Links Dump
drorzel | May 1, 2011
Acculturating students to science § Unqualified Offerings
"A student with a very enthusiastic yet serious demeanor, and very responsible habits, recently asked if he could work in my research group. He has few relevant skills at this point, and my crew is pretty full, but I want to help him, so we're applying for some programs that support undergrads in research. He isn't a physics major, but he has broad interests, and I think we need more people like him.
In the process of reading drafts of his application essays, he sounded incredibly naive, and his writing skills could stand…
drorzel | April 29, 2011
Photonist » Blog Archive » Antihydrogen trapped for 1000 seconds
"A new experiment from the ALPHA collaboration, based at CERN, has created and trapped antihydrogen atoms for 1000 seconds, 6000 times longer than their previous attempts which trapped antihydrogen for 172 ms. Having antihydrogen trapped for this period allows the possibility of studying fundamental properties of antimatter in detail including the possibility of how it is affected by gravity. Although antimatter is believed to fall under gravity, that needs to be checked along with the other basic principles of physics."
(…
drorzel | April 28, 2011
TODAYMoms - Want another bedtime story, sweetie? Here's one: 'Go the F@#k to Sleep'
"The cats nestle close to their kittens.
The lambs have laid down with the sheep.
You're cozy and warm in your bed, my dear
Please go the f@#k to sleep."
(tags: kid-stuff books silly sleep)
drorzel | April 27, 2011
The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science
As someone who blogs about science and occasionally about politics, I am contractually obligated to link to this article. Fortunately, it's also good and interesting.
(tags: psychology science politics neuroscience climate vaccine culture society cog-sci medicine magazines)
The Non-Science That Explains What's Wrong with Science Explaining Non-Belief in Science « Easily Distracted
"I have a lot of complicated misgivings about the implications of this overall approach in its reconsideration of the public sphere, deliberative processes, the act of…
drorzel | April 26, 2011
Amazon's $23,698,655.93 book about flies
"A few weeks ago a postdoc in my lab logged on to Amazon to buy the lab an extra copy of Peter Lawrence's The Making of a Fly - a classic work in developmental biology that we - and most other Drosophila developmental biologists - consult regularly. The book, published in 1992, is out of print. But Amazon listed 17 copies for sale: 15 used from $35.54, and 2 new from $1,730,045.91 (+$3.99 shipping)."
(tags: amazon books economics business technology computing silly science)
The Intern: Guest Post: The Tricky Territory of Publishing Blogs
"On my…
drorzel | April 25, 2011
The Management Myth - Magazine - The Atlantic
"The recognition that management theory is a sadly neglected subdiscipline of philosophy began with an experience of déjà vu. As I plowed through my shelfload of bad management books, I beheld a discipline that consists mainly of unverifiable propositions and cryptic anecdotes, is rarely if ever held accountable, and produces an inordinate number of catastrophically bad writers. It was all too familiar. There are, however, at least two crucial differences between philosophers and their wayward cousins. The first and most important is that…
drorzel | April 24, 2011
nanoscale views: Public funding of science, and access to information
"While this is an interesting topic, I'd rather discuss a related issue: How much public funding triggers the need to make something publicly available? For example, suppose I used NSF funding to buy a coaxial cable for $5 as part of project A. Then, later on, I use that coax in project B, which is funded at the $100K level by a non-public source. I don't think any reasonable person would then argue that all of project B's results should become public domain because of 0.005% public support. When does the obligation…
drorzel | April 22, 2011
Top Facts - Gauss Facts
"Gauss has an Erdos number of -1."
(tags: math silly internet)
Making Light: Yog's Law
"Self-publishing is the part of the map where the author is the publisher and hires the editor, hires the cover artist, the typesetter, the proofreader, contracts the printer, buys the ISBN, arranges distribution, promotion, marketing, and carries out every other aspect of publishing.
What you need to recall is that while the author is the publisher, "publisher" and "author" are separate roles. One of the classic mistakes I see with self-published authors is that they don't put "…
drorzel | April 21, 2011
How to be South Asian on American TV « North Philly Notes
"Recently, a student presented on Outsourced, providing an overview of the TV show, clips, and some background information, including that Outsourced is the longest running show to date that has multiple South Asians as major characters. With over two million South Asians (from India, Pakistani, and other countries abutting the subcontinent) in America, I wonder why the first popular show about South Asians on American TV is set in India. Also, although the actors are North American or British, they must adopt Indian accents for…
drorzel | April 20, 2011
Bill III's Blog » Have you ever printed a boarding pass?
"Well this little feat has been a long time coming. For those of you who have worked with me in Unalakleet you probably have heard about my aspiration of using the poster printer to print my boarding pass. Well two days ago my dream became a reality. I logged onto nwa.com and checked in for my flight. Selected my seats and chose the option to print my boarding pass. Well as you know Mac computers make it super easy to print things as a PDF file instead of to a printer. So thats what I did. I was on two different flights and…
drorzel | April 19, 2011
Keeping the Keys to the Kingdom « Easily Distracted
"I'm very much with my colleagues in their call for a renewal of practical wisdom. But in their view-and mine-one of the consequences of such a turn would be that we'd stop trying to make systems, rules and structures do to us, for us, with us, what we ought to do for ourselves. That's my concern with the call that Price makes, that a reminder to be a more decent human being easily curdles into an institutional imperative to do so, and from there into a set of rules, strictures and requirements that are tasked with taking away our…
drorzel | April 18, 2011
TV staffing: uniquely awful, but survivable | johnaugust.com
"Here is what it means to be a TV writer: You are paid to work in conditions that vastly accelerate the degradation of your body while brainstorming fantasy lives for the select group of your co-workers who work in conditions designed to make their already-exceptional bodies look better than yours ever did or will.
It's a psychologically fraught occupation for this and other reasons. But mostly this one."
(tags: culture television writing business blogs)
Lance Mannion: Onward Christian soldiers, at 24 frames per second
"The main…
drorzel | April 16, 2011
By Ken Levine: How to create a hit network drama
"Fame and riches can be yours! Procedural/action dramas are in and you too can create one if you just follow these very simple steps:
Always start with a couple. He must be boyishly handsome and she must be smoking hot. You can go "mature" but then one has to be an established television star, and the other has to be a J. Crew model. In rare cases you can go "both mature" (CSI: NEW YORK) but then one has to be a former movie star and the other has to be an established television star who's had a lot of work done. A LOT of work done.
In the (…
drorzel | April 13, 2011
The Defenders - NYTimes.com
"One of those on the ramparts peering out into the night was a blue-eyed, dark-haired young Irishman named John Thompson, a private, who left what may be the only surviving description of the battle by a rank-and-file soldier: a long letter that he sent two weeks later to his father back in County Derry, Ireland. Even though he planned to return home to the old country as soon as his enlistment expired in a few months' time, Thompson felt a surge of pride as "we hoisted our colors the glorious 'Star Spangled Banner' and quietly awaited the enemies fire."
As an…
drorzel | April 12, 2011
Making Light: *Spoilers* Sucker Punch *Spoilers*
"Imagine The Matrix as written by M. Night Shyamalan, casting no one you've ever heard of, and shot as soft-core porn. That's Sucker Punch."
(tags: movies culture review blogs making-light)
WTF: Journal publishes ESP B-u-n-k |
"The article ends, as these things often do, with a discussion section. This section, as all articles on psi phenomena must, mentions quantum mechanics.
'Those who follow contemporary developments in modern physics, however, will be aware that several features of quantum phenomena are themselves incompatible with our…
drorzel | April 11, 2011
Cocktail Party Physics: so you want to be a science consultant
Step Zero: Live in Los Angeles.
(tags: science education outreach media television movies blogs cocktail-party books communication)
drorzel | April 10, 2011
"Tie this to your lanyard, Billy Collins"
"My brother Aryaman (the talented one) writes: "A colleague of mine who is interested in pursuing science education after her PhD was directed to a collection of (I think apocryphal) answers to science questions from 5th and 6th graders in Japan. I noticed many of them were almost little haikus. So I took the time to work some into form...""
(tags: science education world japan poetry blogs culture silly shalizi)
You can't be a fan of SF and lament the rise of ebooks - The Word - According To Me | The Word
"It happens so often, people that are such…
drorzel | April 9, 2011
Confessions of a Community College Dean: Remedial Levels
"[T]he CCRC found that the single strongest predictor of student success that's actually under the college's control -- so I'm ignoring gender and income of student, since we take all comers -- is length of sequence. The shorter the sequence, the better they do. The worst thing you can do, from a student success perspective, is to address perceived student deficits by adding more layers of remediation. If anything, you need to prune levels. Each new level provides a new 'exit point' -- the goal should be to minimize the exit points."
(…
drorzel | April 8, 2011
How Much is a Dragon Worth? - Michael Noer - Backslash - Forbes
"To silence the skepticism and to give fans of the list some idea of just how deep the rabbit hole goes, I've decided to flash a little bit of imaginary ankle and walk through a typical Fictional 15 investigation, in this case of Smaug, the fire-breathing dragon from J.R.R. Tolkein's novel The Hobbit and the forthcoming Warner Bros. movies.
Certainly Smaug is depicted as being very rich in the novel. At one point, Bilbo Baggins, the book's hero, addresses him as "O Smaug, unassessably wealthy" and his gold is described as being…
drorzel | April 7, 2011
Revenue Streams 2010 « Whatever
"In my continuing quest to demystify things related to the business of writing, at least inasmuch as they relate to me, today I am going to talk revenue streams. As many of you know, I am a huge proponent of writers having multiple revenue streams, so that when one of them cuts out on you -- and it will cut out on you -- you still have money coming in while you look for something to replace the income you've lost. I am also a huge proponent of recognizing that even within an individual stream of income, there can and will be substantial variation from year to…