Random Thoughts
It's a phrase that is commonly used to describe a stubborn reluctance to seriously explore alternatives. There are many arguments, mostly economic, as to why this should be, but mostly it's due to the fact that there is too much money being made from oil.
One of the ironies of the recent oil spill was in watching the president of a Lousiana Parrish talking about how Obama's moratorium on deep water drilling would decimate the local economy. This said in the same breath with how the Obama Administration would help those fisherman whose livelihoods have been compromised.
This…
Music - The International Language
Peoples of all cultures love music and song.
This article addresses two urban myths: that yodelling originated in the mountains of Austria, Bavaria and Switzerland and that it evolved as a means of calling from mountain to mountain.
Yodelling is fairly universal and is independent of terrain. The greatest variation is in the choice of musical instrument to accompany the yodelling. Modern musicians prefer guitars and electronic instruments. Austrians tend to favor the piano accordian and acoustic guitar. Other cultures favor the 'thumb…
antunes |
Last night, while gym climbing with a science manager, I found he also did outdoor climbing, hiking, and yoga. Yoga is a great exercise system. Scientists need healthy bodies to match our super-healthy minds. Yet a websearch on 'Yoga for Scientists' reveals nothing about how Yoga can help Scientists! Well, except for "Yoga-- Naked Scientists Discussion Forum" (go ahead, I know you want to look).
However, my interest in the health benefits in Yoga was chilled a bit at this NASA worker's comment, intended to be upbeat-- "tried Bickram Yoga (the Hot yoga) today with a…
A Global Warming Scam Exposed
A favorite trick of scammers is to pick a phrase that is widely used and then use it to draw in site visits via Google searches for that phrase.1
If you search for "global warming scam" you will likely find a search result "global warming scam exposed". The site is earthpro.info and you will find a complete piece of BS that starts off with:
Global Warming Is A Total Scam
COMMENTS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING
By John Coleman
it is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM.
But that article is not what…
Psychrolinguistics
I was going to title this 'cryolinguistics', but someone else already invented the term. You have to admire the linguistic skills of anyone who can come up with a Department of Zaphodian Cryolinguistics
I propose setting up BLASWUM - the Branch of Linguistics for the Abolition of the Snow Words Urban Myth. Now, given that Greek and Latin are so much more scientific than acronyms, I'm going to call this branch of linguistics psychrolinguistics. The urban myth in question is the idea that the eskimo languages have more words for snow than any other…
Instead of blogging, I've been gardening (for a living) and cultivating a scientific interest in weeds. I hadn't given much thought to weed science as a separate field of Crop and Soil Sciences. Of course, weed scientists study unwanted or invasive plants and ways to kill or tame them, among other things.
But I have grown fascinated with weeds as nutritious and medicinal foods, and as otherwise beneficial garden or wild plant companions.
I understand the harm potential (PDF) of invasive weeds and note happily that many weeds grow in my zone naturally. While I help…
Florida State accounting professor Douglas Stevens says economic decision-makers frequently factor morality into their judgments and behavior, and it's time for economic models to incorporate morality as a result.
Stevens and a colleague have published a paper in Accounting, Organizations and Society that incorporates morality into the economic theory of the firm, known as principal-agent theory.
According to the theory a principal must hire an agent to perform some productive effort. A "moral hazard" arises, however, because the principal cannot observe the effort of the agent and the…
"There is no better way to learn something than to write about it"
Martin Gardner (via Johannes Koelman)
Since I have started to write on this site, 13 months ago, I have realized that few of the contributors here discuss their private life and thoughts. But I was used to do it in my old site and so I still do it, because I conceive a blog as an online diary, and there are things I wish to write here just for the record, as a private memo, or to let you know what is in my mind, in case you wondered. Recently some anonymous troll complained in the comments thread that what I had written was irrelevant and self-contemplating -and I agreed, but asked him (her?) to please walk away rather than…
Peer Review is universally used to ensure the quality of scientific research, but the process may not be as reliable as people assume. A new study in PLoS One suggests that the recommendations reviewers may not be much more reliable than a coin toss.
"Peer review provides an important filtering function with the goal of insuring that only the highest quality research is published," said William Tierney, M.D., a Regenstrief Institute investigator and study co-author. "Yet the results of our analysis suggest that reviewers agree on the disposition of manuscripts – accept or reject – at a rate…