28 JUL 2014 by ideonexus
How to Make Slime
Mix up a batch of 50/50 water and glue, dissolve a spoonful of Borax in more water, then mix the whole mess together. (If you want real numbers, mix 1/4 c water with 1/4 glue & dissolve 1 tsp Borax in 1/8 c water, but really, you can be pretty slapdash about this.) As you knead it, the slime will quickly start resembling silly putty. For extra awesomeness, consider mixing in some iron filings to create your own batch of magnetic putty.Something to do with the kids.
28 JAN 2013 by ideonexus
"Sagan" as a Unit of Measurement
Carl Sagan was an American cosmologist, astronomer, and absolute tireless champion of the sciences in the public sphere. He was the author, co-editor, or editor of almost two dozen science books, and the host the award-winning 1980 television series Cosmos. Sagan was well known for his excitement in talking about science, especially cosmological issues, and would strongly enunciate the M sound in millions and the B sound in billions to emphasize just how big the numbers were and properly diff...From the trademark "Billions and Billions." "Billions" is plural, meaning greater than two, so billions and billions at minimum equals four.
17 JAN 2011 by ideonexus
Notes from the "It's All Geek to Me" Session
No direct quotes for this meme.These are notes summarizing comments made by speakers and audience during this session:
- Are you a geek? When telling a story, how often do you elaborate on the details? Baseball stat geek, science detail geek, D&D geek, all about details.
- What actually constitutes a geek?
- Student: it’s good to be a geek, it means someone who is passionate about something.
- Student: Geek is starting to be glamorized. Big Bang Theory, Harry Potter movie.
- Radio Show Host: compares herself to scientists, and doesn’t think herself a geek, but the audience is geeks (Skeptically Speaking). Considers herself a translator. Geeks listen more closely to the show, and send emails. Geeks provide feedback.
- “You call it geekery, I call it passion.”
- Geeks distrust social niceties. Why aren't they just giving me the information straight? Tendency towards argumentation.
- What are Benefits and Pitfalls of a Geeky audience? Bonus is passion. Geeks get immersed in details, and have a self-generating energy and will keep working through things left to their own.
- Geeks don’t see correcting others as a slight.
- Accuracy VS Completeness: don’t ever say false things, but you don’t have to get totally immersed.
- Geeks are obsessive enough that they will voluntarily seek out details on their own.
- How to delineate between being too geeky and not geeky enough? Keep things entertaining as a means of keeping people with your content. If it’s entertaining, people will stick with you through the sciency parts.
- Make sure your headline and introduction are not for geeks, but you can geek out later in the story. Skeptchick uses humor to open all posts, post about Twilight. Scicurious has posts that reach out to her audience, Friday posts about sex.
- Catchphrases and Inside Jokes create communities, but they also put up walls to communities.
- Surprise people with a story, ask a question to pique curiosity about how it will affect people personally,
- Whatstheharm.net – anecdotes. Turns on non-geeks, but turns off geeks because we want data. What’s the difference between whatstheharm.net and Rush Limbaugh using anecdotes to hurt science?
- Snark: a way of building a community, but causes pile-ons, turns off outsiders, PZMeyers’ fans attack whoever he points them too. Snark is the nature of the Internet. Radio difference: no snark rule.
- Use snark to empower the weak against the powerful. Use it against trolls against power.
- Try going with a private comment first before going public.
- Remember that it’s the internet, your tone doesn't communicate in the text.
- Don’t do threaded comments.
- You’re going to offend someone. Radio got called a Marxist for her show on gender.