Poll: Incredibly Important Cultural Question
Prompted by this and this, among other things, one of the critical questions of the modern age: Harry Potter is a: Magic is a classical phenomenon, no matter what you may have heard, so you can choose...
View ArticleThe Inevitable Death of the Book, Aleph-Nought in a Series
A lot of pixels have been spilled lamenting the death of Borders books, a rather large fraction of them being used to say stupid things. Particularly in the “they killed off independent bookstores so...
View ArticleReligion, Science, and Joy
I was just tagging this for the Links Dump, but I thought it deserved better. Fred Clark, blogdom’s best writer on politics and religion, is putting together a book-like thing from his blog, and has...
View ArticleOn Nymity
The whole issue of pseudonymity has come up again, both on Google+ and on ScienceBlogs. While I’ve been on the Internet for nigh on 20 years, my initial point of entry was through a Usenet group that...
View ArticleHow to Wreck Your Career With Social Media
This was the title of the group discussion I led at Boskone on Saturday, and since it’s probably relevant to the interests of people reading this blog, I figure it’s worth posting a quick recap. Of...
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How Good Is BookScan Anyway?
One of the big stories in genre Internet news was Seanan McGuire’s post last week, about reactions to the early release of some copies of her book, and the hateful garbage thrown her way by people...
View ArticleIt’s Not Finished, It’s Just Done
There was a nice piece at Inside Higher Ed yesterday on the myth of more time: A lack of confidence in one’s abilities as a writer, researcher, speaker, etc. is at the root of the myth of more time....
View ArticleQuery for Non-Physicists: Initial Reactions
I was thinking about attitudes toward physics the other day, and realized that whenever I meet somebody (not a physicist) for the first time and tell them that I’m a physicist, their initial responses...
View ArticleGender Issues Start Sooner Than You Think
Via Joerg Heber on Twitter, a great post on gender divisions in STEM by Athene Donald: As children try to work out their personal identities, the difference between ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ is as fundamental...
View ArticleOn the Checking of Boxes, and the Need to Chill Out
In the comments to yesterday’s post about college admissions, Joseph Yoon quoted my statement that “I’m somewhat sympathetic to claims that Asians have a difficult position in higher education,” and...
View ArticleDeficit Models, Bureaucratic Empathy, and Work-Life Juggling
Every now and then, I run across a couple of items that tie together a whole bunch of different issues that weigh heavily on my mind. That happened yesterday courtesy of Timothy Burke, whose blog post...
View ArticleBe Your Boring Self
In rapid succession yesterday, Twitter threw me two how-to-behave-online links that kind of rubbed me the wrong way. The first was a widely re-shared essay titled You Are Boring: You listen to the same...
View ArticleScience In Different Voices
One of the things that’s been rattling around in my head since ScienceOnline back in January is the need for a greater diversity of voices in science communication generally. I don’t mean diversity in...
View ArticleAsking Questions and the “Finkbeiner Test”
There was a lot of re-sharing yesterday of an article about the “Finkbeiner Test” to be applied to profiles of women scientists. This is analogous to the “Bechdel Test” in pop culture, which asks “Do...
View ArticleEducation Is Chaotic
While I’m quoting other people saying smart things, Timothy Burke has another great post on the failures of economic models of higher education There is a lot of information that you could acquire...
View ArticleSheldon Cooper and Alfred Nobel
Last week, before we headed out for the weekend, I had a brief exchange with Ben Lillie on Twitter, prompted by the following set of tweets: OK, here's a thing. I'll often hear people complain that...
View ArticleMalcolm Gladwell Is Deepak Chopra
I’m sure I’ve done more than enough wibbling about TED for this week, but the only major physics story at the moment involved the Higgs boson, and I’m thoroughly sick of that. So let’s talk about...
View ArticleWhat Does Science Online Want to Be?
The ongoing mess over Bora Zivkovic’s harassment of women writers in connection with his editorial role at Scientific American and Science Online has moved into the “What is to be done now?” phase. The...
View ArticleOn the Checking of Boxes
One of the many ancillary tasks associated with my job that I wish I was better at is the advising of students. More specifically, the advising of students who aren’t like I was at that age. What I...
View ArticleWhat I Learned From the Liberal Arts
As a follow-up to yesterday’s post about liberal education and the failure modes thereof, I thought I should try to do something constructive and make suggestions regarding how you might go about a...
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