So This Virgin Was Explaining Sex to Me …

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Horrible Article On Becoming A Physicist

This person by the name of “Timothy Sexton” (BA in English) somehow thought that he could write an article titled “How to Become a Physicist and What to Expect when You Become One“. Now, before we examine his article, tell me something. What are the chances that someone who has never obtained a degree in physics, and has never worked in physics, would know well enough what one needs to do to become a physics, and then know what to expect when one becomes a physicist?

Not Clear on the Concept

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Got this from the hotel at which I recently stayed:

By completing this survey, you may be contacted by the hotel to help improve the quality of service provided. We sincerely thank you for sharing your opinions as we continue to do our best to make each stay enjoyable.

So, so you send me spam and if I help you out, my reward is that you’re going to bug me more? Could be worse, though. They could be telling me it’ll take 5 freaking business days to remove me from their email list.

Thtuck! Thtuck!

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You either need to learn about the concepts of thermodynamics, or you can watch A Christmas Story

Boy’s Tongue Stuck to Frozen Pole After ‘Christmas Story’ Dare

You’ve seen this scene before — every Christmas.

An 8-year-old Oklahoma boy got his tongue stuck on a frozen stop sign pole after his brother dared him to lick it.

No mention of an escalation from a double-dog to a triple-dog dare, however.

Blogging: You're Doing it Wrong! (Part 1)

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The title is firmly tongue-in-cheek (which does not impair my typing nearly as much as chewing gum does); the theme at ScienceOnline 2011 was quite the opposite of that, except … well, I’ll get to that. Eventually.

This was a very different kind of conference than I am used to attending. Despite costing about 1/4 to 1/3 of what I am used to seeing as a registration fee, there was an awesome amount of stuff in the swag bag we got at check-in, including a couple of books, and that doesn’t include the other book we got at the mixer on Friday night, which was held in a bar that had been rented out for the evening, with free drinks (at least for beer and wine). Not in the exhibition hall with a ticket for one free drink. The books at the giveaway were all wrapped in brown paper to mask their identity (though the authors were not, and several did short readings from their books), but I scored Mathematical Methods for Optical Physics and Engineering after after a skull in the stars pointed out that, as a textbook, it was the biggest book there. It retails at more than half of the registration fee. So, score. And then then there was more swag at the conference, too; some were items that couldn’t be put in a swag bag, like t-shirts (so you could pick your size). Even the ID badges were better than I’d seen. Big, and with a 2-D scan code of your URL on it.

Dinner on Friday was novel, too. You signed up for a slot at one of several restaurants, which nicely solves the dinner diffusion problem, and each group had one or two of the authors present. I sorted on food type rather than author, and ended up at the Italian place. The waiter had an unorthodox approach; after I ordered my entrée he told me that everyone else had ordered a salad as well. Wow! Using peer pressure to move salad. I think we all had a pretty good time, up until we had to pay. We split the check, and did so according to who drank and who didn’t so we make the nondrinkers subsidize the drinkers, but despite the gratuity being included we still came up short. “Everyone pay $x” should work, but we had to get seven people to kick in an extra buck and even then, we were a nickel short. Not exactly dine-and-dash, and I hope that it’s not worth extradition so I hope its safe for me to admit it.

The varied backgrounds made things very interesting as well. Lots of biologists, writers, others in the publishing business, librarians (who all seemed to know the librarian at the Naval Observatory and her predecessor, and agree that they are both awesome) and Brian Malow, a science comedian who wanted some tips on physics to improve the accuracy of his jokes, and also traded some comedic information once I mentioned that I draw the occasional science cartoon.

Then there was the gender breakdown. I hesitate to expand on this, lest I stick my foot in my mouth, but I’ll be blunt: there aren’t many women attending the conferences I usually go to. And I had previously not been in any conference discussions that included being told that her conference nickname (to be worn on a t-shirt) could be “The Other Penis Lady.” Believe it or not, that had never happened to me before.

The “talks” themselves were not the traditional presentations of talking for 90% of the allotted time and then taking a question or two at the end. Generally the panel gave short presentations and then solicited input and discussion from the audience and in most cases spent less than half of the time on their prepared talks. One went a little over, but the presenter was basically begging for more audience input, and only one filled up as much as 75% of the time showing slides. It underscored the feeling of “nobody is really an expert at this” and that everybody could make a contribution.

Technology was a new experience, too. For all of the cutting-edge technology that gets discussed at an atomic clock talk, nobody live blogs, tweets or streams video of it. At this conference there was the background clacking of keyboards and most of it seemed to be on twitter (is that technically live blogging or is it just real-time tweeting?) I was having trouble enough taking a few notes and still listen to what was being discussed, because I’m way out of practice at that sort of thing.

I’ll have more of substance soon (I hope). Depends on how much time I can embezzle in the next few days.

Part II

Who Could it Hurt?

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I’ve got a post or two I could write up from what I experienced at ScienceOnline 2011, but for now, a link that was mentioned in one of the discussions.

Maria from Skepchick mentioned what’s the harm, which is a collection of incidents of people being harmed by uncritically accepting “alternative” medicine or antiscience. These beliefs are not benign. Logic is not usually effective in convincing someone who has made an illogical choice; I suppose e.g. a good rebuttal to the argument that such-and-such traditional mimbo-jumbo has been used for hundreds of years is that the dramatic lengthening of our lifespan has only occurred with the advent and adoption of modern medicine, and ask why that didn’t happen because of homeopathic acupuncture* (or whatever), but in case that doesn’t work, you can find actual instances of people being harmed by a particular practice.

Not all information is created equal. Some of it is correct. Some of it is incorrect. Some of it is carefully balanced. Some of it is heavily biased. Some of it is just plain crazy.

It is vital in the midst of this deluge that each of us be able to sort through all of this, keeping the useful information and discarding the rest. This requires the skill of critical thinking. Unfortunately, this is a skill that is often neglected in schools.

This site is designed to make a point about the danger of not thinking critically. Namely that you can easily be injured or killed by neglecting this important skill. We have collected the stories of over 670,000 people who have been injured or killed as a result of someone not thinking critically.

*which I practice. I have diluted it down to zero needles inserted into my back.

The Party's Over

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ScienceOnline 2011 just finished up, and while there were some unique aspects to it (from my physics experience/perspective), there were a few things that were business as usual — I’m exhausted and my back is killing me. (I guess I shouldn’t have been attending the sessions in the Marquis de Sade salon). I finally got to meet some fellow physics bloggers, Dr. Skyskull (aka gg) and Blake Stacey, and then having gg introduce me around. It’s now a blur.

More to follow on some impressions, but for now I’m going to relax and watch some football.

Games People at Hotels Play

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So I’m at ScienceOnline 2011 for the weekend; I drove down Thursday, checked in and apparently missed DrSkyskull in the lobby when I went to the bar to get dinner. And then I collapsed. As I write this Friday morning I’m skipping the tours because I knew I wouldn’t be up to it; I went to the gym instead, figuring that would help me shake off my travel hangover.

The elliptical was a really fast track. Insanely fast, as compared to the one I use at work. I know that the one at work might not be calibrated properly, but I find it curious that the one at the hotel was indicating at least 10% faster than what I’ve been doing the past week. The exercise room is located next to the pool, so the air is warm and humid (somewhat less so than normal because it’s cold outside, and the window condenses a bunch of water) and that promotes sweat. Profuse sweat doesn’t help keep you cool, but it can make you feel like you’re doing really well in your workout. And the scale was reading ~3 lbs lighter than the scales at work and at the doctor’s office.

I wonder if it’s deliberate. It gives you positive feedback on your workout and makes you feel good about it, especially if you might not be at the top of your game from being on the road. Gives you a good mental association with the hotel. I read stories about how much effort goes into the psychology of casinos and all the tricks they employ, so it doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility that someone’s gaming the exercise equipment to get a tiny edge in getting repeat business.

Or maybe it’s all about having little to think about on the machine, I had an awesome workout, and I can have the chocolate cake for dessert.