Swans on Tea

Grand theft solar
As energy prices soar and consumers turn to the Sun for their power, opportunistic thieves are cashing in on the new market by dismantling and reselling solar panels.
“I wouldn’t say it’s pervasive, but it’s going on,” California Solar Energy Industries Association executive director Sue Kateley told the Contra Costa Times in August. According [...]

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Advertisement. You are receiving this e-mail because you have identified yourself as a Ravens fan via the NFL through a promotion, subscription, purchase, etc.
When the hell did I identify myself as a Ravens fan?
DOLPHINS! (Say, how are things up in New England these days? Having fun?)

But still pretty neat. A 15+ minute video of someone making vacuum tubes by hand.

Oregon State 27, USC 21 (USC being ranked #1 going into the game)
Way to go, Beavers! (Of course, they couldn’t do this sort of thing when I was there; they were busy having something like 30 straight losing seasons)

For vision, at least. Spacing, Not Size, Matters in Visual Recognition, NYU Researchers Find
New York University neuroscientists have concluded that it’s the spacing between letters, not their size, that matters. In general, objects, such as letters, can be recognized only if they are separated by enough space, the “critical spacing.” Objects closer than that [...]

Dance of the Spirits — The beautiful Aurora Borealis
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake [...]

Huge blogroll of women blogging on science and technology at Sciencewoman. Via sciencegeekgirl

Remembering the hits and forgetting the Mrs.
Technically not a logical fallacy, but will cause you to lose the argument, every time.

Between reading blogs and watching sports on TV over the weekend, I was exposed to a few expressions that are, well, just wrong, dammit!
Walk the talk — no, it’s talk the talk vs walk the walk. The former is easier than the latter. If you walk the talk, aren’t you repeatedly putting your [...]

There’s quite a bit of physics/science terminology that is defined in a way that doesn’t jibe (or is essentially opposite) of the everyday use of the word, like coincidence. But even within science, different disciplines will interpret terms differently, because of the conventions and anticipated results.
Bandwidth and Community Expectations over at Uncertain Principles.
[W]hether a [...]

Proton Therapy – Cost and Benefit
[T]he current question on whether patients do benefit from it better than conventional, less-costly treatment.
‘Proton therapy’ was one answer to the “what good is it?” question of physics when I was working at TRIUMF, and explaining the benefit of basic research wasn’t an option.
Proton therapy is the use of protons [...]