pontiff | July 25, 2008Yesterday the New York Times, ran an article Absaroka, a proposed state between Wyoming, Montana, and South Dakota which never was. Which reminded me of the state that I grew up in, the great state of Jefferson. What, you've never head of the great State of Jefferson?
The state of Jefferson was proposed in October of 1941 as a new state along the Oregon/California border, encompassing Curry, Josephine, Jackson, Klamath, Del Norte, Siskiyou, and Modoc counties. In short, the residents of this area where not to happy with the neglect they felt they were receiving from their respective state…
pontiff | July 25, 2008Randy Pausch, Carnegie Mellon computer science professor, passed away early today. If you haven't watched Pausch's last lecture, you should:
This lecture, when I first saw it, reminded me how important humor is for teaching. In other words, my students from last term can blame all my silly jokes on Randy.
pontiff | July 23, 2008From Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days by Jessica Livingston, we find a gem of quantum computer's capabilities in an interview with Max Levchin, cofounder of Paypal:
...Its one of those things where, in the end, fraud is so nondeterministic that you need a human or a quantum computer to look at it and sort of make a final decision...
Fight determinism with determinism, but fight nondeterminism with nondeterminism! I like it! But can you fight determinism with nondeterminism? Why am I now singing "I shot the nondeterminism, and the nondeterminism won?"
(I'm pretty sure Max…
pontiff | July 23, 2008You know that web based applications have really entered into your life when you click the Firefox icon and you wonder why the browser doesn't appear and cover the document you are editing.
pontiff | July 22, 2008Standing in lines is the bane of my existence. Okay, well maybe not, but spending time around universities certainly increases the percentage of time I spend pressing the queue. The good thing about lines in university towns is that they often move fairly fast. The bad thing is that, well, you're standing in line. And, with a nice British last name like "Bacon," you can bet that I'm a stickler for proper line standing. Proper? Oh yeah. Here are the offenders. Which are you?
The Gapper: This denizen of the line is apparently extremely afraid of the person in front of them, for a vast…
pontiff | July 22, 2008For those of you interested in TiddlyWiki and who happen to live in the great city of Seattle, there will be an informal meetup for TiddlyWiki enthusiasts this Saturday, June 26. For details see: TiddlyPac.
pontiff | July 18, 2008The Scienceborg is all abuzz about some Sizzle movie, with all sorts of good and bad reviews, and gnashing of the teeth about whether the movie stunk or whether it was the best thing since the invention of sliced ham (few know that this event was much more important than the invention of sliced bread, which is vastly overhyped.) A good way to waste your time, I suppose, but I thought I wasn't going to get much out of it, you known, in terms of actually getting any good insight or educational crap like that. But then I discovered Chris C. Mooney's post on the whole thing. (Chris is lucky,…
pontiff | July 17, 2008Michael Nielsen has penned a very thoughtful essay on how the internet age will change how science is performed. Having sloppily dabbled in a website which allowed for rating of scientific papers, I think Michael's observations about why "review" sites for scientific papers are a tough sell (what reward do I get for commenting on a paper, exactly?) are spot on. I also liked his comparison of science review sites and reviews of Pokemon products:
The contrast between the science comment sites and the success of the amazon.com reviews is stark. To pick just one example, you'll find…
pontiff | July 17, 2008Rumors have been spreading that Stephen Hawking might be considering moving to the Perimeter Institute. These rumors have been officially denied. The real story here, however is not about Hawking relocating, but whether Stephen Hawking has turned into an experimental physicist and is testing the black hole information paradox by throwing himself into the Blackberry hole. I mean, if Hawking can visit for one month, and then escape from the Perimeter Institute, then I think we can conclude that the unitarity of quantum theory is safe. However, if Hawking get's sucked in, I myself will worry…
pontiff | July 15, 2008Um, okay, so was this little piece of information really noteworthy enough to be included in a New York Times article on Psystar:
Although Psystar's Web site was available earlier today, by 1 p.m. EDT it was offline and returning the error message: "Database Error: Unable to connect to the database: Could not connect to MySQL" to Computerworld editors and reporters attempting to connect.
I mean, isn't that a bit high up even for an inverted pyramid?
pontiff | July 15, 2008When people ask me about my iPhone, I usually tell them that it is a great gadget, but not really a terrific cell phone. I'm going to have to modify that a bit now, I think. With the addition of third party applications, the iPhone is now a super duper great gadget, but not really a terrific cell phone. Here are some of the free apps I've been loving (I haven't yet looked at the paid ones, cheapo that I am!)
Pandora Radio. Many of you already know Pandora Radio, a service wherein you enter favorite music and it produces a radio station based upon your preferences. The iPhone app for…
pontiff | July 14, 2008I recently rented a car and got dinged with a 13 dollar fee because I didn't drive 75 miles (and, did not see the tiny sign indicating the new rule that if I drove so little I would be rewarded by not having to fill up the fuel tank for a mere 13 dollars. Having a receipt could have gotten this fee waved.) My first thought on seeing this fee was wondering if they actually took their average mile per gallon for seventy five miles and set the fee so that at current fuel prices they would always make money on this? A sort of rental car arbitrage?
My second thought was, I wonder if they…
pontiff | July 14, 2008Ed Lazowska has penned an article over at the CCC blog about the state of computer science enrollments which is well worth reading.
My favorite part of the post is where Ed points out that the "news" reported in the "news" is not really "news":
The Taulbee Survey "headline" this year was (roughly) "computer science bachelors degrees drop again." In my view, this is not news -- it was entirely predictable from the legitimate headline four years ago: (roughly) "freshman interest and new enrollments drop again." The actual news right now in the CRA data is that freshman interest and new…
pontiff | July 10, 2008There are many paths to take if you are interested in doing fundamental physics research in hopes of discovering the secrets of the universe (awkward phrasing there: this makes the universe is like the Bush administration, I guess?) Here are my three favorite ways to do fundamental theoretical physics.
Do it yourself. This is the traditional method. Of course you have to be more than a bit delusional to think you might actually be able to contribute some positive net effect, but such long odds don't seem to influence many people's choice of this method.
Build a computer to do it for you.…
pontiff | July 10, 2008An interesting interview with Christos Papadimitriou (recent winner of the Katayanagi Prize for Research Excellence) on Dr. Dobb's Journal. On chess and backgammon:
In chess, when you play like an idiot, you always lose, so you learn. In backgammon, you can play 10 games, not play well, and win. So you think you are great but you have made a great number of mistakes. Tragically, life is closer to backgammon, because you can play a perfect game and lose!
Which made me wonder which game is the closest game to "real life?" (Okay I'll dispense with the obvious answer which is the board game "…
pontiff | July 9, 2008A new entry in the best title ever competition appeared last week on the arXiv:
arXiv:0806.4874
Why devil plays dice?
Authors: Andrzej Dragan
Abstract: Principle of Relativity involving all, not only subluminal, inertial frames
leads to the disturbance of causal laws in a way known from the fundamental
postulates of Quantum Theory. We show how quantum indeterminacy based on
complex probability amplitudes with superposition principle emerges from
Special Relativity.
I bet the devil would play a mean game of liar's dice.
pontiff | July 8, 2008After reading the comments on my post Leaving Academia: Cry or Celebrate?, I started thinking about the successful scientists I know, and it occurred to me that the following conjecture is at least anecdotally true:
Scientists who have passionate outside interests are more successful in science than those who do not.
Okay, hows that for a broad against the grain statement which might stimulate comments on this blog? Anyone?
pontiff | July 6, 2008Red Eye:
A drink made from beer and tomato juice, drunk by Canadians
A kind of cicada.
Tomato ketchup. Or is it catsup?
A European fish, the rudd, Leuciscus erythrophthalmus. I was once a rudd, of a different kind.
What Dave will be doing tonight to get to the East coast. BINGO! From the OED:
White House Diary 31 Mar. (1970) 642 Lynda was coming in on 'the red-eye special' from California, about 7 A.M., having kissed Chuck good-by at Camp Pendleton last night as he departed for Vietnam
Bonus points if you can guess who Lynda is. Double bonus if you can explain where the title of this…
pontiff | July 3, 2008I can taste the green chilies and after conference ski trip already:
QIP 2009 -- 12th WORKSHOP ON QUANTUM INFORMATION PROCESSING
Santa Fe, New Mexico USA. January 12-16, 2009.
http://qipworkshop.org
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First call for papers
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IMPORTANT DATES:
Submission deadline for talks: October 20, 2008, 23:59 GMT.
Acceptance notification for talks: November 20, 2008.
Submission deadline for posters: December 1, 2008.
Acceptance notification for posters…
pontiff | July 1, 2008One of the subjects of great debate in physics goes under the moniker of "the arrow of time." The basic debate here is (very) roughly to try to understand why time goes it's merry way seemingly in one direction, especially given that the many of the laws of physics appear to behave the same going backwards as forwards in time. But aren't we forgetting our most basic science when we debate at great philosophical lengths about the arrow of time? Aren't we forgetting about...experiment? Here, for your pleasure, then, are some of my personal observations about the direction of time which I've…