. It has intrigue. It has secrecy. It has stacks of books. And it has elevators.
This is part two of "Days at the Museum." Part I was noted here. It had a better picture.
worldsfair | July 3, 2009
Science Scout Twitter Feed
Somebody recently tweeted the term "transmon qubit" to the Science Scout twitter account, and (for the life of me) I cannot wrap my head around what it is exactly (other than a piece of delicious sounding science jargon).
As far as I can make out, it has something to do with a bit unit in the computation sciences context, which happens to quantum properties. i.e. Not just binary, but more a binary plus this "both, at the same time" option.
Anyway, if anyone can shed some light (a la Bill Nye style) on this term then it would be greatly appreciated.
bcohen | July 1, 2009Among other things, John Stuart Mill wrote about deliberation in a democratic society. It's the philosophy that a strong democracy is one whose members are actively involved in the functioning of that government. This, as opposed to a passive, distanced, and unreflective citizenry. Engagement and participation into the activity of the society offer benefits in at least two directions: in one way, they make for a stronger democratic society as a whole by demanding connections between the everyday life of the citizens and the everyday operations of the government; this is an advantage that…
bcohen | June 16, 2009Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead on this day back in 1904. I'm many hours late noting it.
One favorite passage among many quoted below. Try to commit it to memory.
What in water did Bloom, waterlover, drawer of water, watercarrier returning to the range, admire?
Its universality: its democratic equality and constancy to its nature in seeking its own level: its vastness in the ocean of Mercator's projection: its umplumbed profundity in the Sundam trench of the Pacific exceeding 8,000 fathoms: the restlessness of its waves and surface particles visiting in turn all…
worldsfair | June 9, 2009So, I'll soon be in London to attend the British Science Association's Science Communication Conference, as well as check in with some folks on possible sabbatical stints, and I'm wondering if there's anyone around who would be into having a beer.
This could even be in the guise of a Science Scout kind of thing, so maybe check into this Facebook page and leave a note if you're interested.
I'm always happy to talk science and education, especially if art comes into the mix as well. If you'd like to see the sort of stuff I'm involved with, you can check out my facility's website, or maybe…
bcohen | April 30, 2009I hadn't seen this Onion report before -- "Millions and Millions Dead" -- from a decade ago, although I have referred to this report -- "World Death Rate Holding Steady at 100 percent" -- before (in an old post). I am thus forced to repost the graphic about world death rates, but to pair it with the article about millions dead. They do make a good combo.
"Millions and Millions Dead"
June 2, 1999 | Issue 35â¢21
As the body count continues to rise, a shaken nation is struggling to cope in the wake of the mass deaths sweeping the world population. With no concrete figures available at…
bcohen | April 30, 2009Here's one from the vault. Specifically, an excerpt from Volume III of the Annals of Science, wherein we presented vignettes on auto-experimentation. We'll offer the first two here for starters, one of which is a counter-example.
George Berkeley and tar water
This guy was hooked on tar water. Yep, tar water. It's a
thick, black, viscous liquid obtained by the distillation of wood or coal.
(I googled it.) He drank it for everything--said it was for medicinal purposes,
but I think we know how that story goes. Here's a guy, an Irish bishop,
who once wanted to found a college in Bermuda. This…