silliness

A fairly straightforward question: quantum physicists divide the world into two categories of things, fermions and bosons. What's your favorite object having integer spin? What's your favorite boson?online survey Superpositions of answers, while allowed in properly symmetrized wavefunctions, are not valid responses to this poll.
A News of the Stupid story that's too good to pass up. I mean, how can you not click on a headline like "Men Accused of Wrestling Python Outside McDonald's": MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) -- Two men were arrested after bewildered diners at a McDonald's spotted them wrestling a 5-foot (1.5 meter) python named Boris in the restaurant parking lot, police said Thursday. Victoria state police said the men stole the 8-year-old black-headed python and a lizard from a pet shop on Wednesday. They then brought the snake to the McDonald's parking lot, where they began wrestling with it in front of puzzled…
Rubber dino, you're the one, You make bathtime lots of fun Rubber dino, I'm awfully fond of you Doo-doo doo-de-doo Rubber dino, fearsome roar, Good thing you're a herbivore Rubber dino, I'm awfully fond of you doo-doo doo-de-doo Every day when I, get undressed next to the sink, I find a Little fella who's, cute and yellow and extinct When I squeeze you, water squirts, Then I giggle, 'til it hurts Rubber dino, I'm awfully fond of you Doo-doo doo-de-doo You're my favorite bathtime toy, Watch out for that asteroid! Rubber dino, I'm awfully fond of Rubber dino, I'm awfully fond of, Rubber dino…
There was a deeply silly New York Times article about "Past Life Regression" over the weekend: In one of his past lives, Dr. Paul DeBell believes, he was a caveman. The gray-haired Cornell-trained psychiatrist has a gentle, serious manner, and his appearance, together with the generic shrink décor of his office -- leather couch, granite-topped coffee table -- makes this pronouncement seem particularly jarring. In that earlier incarnation, "I was going along, going along, going along, and I got eaten," said Dr. DeBell, who has a private practice on the Upper East Side where he specializes in…
I'm pretty sure I've used this topic before, but not with PollDaddy. And while I really ought to do a ResearchBlogging post today to make it a clean sweep for the week, I just don't have the energy. So here's a poll: what's your favorite fundamental force? What's your favorite fundamental force?online surveys Those of us with corporeal existence should restrict our answers to the low-energy condition of the present material universe, not any of the higher energy unification scales.
New York Jets cornerback Antonio Cromartie is getting mocked for a clip where he takes some time to name all his children (the clip isn't as bad as the description makes it sound-- he's slow, but he doesn't struggle all that badly). Cromartie claims that HBO manipulated the footage to make him look bad. Of course, there's an easy way to avoid this kind of mess: simply give all the kids the same name, thereby reducing it to a previously solved problem. In discussion on a mailing list where this came up, someone wondered about how many children Wilt Chamberlain would've fathered, given his…
This one's pretty self-explanatory: Classes for the new academic year start a week from Monday.survey software You only get to pick one because that's the way it is. If you need me, I'll be over here scrambling frantically.
While I'm still trying not to think about the new academic term that starts in two weeks (yes, the first day of class is Labor Day, grumble mutter grump), it's beginning to impinge on my consciousness. Thus, this poll on a frequent and annoying phenomenon that recurs with every new academic term: Students who miss the first day of class in a new academic term should be:online survey You can choose one and only one answer in this poll. Attempts to submit multiple answers will be given a failing grade, and reported to the Dean as a violation of the Academic Honesty policy.
In honor of the people down the street who are trying to unload some excess personal belongings, a poll: When people take a bunch of stuff they no longer want, put it outside their house, and try to sell it to passersby, this is called:Market Research You can only choose one of these terms in this poll, but I'll throw in all four if you give me $5.
As seen in yesterday's post, SteelyKid got a grill this weekend: This led to one of the cutest toddler anecdotes to date, which I'll put below the fold for the sake of those heartless souls who don't like cute kids. SteelyKid was running around with an ice cube in a paper cup, because ice is pretty neat, and Kate's mom asked what she had. SteelyKid sumped it out into her hands, and Kate's mom said "Oh, that's cold." SteelyKid replied "I warm it up," took the ice cube back, put it in the paper cup, put the cup on her toy grill, closed the lid for a few seconds, then brought it back. "Warm it…
I was going to write something serious about physics, but it's my student's last day, so we're taking him to lunch. So here's a silly poll to entertain you until I get back: If I suspected I might be living in a dream, but couldn't be sure, I would:survey software You can only choose one answer... Unless it's all a dream! In which case, you should slap yourself repeatedly for dreaming about blog polls, because, really.
Well? Cake?customer surveys (Blame EphBlog.)
Via Crooked Timber, there's a silly web site that lets you put in a chunk of text, and does some sort of statistical analysis of it to determine what famous writer's prose it most closely resembles. It turns out, I'm kind of hard to categorize. For instance, when I'm writing about Holy Grails, I apparently sound like Dan Brown. When the subject turns to the size of the proton, though, I sound like Douglas Adams. Maybe it's just that the random variety of topics on the blog throws it off, though. I have, after all, written an entire book explaining quantum mechanics through conversations with…
Before Zombie Day comes to a close, I want to do a little braaaaaaaaaaain dump on where zombies actually fit into the scientific landscape (and to thank Joseph Hewitt for the amazing art he provided for all of us. As a huge Evil Dead fan, I especially appreciate my copy of the Necronomicon. Groovy.) My colleague Lee Billings, with whom I have killed literally tens of thousands of zombies, and I started the day with a discussion of the connection between zombies and science, which took us to the roots of modern-day zombie-dom. It seems pretty clear that word and the basic concept comes from…
Late Wednesday evening, a terrible disaster began to unfold in the ScienceBlogs universe: word emerged that a zombie attack was taking place in our bloggers' homes. While the attack was believed to have begun somewhere in the southeastern United States, with patient zero Scicurious, it has now spread across the continent and even as far as Martin Rundkvist in Sweden. But even while in pursuit of human brains, the zombies are still dedicated to the mission of communicating science—in this case, getting the word out about the real science of zombiekind. To read up on how zombie epidemics spread…
The dogphysics karma joke is pretty much dead, as countries with current or future editions of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog have gone a dismal 1-3-0 in the first round of elimination play. I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did, honestly. The big story of the World Cup at the moment is the immense suckitude of the refereeing, which currently accounts for at least four screwed up goals (two not allowed for the US, one for England, and an improperly allowed goal for Argentina). It's gotten to the point where FIFA is being dragged toward the Century of the Fruitbat, and might start…
A second uncomfortable question from tbell: boxers, briefs, or other? That's an interesting question. Not many people would think to ask about a comparison between professional fighting and the products of the legal profession. Boxing, while no longer the cultural force that it once was, does occasionally provide for some compelling watching. Boxers themselves tend to be a little cartoonish, a combination of being hit in the head repeatedly and the sport's need for endless hype. Legal writing, on the other hand, tends to be rather dry and repetitive. The main points in a legal brief are laid…
Three European countries, France, Germany, and Spain have suffered embarrassing World Cup losses. The French team in particular has appeared to be in complete disarray. Their combined record to this point is just 2-3-1 (W-L-T). What do these three countries have in common? None of them have purchased translation rights for How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. Meanwhile, the seven countries with current or forthcoming editions (the US, Brazil, Portugal, England, Italy, Japan, and South Korea) have a combined record of 5-2-7. I think the lesson here is clear: translation rights for Spanish, French…
At last weekend's Hidden Dimensions event, Brian Greene had a graphic of a Calabi-Yau object (it wasn't this one, but it's the same idea). He put this up several times, but never actually explained what the hell it was supposed to show. It just looked kind of cool. Last week's Through the Wormhole program segment on Garrett Lisi kept showing an animation of some sort of graphical representation of the E8 group, shifting between some collection of circles and that giant mandala-looking thing they use to illustrate every story about the guy. Again, there was no explanation of what the hell this…
This was supposed to go up earlier, but it turns out that thinking you selected "Scheduled" in the MT back end is not, in fact, enough to schedule the post to appear. So this is showing up after games have already begun, but nothing of consequence has happened yet, so it's no biggie. Anyway, the soccer World Cup has begun, making this one of the rare summers with sporting events worth watching on television. And time for the quadrennial spectacle of Americans pretending to know/care about soccer. So, anyway, there's a big tournament going on, and it seems only fair to offer space to discuss…