The Art of Science: Consuming Technology

Public Feelings, 2012

Eat All You Can is the title of a show of paintings by UK-based South Korean artist Ha Young Kim, currently on display at London’s Hoxton Art Gallery through October 4th. Kim’s colorful paintings, often in acrylic on translucent drafting film, focus on humans as consumers, of food, goods, “public emotions” and especially technology. Continue reading “The Art of Science: Consuming Technology”

Disproving adaptionist assumptions

Intense predation as a significant selective pressure in our evolutionary lineage is inconsistent with the existence of snoring and toddler tantrums.

Those poor bastards

 

Here are my thoughts on the Seahawks-Packers Hail Mary refereeing controversy (as if you really cared):

  • Live & at full speed, my first thought was “simultaneous possession”.
  • Former NFL cornerback Eric Davis makes a solid argument for “simultaneous possession” even after slow motion replay. The vagaries of “control” versus “catch” seem key here.
  • Has anyone in NFL history ever called offensive pass interference on a Hail Mary?
  • Home field advantage is mostly due to unconscious bias on part of referees responding to the angry mob screaming at them (ie, the crowd). No way that call was getting overturned in Seattle.
  • Referees are people, error prone humans, trying very hard to a very, very hard job well. The replacements are trying to do this with everyone hating them and expecting them to fail.
  •  Replacement referees aren’t incompetent. They are inexperienced at this level of play.
  • That inexperience could have important implications for player safety.
  • Replacements struggle to manage games because players/coaches don’t respect them, know them, or believe there are long-term consequences to their relationships.
  • The replacement referees aren’t responsible for the situation. The NFL and the regular referees are, but mostly the NFL.
  • It’s just football, folks.

 

Always leave a paper trail

Photo by Jeff Werner

Lab notebooks are one of the less glamorous parts of being a scientist. You must meticulously record what you do each day so that some day in the future, someone could read it and replicate that day’s work. Or when you realize you discovered something you would like to patent, you must prove that you indeed thought of it on a particular day.

Confession: I am particularly terrible at maintaining my lab notebook. Continue reading “Always leave a paper trail”

Yamantaka//Sonic Titan and the Polaris Prize vs the Nobel Prizes

Tonight in Toronto, musicians, music writers and just about everyone else whose world revolves around Canadian music are getting ready to celebrate the soon-to-be-crowned winners of the 2012 Polaris Prize. Modeled after the UK’s Mercury Prize and founded in 2006, The Polaris Prize is awarded each year to the best Canadian full length album “without regard to musical genre, professional affiliation, or sales history.” Continue reading “Yamantaka//Sonic Titan and the Polaris Prize vs the Nobel Prizes”