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cortex | December 22, 2008Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah, which is, as Adam Sandler has correctly noted, a rather unsatisfying holiday. It's typically sold to impressionable Jewish kids as being better than Christmas, since there are eight days of presents, and not just one climactic morning. But as one soon discovers, those eight days are a bit deceiving. The way Hanukkah typically works - at least in my family - is that all the good presents arrive on the first night (the new bike, the big Lego set, etc.) followed by seven days of diminishing returns. In my childhood, the last night of Hanukkah was usually…
grrlscientist | December 22, 2008I woke up this morning, feeling faint and ill, but I had to get to the library for free wireless so I could write on my blog. On my way there, I was walking on a sidewalk covered with 1-2 inches of ice (it was either that or walk in a very busy street filled with NYC taxis driven by pissed-off underemployed financial analysts), when a very strong wind came my way and blew me onto my ass. So, of course, I broke my left arm. The fracture is at the elbow on the ulna (olecranon process). My arm and fingers are numb, I cannot lift my arm, the elbow is a delightful shade of blue, red and purple,…
cortex | December 22, 2008Brian Knutson, a very clever neuroeconomist at Stanford, sheds light on some of the cognitive biases currently holding back the economy over at Edge.org. From the perspective of the brain, uncertainty is hell:
The brain responds to uncertain future outcomes in a specific region, and ambiguity (not knowing the probabilities of uncertain outcomes) provokes even greater activation in this same region. Further, insular activation precedes risk avoidance in investment tasks, and is even more pronounced before people "irrationally" avoid risks (i.e., or violate the choices of a risk-neutral,…
drorzel | December 21, 2008
Tor.com / Science fiction and fantasy / Blog posts / How to talk to writers
"Writers are people, and they were people before they were writers. They change light bulbs and buy groceries just like everyone else. Really. Because they're people, they vary. Some of them are jerks, but many of them are very interesting people to talk to."
(tags: blogs culture SF books writing)
Shtetl-Optimized » Blog Archive » How long could a black hole remain in the center of the earth?
I don't know, but I expect a panicky Gregg Easterbrook column about it any day now.
(tags: science physics blogs silly…
gregladen | December 21, 2008Drillers accidentally hit a pocket of molten rock underneath a working geothermal energy field in Hawaii, a lucky break for geologists that could allow them to map the geological plumbing that created everything we know as land.
The unprecedented discovery could act as a "magma observatory," allowing scientists to test their theories about how processes transformed the molten rock below Earth's surface into the rocky crust that humans live on today.
"This is like Jurassic Park for magmatic systems," said Bruce Marsh, a geologist at Johns Hopkins University. "You can go to museums and see…
sb admin | December 21, 2008"Yesterday the voters spoke. We prevailed," ... [my opponent could opt to waive the recount.]
"It's up to him whether such a step is worth the tax dollars it will take to conduct," He said, telling reporters he would "step back" if he were in [his opponent's] position...
Oh. No, wait, sorry. I got that backwards. The above quote was Norm Coleman telling us that Al Franken should bow out of the senate race back when Coleman was ahead by between 200 and 300 points, and prior to the legally mandated recount. Now that the recount is virtually over and it is Franken ahead by between 200 and 300…
sb admin | December 21, 2008"Yesterday the voters spoke. We prevailed," ... [my opponent could opt to waive the recount.]
"It's up to him whether such a step is worth the tax dollars it will take to conduct," He said, telling reporters he would "step back" if he were in [his opponent's] position...
Oh. No, wait, sorry. I got that backwards. The above quote was Norm Coleman telling us that Al Franken should bow out of the senate race back when Coleman was ahead by between 200 and 300 points, and prior to the legally mandated recount. Now that the recount is virtually over and it is Franken ahead by between 200 and 300…
sb admin | December 21, 2008"Yesterday the voters spoke. We prevailed," ... [my opponent could opt to waive the recount.]
"It's up to him whether such a step is worth the tax dollars it will take to conduct," He said, telling reporters he would "step back" if he were in [his opponent's] position...
Oh. No, wait, sorry. I got that backwards. The above quote was Norm Coleman telling us that Al Franken should bow out of the senate race back when Coleman was ahead by between 200 and 300 points, and prior to the legally mandated recount. Now that the recount is virtually over and it is Franken ahead by between 200 and 300…
sb admin | December 21, 2008"Yesterday the voters spoke. We prevailed," ... [my opponent could opt to waive the recount.]
"It's up to him whether such a step is worth the tax dollars it will take to conduct," He said, telling reporters he would "step back" if he were in [his opponent's] position...
Oh. No, wait, sorry. I got that backwards. The above quote was Norm Coleman telling us that Al Franken should bow out of the senate race back when Coleman was ahead by between 200 and 300 points, and prior to the legally mandated recount. Now that the recount is virtually over and it is Franken ahead by between 200 and 300…
grrlscientist | December 20, 2008tags: blogosphere, meme, 100 unusual lifetime experiences meme
I discovered this meme at Guadalupe Storm-petrel, and thought it sounded interesting. This meme lists 100 unusual experiences that one might have had in his lifetime, and so I've emboldened those I've experienced, and placed a red asterix in front of those I'd like to experience someday.
Started my own blog
Slept under the stars -- many many times
Played in a band -- I was in a handbell choir, I hope this counts
*Visited Hawaii
Watched a meteor shower
Given more than I can afford to charity
Been to Disneyland/world --…
gregladen | December 19, 2008The details are not yet worked out, but the Bell Museum in Minneapolis, thanks to the inspiration and efforts of DNA artist and Twin Cities' answer to Ira Flatow, Lynn Fellman, and Bell Museum events organizer, Twin Cities Celebrity and spectacular Cafe Scientifique Host Shanai Matteson, will have a special Darwin Day Celebration and YOU are invited!
When official verbiage becomes available, I'll post it. For now, here is what I can tell you:
The date is February 12th. That is Darwin's 200th birthday. The location will be the Bell Museum in Minneapolis, East Bank Campus of the University…
gregladen | December 19, 2008From Neuranthropology:
We've decided to host something that has not been done before - the first yearly edition of The Best of Anthropology Blogging. An increasing number of anthropologists are blogging about their work and their ideas, sharing how anthropology in all its forms is relevant to the wider world.
We are going to bring that together into one great "Best of" package. It is time to show off what we do! And then get some press for it!!
Here are our submission guidelines....
... and, for the details, go HERE.
gregladen | December 19, 2008One hundred movies that if you have not seen, perhaps liked, perhaps think represent something either important or entertaining, and remember, then you are probably not me.
I'll make a deal with you. You can tell me to watch any movie that is not on this list and if I have not seen it, I'll put it on my Netflix Cue. I'll watch it as soon as I can and report back. But then you have to pick a movie on this list that you have not seen, watch it, and report back.
Feel free to make your own list and challenge the rest of us with it.
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
All Quiet on the Western Front…
grrlscientist | December 19, 2008How could I let Friday sneak away without letting you know about the latest edition of the Friday Ark? This is, as you know, a photographic celebration of all non-human life forms on this planet, a spin-off of Friday Cat Blogging, so I hope you go there to appreciate living things other than humans.
gregladen | December 19, 2008W. Mark Felt, who was the No. 2 official at the F.B.I. when he helped bring down President Richard M. Nixon by resisting the Watergate cover-up and becoming Deep Throat, the most famous anonymous source in American history, died Thursday. He was 95 and lived in Santa Rosa, Calif.
details
cortex | December 19, 2008Over at the Daily Beast, Alexandra Penney describes what it feels like to lose all of your money to a Wall Street Ponzi scheme:
Last Thursday at around 5 p.m., I had just checked on a rising cheese soufflé in my oven when my best friend called.
"Heard Madoff's been arrested," she said. "I hope it's a rumor. Doesn't he handle most of your money?"
Indeed, he did. More than a decade ago, when I was in my late 40s, I handed over my life savings to Madoff's firm. It was money I'd been tucking away since I was 16 years old, when I began working summers in Lord & Taylor, earning about $65 a…
cortex | December 19, 2008Last week, Nature published an editorial arguing for the mainstream acceptance of "cognitive enhancing drugs":
Today, on university campuses around the world, students are striking deals to buy and sell prescription drugs such as Adderall and Ritalin -- not to get high, but to get higher grades, to provide an edge over their fellow students or to increase in some measurable way their capacity for learning. These transactions are crimes in the United States, punishable by prison.
Many people see such penalties as appropriate, and consider the use of such drugs to be cheating, unnatural or…
gregladen | December 19, 2008I've got a meme below the fold. This is lifted from Facebook, where it was posted by Miles Kurland.
SUPPOSEDLY if you've seen over 85 movies, you have no life. Mark the ones you've seen. There are 219 movies on this list. Copy this list, then paste it on facebook or on your blog. Then, put x's next to the movies you've seen, add them up, change the header adding your number, and click publish at the side.
Having known miles for many decades, I would have thought HE'd be the one with the life, but apparently not ... My total is a measly 60.
( ) Rocky Horror Picture Show
(x) Grease
(x)…
cwilcox | December 18, 2008Cheetahs are truly some of the most amazing animals on the planet. It's the fastest land animal, accelerating from 0 to 70 mph faster than even high-end sports cars and maxing out around 75 mph. In much of its home range, conservationists have been fighting relentlessly to bring back population numbers from excessive hunting and territory loss. The species, once in the hundreds of thousands before 1800, was down to less than 12,500 by 1980. And these efforts, largely, have been successful in rebounding the big cat's numbers. Unfortunately, it may be all for naught.
You see, cheetahs faced a…