during the week i can’t open my eyes in the morning.
It is weekend, 4 am and I’m wide awake…….
Yup. Right there with ya.
Science doesn’t work despite scientists being asses. Science works, to at least some extent, because scientists are asses. Bickering and backstabbing are essential elements of the process. Haven’t any of these guys ever heard of “peer review”?
There’s this myth in wide circulation: rational, emotionless Vulcans in white coats, plumbing the secrets of the universe, their Scientific Methods unsullied by bias or emotionalism. …
[But science is] not a hippie love-in; it’s rugby. Every time you put out a paper, the guy you pissed off at last year’s Houston conference is gonna be laying in wait. Every time you think you’ve made a breakthrough, that asshole supervisor who told you you needed more data will be standing ready to shoot it down. You want to know how the Human Genome Project finished so far ahead of schedule? Because it was the Human Genome projects, two competing teams locked in bitter rivalry, one led by J. Craig Venter, one by Francis Collins — and from what I hear, those guys did not like each other at all.
This is how it works: you put your model out there in the coliseum, and a bunch of guys in white coats kick the shit out of it. If it’s still alive when the dust clears, your brainchild receives conditional acceptance. It does not get rejected. This time.
—
Peter Woods on the scientific method. I love this quote. So many people’s perception of science is just totally backwards. (via penllawen)
Which of course is another reminder that we need a complete overhaul of science education, especially in America. It’s not about memorization and rote regurgitation, it’s about competition and game playing. Starting from an early age, we should put together kids in teams of three to five - trying to pay especial attention to personality types in order to mix the shy cooperators in with the brash competitive ones - and have them compete. Month-long (or longer) tracks of theory, experimental design, experiment, recording, and reporting of results. Those should be followed by a week or two of every other team trying to repeat, or rip apart the conclusions of their peers.
Put the fun back into discovery and teach the children how the sausage is really made. This has the added advantage of exciting those kids who thrill to competition and lets them know there is a whole wide world out there in which they can live and work and keep their competitive juices flowing.
(via coyotesqrl)Yeah. What he said.
Alerts for the Altered: "Breakdown"
Internet, I have done a terrible thing. I feel like I’ve betrayed a Mann I love dearly. I’ve always had a Manncrush, and for most of the time I’ve held an iPhone in my hands, that’s meant receiving calls with the dulcet tones of his gentle booping. But no more.
I finally decided to be true to myself. To my self. My panicky, neurotic, withdrawn, phobic self. My self that hates and fears the phone more than any other instrument of modern technology.
I made a ringtone.
It’s the first in what will hopefully be a long and shoddily-edited series, “Alterts for the Altered.” This one, “Breakdown,” has been pulled from En Vogue’s classic “Never Gonna Get It”: and if you curl into a ball anything like mine when someone starts to encroach on your stability through the phone, you’ll surely enjoy this. ”Now it’s time for a breakdown!” it happily announces, before repeating “Never gonna get it” over and over till you can just about hear the fetal position through the phone. It’s almost too perfect. And it’s all for you.
Rock to it, Internet. Gently back and forth in the corner.
This. Is. Awesome.
Why so much FAIL in the digital world?
This is a really interesting article about how technology lets us down - you should read it if you are so inclined.
This woman was the last speaker of her native language, Bo. She died, and now there’s no one left. I can’t imagine how lonely that would be.
“Actually, this isn’t just one photograph — it’s a composite of 31 different images, taken in the shadow of the solar eclipse that passed over Asia and parts of the Pacific back in July for 6 minutes and 39 seconds. That’s the longest solar eclipse anyone on Earth will witness this century; a longer one isn’t coming until 2132. Mathematician and eclipse photographer Miloslav Druckmüller didn’t waste a second of it, positioned with a team of colleagues on Enewetak Atoll in the South Pacific, which just happens to be where the first hydrogen bomb was tested by the United States back in 1952. (Sounds like the setup to an un-aired episode of Lost, but anyway.) The photo shows the solar corona that make up the sun’s “atmosphere” in glorious detail. Its whorls and loops extend millions of miles into space, are nearly 200 times hotter than the visible surface of the sun, and yet aren’t nearly as bright (by a factor of something like a million), hence, we can only see them during eclipses. I love the delicate beauty of this photo, and how it makes various features of the corona so plainly visible, like the difference in activity around its polar regions, as well as the dim, cratered surface of the moon. Ain’t the universe purdy?”
Photo via Scientific American
classic
How is it that I’m sleepy and exhausted all day long, except at bedtime, when the insomnia kicks in?
I hate this. I haven’t slept more than three hours a night in days.
Ugh. I’m the same way. Hence the reblogging of this post at 3:49 am. It’s completely sucky.
RED HOOK A dancer from the U.S. theater company MOMIX performed a scene from “Bothanica” during its premiere in Rome Tuesday. (Photo: Alessandra Tarantino / AP via the Wall St. Journal)
I just love this picture.
Watching Fletch.
PowerPoint Karaoke!
Why am I only finding out about this now? This is a genius idea!
Hone your presentation skills as HackPittsburgh member Gwen pulls a random presentation from the Internet which you get to present! Sure, you’ve never seen the slide deck before and you may not know anything about the topic… that’s part of the fun!
Found by Coleen in Pittsburgh, aka @dubcols
I kind of want to try this.
