Don’t mix me with them!

In these two videos [1,2], prominent non-believers [1] Neil deGrasse Tyson and Sam Harris reject the denomination “atheist” as not only inaccurately and/or misleadingly portraying their views on the (non) existence of God, but also, according to them, of little content or use, and even potentially pernicious.

Absence of evidence and evidence of absence

It has been a while since my last blog post (yes, I love euphemisms). I have not been writing for the simple reason that I ran out of things to say, a fate that I am told few, very few amateur bloggers escape. So, what am I doing here now?

2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 25,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 6 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.

What do you look for (part two)?

Having expounded in my previous post what kind of person I look for, when serving on the search committee for a tenure-track hire, now it is time to list the criteria that I adopt to try and spot my ideal candidate, as I go through application packages (APs).

What do you look for (part one) ?

I am a faculty member in a university physics department, who finds himself periodically involved in faculty searches and hires. How do I evaluate the curriculum vitae of an applicant for a tenure-track position?
What do I look for, and what are the red flags? Does it really boil down to counting (first-authored) articles, impact factor of journals where they were published, citations, invited talks, or maybe places where and individuals by whom the applicant has been mentored, as a student and postdoctoral associate?
Do I even look at the research plan? If so, how do I judge it?
What about teaching potential and/or experience?

Binomial distributions and multiple choice tests

Readers of my blog know that I generally regard multiple choice tests (MCTs) as an adequate tool to assess student knowledge of, and proficiency with, a given set of topics. I have written about this subject here and here.

Google Docs: one-year review

About a year ago, my institution made the campus-wide transition to Google electronic mail. Concurrently, Google’s suite of office applications known as Google Docs also became available, as it comes essentially integrated with electronic mail. It includes word processor, spreadsheet, presentation software, among other things. I started using the word processor and spreadsheet right away; in recent times I have experimented with the presentation software as well. A fundamental component thereof is the remote hard drive (Google Drive), which allows for permanent file storage.
So, what’s the verdict ? Is this thing any good ? Would I recommend its use ?

Who’s really obsessed with Impact Factor ?

What brings more prestige to a scientist, an article which receives hundreds of citations, even if published on a relatively minor, or even obscure journal, or one that is published on a high profile, glamorous publication with a high Impact Factor (IF), but whose citation record is modest ? Most scientists, I believe, would answer such a question by expressing their preference for a publication that is highly cited.

In praise of failure

“In 2004, Kim and Chan (KC) carried out torsional oscillator (TO) measurements of solid helium confined in porous Vycor glass and found an abrupt drop in the resonant period below 200 mK. The period drop was interpreted as probable experimental evidence of nonclassical rotational inertia (NCRI). This experiment sparked considerable activities in the studies of superfluidity in solid helium”.

Mountain Lion and stuff

Between work and home I own eight Apple computers — four iMacs, two MacBook Air, two Mac Pro. So, like any respectable user, I promptly upgraded the operating system to the new version, OS 10.8 (aka Mountain Lion), which has now been available for a few weeks. Around this time last year, its predecessor Lion had come out. On that occasion, after installing it on all my machines, I expressed in a blog post my lukewarm feelings about it.