Free Thought
pontiff | June 3, 2010Another interview from the Science Watch special topic on quantum computing interview series: Gerard Milburn. Most interestingly is Milburn's comments on linear optics quantum computing funding:
SW: How has the field of quantum computing changed in the past decade? Where do you hope to see it go in the next?
No matter what technology is ultimately used for quantum computing, optics will necessarily be used for short- and long-distance communication both within and between quantum computers (as is currently the case for conventional computing).
I was thus somewhat puzzled to learn that the US…
drorzel | June 3, 2010
Precautions and Paralysis « Easily Distracted
"The cautionary example that I think is most pertinent for academics is newspaper and magazine journalism. Fifteen years ago, some of the developments that have cast the future of print journalism as we have known it into doubt were already quite visible. But few people in the industry took those developments seriously as a threat, even if they were otherwise interested in online media and digital culture.
Would it have made any difference if print journalists in 1995 had sat down for an industry-wide summit, accurately forecast what online…
oracknows | June 2, 2010After diving into a heapin' helpin' of sheer craziness over the last week or two (well, except for yesterday, when I deconstructed an acupuncture study, which, while not crazy, certainly was misguided), I think it's time for a bit of self-absorbed navel gazing. After all, isn't that what bloggin's all about? Oh, wait, that's what I do almost every day here. No, what I really mean is that I came across an article that struck rather close to home regarding my career trajectory. So, if you don't mind, for one day I'll leave behind the rabid anti-vaccine loons, the homepaths, the alt-med mavens,…
gboustead | May 31, 2010
Shhhh...I have a secret.
When we send out information about the World Science Festival, the producers commonly use the phrase, "a Festival meant to engage and inspire the public about science." For me, there's no better way to inspire than to offer the public a chance to meet one-on-one with scientists. And I'm not talking about rushing the stage after an in-theatre program, in the hopes that you'll be shoved to the front of the geeked-out mosh pit and win a chance to graze Leonard Mlodinow's foot.
I'm talking about calmly and cool-ly walking up to a scientist and having the…
gregladen | May 29, 2010And what can you really do with them?
I am not an expert on consumer technology. I stay a few miles behind the cutting edge where I can pick up the orts at a discount, and most stuff works. Last time I checked, newer (faster, bigger, whatever-er) versions of technology cost more per unit (of speed, size, whatever) than would be predicted by examination of price/unit relationships for lower (and thus older) values. Some have incorrectly claimed this to be a logarithmic relationship, but clearly it is more often a linear relationship between cost and amount up to some point, then the prices…
mikethemadbiologist | May 25, 2010Genome Biology recently published a review, "The Case for Cloud Computing in Genome Informatics." What is cloud computing? Well:
This is a general term for computation-as-a-service. There are various different types of cloud computing, but the one that is closest to the way that computational biologists currently work depends on the concept of a 'virtual machine'. In the traditional economic model of computation, customers purchase server, storage and networking hardware, configure it the way they need, and run software on it. In computation-as-a-service, customers essentially rent the…
drorzel | May 23, 2010
Every Hug, Every Fuss - Scientists Record Families' Daily Lives - NYTimes.com
"[T]he U.C.L.A. project was an attempt to capture a relatively new sociological species: the dual-earner, multiple-child, middle-class American household. The investigators have just finished working through the 1,540 hours of videotape, coding and categorizing every hug, every tantrum, every soul-draining search for a missing soccer cleat.
"This is the richest, most detailed, most complete database of middle-class family living in the world," said Thomas S. Weisner, a professor of anthropology at U.C.L.A. who was…
drorzel | May 21, 2010
PHD Comics: Grading Rubric
Sounds about right. Maybe a little too generous on the lower row.
(tags: comics piled-higher academia education silly)
Producing novel semiconductors en masse - physicsworld.com
"John Rogers, working with colleagues at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a related company, offer a production method by adapting a transfer-printing technique that they have been developing for the past few years. They begin by growing stacks consisting of multiple layers of gallium arsenide and aluminium gallium arsenide, which they then "peel" off one-by-one using a…
clock | May 20, 2010Continuing with the tradition from last two years, I will occasionally post interviews with some of the participants of the ScienceOnline2010 conference that was held in the Research Triangle Park, NC back in January. See all the interviews in this series here. You can check out previous years' interviews as well: 2008 and 2009.
Today, I asked Antony Williams from ChemSpider to answer a few questions.
Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Where are you coming from (both geographically and philosophically)? What is your (…
drorzel | May 19, 2010
Why just earn a degree when you can leave behind a legend? - CharlotteObserver.com
"If you've spent significant time on the Davidson College campus the past four years, chances are you've at least heard of "the Name Tag Guy."
Or, less likely, Stephen Pierce.
They are one. Both were among 427 seniors who graduated during the college's 173rd commencement Sunday - Pierce pinning to his gown the same paper name tag he was given on his first day of freshman orientation in 2006."
(tags: academia silly culture education)
XENON100 is certain about its uncertainty (Blog) - physicsworld.com
"Now,…
cpikas | May 15, 2010Revere of Effects Measure has a great post on expertise, authorship, and "real" names. At this point, after years and years of blogs it's a shame this has to be said explicitly. The general points go like this:
there are many legitimate reasons to be pseudonymous in authoring a blog. I describe some of these in my 2007 post but another one is to let your words speak for themselves instead of bolstering them by using your professional reputation, that of your institution, or that of your publication venue.
even if you had his name, would that alone allow you trust what he's saying (Mertonian…
pontiff | May 7, 2010Here's an interview with Daniel Lidar whose was the postdoc who first taught me quantum error correction (and more.) No, not that LIDAR!
Note to all you job seekers, even in your darkest hours know that you have friends out there who are working to change the abysmal state of quantum computing hiring:
I would also hope to see a wave of new faculty positions at US institutions for quantum computation theoreticians and experimentalists. We now have the first generation of students and postdocs trained in this field, many of whom are finding it very difficult to land faculty positions in the US…
drorzel | May 7, 2010
Microsoft's PowerPoint isn't evil if you learn how to use it. - By Farhad Manjoo - Slate Magazine
I've seen more terrible slide presentations in my life than good ones, but that stat isn't necessarily an indictment of the program--I've also encountered a lot more terrible books than terrific ones, and I've certainly seen more ugly Web sites than pretty ones. Yes, PowerPoint--and slide software in general, a category that includes Apple's Keynote--can be heroically misused. But if you use it correctly, slide software can help you captivate and inform an audience in a way that a speech alone…
drorzel | May 5, 2010
Being Complementary About Uncertainty : Built on Facts
"Complementarity is a very general concept and not easy to define formally, though informally you might say it's the principle that the wave-like and particle-like aspects of an object can't be simultaneously observed. More formally you could say that each degree of freedom of a system corresponds to a conjugate pair of observables, which means these pairs (say, position and momentum) can't both be measured precisely at the same time."
(tags: physics quantum education blogs built-on-facts)
Color Survey Results « xkcd
Over five…
pharyngula | May 4, 2010Stephen Wolfram has mastered the art of being intellectually provocative and extremely annoying at the same time. He's talking about very cool stuff here, but I'm put off by the excessive hype — apparently he wants to model the fundamental properties of the entire universe in some code in the computer, and while I sympathize with the idea that maybe the theory of everything really will lead to something both fundamental and simple, I'm not convinced that it will just pop out of a program that is sufficiently synthetic.
Perhaps it would be more persuasive if he said something more specific…
drorzel | May 2, 2010
tongodeon: Fun With Secret Questions & Answers
"My new bank, Ally Bank, configures a security question and answer for customer service calls. In addition to your SSN, date of birth, and mother's maiden name they also ask you the question you specify and wait for the answer you've provided. This is good, because many standard questions are guessable in a way that user-defined questions may not be.
A real live human operator always asks the question and waits for a real live answer. This measure has the potential to not just improve my account security but add entertainment value as well…
drorzel | April 30, 2010
The Science and Entertainment Exchange: The X-Change Files: Zap! Or, Where Would Science Fiction Movies be Without Lasers?
"Science fiction was right on top of this new development and even foresaw it. In 1898, H. G. Wells introduced an invisible but powerful heat ray as the weapon of choice for invading Martians in his story The War of the Worlds. Today, that would be an infrared CO2 laser. In the 1930s, space swashbucklers Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon used hand-held ray weapons in their movie serials. In the 1950s, The Day the Earth Stood Still and the film version of The War of the…
jdupuis | April 28, 2010A great two-part series on great computing museums from the last few issues of Communications of the ACM (here and here).
The museums they profile are:
The Computer History Museum
The Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum
The Science Museum in London
The Deutches Museum
U.S. National Museum of American History
I'll include an extra bit from the first CACM article on the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. I'm choosing that one because as it happens I'll almost certainly be visiting it this coming July. I'm fortunate to have been invited to the annual Science Foo Camp, which happens to be at…
cwilcox | April 24, 2010Chat bots are one of the coolest computing challenges. They're computer programs that are designed to simulate an intelligent conversation as if they're people. The ultimate goal is to pass what is called the Turing Test, where the chat bot fools human users into believing its a person, too.
I recently received an e-mail from Suzette. She's a fantastic chat bot in need of winning a popularity contest. Go ahead and Say hello for yourself, and learn more about her. Once you're convinced that she's an incredible program, you can help her have a chance at winning the Chatterbox Challenge. She…
jdupuis | April 22, 2010A small selection from some tables of content from a few recent journals and proceedings. These will require subscription access to the ACM Digital Library.
Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
Connecting k-16 curriculum & policy: making computer science engaging, accessible, and hospitable for underrepresented students by Joanna Goode
Computational thinking for the sciences: a three day workshop for high school science teachers by Sheikh Iqbal Ahamed, Dennis Brylow, et al.
Connecting across campus by Mark D. LeBlanc, Tom Armstrong, Michael B. Gousie
Teaching communication…