We just got a small glimpse of how America found itself fat. Jodi went into a store at the airport to buy a small bag of chips – something to put in her stomach to settle it until our in-flight lunch. She went to the counter to pay for her […]
steve
1608 posts
This semester has been a strange one. This is a teaching leave for both Jodi and me. At SMU, we get such a leave after our third year, to work on the things that need attention ahead of our tenure reviews. I’ve been spending most of my time at CERN […]
One of my friends insisted I document the process of having a basal cell carcinoma (scary name, 99% treatment success rate) removed from my face. I was hesitant at first, but it seems silly not to write about the process of having this surgically removed. After all, what is the […]
I had the pleasure of guest lecturing a few weeks ago in the CFB/PHY 3333 course (despite being on teaching leave this semester – Profs. Scalise and Cotton are mighty persuasive). Here is the lecture audio, if you’re interested: Lecture Audio – Homeopathy (Spring, 2013) We’ve added a new feature […]
It is rare that life presents an opportunity to look back at old posts and say, “I told you so.” Back when Tim Tebow was a household name and “Tebow-mania” gripped the sporting nation, I took a look at his statistics, including how he measured against the great quarterback in […]
People talk about getting cancer like they talk about winning the state lottery. Winning the state lottery is, by design, an extremely improbable event. Unlike the state lottery, most of us stand a fair chance of getting cancer at least one time in our lives. And unlike for winners of […]
As my colleague Prof. Scalise likes to say, it’s stupid – and a little bit funny – when pseudoscience peddlers and scam artists try to use their nonsense on people that teach a class in fighting pseudoscience and scams. I got my first one today, in Twitter (of all places). […]
Author’s Note (2013/12/6): A commenter noted I was off by 10 in my extremely conservative upper limit on the mass of zinc present in a lozenge. However, that estimate was so conservative as to be ludicrous – it’s not based on homeopathy, which Zicam claims to use to prepare their […]
NSBP (BlackPhysicists):Preliminary investigation of instructor effects on gender gap in introductory physics http://t.co/l7NPMiuL #physics #education http://twitter.com/BlackPhysicists/status/224504 (Sent via Seesmic http://www.seesmic.com) http://t.co/l7NPMiuL This was posted on Google+…
Here is a review of my favorite “blog moments” from 2012. Here’s to many more adventures of my pet hamster in 2013. I better have a bunch . . . otherwise, why write at all? Favorite Photos Here are some of my favorite photos from the year. Park Falls: Nature […]
I’ve been seeing a lot of friends and family over the last week during the Winter Break. One of my friends presented me with an email – it’s unclear whether they wanted me to read it and agree with it or read it and debunk it. It was a chain […]
The best part about Christmas when you’re and adult is reliving the ones of your youth through the fresh eyes of your nephews. Same toys, new generation. You go, Santa!