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Dave Bacon is a theoretical ski bum who is also a pseudo professor. His research is on quantum computing, his scientific passions extend to everything in physics, mathematics, computer science and beyond, and his personal pleasures include making wine, playing poker, skiing, camping, and daydreaming (although not all of those at the same time.)
Nothing he says on this blog should be construed as having anything to do with his employer or his dog.
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The use of Occam's razor on this website is strickly prohibited.
Cows are well approximated by a sphere.
Science 2.0:
Category: Science 2.0
Via the arXiv api newsgroup comes the rumor that soon, perhaps, the arXiv will be available for full download sometime in the future:or a full copy of (or particular subsets of) PDF for arXiv papers, we are in the process...
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Posted by Dave Bacon at 1:04 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Open Science
Since it seems that the "arXiv on your hard drive" is dead I've been thinking a bit about if there is a better way to achieve the goal of distributing archives of the arXiv. One thing I liked about the...
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Posted by Dave Bacon at 1:58 PM • 17 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Science 2.0
A fellow quantum computing researcher of mine recently joined FriendFeed. Along with another researcher we got involved in a discussion about a paper concerning a certain recent claimed "disproof of Bell's theorem." (arXiv:0904.4259. What it means to "disprove a theorem"...
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Posted by Dave Bacon at 11:16 PM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Scientific Publishing
A friend sent me a link to Detextify2:What is this? Anyone who works with LaTeX knows how time-consuming it can be to find a symbol in symbols-a4.pdf that you just can't memorize. Detexify is an attempt to simplify this search....
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Posted by Dave Bacon at 8:08 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Science 2.0
Via @mattleiffer, viXra.org:In part viXra.org is a parody of arXiv.org to highlight Cornell University's unacceptable censorship policy. It is also an experiment to see what kind of scientific work is being excluded by the arXiv. But most of all it...
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Posted by Dave Bacon at 2:38 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Physics
The arXiv is a game changer for how large portions of physics (and increasingly other fields) are done. Paul Ginsparg won a MacArthur award for his vision and stewardship of the arXiv (something other institutions might want to note when...
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Posted by Dave Bacon at 12:01 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Physics
Has the arXiv been hacked or is it offline? When I connect to arxiv.org it shoots me to mirror sites which haven't been updated since Oct 08. Via @MartinQuantum. Also nanoscale views reports the arXiv down. Since this is a...
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Posted by Dave Bacon at 11:03 AM • 15 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Science 2.0
The astro/physics blogosphere is all atwitter about papers the Nature embargo policy (See Julianne If a paper is submitted to nature does it still make a sound, the cat herder Hear a paper, see a paper, speak no paper, and...
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Posted by Dave Bacon at 12:28 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Quantum Computing
Recently I've been thinking it might be fun to set up some sort online weekly colloquia in quantum computing. Fun? Well, okay maybe that's not quite the right word. But it would be an interesting experiment. So I went out...
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Posted by Dave Bacon at 1:30 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: The Loony Bin Called Academia
One of the more interesting "problems" in Science 2.0 is the lack of commenting on online articles. In particular some journals now allow one to post comments about papers published in the journal. As this friendfeed conversation asks:Why people do...
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Posted by Dave Bacon at 12:15 PM • 17 Comments • 0 TrackBacks