This is an interesting panel (it actually starts about half an hour in, I think) from last week’s Goddard Symposium. Four women (Marcia Smith, Lori Garver, Sandy Magnuson and Mary Lynne Dittmar) and one man, moderated by Frank Morring. As expected, Lori is quite politically incorrect.
Category Archives: Science And Society
Trump’s Speech Patterns
He talks a lot like Ross Perot.
Except without the east Texas twang.
The Cloud People
I totally get the anger that has created Trump. I share it. But I will never understand why they don’t see that he’s a false vessel for it.
Also, this is funny but sad, about Whole Foods customers.
[Update a while later]
This seems related: The new WASPs are Asians in Silicon Valley.
Outer Space
The manifesto of the committee to abolish it.
To be honest, I had never previously realized how terrible outer space is.
OLEDs
I hadn’t realized that lifetime was a problem for organic LEDs, but if it was, this appears to be a big breakthrough.
On The Radio
I did a show this morning with Jim Muncy and Paul Sutter at the NPR affiliate in Columbus, OH. I thought it went pretty well.
When Glaciers Are Sexist
I think we’ve come to the point at which academia is just one huge case of Poe’s Law.
Confident Idiots
A long but very interesting piece on the overconfidence of the incompetent, by David Dunning (of Dunning-Kruger fame). For some reason, I think it has some relevance to the Trump phenomenon, and politics in general.
For the record, I have never had a problem claiming my ignorance on a topic.
Epigenetic Aging
We may be able to turn it off, and reverse it. I’ve always been amused by (in Clarke’s words) the “distinguished elderly [or not so elderly] scientists” who think that the laws of physics require our bodies to deteriorate over time.
Via Glenn, who has some further thoughts.
BMI
Not exactly news to readers of this site, but it is a terrible measure of health.