pontiff
Posts by this author
April 22, 2008
Andrew Landahl (who really should have a blog because he is certainly one of the most interesting people I get to talk to when I attend a conference) sends me a note about recent appearances of quantum computing on prime time TV which he has graciously let me post below.
I thought you'd be amused…
April 22, 2008
Over at Machine Learning (Theory), the Learner points to a Scientific American article on Science 2.0 which discusses various efforts in bringing scientists into the 21st century, and scientists reluctance to openly discuss their research in progress in public forums. Sometimes I wonder what would…
April 21, 2008
Friday I gave out a survey in the course I'm teaching this quarter asking for feedback. Among the many helpful responses, was one, which pointed out that I say "so" a lot. Now, I know that when I write I use "now" a lot, but I really hadn't noticed how much I say "so." In class today I realized…
April 19, 2008
We've seen these demos before, but Johnny Lee's TED talk still wows:
Not only does it seem that interfaces are undergoing some radical redesigning right now, but also methods to take existing "cheap" products and leverage them into something which would normally cost a lot more, seems to be…
April 18, 2008
I sure wish I could get my dog to do this so that I wouldn't have to exercise her:
April 17, 2008
You know you are spoiled when the place to put your beer is the top of the dugout:
So close, the kid next to me waved at Ichiro as he returned to dugout and Ichiro waved back. Oh, and the guy with the two foot tall Ichiro bobble head doll was kind of scary.
April 17, 2008
David Baltimore and Ahmed Zewail, both Nobel dudes, have an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about the presidential candidates choosing not to participate in a debate over science and technology policy:All three candidates declined. Apparently the top contenders for our nation's highest elective…
April 17, 2008
A word I accidentally mumbled in class: "crudimentary." I think it means both rudimentary and crude. Anyway, I like it, and am going to try to start weaseling it into as many talks as I possibly can. Speaking of which, here are slides for a guest lecture I gave to the local alternative models of…
April 15, 2008
One year ago:
Today: still playing on the floor with the kiddies and loving it!
April 15, 2008
It was an unassuming blue-grey volume tucked away in the popular science section of the Siskiyou County Library. "Spacetime Physics" it announced proudly in gold letters across the front of the book. Published in 1965, the book looked as if it hadn't been touched in the decades since 1965. A…
April 15, 2008
For those interested in accessing the arXiv on your iPhone, here is a web based iPhone page:http://arxiv.mobi. Sweet! This has been on my list of things to do, and now I can cross it off without having to do it myself!
April 14, 2008
I just learned the very sad news that John A. Wheeler has passed away. Wheeler was one of my heroes and inspired me in many ways to be where I am today. I'm buried under a heap of work today, but will write more when I can come up for air. Below I've pasted a post from my old blog describing a…
April 11, 2008
Last week, in the class I'm teaching, we talked about the basics of deterministic finite automata. In week two we moved on to more interesting and slightly less basic material. In particular we introduced the notion of a nondeterministic finite automata and, by the end of the week, had showed…
April 10, 2008
It may take a second to load, but this webpage is pretty darn over the top.
April 9, 2008
Come on, you know you want to watch it, "How It's Made: Bacon":
That's some awesome background music, I must say. Good to know they check for pieces of metal which might have fallen onto the pork bellies.
April 9, 2008
The ads on scienceblogs today lead me to find out that, apparently, I can buy a quantum computer right here from Seattle based REI:
And only $70 bucks! Jeez, those D-wave investors overpaid. I wonder how you use it to factor? But the number in the bag and wait?
April 8, 2008
I'm not sure what this is good for, and yet I found it amazingly responsive:
April 8, 2008
Whatever you do, Mr. and Mrs. Joe and Mary America, make sure to tell everyone you know not to go into science and engineering! You see those who major in science and engineering are certain to not get jobs, because, as many commenters love to point out, all those jobs are being exported overseas…
April 8, 2008
Did the Monte Hall problem, trip up a huge number of psychologists? So claims this New York Times article. For a good detailed explanation see here. For even more detail see the actual paper.
April 7, 2008
One of the reasons I signed up to develop for the iPhone:
Accelerometers are so cool. And I don't just say that because I'm a physicist.
April 6, 2008
The Hawkman Speaketh at TED:
No alien quiz shows? Certainly Professor Hawking did not see Alex Trebek last week, when, for half the show, Alex Trebek had a really alien looking mustache.
April 5, 2008
This quarter I am teaching CSE 322: Introduction to Formal Models in Computer Science. Good fun. As part of my teaching I am LaTeXing up lecture notes from the class, which follow closely the book we are using, Sipser's "Introduction to the Theory of Computation." Here are the first three…
April 4, 2008
The very first AP class I took in high school was the Computer Science AB test. Today, I learn from the Washington Post, that the Computer Science AB test is on the chopping block (along with Italian, Latin literature, and French literature.)
The AP Computer Science AB test is a superset of the AP…
April 4, 2008
Previously, I had found a way to get a Mac running Firefox to not choke on recognizing pdfs correctly when downloaded from the arxiv.org. Commenter Dan has tracked down the reason for this and suggested another way to fix this which should be compatible with the latest versions of Firefox:Update…
April 3, 2008
Today, I looked on the arxiv and found arXiv:0804.0272:arXiv:0804.0272
Quantum computing using shortcuts through higher dimensions
Authors: B. P. Lanyon, M. Barbieri, M. P. Almeida, T. Jennewein, T. C. Ralph, K. J. Resch, G. J. Pryde, J. L. O'Brien, A. Gilchrist, A. G. White
and nearly fell out of…
April 3, 2008
Oh no: do the Christian creationists know that by taking down Darwin they might inadvertently aid Eastern religions? Witness: the Bhaktivedanta Institute Newsletter. Personally I want a grunge match between the Discovery Institute and the Bhaktivedanta Institute to see who can out pseudoscience…
April 2, 2008
Eat anything you want and lose weight? How? By using quantum physics of course!:Freedom From Food looks at food and weight from a unique vantage point. It examines the mind/body connection - how your thoughts and emotions affect your body. The book points out that there is abundant scientific…
April 2, 2008
The view from my morning run
...and that's not even the best view I get!
April 1, 2008
Is it really true? Is Fafblog back? All that praying to the April Fool's Day Jackalope has finally paid off!"Screw this dump!" says Giblets. "This universe is old and fat and smells like smelling and Giblets is busting out!"
"Should we go over the wall or take the tunnel?" says me. I been diggin…