I’m on the road today, winging my way to DC to give a talk at Goddard Space Flight Center, my old stomping grounds. Well, I never stomped there, really. Actually, it’s more like I actually fled from there, but still, it’ll be fun to be back for just the day.
Anyway, a few months ago I did an interview for a podcast with my old bud Chris Pirillo, who runs the wildly successful Lockergnome website. I met him when he was hosting the show "Call for Help" on what was then "TechTVB" but has now horribly mutated into "G4" (a web search on our names together, with the name of the show, will yield some interesting results).
Anyway, Chris asked if I’d talk to him on his equally wildly successful podcast, and I said sure. So to keep you entertained in my absence, here it is. It’s fairly long. I haven’t even listened to it yet! I plan on it while I’m on the plane. If it stinks, then I’m pretty sure it’s Chris’s fault.
March 30th, 2006 at 12:45 am
“Ooh, authority, I don’t like that word.”
Great stuff, Prof. BA!
March 30th, 2006 at 2:02 am
I have to say, the whole pun sequence of math terms — “all things being equilateral”, “was that a sine?” — was a little too derivative. Sure, the wordplay is a-cute, but are such jokes really integral to a scientific conversation? Let’s keep it real, OK, and not get too complex. You might think they’re funny, but honestly, the humor is imaginary.
March 30th, 2006 at 9:00 am
Dang it. I spent two years at Goddard, and the BA waits until I’ve moved back to Texas to give a talk there. Figures.
March 30th, 2006 at 11:22 am
BA, *I* thought it was funny. All the “banter.”
March 30th, 2006 at 11:50 am
The Podcast was great. Going to have tgo watch for more like it in the future.
March 30th, 2006 at 12:03 pm
Gosh, that was entertaining.
March 30th, 2006 at 3:18 pm
Blake, I’m afraid the more obtuse among us may misunderstand the origin of your comments.
March 30th, 2006 at 4:49 pm
Bad math puns, but still far fewer puns than in Seth Shostak’s show. That boy loves to pun…
I always enjoy hearing Phil speak.
March 31st, 2006 at 3:44 am
One day the power died at MIT, and the only thing which still worked was the wireless Internet access (which had an independent backup feed from the IS building). With nothing better to do, we sat around and invented puns for math terms, SI units and famous physicists. It was such a Faraday outside, we just wanted to sit and enjoy the nice Weber. I Gauss anyone else would do the same thing. Sure, we could have walked across the river to some place which still had electricity, but that would Biot-Savart (be oh so far, get it?) away.
… if only because there was that high magic to low puns, because DT’s must give access to dt’s of spectra beyond the known sun, music made purely of Antarctic loneliness and fright.
— Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49
March 31st, 2006 at 7:08 am
>Sure, the wordplay is a-cute, but are such jokes really integral to a scientific >conversation?
As any scientist will tell you: “Yes Absolutely”.
March 31st, 2006 at 7:54 am
Waaay back when I was an undergrad, the people around me were all 4 and 5 sigma people. I felt like an idiot more often than not. I continue to be amazed at how knowledgeable astronomers-by-training are about so many different topics. It’s awesome to know people like that.
Phil, your interview was great and I enjoyed listening to it. Thanks for the link.
(I *really* gotta get DSL!)
March 31st, 2006 at 11:08 am
Gee, Phil, that was an entertaining interview conducted by Chris Pirillo. And the interviewee wasn’t half entertaining either. It took me ages to get through to the end with all the interuptions I had. The downloaded podcast worked a charm, just paused it and unpaused it later to pick it up again.
I must look out for other podcasts like it.
Ivan
March 31st, 2006 at 1:06 pm
That was lovely. I don’t think I stopped smiling the whole time I was listening, and it was really funny.
Phil, may you never lose your joy in science. I love every time I get to hear you bust the stereotype of scientists not being fun.
April 14th, 2006 at 11:18 pm
Hah, I also think that G4 is much worse than Tech TV was, I always used to watch Tech TV…now I only watch like 2 shows on G4, what a waste.