badastronomy was right: a green laser pointer is an amazing tool for stargazing purposes. Sadly, my particular one doesn't like the cold weather and eventually stops working (though it was briefly shone a weak red... that was kind of weird). Also, lunar eclipses are neat ( Read more... )

Journal editors with a sense of humor:
http://vacanteyes.com/blog/download/fifth_force.pdf

(mind you, I'm currently doing the journal merry-go-round with reviewer responses on a couple papers, and it is exhausting...)

Stand-up economist comedian:
http://www.youtube.com/user/yorambauman#p/a/u/0/zkUzU1Ce7rQ

Back when I was doing chemistry demonstrations for schools and stuff, I found a series of great books by a guy named Shakhishiri that had tons and tons of good demonstrations. Recently, I found that he has a webpage that lists a bunch of the easy, can-do-at-home ones ( Read more... )

A short story:
http://issuu.com/spectra/docs/cambistandlordiron?mode=a_p

The CBO director has posted a nice summary of the tenets of a good climate change policy ( Read more... )

I had a discussion with a colleague at work today about changing last names (don't know how we got there given that I know our conversation meandered through unions, climate change, Paris, and workplace performance reviews). Two things I hadn't really thought about before ( Read more... )

I don't suppose anyone on my friends list has installed netcdf on OS X? I keep getting errors like ( Read more... )

http://www.suvudu.com/cagematch.html: The concept is so-so amusing (science fiction characters in an NCAA-like bracket match-up). Sadly, the fans seem to keep voting for Drzzzt (do people seriously like drow protagonists that much? I thought they just existed for webcomics ( Read more... )

Connie Willis betrayed me... she'd never written anything that didn't stand on its own, and so when I reached the end of Blackout (her new novel) I was kind of shocked that everything was left hanging... and the next book doesn't come out until the fall ( Read more... )