The Chronicle of Higher Education has published a short article outlining the signs to watch for in evaluating science:

1. The discoverer pitches the claim directly to the media
2. The discoverer says that a powerful establishment is trying to suppress his or her work
3. The scientific effect involved is always at the very limit of detection
4. Evidence for a discovery is anecdotal
5. The discoverer says a belief is credible because it has endured for centuries
6. The discoverer has worked in isolation
7. The discoverer must propose new laws of nature to explain an observation

Read the article for elaboration on each point.

Jacques Derrida died three days ago. As The Times alludes to, if the purpose of an obituary is to put a person’s life in a certain perspective and/or to draw meaning from that life, it’s impossible to write an obituary for Derrida. Ah, delightful irony.

Yesterday evening, Hannah took this photo of me pushing Samuel on the tree swing behind our house. I thought it was interesting.

The photo below is the product of a not very successful experiment. On my way home from work the other day, the sky got really dark with thunderstorm clouds. I thought this church would look really cool against those clouds, so I stopped and took a few shots. After I uploaded the images, I wasn’t so impressed. So instead of making the pic as realistic as possible, I decided to try to manipulate the image into something more interesting. I flattened it and reduced to grey scale. The result is more interesting than the original, but still not terribly good.

I can certainly relate to this assessment by Andy Lester on his blog:

Last night, while watching the first of the Kerry/Bush debates, I was struck by what a terrible programming project leader President Bush would make.
He kept repeating the importance of staying on the course that was originally set out on, even in the face of things not going as planned: “the way to win this is to be steadfast and resolved and to follow through on the plan.” He also said that changing course would be demoralizing to the troops: “What kind of message does it say to our troops in harm’s way, ‘wrong war, wrong place, wrong time?'”
I certainly know that that approach doesn’t work on programming projects. If there’s one thing that seasoned programmers know, it’s that projects never go as planned, and course correction is critical. Even worse, the programmers in the trenches know how the project is going, and aren’t inspired when things carry on as if nothing is wrong. For a project leader to act as if there are no problems is insulting to those doing the work.
If the war in Iraq was a programming project, Bush would need to be saying, regularly, “I know things aren’t going well, I know that you’ve had a lot of casualties on the team, but I believe we can get through this. Now, here’s what we’re going to do differently to make sure that we come out of this project alive.”
Of course, if the war were a programming project, it’d never have gotten management approval in the first place. What are our requirements? What are our milestones? How are we doing? How do we know when the project is over? What’s the timeframe for completion? What’s the success metric? Is the iRaq project really the best way to beef up the company’s security?
Over a year into the project, having lost over 1,000 employees, Bush The Project Leader would just be pointing at a handful of completed tasks: “We got rid of that old, buggy Hoo-Sane system. The company’s better off without it. We’re still having problems building the replacement, and a lot of programmers are burning out, because it’s a bigger task than I thought, but at least we got rid of the Hoo-Sane system that I’ve always wanted to replace.”
I doubt I’d be a good politician, but I know for sure GWB wouldn’t be any good on any projects I’ve been on.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota filled a swimming pool with guar gum in order to find out whether people swim faster in water than they would in a higher viscosity liquid. The question has a long and interesting history, the results surprised me, and the story of their getting permission to conduct the experiment is humorous.

When I got home from my run this morning (6:15 ish), this little guy was in our back yard.

Paul Graham, whose “Great Hackers” essay was making the rounds recently, has written another great essay, this one about the positive lessons we should take from the great internet bubble of the late 90s. I particularly liked his sixth section, titled “Nerds” (I prefer the term “geek”):

Clothing is only the most visible battleground in the war against formality. Nerds tend to eschew formality of any sort. They’re not impressed by one’s job title, for example, or any of the other appurtenances of authority.

Indeed, that’s practically the definition of a nerd. I found myself talking recently to someone from Hollywood who was planning a show about nerds. I thought it would be useful if I explained what a nerd was. What I came up with was: someone who doesn’t expend any effort on marketing himself.

A nerd, in other words, is someone who concentrates on substance.

I’m a sucker for blog postings where the author humorously shares about the craziness of parenthood. Like this one, for instance:

When you have kids, helping them out in the bathroom becomes a part of your life. So much so, that you forget just what a pain in the ass it is until they become fully potty trained. Then there’s this crazy feeling of re-gained freedom. Like when that warm water plugging up your ear finally trickles out, or taking off that annoying condom. (If you’re really curious about this whole potty-training thing, try the second one.)

What I most enjoy about my son’s self-reliance in this department is the zeal with which he does it.

He doesn’t just go quietly about his business. First he runs around the house in a near frenzy, announcing to each individual “I HAVE TO MAKE PEE PEE!!!” After a few minutes of this, he finally makes it to the bathroom.
I find it refreshing that he’s taken a routine task, and turned it into a bonafide event. Zeal!

Could you imagine if I started doing this at work? Actually, I think we should all try it.

Before you excuse yourself from your next meeting, run around the office shouting “I HAVE TO MAKE PEE PEE!” And remember, it’s not just shouting it, but taking the time to shout it at each person in the vicinity. Oh, and don’t forget to grab your crotch. (As if you need prompting.)

Zeal: you shall be ours. Along with unemployment.

Via Danklife:

Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards.

With his first swallow of coffee, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised.

All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer’s medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance — now Joe gets it too.

He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents becaus some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

He walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor. Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe’s employer pays these standards because Joe’s employer doesn’t want his employees to call the union.

If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he’ll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn’t think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

Its noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe’s deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime.

Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards.

He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers’ Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans. The house didn’t have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification.

He is happy to see his father, who is now retired.His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn’t have to.

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn’t mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day.

Joe agrees: “We don’t need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I’m a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have.”