Monday, August 31, 2015

Evolution of Ankylosaur Tails

›
Some new research has shed new light on the evolution of ankylosaur tails . Ankylosaurus has always been my favorite dinosaur. And, reall...

14th-Order Differential Equations

›
The setup of today's SMBC takes a while, but the punchline is worth it --- and, um, way too close to the truth.
Saturday, August 29, 2015

Vin Scully Will Broadcast Dodger Games in 2016!

›
Oh, Hell yes! Vin Scully will continue broadcasting Dodger games in 2016 . Scully has been year-to-year on his broadcasting plans for severa...
Friday, August 28, 2015

Evaluating Fake Lecturers

›
Clearly, we need to repeat a recently-published set of experiments by inserting fake lecturers into the evaluation forms that we give to st...

Tenure, She Wrote

›
Tenure, She Wrote looks like a really useful blog by and about women in academia. Here is the description on their website: Tenure, She W...
Thursday, August 27, 2015

Quantum Political Science

›
I love this new article in The Onion . The headline is "Quantum Political Scientists Hypothesize Country Headed In Both Right And Wr...
Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Self-Citations of Men Versus Women

›
According to a new study, male scientists self-cite more than female scientists . One of the authors of the study is Carl Bergstrom , so na...

A Sociological "Study" of Comfort Zones

›
Here is an article published three years ago in The Onion about a "study" of social comfort zones . I approve! Choice quote: ...
Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Bumps in a Carpet

›
Here is my latest post for the Improbable Research blog. You'll notice that I was discussing work by a few of my Oxford colleagues.
Monday, August 24, 2015

Oldest Known Message-in-a-Bottle

›
Recently, the oldest-known message-in-a-bottle resurfaced. It's a really cool story---including the reasons for releasing a bunch of bo...
Sunday, August 23, 2015

Dice for Visually-Impaired RPGers

›
Take a look at this 20-sided die for visually-impaired gamers . This is awesome.

Dice: Choose Your Weapon

›
Yes, my main dice bag was originally purposed to contain bags of coffee beans — what could possibly be more appropriate for me? I have los...

Some Curse Words: Old-School and New-School

›
Some of our body-oriented curse words have been around for a very long time . Seeing these charts makes me think of George Carlin 's s...
Saturday, August 22, 2015

Pac-Man in the 1850s

›
Oh, Hell, yes! "Shovel more coal, Boy! I am pursued by spectres!"
Friday, August 21, 2015

Official Congratulations to Drs. Sofia Piltz and Marta Sarzynska!

›
My doctoral students Sofia Piltz (co-supervised with Philip Maini ), who started a postdoc in ecology at DTU in June 2014, and Marta Sarzyn...

"I Could Go Without Smugness if I Chose To."

›
I choose not to.
Thursday, August 20, 2015

John, Paul, George, and Yoda

›
Hell yes! This shirt is awesome!
Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Are Mathematicians "Invading" Physics?

›
Are mathematicians "invading" physics? I link (and comment) . You decide.

Pictures from Dresden: 2015 Edition

›
Here are some pictures from my trip to Dresden last month for the multilayer-networks workshop that Alex Arenas and I organized.
Tuesday, August 18, 2015

"Brimstone Angels" Series of Forgotten Realms Novels

›
This evening I just finished the 4th book in the Brimstone Angels series of Forgotten Realms novels. I read the 3rd book on the series la...