Unqualified Offerings

Looking Sideways at Your World Since October 2001

Archive for October, 2008

Friday, October 31st, 2008

I CAN HAZ FORMULA 2 PLUGNCHUG? KTHXBYE

By Thoreau
Interesting report on how blogging can improve introductory physics courses.

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

Highs and lows of the past 24 hours

By Thoreau
In order to do this job, you need to be able to move back and forth between the most sophisticated questions and the least sophisticated questions.
High: Yesterday morning, I’m typing in a review “The data in figure such and such includes a sharp dip in signal exactly where theory predicts it should happen, [...]

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

I Will Do Anything for Love But I Won’t Do That

Didn’t watch the Barry Special Halloween last night. Did Obama see the Great Pumpkin?
I think a better show would be, what if Lassie has Munchausen-by-Proxy Syndrome, and keeps knocking Timmy down the well herself? Mrs. Martin figures out what’s going on and hires Cesar Millan to cure her. After Lassie knocks him down the well, [...]

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

Mr. Dawkins, please report to the nearest shark tank, water skis in hand

By Thoreau
Richard Dawkins plans to study whether children are harmed by reading fairy tales with witches and wizards.
Look, I get the case against religion. I get why Dawkins is against religion. I do. I get it. But there is a big difference between religion (which parents present to children as truth) [...]

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

Socialism? Is that all you’ve got?

By Thoreau
The word “socialism” can mean many things to many people, anything from Western European style social welfare to state ownership of the means of production to the New Deal or the Great Society or a wide range of other usages. I’ll let those who know (or at least claim to know) more about [...]

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

Science blogging: This is simply excellent

By Thoreau
This is a beautiful piece of work by a group that decided to do some high powered modeling of blood flow, and back it up with 3D imaging of real blood vessel networks.
And the movies look pretty nice.  Check it out.

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

Not-really-belated Monkey Tuesday

By Thoreau
It’s still Tuesday in my time zone. Not to mention in Hawaii! (Although Sarah Palin would remind us that people born there aren’t real Americans.)
Today’s Monkey Tuesday blogging is about actual monkeys, not the chimps that make up most Monkey Tuesday posts. I discovered a cute site with pictures of baby [...]

Tuesday, October 28th, 2008

Inquiry for Atheists

By Mona
Over at AoTP I am wondering how some of the rest of you handle issues of mortality, including tragic losses.

Tuesday, October 28th, 2008

Bipartisan consensus?

By Thoreau
Leonidas Chocolates is having an Election Day Sale, but for some reason it ends before Election Day. So vote early and often on the one thing we can all agree on.
UPDATE: I have just been informed that some of those chocolates have Belgian birth certificates and may not be eligible to stand [...]

Tuesday, October 28th, 2008

Grand New Party

The Republican base that will be left after this election. Somehow the GOP is going to please these people and fashion a future winning coalition. Go for it.