- CSI myths: the shaky science behind forensics. (Thanks to Zapski.)
- Looks like reported UFO sightings coinicides with release of new science-fiction movies. (Thanks to Steve.)
- Spoon-bending for beginners: teaching anomalistic psychology to teenagers. (Thanks to Emory.)
- More cool science tattoos. (Thanks to Heidi.)
- How we measure peerage in the US, via the medium of Adam Savage. (Thanks to Bjørnar.)
What gets me is the number of people I’ve met ,including scientists and engineers, that believe that lie detectors are infallible or that there is some kind of proven scientific principle(s) that the test operates on. My head feels like its going to explode when I talk to them.
To be fair, I went to school for that stuff and the education I got wasn’t as bad as they write-up would have you believe. They did spend a lot of time on the flaws and faults. This was before the CSI craze, though, so I’m not sure how things are taught today. Kind of makes me want to go back to school.
I wonder how nerdy it would be to get Feynman Diagrams tattooed on my body?
@ Math Tatooes…
That redefines 10 on the nerdometer
That catapults you high into the nerdosphere
That turns you into nerdzilla
That increases your nerdosity by several orders of magnitued
If you combined the nerdiness of ALL trekkies, and rose it to the power of ALL Star Warsers, you would have the nerdility of one of those people
You supply enough nerdification to turn the entire population of DC into nerds
We need to commission a Congressional Panel to define just how nerdy that is.
I’ve run out of words derived from “nerd”, and I still haven’t properly described it.
In response to the alien sightings link;
Bah, you people and Occam’s Razor. It’s obvious that it isn’t these movies stirring more of the public to report what they think are UFO sightings. It’s just that aliens like to visit and sneak into our theaters to see what our movies depict them as.
Needless to say you can see why they haven’t sent any sort of official envoy to make contact with us yet.
@infinitemonkey: So, your answer to my question would be: “Totally f*ckin’ nerdy!”
@LtStorm: COTW! :)
re: A lot of forensics (fights off the urge to use the SouthPark reference), in my opinion, is just fodder for psychological leverage – “Look, we’ve got your fingerprints/dna/other “irrefutable ” evidence, and you’re gonna fry, you might as well confess and plea bargain.”
I love the Bubble Chamber tattoo. That is sooooo tempting.
I have Jonathon Colton’s Mandlebrot Set song stuck in my head now. So catch. Expletives.
So, aliens are using mind control to make Hollywood release movies to predict their visits? This is far worse than I suspected.
My friend in college got a tattoo of the chemical structure of TNT. I think it would be cool to get some of the text of the Voynich Manuscript tattooed on my body, but there’s not nearly enough room and I also don’t like pain or needles.
@LtStorm: If those aliens you mentioned are really smart, they took District 9 as a documentary and GTF out of here.
@JohnEA13: Rmember what Isaac Asimov said about experts. They are “expert” only in their own field. Outside of their field of expertise, their opinion is of no more value than anyone else’s. That’s hard for both the expert and the listener to believe or remember, but it’s essentially true.
I’d listen to Bug_Girl (nothing personal, BG) very seriously if she were talking about insects, for example. That’s her field. Other subjects, maybe not so seriously.
@MiddleMan: Saying that would be like saying “The ocean has a lot of water in it.”
Forensics seems to be about where medicine was pre-germ theory. Maybe it will one day have a sound scientific basis, like much of medicine today. We can hope, anyway…
Is it bad that now I want the ZFC axioms tattooed on my body? And yeah, the bubble chamber tattoo is seriously badass.
I love the nerd tatts! I immediately forwarded it to my son, who is a bio-chem major.