Just Ask

Dr. J Answers Your Questions

A while ago, I invited readers to submit questions through my “Ask Doctor J” site over on Formspring and promised I would do my best to answer them here on the blog. Then, I quickly forgot about the whole thing. Oops. I just went back and found that there was quite a list of questions…

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Ask Doctor J

Fellow bloggers Petya and Ideas Man, PhD have turned me on to a great new site called FormSpring, which allows blog-readers to submit questions for their favorite blog-authors to answer and then posts the Q&A’s onto the blog. From time to time I find myself at a loss for exciting new topics to post about…

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The Etiquette of Q & A

Anyone who has ever been to an academic conference is surely familiar with that strange, strange thing we so innacurately refer to as the “Q&A” period. “Q&A” is meant to stand for “Question and Answer,” of course, though there is precious little of either in many of these sessions. I mean, I suppose that technically…

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Just Ask

Today marks the end of my first full year of (relatively regular) blogging. So, I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you who have helped to keep this blog alive and healthy by reading and commenting over the last year. (Especially Kyle, Petya, Chet, bernadette, Booga Face, melanie, kirsten, nazareth, Ideas Man…

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Just Ask, Part 3: What Bernadette Should Do With Her Life

It doesn’t really matter whether or not you know who bernadette is, because she poses a great question for the next installment of the Just Ask Challenge. She asks: What should I do with my life? Now, it just so happens that I DO know who bernadette is and I could, theoretically, provide an answer…

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Just Ask, Part 1: Home

So, I’m kicking off the Just Ask Challenge with a query from the very inventor of the game, Petya. She asks: What is home like? Great question, Petya. Not only do I like the vagueness of your question, but also its form. You don’t ask what home IS, but what it’s LIKE. For me, the…

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Just Ask, Part 2: The “Steakburger”

Today is a two-fer in the Just Ask Challenge! In response to my ealier post about Burger Friday, I received another Just Ask query from Ideas Man (who also wrote an entire post about this on his blog). Leave it to Ideas Man to skip the whole romantic story there and instead ask: How does…

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And I Think To Myself, What Are Multiple Worlds?

Part two of the “Just Ask” challenge finds this (from Daniel B.):I immediately thought of a softball question, such as “Derrida: great philosophy, or greatest philosopher?” Instead, I will test your mettle: What are the moral implications of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics? First, let me take the softball: great philosophy and great philosopher….

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