July 2008
15 posts
“Any time something is written against me, I not only share the sentiment but...”
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“For young researchers contemplating a career outside the mainstream, Bainbridge...”
– William Sims Bainbridge is a sociologist who doesn’t shy away from controversial topics.
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“When the National Security Council recommended the use of nuclear weapons at...”
– Op-Ed Contributor - We Should Still Like Ike - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com
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more on nature’s own publishing model: So Nature has been claiming all along that it is not possible to successfully running an open-access, yet selective journal that only publishes a few articles. Well, now that the era of funder-mandated archiving has begun, what is Nature going to do ? Is it going to change its business model, or shut shop ? Or are we suddenly going to see how...
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nature and plos: Declan Butler’s most recent salvo in his long-standing debate with open-access advocates has raised a real ruckus in the blogosphere; good places to start are on Bora’s blog and Open Access News. Also see Butler 2003 and 2006 for earlier articles, with resultant discussions here and here. The drama led to a clarificatory statement from Timo Hannay, that was much better...
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utterly ridiculous spat: in tabloid headline style (“neuroscientist accused of going on date !!”), nature reports on a dispute over the interpretation of data between nikos logothetis at the MPI in tubingen and two of his former postdocs (amir shmuel and david leopold) now running independent labs at u.toronto and the NIMH. the article is written by alison abbott and entitled...
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the inscrutable japanese: not sure whether to laugh or cheer or mourn the demise of self-expression, but the japanese people and authorities are going after japanese tourists who participate in mass celebratory defacing of foreign monuments with a few “innocent” scrawls of their own….
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teddy bears from round the world: i had no idea teddy bears had nationalities :) turns out that “French bears can be identified by their short bristle mohair, their simple jointing and their colourful ear linings; their inner ears and paw pads are made of mohair of a contrasting color”. Apparently, Australian bears are neckless-sexy. More info here and here and here.
June 2008
14 posts
oh fun: from the guardian -> Dutch police suspect that a giraffe was responsible for a herd of animals escaping from a travelling circus in Amsterdam today. Fifteen camels, two zebras, several llamas and pot-bellied pigs ran free early this morning in the Dutch capital, according to the Reuters news agency. “We suspect that a giraffe kicked open a pen,” Dutch police said, adding...
“When the very great physicist Bohr was visiting the great physicist Landau in...”
– from an article by Tom Korner, not sure what it shows, but it is funny.
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WatchOverview talk by Terence Tao on prime number theory. He is a real genius (not just a prodigy), using the strictest sense of the term (rather than the loose “American” use of that word). Math Olympiad Gold Medallist at 13, PhD at age 20, full professor at 24, and last year’s Fields medallist. And yet he is amazingly down-to-earth, thoughtful and very well balanced in almost...
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my bit through adsense: when i am bored, i visit sites i like and click on adsense ads from companies i don’t care for. of course, in the long-run, if everyone did this, it might be counterproductive.. but in the short term, anything i can do to help redistribute the money :)
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applied knowledge: From this week’s Nature: “Canadian scientists have found that being close to the starting gun startles runners into a speedier start. The team suggests that Canada’s Olympic runners wear cranked-up hearing aids in Beijing to get the best reaction time off the blocks.” Of course, reaction-time decreases with loudness, and those milliseconds matter in the...
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take a deep breath: was doing some google research on butyric acid for a cccrazy friend setting up a float for the pride parade (it smells really really bad, like puke-raised-to-n, i am told) and found this priceless google ad:Butyric acidRelax. Take a deep breath. We have the answers you seek. “www.RightHealth.com/Neurophysiology”
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let journals bid: our long article got triaged today by a bunch of low-level editors at a “prestigious” commercial journal for “lack of potential for high-level impact”. of course, it took them two weeks to tell us this. and of course, we disagree, and now have the option of either appealing their decision not to send it out for review or to try another journal. plos one is...
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sci-fi: fascinating text of a discussion session with hugo and nebula award winning author nancy kress on gender in sci-fi writing. it is long, but worth reading. i am SO on the lookout for a full, serious and recent study on gender representation in different fields …
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thai thai thai: just finished reading ara wilson’s The Intimate Economies of Bangkok: Tomboys, Tycoons, and Avon Ladies in the Global City . fascinating how capitalism interacts with sexual, gender, religious and ethnic identity. as i always do, i found the stories fascinating (tom(boy)s and (la)dees !), but felt that the theorizing was not obviously linked to facts or data.. my feeling...
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camille dalmais: oh she is hot. youtube links: gospel with no lord money note cats and dogs home is where it hurts
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Debatepedia: am excited about debatepedia