Via Faraday’s Cage, a link to a claim (noted as likely incorrect or confused) that Americans have read only six of the top 100 books on the NEA’s Big Read list.
The rules
1) Bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you have started but haven’t finished.
3) Place an asterisk by those you intend to read/finish someday.
Several cool ones, along with some standard ones.
to see what condition my condition was in
What’s Wrong with the Sun? (Nothing)
This report, that there’s nothing to report, is newsworthy because of a growing buzz in lay and academic circles that something is wrong with the sun. Sun Goes Longer Than Normal Without Producing Sunspots declared one recent press release. A careful look at the data, however, suggests otherwise.
The use of symbols to represent swearing actually has a name: grawlix
[I]t looks to have been coined by Beetle Bailey cartoonist Mort Walker around 1964. Though it’s yet to gain admission to the Oxford English Dictionary, OED Editor-at-Large Jesse Sheidlower describes it as “undeniably useful, certainly a word, and one that I’d love to see used more.”
Cuckoo’s Nest Hospital to be Torn Down
Oregon State Hospital, the mental institution where the 1975 movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was filmed, is making way for a new complex. Most of the dilapidated, 125-year-old main building will be torn down and replaced starting this fall.
There’s nothing to the rumor that a giant pillow will be used to demolish the building.
Blogrolling, rolling, rolling, keep them blogs a-rolling
Blog Roll How To (howto) at Greg Laden’s Blog.
What does a blog roll do for the blogger? Well, it allows the blogger a way to give and receive link love. Link love is not a form of on line cybersex. It is in part a replacement for one on one professional contact that occurs in Meatland. Entry on a blog roll is a nice thing to do for someone else. If a blog roll is very short, you are either looking at a new blogger or an asshole. (I’m talking about the total length of blog roll, not the displayed portion). I know of several bloggers who have been blogging for quite some time but have fewer than 40 or so sites on the blog roll, three or four of them being links to the blogger’s own sites. Independent evidence suggests in many of thes cases that the blogger is an asshole. The correlation is astoundingly strong.
There are plenty of exceptions, of course. If you are reading this, you are an exception, I assume.
[...]
Most blog ranking services can easily detect and thus devalue links in blog rolls or blog rolling posts, but the truth is that if I put a link to your blog on my site, you get an increase in techorati ratings (and other ratings) …. and visa versa …. even if the link is in a blog rolling post. The ranking sites may devalue (depending) such links, but these links are not meaningless, so I assume that as ranking sites evolve over time, this is recognized for what it is.(By the way, many bloggers claim that ranking is not important to them at all. Those would be the bloggers with low ranks.)
Linking posts you like or blogrolling blogs you read on any kind of regular basis is win-win, if people return the favor. To quote Chekov (Pavel, not Anton) “. . . and we all move up one step in rank.”
With all this in mind, it’s time to update physics-y blogs I’ve been visiting on occasion that somehow had not been added yet.
Faraday’s Cage is where you put Schroedinger’s Cat
sciencegeekgirl
The Mind of Dr. Pion
Cosmic Variance
Asymptotia
By gorilla, of course, I mean inverted pendulum. The answer is: anywhere it wants in the middle of a tall building.
It’s a tuned mass damper for stabilizing the Taipei 101 skyscraper, and the link includes a video taken during the May earthquake.
Analogy web clock.
via The Long Now
No one knows why anyone does anything.
Why did I choose these socks today?
Trinity +1: the Decision to Use the Bomb, 17 July-6 August, 1945
The truth of the matter was that it was a very complex issue, an easily misunderstood tapestry of circumstance and consequence. The major issue of course was that the Japanese would not surrender, and that there would be “fanatical resistance” once the invasion of the Japanese islands had begun. The battle of Okinawa had just been fought—it was a horrible confrontation taking 12,5000 American lives and more than 1000,000 Japanese , demonstrating that even in impossible circumstances that the Japanese simply would not surrender (unconditionally). This is just one instance—there are many others, not the least of which was t he recent firebombing of Tokyo, taking 150,000 lives. Air strikes in general seemed to not make a difference in the will of Japan to fight—as was demonstrated again and again in the British and American bombing of Germany—as was further demonstrated in General Curtis LeMay’s and General Hap Arnold’s 60-city attack in the May-August span. The thought was that if there was an invasion that it could well cost the U.S. 1000,000+ casualties and would be completely devastating to Japan.
Something odd (in a US-centric way) going on with the numbers — 12,5000 and 1000,000 correlate to 12,500 and 100,000, respectively, when I compare to other accounts of the battle of Okinawa.
via Physics Buzz
The Light Fantastic over at Built on Facts.
A fun problem showing the relativity connection of electrical and magnetic forces.
Fourteen Passive-Aggressive Appetizers by Yoni Brenner in The New Yorker
Top thick slices of country bread with fresh goat cheese. Sprinkle with herbs and bake until crusty; serve to everyone but Jeff
OK, don’t read it. See if I care.
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