Cool Science

There's always a place for 'firsts' and this post is my first time spreading a viral video (which means you've probably seen it already). Yeah sure, it's a promo, but it still has that satisfying reality distortion effect where you're just trying to wrap your brain around what's going on and wondering how they did it. If you're a purist, the non-massaged version with live sound is arguably better. Then of course you're going to have to watch it a few times to see just how layered this thing is. You gotta love those Belgians. Now that I have passed it on, I can finally be free of it.

Hmmm, need some science here. Well, I just rejected a paper that I peer reviewed and luckily that doesn't happen much, but when it does it puts me in a funk. It's a lot like grading. Correct assignments are easy to grade. But when a student homework or exam goes way off track, it's really time consuming to work through it all, make sure they get the benefit of the doubt, and figure out a fair grade.

A weak paper is similar - you have to look up a bunch of their references, read lots of extra papers, and realize that you better be sure the paper is too weak to publish and exactly why it is, because there's a really nice research group out there that's going to be very disappointed. Well, it's way too late again, so I'd better turn off youtube and hit the hay.