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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.
The Loony Bin Called Academia:
Category: Physics
Via Asymptotia, an interview with Murray Gell-Mann (who just turned 80. Happy Birthday Murray!) I particularly like the comments at the end of the article:Battles of new ideas against conventional wisdom are common in science, aren't they? It's very interesting...
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Posted by Dave Bacon at 8:15 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Off The Deep End
Writing a blog is for me (1) amusing and (2) amusing. Can anyone take anything that I write on a blog seriously? Well sometimes people do. Many eons ago (okay, I lie, it was 2005), I wrote a post about...
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Posted by Dave Bacon at 10:54 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Science
The "slow movement" is a vast beast: there's Slow Food, Slow Travel, Slow Money, and even, I kid you not, Slow Reading. These movements all begin with the premise that modern culture emphasizes ever increasing speed and convenience (cue the...
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Posted by Dave Bacon at 2:56 PM • 24 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: 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
Category: Quantum Computing
After watching Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk* it occurred to me to go back and look at my own scientific papers and try to assess them for how creative they were. Some things you should just never do, I guess,...
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Posted by Dave Bacon at 5:31 PM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Quantum Computing
Congrats to the quantum tenure odds booster award winners Sloan award winners:Robert Raussendorf, UBC Hartmut Häffner, UC Berkeley (Go Bears!) Alán Aspuru-Guzik, Haavard Scott Aaronson, MIT (that other Tech school) Andrew Houck, Princeton Subhadeep Gupta, University of WashingtonLance lists the...
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Posted by Dave Bacon at 11:16 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: The Loony Bin Called Academia
A long time ago, in a blog far far away, I ran a small poll about paper refereeing. The poll asked "What is your ratio of reviewed to submitted manuscripts?". The results were >=6 reviewed for every 1 submitted: 7...
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Posted by Dave Bacon at 10:33 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Biology
Today is the 149th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. I'm probably just suffering from a bout of dewy eyed pastoralism, but when was the last time a book which was readable by the...
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Posted by Dave Bacon at 1:04 PM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: The Loony Bin Called Academia
If only I were Michael J. Fox, a letter I would send back in time....
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Posted by Dave Bacon at 1:10 PM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks