June 2013
11 posts
Tethered →
blog.davidprecht.com
Just read these cool little zombie comics from David Precht. Great art too!
Define: obviate
- to remove, avoid, or prevent
another word you’ll probably never need, but at least now you know it
“A ship in port is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.”
—Grace Murray Hooper, U.S. Navy officer and computer scientist
May 2013
11 posts
“Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.”
—Douglas Adams; British writer, humorist and dramatist (as if you didn’t already know)
Self-Sabotage in the Academic Career →
chronicle.com
A pretty good list of 15 things to think about as you grow in your academic career. Ironically, the people I want to send this to the most are the people likely to appreciate it the least.
Define: moiety
The two parts of a thing that is or can be divided. May also be used specifically in reference to social groups. Roughly synonymous with “half.”
Another word you may never need to know, but I like words so there it is.
April 2013
21 posts
Define: Pollex
pollex - another word for thumb (or the innermost digit of a forelimb)
You’ll probably never to know that, but there it is.
“It is extremely to easy to write badly.”
—
- Lewis Spurgin, using George Orwell to try and help science writing. I obviously approve.
Read the whole piece here: Science and the English Language | A great tree
“The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has banned the inflight use of 800 MHz cell phones since 1991 to keep cell networks from interfering with airplane instrumentation. (Before that cell phones were banned because they didn’t fit in the overhead luggage compartment or safely under a passenger’s seat.)”
—10 Facts about Portable Electronics and Airplanes by Larry Greenemeier
“If you were teaching a graduate seminar in public policy and challenged your students to come up with the most difficult possible problem to solve, they’d come up with something very much like climate change. It’s slow-acting. It’s essentially invisible. It’s expensive to address. It has a huge number of very rich special interests arrayed against doing anything about it. It requires international action that pits rich countries against poor ones. And it has a lot of momentum: you have to take action now, before its effects are serious, because today’s greenhouse gases will cause climate change tomorrow no matter what we do in thirty years.”
—
Kevin Drum, with the sad truth. (via motherjones)
No candy for you, Kevin Drum. Your completely logical point and 110% truthy take on the political difficulties of dealing with climate change is like the worst trick when I asked for a treat.
But it’s something we need to hear.
(via jtotheizzoe)
I’ve tried to explain this idea to people but I can’t do it justice like the original quote.
Moon or Frying Pan? Quiz #1 →
asterisk.apod.com
Spend a few minutes today playing moon or frying pan. It’s great fun.
March 2013
20 posts
Dinosaur lactation? [J Exp Biol. 2013] - PubMed - NCBI →
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
For anyone wondering why other paleontologists sometimes roll their eyes at the dinosaur folk.
Implant Gives Rats Super Senses | TechNewsDaily.com →
technewsdaily.com
“Super senses” is a bit misleading. The researchers gave them the ability to sense infrared light, so more an extra sense than a super sense. Even so, I’d be willing to volunteer for human trials, sounds fun.
