Archive for September, 2007

9/29-10/6

Lefty September 29th, 2007

With the advent of fall and the welcome relief from NYC summer heat, I’m planning a busy week!

Sunday, 9/30: It’s time to start getting in shape for hockey season. I think I’ll head out to the beautiful new rink at Aviator Sports for open hockey in the morning, and then fill up on tacos at the Red Hook ball fields for lunch with Emily.

Wednesday, 10/3: This is going to tough - there are three events that I want to check out, all featuring varying degrees of geekiness:

- First, my pal Todd Seavey is holding another edition of Lolita debates on the LES. This program is the descendant of the Athenaeum Society debates I used to run, but I haven’t had a chance to attend much over the last couple of years. The topic is “Is the Ivy League Superior?”, which is sure to stir up controversy.

- Second, the NY Tech Meetup is going on. Every month 500 or so folks that are interested in technology in NYC get together and watch while six people demo something cool to the larger community. I’m not sure what’s on tap for this week, but I’ve heard good things about this event and I’ve wanted to attend for awhile.

- Third, Dorkbot NYC is getting together. Their motto is “people doing strange things with electricity” and this month’s meeting features an inventor of an interactive haunted house, a presentation on the topic “Robots on Fire”, and a demo of the mysterious “SensorBib.” This is another one I’ve been meaning to check out for awhile.

And, of course, on Thursday, 10/4 is the kickoff of Stern’s annual business plan competition. I had a great time participating in this program last year, when me and the crew from Materialite made it to the semi-finals. I’ve got a few ideas I’m thinking about entering this year as well.

Enemies of Reason

Lefty September 16th, 2007

Continuing on the science theme, I just discovered this recently broadcast (August 2007) documentary entitled “Enemies of Reason”. It stars Richard Dawkins and takes on the various forms of superstition that are popular today. From the makers:

Is it rational that the dead can communicate with the living and give sound advice on how they should live their lives? What about sticking pins into your body to free the flow of Chi energy and cure your illness? Or the bending of spoons using your mind alone? Is that rational? Richard Dawkins doesn’t think so, and feels it is his duty to expose those areas of belief that exist without scientific proof, yet manage to hold the nation under their spell. He will take on the world’s leading proponents in their field of expertise, meet the victims who have used them and expose the history of the movements – from the charlatans who have milked these practices to the experiments and testing that have failed to produce conclusive results.

I can’t find an embeddable version, but the two parts are available on Google Video:

Part I
Part II

Science!

Lefty September 5th, 2007

I’m back from our honeymoon upstate, and slowly re-acclimating to life at home and going to work and school every day. While on my break, I’ve been getting reacquainted with the glories of science, particularly by reading a book called The Canon by NY Times science writer Natalie Angier. The book is subtitled “A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science” and its intention is to explain to the non-scientist layperson all the things he really should know in order to achieve a minimum level of scientific literacy. There are sections on the scientific method, probabilities, physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and astronomy. As someone who has had fairly minimal exposure to science since getting a C in a college physics course, it’s been a wonderful reintroduction to a topic I’ve neglected too long.

In the same vein, I highly recommend this video from the great MC Hawking, entitled “What We Need More of is Science.” And, yes, the album is called “A Brief History of Rhyme.”