Chad Orzel

"[The National Survey of Student Engagement] "fails to meet basic standards for validity and reliability," writes Stephen R. Porter, an associate professor in Iowa State University's educational leadership and policy studies department. Porter's study -- presented in Vancouver at the annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education -- raises questions about most research based on surveys of students, and he stresses that he does not believe the problems are unique to NSSE. He even goes so far as to say that in the past he has done research based on student surveys that he now doubts has validity. " - Chad Orzel

"At Purdue University, which is attempting to put standard lecture capture technology in 280 classrooms by next semester, faculty members said they would not even be willing to press a button at the beginning of class to initiate the recording, according to David Eisert, the manager of emerging technologies there. “It was a six-month discovery process just to figure out what the faculty wanted,” said Eisert, who spoke at a session focusing on Purdue as a use case for scaled lecture-capture deployment. “We said, ‘If there’s a start button on the Questron monitor as you walk into the classroom, will you hit Start for your lecture’ — ‘No.’ ”" - Chad Orzel

"Yes, the anti-abortion provision in the House bill is very bad (subjecting the poor, but not the rest of us, to the strictures of conservative Catholics and Southern Baptists), but it will at some point (one hopes) be removed. In fact, the bill that the House passed last Saturday is considerably more robust that the original Social Security bill." - Chad Orzel

"Since graduate school, I have surrounded myself with writers, many of whom are now my dearest friends (and one of whom is my husband), and they are a boisterous, savvy, messed up, cuh-razy, brilliant, ignorant, frustrating, stupid, arrogant, elitist, humble, generous, kind, and downright weird group. I can’t imagine feeling closer to or happier with any other type of people. But you know what else I can’t imagine? Being a creative writer. Never. Nuh-uh. No frakkin’ way. Going for a swim in an active volcano? Maybe. Writing a novel? Thank you, but . . . no." - Chad Orzel

"It’s not a theory that can really be summarised in a single sentence, because it’s still really in the process of formation; but I’m going to chuck out a simple statement and then see if I can sketch out some lines of thought around it. It’s really quite straightforward: Vampires are ex-gay." - Chad Orzel

"The explosion of portable computers (laptops, smart phones, etc) has brought the problem of battery power to the forefront of technological concerns for those in the business of selling such devices. Computers keep getting smaller thanks to continued shrinking of chips and other microcomponents, but batteries necessary to operate them remain pretty clunky in comparison, and thus they add considerable weight to any product -- the largest portion of my laptop's weight is due to the battery. It's just the latest chapter in mankind's quest for the perfect power source." - Chad Orzel

"Once the Union was preserved forever, the United States stopped worrying splitting into two. So with the late 1800's came the combat-in-context of professional and amateur sports. If you're looking for a reason why the South never rose again, it's probably because it was too busy learning how to play American-style football." - Chad Orzel

"Scientists found the rare amber fossil in December, and have now confirmed that it contains remnants of spider silk spun roughly 140 million years ago by an ancestor of modern orb-weaving spiders. After slicing the amber into thin sections and examining each piece under a high-powered microscope, the researchers discovered that the ancient silk threads share several features common to modern spider webs, including droplets of sticky glue used to hold the web together and capture prey." - Chad Orzel

"Designed to smash trillions of protons together at nearly the speed of light, the LHC will recreate the extreme conditions that existed a fraction of a second after the Big Bang. The stakes are enormous. What the LHC reveals could change our understanding of everything. Failure could leave us in the dark for generations to come. The documentary feature, Particle Fever, captures this unfolding drama by focusing on the personal stories of several of its key figures – passionate, funny, brilliant spirits standing at the threshold of discovery. These modern adventurers have faced impossible technical challenges, risked careers, sacrificed personal relationships and continually struggled with government support in their single-minded quest to understand the nature of the universe." - Chad Orzel

"This flowchart should help any potential artists to determine their place in the creative world without any unnecessary existential pondering." - Chad Orzel

A fourpart discussion on science, the media, and American society, featuring the authors of _The Republican War on Science_ and _Denialism_. - Chad Orzel

"This is every electronic repair tech I've ever dealt with. " - Chad Orzel

"Kessler fearlessly accuses major restaurant chains of a crime they brag about, relying on unnamed “insiders” to reveal that comestible pushers such as Cinnabon and The Cheesecake Factory deliberately make their food delicious—or, as he breathlessly puts it, “design food specifically to be highly hedonic.” Kessler certainly has the goods on the corporate conspiracy to serve people food they like." - Chad Orzel

"In four years of the power-beaming competition, LaserMotive is the only competitor to qualify for a cash prize. Thomas Nugent and Jordin Kare, the company’s principals, do not believe that a space elevator will be built any time soon, but they say the technology will find other commercial applications like powering small robotic aircraft. “This is a business for us,” Mr. Nugent said. “We’re trying to turn this into a commercial endeavor.”" - Chad Orzel

"Sorry: there’s no measure I can think of by which the U.S. economy has done better since 1980 than it did over an equivalent time span before 1980. It may be something you’ve heard, it may be something you’d like to believe, but it just didn’t happen." - Chad Orzel

"[C]ontra the received opinion I'd like to argue that in fact it's easily possible to be an perfectly effective president while spending shockingly little time behind the Resolute desk. In fact for much of early American history presidents did just that - ie, very little. The presidency and the country have both changed, but in my opinion even today the president simply doesn't have to do much to do perform his job with great competence. Now I don't expect that any modern president will actually take as little time as I'm going to suggest; the very type of person who is attracted to the job and can campaign effectively is necessarily the kind of person who's willing, able, and eager to manage as much as possible. But he doesn't have to be." - Chad Orzel