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I
have seen the future, and it is squishy.
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Now & Then (a Log)
Fighting the Good Fight
Fancypants implemented a CSS-based layout sans HTML tables. If I can gain me some technical knowledge, I'd like to try it too.
Death to Pagerank, Long Live Folding
After ignoring it for weeks, I finally clicked the "New!" button on my Google toolbar. It seems I've been randomly selected to participate in a new Google initiative, enabled by said toolbar, which leverages the power of distributed computing to help scientists understand how proteins fold into shapes.
The romantic in me wishes I could toggle between helping the folders and SETI, but Google (at least initially) has a more noble cause to support. Future releases, they say, will support multiple projects.(Interestingly, I tried to link to Google's FAQ page for the new program, but the ghost in the machine won't let me!) No ghosts, just me being foolish. Linkee works now.
Like Water
The Chronicle weighs in on the Bogdanov affair. Notable, if only for the fact that an MIT physics professor uses the phrase "ass backwards" in the article.
The Unbridgeable Gulf (in which I take generous liberties with the limerick form)
There was an inciter named Sokal
who laid bare the sins of a journal.
Whether for or against
his true aim was not sensed;
'twas really an hommage to Urkel.
* * *
Came across this today (via Robot Wisdom), which is serendipitous considering I'd just the other day been reconsidering the Sokal Affair (while reading a lengthy but well considered opinion piece I can't seem to find now). A little more digging unearthed this account of the new scandal, which closes tantalizingly with the author's admission that he can't disclose some new tidbit of information he's come across.
Seems that while pomo journals sometimes suffer from a lack of understanding of the subject matter they attempt to dissect, the referee process used by physics journals (or some of them, at any rate) isn't much of a process. More bloggy analysis here and here (scroll up to read more commentary).
These things that poke holes in the academic system are a source of endless fascination for me. Whither thou goest, and why? (And perhaps more importantly, why are there so many German-language sites devoted to Steve Urkel?)
This is the work of Abbi Ball, and is licensed under a Creative Commons License.