-
Google Scholar
I just learned about Google Scholar, a new search engine devoted strictly to so-called scholarly or academic publishing, apparently replacing the html links used for the usual google ranking with citations (i.e., references). I’m not yet sure this is better than the ArXiv that I mentioned in this post, or subject-specific search engines such as…
-
Sustainable Island
I live on the very small Osney Island on the River Thames and last night I went to a meeting of the Osney Sustainable Island Group (OSIG). We’d like to take advantage of our location and set up a “micro-hydro” station to produce electricity. But we’re only at the beginning: we need to find funds…
-
Science in Bush’s America
Wired News: Science Braces for Second Term Climate change. The teaching of Darwinian evolution. Stem Cell research and reproductive rights. Industrial waste. Exploring Mars. Many or most of us scientists disagree with the Bush Administration’s policies on many of these and other issues. That becomes a real problem when they start interfering with the flow…
-
Powell in 2008?
·
US Secretary of State Colin Powell resigns: he’s a pro-affirmative action military moderate… So: for the Democrats?
-
Academic blogs
Bloggercon happened last weekend at Stanford University in the USA. One of the sessions was on Blogging in Academia; I wasn’t there, but anyone can listen to it at IT Conversations. The moderator was Jay Rosen, and there are notes on the sessions at his site, and on the blogs One Pilgrim’s Walk and JZip.…
-
Theory?
Evolution textbooks row goes to court: “United States: School board in court after it tried to placate Christian fundamentalist parents by placing a sticker on science textbooks saying evolution was ‘theory, not fact’.” (Via Guardian Unlimited.) With their usual linguistic slight of hand, the fanatics formerly known as the Christian Right have managed to conflate…
-
A divider, not a uniter
·
The pundits have been falling over themselves to find “the” explanation for the Democrats’ loss this week. Was it values — “gays, guns, and god”? Was it better organization headed by Karl Rove? Was it not wanting to ditch a wartime [sic] leader? As usual, all of these things are true — no single explanation…
-
Getting used to disappointment
·
When I was six years old in 1972, somehow we kids waiting for the bus home from school got to talking about politics — who our parents would be voting for in the next election. To this day, I remain proud that my parents were the only ones voting for McGovern. He lost, of course,…
-
The Red and the Blue
·
I’ve only lived in blue counties in blue states in blue regions (and the even-bluer countries of Canada and the United Kingdom)… (Map courtesy USA Today)
-
Trockenbeerenauslese
Trockenbeerenauslese, from the German trocken (dry), beeren (grapes or berries), and auslese (selected), is wine from grapes that have been shrivelled up by the so-called “noble rot” (aka the botrytis fungus) responsible for the best dessert wines worldwide, like French Sauternes. Tonight we had a bottle of 1995 Johanneshof Reinisch Chardonnay from Thermenregion, Austria. I…
Search
Recent Posts
Categories
- Academia (64)
- Art (57)
- Blog (1)
- Miscellanea (101)
- Music (71)
- Net (63)
- News (28)
- Politics (110)
- Science (332)
- Uncategorized (4)