“Hey, Dude, what’cha doin’?” “I’m checking out the dog drawings I commissioned for the book-in-progress. Here, take a look:” “Hey, wait just one minute. That looks like me!” “That’s the idea. Since you’re in the book, I thought it would be nice to have some pictures that look like you, rather than just a clip-art […]
Month: June 2011
Non-Famous Non-Fiction
I kicked off the week with a grumpy post about the Guardian’s flawed list of great non-fiction, so let’s end the week with a slightly more upbeat take on the same basic idea. The New York Times did a slightly lighter list, asking their staff to pick favorite nonfiction. The lack of consensus is pretty […]
PNAS: SM, Canadian Grant Officer
(This post is part of the new round of interviews of non-academic scientists, giving the responses of S.M., a Canadian government employee who would prefer not to be identified by name. The goal is to provide some additional information for science students thinking about their fiuture careers, describing options beyond the assumed default Ph.D.–post-doc–academic-job track.) […]
Links for 2011-06-24
Swans on Tea » Copy … Riiiight “The argument that copyright takes away your right to say what you want is a bunch of bull. If you are using a copyrighted piece of work, they aren’t your words, so any kind of protections for the originator of those words doesn’t stop you from saying what […]
Thursday Monkeying Around Blogging 062311
SteelyKid is in a bit of a “no pictures” phase at the moment, which makes it kind of difficult to get weekly shots. Hence the run of Toddler Blogging pictures without Appa in them– when we pick Appa up, she runs away. Thus, this shot with the color balance all wonky (I could do a […]
The Bat Diet: Live Longer Through General Relativity
A scientific theory hasn’t really arrived until the cynical and unscrupulous find a way to use it to extract money from the credulous and gullible. This has posed a significant obstacle for general relativity, dealing as it does with gravity, which requires really gigantic masses to produce measurable effects. That makes it a little difficult […]
PNAS: Carl Knutson, Online Education Developer
(This post is part of the new round of interviews of non-academic scientists, giving the responses of Carl Knutson, who works for a company making online learning systems. The goal is to provide some additional information for science students thinking about their fiuture careers, describing options beyond the assumed default Ph.D.–post-doc–academic-job track.) 1) What is […]
Links for 2011-06-23
Video Breakdown: Khan and Kinematics | Wired Science | Wired.com “So my quick take – Khan Academy is a textbook video. Are textbooks new? No. Are they the best thing for students? No. Should we ban textbooks in all forms? I don’t think so. What about other aspects of Khan Academy videos? How are they based […]
Musical Poll: Casual Sax
A lot of people who rail against popular music (hipsters, classical music snobs, etc.) will cite the mere presence of one or more saxophones in a song as evidence that it sucks, as if saxophones are inherently evil. I’ve never really understood this attitude, and wonder how widespread it is. Thus, a poll: Saxophone solos […]
PNAS: Brad Holden, Observatory Astronomer
p>(This post is part of the new round of interviews of non-academic scientists, giving the responses of Brad Holden, of the University of California Observatories (which, OK, is affiliated with an academic institution, but this is not a traditional faculty-type job). The goal is to provide some additional information for science students thinking about their […]