Links Dump
drorzel | February 7, 2008
birds are gross - rosemary mosco
The awesome turkey vulture.
(tags: comics biology science silly)
nanoscale views: Combined single-molecule electronics and optics
"The two-sentence summary: we can do simultaneous electronic and optical measurements on single molecules (!) by using our electrodes as optical antennas. This opens up lots of science to be done as well as some very intriguing technological possibilities
(tags: physics science articles materials experiment)
Friends' school achievement influences high school girls' interest in math
"Girls in high school take as many math…
drorzel | February 6, 2008
John Cleese | The A.V. Club
"The A.V. Club recently had a loose, freewheeling conversation with the comedy icon about the flaws in Monty Python films, roles accepted and rejected, James Bond, the shortcomings of organized religion and studio executives, and why he doesn't much care
(tags: movies silly society culture)
Dark matter may not be so dark - physicsworld.com
If dark matter particles have magnetic moments, they may produce a polarization signature in the cosmic microwave background.
(tags: astronomy physics science news)
drorzel | February 5, 2008
WD5 most likely missed Mars, but we may never know - The Planetary Society Blog | The Planetary Society
The asteroid is now officially lost.
(tags: astronomy planets space science)
Saint Gasoline » Blog Archive » The Allegory of the Trolley Problem Paradox
Or, Why You Shouldn't Major in Philosophy
(tags: comics humanities silly)
My Own Kind of Freedom: A Firefly Novel by Steven Brust -- The Dream Café
Steve Brust's Firefly novel, under a CC license. It's more Firefly than Brust, but still quite good.
(tags: books SF television)
Letters from the Past, A PRL Retrospective
"As part of…
drorzel | February 4, 2008
Acephalous: At the Single Happiest Moment of My Professional Career ...
"Please snap the most unflattering photograph of me possible. "
(tags: football silly pictures)
The knights who say "nerd": 20 pop-cultural obsessions even geekier than Monty Python | The A.V. Club
"20. Fanfic: Because cartoonist Jim Davis will probably never tap the raw, unspoken sexual tension between Garfield and Odie, diehard fans are obliged to write their fan-fiction version of the steamy scene, post it on the Internet, and insecurely encourag
(tags: silly culture internet SF comics games)
Hidden art could be…
drorzel | February 3, 2008
Locus Online: Locus Magazine's Recommended Reading: 2007
A few books and stories to pass those quiet moments.
(tags: books stories SF)
Science in the 21st Century
Conference participants include a bunch of really smart people with innovative ideas about the future of science and the interplay between science, information technology, and society. And they invited me, too.
(tags: academia science computing society publishing internet)
...My heart's in Accra » Searching for common ground with Andrew Keen
"Keen [author of _Cult of the Amateur_] has some very important points. But he's also…
drorzel | February 2, 2008
Things That Would Be Weirder Than "Green Porno" | The A.V. Club
"Then you unexpectedly come across the news that Isabella Rossellini is dressing up like various bugs and making a series of comedic short films about the way that insects have sex."
(tags: animals sex silly biology)
Essay - Why Does It Still Take So Long to Publish a Book? - New York Times
"Although publishers can turn an electronic file into a printed book in a matter of weeks -- as they often do for hot political titles, name-brand authors or embargoed celebrity biographies[...] -- they usually take a year before releasing…
drorzel | February 1, 2008
Lost in the '70s: Steve Martin, "Grandmother's Song" | Popdose
"Be obsequious, purple, and clairvoyant."
(tags: music silly)
The Third Annual A.V. Club Film Poll | The A.V. Club
The readers have their say.
(tags: movies review culture)
Good Math, Bad Math : Idiot Math Professors, Fractions, and the Fun of Math
Why fractions matter.
(tags: education math stupid)
drorzel | January 31, 2008
Songs for the Dumped: The Prelude | Popdose
"[A] two-week anthology in which music nerds write about tracks they've attached to a particular crippling breakup, let you splash around in the stories behind them and hopefully, if we've done our jobs, make you feel slightly better about your own mi
(tags: music culture society sex)
Pictures Reveal Mercury's Tumultuous Past - New York Times
""Our little craft has returned a gold mine of exciting data," said Dr. Sean C. Solomon of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the mission's lead investigator."
(tags: astronomy science news space)…
drorzel | January 30, 2008
Jacks of Science â Pimp my Hypothetical Home Laboratory
"Ever since I saw the painting shown above, I've wanted to suffocate birds in my very own home laboratory. As I got older, the desire to destroy life subsided, but the desire for a home laboratory remained."
(tags: science biology chemistry silly gadgets)
The Washington Monthly
"Congratulations then, cold and flu, on prevailing over typhoid and cholera."
(tags: US politics silly)
Confessions of a Community College Dean: Administrative Personae
Academic adminstrators as movie characters.
(tags: academia education movies silly)…
drorzel | January 29, 2008
The Edublogs Magazine : Who Are the Top Edubloggers?
"Aseem Badshah has created a listing of the Top Education Bloggers or edubloggers based upon Technorati's rankings." This page reviews some of them.
(tags: blogs education academia)
The Other Side of Graduate Admissions | Cosmic Variance
How the faculty at UW's Astronomy department choose next year's class.
(tags: academia education astronomy physics science)
The Sociology of 'Hooking Up' :: Inside Higher Ed :: Jobs, News and Views for All of Higher Education
An interview with a sociologist studying campus sexual culture.
(tags:…
drorzel | January 28, 2008
Toonish Lite
The Warner Brothers cartoon RPG.
(tags: silly television comics games)
gladwell dot com - the ketchup conundrum
The definitive article on ketchup.
(tags: culture food history science psychology society)
PEDABLOGUE - Behind the Scenes of Rate My Professor
A review of every academic's favorite site.
(tags: academia education internet review)
Scientists propose test of string theory based on neutral hydrogen absorption
"Ancient light absorbed by neutral hydrogen atoms could be used to test certain predictions of string theory... Making the measurements, however, would require…
drorzel | January 27, 2008
illuminating science » What should we learn?
"should we teach the "standard" methods for doing multiplication and division (the usual multiplication ("carry the 3â³ etc) and the usual long division) or are students would be better off learning more "intuitive" methods?"
(tags: math education academia science society)
Natelson Group: Useful Links
Learn solid-state physics with fun Java applets.
(tags: physics education computing internet academia science materials)
The Oscars Fade to Bleak - washingtonpost.com
"This year's celebrated films make for compelling viewing, but an awful lot of…
drorzel | January 25, 2008
Senators Scrutinize Well-Endowed Colleges :: Inside Higher Ed :: Jobs, News and Views for All of Higher Education
There are too few smutty headlines in academia...
(tags: academia economics politics US)
Sorting Out Science » Blog Archive » Carnival of Space, Week 38 -- The Adventures of Shorty Barlow, Private Eye
A hard-boiled blog carnival... in SPAAAACE!
Understanding art for geeks - a photoset on Flickr
The Thinker is probably my favorite
(tags: art pictures silly humanities culture computing internet)
YouTube - Hitler: Bloodthirsty Dictator, Die-hard Cowboys Fan
"Well, at least I…
drorzel | January 24, 2008
Endowment Spending Rate Drops Slightly :: Inside Higher Ed :: Jobs, News and Views for All of Higher Education
"Colleges with endowments larger than $500 million spent on average only 4.4 percent in 2007. For colleges with endowments greater than $500 million but less than $1 billion, that's the lowest rate since 1999, and for colleges with endowments greater th
(tags: academia economics politics)
Students seek SEED money for invention -- Page 1 -- Times Union - Albany NY
Not my Corporate Masters, but these students at my college are entering an invention competition with a new medical…
drorzel | January 23, 2008
Downloading by Students Overstated :: Inside Higher Ed :: Jobs, News and Views for All of Higher Education
The MPAA inflated numbers for student downloading by a factor of three. Gee, and they seemed so honest...
(tags: academia movies computing stupid internet)
blogs | The A.V. Club
Nathan Rabin's Year of Flops
(tags: blogs movies review)
Seismic images show dinosaur-killing meteor made bigger splash
"According to Sean Gulick, a research scientist at the Institute for Geophysics at The University of Texas at Austin's Jackson School of Geosciences and principal investigator for the…
drorzel | January 22, 2008
In the Fatosphere, Big Is in, or at Least Accepted - New York Times
Tune in to the denialism blog for an explosion in 5... 4... 3...
(tags: medicine food society blogs)
Flagging economy needs science investments
The head of Intel blasts Congress over the science funding debacle.
(tags: education science economics politics)
This Week in Milford
There really is a blog for everything...
(tags: comics blogs silly)
Most Diversity Training Ineffective, Study Finds
"When attendance is voluntary, diversity training is followed by an increase in managerial diversity, ... Most employers,…
drorzel | January 21, 2008
Coyotebanjo: Day 03 "In the Trenches" (shout-out Friday edition)
The "Friday Shout-Out," an interesting classroom technique. (via Pedablogue)
(tags: academia education society psychology)
onipress.com
23-page free preview comic for the upcoming Jumper movie.
(tags: books movies SF)
Graphene breaks speed record - physicsworld.com
"Its high intrinsic mobility... means that graphene is the only material where electrons at room temperature can move thousands of interatomic distances without scattering."
(tags: materials physics science news)
Exploding Unicorn: License to Grill
"Under the…
drorzel | January 19, 2008
Confessions of a Community College Dean: Faculty Exchanges: Notes Toward a Proposal
The next great reality show: ProfSwap! Hey, if the writer's strike keeps up...
(tags: academia education experiment)
Words Words Words -- The Dream Cafe Weblog
Steve Brust gets sick of LiveJournal, ans dtarts a group blog.
(tags: blogs books SF)
Fantastic Japanscapes ::: Pink Tentacle
High dynamic range pictures of Japan-- freaky and hyper-real. (via Making Light)
(tags: Japan pictures gadgets)
drorzel | January 18, 2008
The Quantum Pontiff : The Contextuality of Quantum Theory in Ten Minutes
"Elves, Santa, boxes, and quantum measurements. That's the Bell-Kochen-Specker theorem: quantum measurements are contextual."
(tags: physics quantum science computing)
An Upsetting Outcome :: Inside Higher Ed :: Jobs, News and Views for All of Higher Education
"When the researchers crunched the data, though, they found that the likelihood of assaults increased by 112 percent when the home team suffered an upset loss,"
(tags: academia social-science football statistics)
Admissions Dysfunction :: Inside Higher Ed ::…
drorzel | January 17, 2008
The Box Of Paperbacks Book Club: Smith Of Wootton Major & Farmer Giles Of Ham by J.R.R. Tolkien (1967, 1949) | The A.V. Club
"A friend who's much smarter than I once theorized that the process of growing up involves going either through a Tolkien phase or a Beat phase, but never both."
(tags: books culture literature SF review)
Move Over, 'Meerkat Manor' | Newsweek Books | Newsweek.com
A nature writer's story about ferrets was plagiarized for pillow talk in a bad romance novel.
(tags: animals books writing stupid)
A Passage to India - New York Times
Touring Indian restaurants with a…