society
clock | March 25, 2008Some people only know the language of power. They see conciliation and compromise as weakness. Show strength. If they are sissies hiding behind machismo, slam them hard. You have nothing to lose. Some will convert and come to your side. Some will go cower in the corner. None will hang around risking your anger for very long.
Sometimes, profanity is the only appropriate language:
"On a related note, fearing that we face a whole new level of bullshit about which we will, and should, be visibly angry, and preparing myself thusly, comments and emails composed specifically to tell me to stop…
pontiff | March 18, 2008To the jerk, or jerks, who broke into my car and stole my laptop and passport while parked in downtown Vancouver. Pfffft! You stink! And just what do you think you're going to do with all those LaTeX files? Maybe you should try to sell them to D-wave! (For the humor impaired: that's a joke.)
clock | March 13, 2008Lindsay Beyerstein: Spitzer linked to prostitution ringSpitzer's Nixonian hubrisSex and taxes: How Spitzer allegedly got caughtSpitzer and Suspicious Activity Reports and sex stingsEnough is enough: Feds probe Spitzer's records back to 1999
Amanda Marcotte: Cut out the stand by your man routineAsk for facts, get the facts
Elizabeth Pisani: Spitzer's true follySpitzer: cementing a cross-party tradition of hypocrisySpitzer: some better ideas for the lapsed abolitionistCalling "These women": tell us about your disorders...
Scott Swenson: RealTime: Prostitution Pledge for Politicians
Ed Cone:…
clock | March 8, 2008[rant]So, if you organize a study-group online instead of in meat-space, the old fogies who still remember dinosaurs go all berserk. A student is threatened by expulsion for organizing a Facebook group for studying chemistry. Moreover, as each student got different questions, nobody did the work for others, they only exchanged tips and strategies. See the responses:
The Star:
Yet students argue Facebook groups are simply the new study hall for the wired generation.
Yes, they are.
Greg:
How much of this is a matter of administrative fear of the internet?
100%.
Larry:
Today, that sense of "…
clock | February 29, 2008Book excerpt in today's Wall Street Journal: Chapter 6: Wired:
It is likely that insomnia will increase with the expansion of the 24-hour economy into more and more lives, and more of each life, because wakefulness and the wired world go together. The more interconnected we are, the more we communicate, and the more we communicate, the more we rely on our interconnected powers of thinking. In addition to work, many of our leisure pursuits, while seemingly soporific, actually undermine the likelihood of restful sleep, from drinking alcohol to surfing the net to watching thrillers on late-night…
pontiff | February 27, 2008Quick, Batman! To the trademark-mobile along with a stack of three or four letter company names:
Feb 27 (Reuters) - On-demand business phone service provider Nuvio Corp said it filed a lawsuit against Garmin International Inc...alleging Garmin's Nuvifone infringes on Nuvio trademark, which it uses on its phones and telephony services.
clock | February 19, 2008...from different points of view:
Anne-Marie: Culinary revelation
Mark Powell: Saving the ocean with guilt or desire? and Does the sustainable seafood movement rely on guilt? (blogfish poll)
Miriam Goldstein: Guilty as charged
Amanda Marcotte: Save your soul with recycling
clock | February 19, 2008Brian Russell, who is building a coworking space in Carrboro, just alerted me to an excellent new article about this in the San Francisco Chronicle: Shared work spaces a wave of the future. Well worth a read.
pontiff | February 13, 2008A website dedicated to chronicling the lives, injuries, and money lost due to a lack of critical thinking. Woah. Is it just me or is there is somethink kind of creepy about assembling this kind of website?
clock | February 2, 2008I've heard this one last year (02.16.2007) but heard it again today (it will probably re-air tomorrow - check your local NPR station) - the This American Life episode about Quiz Shows. It was composed of three stories:
The first one is kinda weird - the guy was lucky with questions on the Irish version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, he was shy and this win gave him self-confidence, and he is using the money to live and to help other people.
The third story totally floored me - I hope someone like Zuska or Amanda or Echidne does the analysis of it - it is about a failed quiz show for…
clock | January 22, 2008From Sage Ross, via John Lynch come exciting news about a new Open Access Journal - Spontaneous Generations: A Journal for the History and Philosophy of Science
Spontaneous Generations is a new online academic journal published by graduate students at the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, University of Toronto. The journal aims to establish a platform for interdisciplinary discussion and debate about issues that concern the community of scholars in HPS and related fields.
Apart from selecting peer reviewed articles, the journal encourages a direct dialogue…
pontiff | January 21, 2008A while ago a message from Kris Krogh appeared on Scirate.com about ariXiv:0712.3934 stating Kris' belief that the paper appeared under a pseudonym (the comment contains the contents of the link which was sent to the arxiv's administrator.) Today I checked with the arxiv and found that the paper had been removed:This submission has been removed because 'G.Forst' is a pseudonym of a physicist based in Italy who is unwilling to submit articles under his own name. This is in explicit violation of arXiv policies.
Roughly similar content, contrasting the relative merits of the LAGEOS and GP-B…
clock | January 21, 2008Sleeping & Dreaming exhibit hosted by Wellcome Trust will be open until 9 March 2008:
Why are scientists still perplexed by sleep? What do the insights that our dreams bring us mean? And is a life without sleep conceivable? Sleeping and dreaming is a nightly (or daily) occurrence for us all, yet we still know relatively little about this elusive phenomenon.
If you are in London between now and early March, try to go and see it (and let me know how it was - perhaps blog about it and send me the link).
pontiff | January 16, 2008What else am I to conclude from recent UFO reports out of Texas, except that no one in the entire town had a cell phone with a camera? Or a digital camera? Do the aliens use data from cell phone usage and digital camera usage when they decide where to do their joy riding?
Oh, and I will be happy to update this post when photos emerge! (I grew up reading UFO books, by the way. I credit them with developing an idea for what science is and is not.)
clock | January 13, 2008Reed alerts me that the Darwin Awards 2007 are up for voting right now - all nasty and stupid ways to die. The only one of these stories that I have heard of before is the story of the guy who entered, buck-naked, the bear cage at the Belgrade Zoo during the Beer Festival. The local press was all over this and I appreciate the completely non-diplomatic reaction by the Zoo Director, Vuk Bojovic. So, that is the one I voted for with a 10. Parochial, I know. But it's not like I'm voting for my neighbor for the President or something...
clock | January 10, 2008"Why isn't there a birth control pill for men?" is the latest "Ask A ScienceBlogger" question. I am sure my SciBlings will rise to the occasion and explain both the biological and social barriers to the development, production and marketing of such a pill. I will be more light hearted, with a brief look at alternative methods proposed over the years intended to make guys temporarily infertile. Let's start with this delightful, funny, yet informative, movie:
The movie can be found here, via Science of the Invisible (Thanks for the heads-up).
Perhaps this quack had a point after all! Would…
pontiff | December 28, 2007You know you're in rural America when...
Reminds me of one of my favorite bumper sticker ideas of a few years ago (less true today): "Buy American: Do Meth!"