drorzel | September 1, 2010I doubt that this will actually work, but then the Web has brought me some improbable successes before, so it's worth a shot:
I have a sealed glass cell (Pyrex, I think, if it matters) that I would like to get re-filled with a mix of rare gases-- partial pressures of 100mT Ne, 30mT Ar, 30 mT Kr. This will contain an RF plasma discharge to serve as a spectroscopic reference for my experiments, and thus needs to be very clean-- I can't have impurities coming out of the walls and quenching the metastable atoms I'm producing in the discharge.
The company that initially made the cell has not…
drorzel | September 1, 2010There's a new medical study of the effects of alcohol consumption that finds a surprising result:
Controlling only for age and gender, compared to moderate drinkers, abstainers had a more than 2 times increased mortality risk, heavy drinkers had 70% increased risk, and light drinkers had 23% increased risk. A model controlling for former problem drinking status, existing health problems, and key sociodemographic and social-behavioral factors, as well as for age and gender, substantially reduced the mortality effect for abstainers compared to moderate drinkers. However, even after adjusting…
drorzel | September 1, 2010
This is why I "support" majoritarian rule. - Acephalous
"As a means of registering my discontent with conservative claims that the fact that 70 percent of Americans abhor the idea of the "Ground Zero Mosque" means it should be abandoned, I hereby present other things that 70 percent of "certain" Americans once hated."
(tags: politics us blogs acephalous race religion society)
Square Signals : An Anesthetic Default
"I have this problem.
When I get home from work, I sit down on my couch and open my laptop. When I'm waiting for the next bus, I pull out my iPhone.
Then there's the unconscious…
drorzel | August 31, 2010A lot of people have been blogging and Twittering about this subway map of science, which puts various branches of science in the place of the lines on the London Underground map, showing connections between them. It's a huge graphic, but a kind of cool image.
I do, however, have a problem with it, which is illustrated by the key to the lines shown at right. The category of physics is presented as "Theoretical Physics and Quantum Mechanics." I have no problem with the quantum part, as quantum mechanics is one of the greatest intellectual achievements in human history. I do have a problem…
drorzel | August 31, 2010Back in July, I did a post looking at how the fountain in our ornamental backyard pond shoots higher when the level of the pond drops. I set up a simple model of the process, which worked surprisingly well, but I said at the time that I really needed more data to say whether that agreement was real or accidental. Well, yesterday, I got some extreme data:
The leak in the pond has gotten worse, I think, and the water was barely covering the top of the pump box at all. A very rough calibration of this image, using the fact that the brick is 2in high, gives a height of the spray of about 62in,…
drorzel | August 31, 2010Over in Discover-land, Razib has a couple of posts about the content of science blogs, based on an analysis of the content of the top science blogs according to Wikio. Razib's second post is sparked by a pointed question from the author of the original study:
I'm now curious to find out why there are no 'popular' blogs in certain subjects. Do working condensed matter physicists who want to engage with the public write about astrophysics? Or are astrophysicists the only physicists who want to blog for the public? Or does the public only read astrophysics blogs?
This is, of course, an obvious…
drorzel | August 31, 2010Sunday was a really long day around Chateau Steelypips, and I couldn't see staying awake to watch the premiere of Phil Plait's Bad Universe on the Discovery Channel, so I'm way late in writing about it. I DVRed it, though, and watched it last night.
The theme of the premiere/ pilot was killer rocks from out of space, and focused on Phil getting his MythBusters on to test various ideas about asteroid or comet impacts and how to stop them. They blew up a scale model, shot projectiles into various types of rock to simulate nuclear bombs or kinetic impacts, all in the name of testing what would…
drorzel | August 31, 2010
slacktivist: The Clod and the Pebble and the politics of resentment
"What happened was that 78 poor children whose fathers are incarcerated received free back-to-school supplies provided by three area churches. Their dads were permitted to be on hand to help present these presents, getting a rare chance to spend a few hours with their young kids.
This is, unambiguously, a Good Thing. "Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the needy have their needs met, children are prepared to learn, broken families experience healing, the poor have good news brought to them."
Most readers will…
drorzel | August 30, 2010Last week, John Baez posted a report on a seminar by Dzimitry Matsukevich on ion trap quantum information issues. In the middle of this, he writes:
Once our molecular ions are cold, how can we get them into specific desired states? Use a mode locked pulsed laser to drive stimulated Raman transitions.
Huh? As far as I can tell, this means "blast our molecular ion with an extremely brief pulse of light: it can then absorb a photon and emit a photon of a different energy, while itself jumping to a state of higher or lower energy."
I saw this, and said "Hey, that's a good topic for a blog post…
drorzel | August 30, 2010There was a deeply silly New York Times article about "Past Life Regression" over the weekend:
In one of his past lives, Dr. Paul DeBell believes, he was a caveman. The gray-haired Cornell-trained psychiatrist has a gentle, serious manner, and his appearance, together with the generic shrink décor of his office -- leather couch, granite-topped coffee table -- makes this pronouncement seem particularly jarring.
In that earlier incarnation, "I was going along, going along, going along, and I got eaten," said Dr. DeBell, who has a private practice on the Upper East Side where he specializes in…
drorzel | August 30, 2010
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Why experimentalists hate theorists.
(tags: science silly cartoons comics)
YouTube - Hitler and P = NP
Why the hell am I paying you morons to use a f&#$*% brute force algorithm?! That blasted Russian Perelman can solve the Poincare conjecture. Why can't you dimwits solve something as simple as finding the best route?"
(tags: science math computing silly video)
drorzel | August 29, 2010We're trying not to let SteelyKid watch a whole lot of tv, but we've taken to showing her YouTube videos of old Sesame Street and Muppet Show skits as a way to wind her down before bedtime. this, of course, has let to her demanding to watch videos any time one of us is anywhere near a computer.
One of her current favorites is this clip of Viking pigs from the Muppet Show:
I've been horribly earwormed with this for days, now, and since misery has bosonic character, I thought I'd share it with you all.
drorzel | August 29, 2010I am planning to buy a telephoto lens for my camera. From time to time, I want to take pictures of the various critters Emmy chases in the back yard, and that would be a whole lot easier if I didn't need to get so close to them. And, of course, I strongly suspect there will be outdoor sports in SteelyKid's future, which will demand some zooming for action shots.
My camera is a Canon Rebel XSi, their entry-level DSLR model. Back when I bought it, I flagged this telephoto lens based on a recommendation in some "DSLR essentials" article or another. It still seems like a reasonable choice, but I…
drorzel | August 29, 2010
dirtcandy : HOME
The third part of a series (with links to parts 1 and 2) on the making of an episode of Iron Chef America that will air Sunday night.
(tags: food television blogs culture)
Liberal Arts Chemistry: If Hemingway were a Chemist ...
There is a reason why some reagents and some chemical reactions have not been reported yet. When it comes to some binary and trinary combinations of elements the path to the chemistry textbooks is very ... Darwinian. And let's face it boys and girls, the true measure of success in chemistry is not measured in prizes. True impact is when your…
drorzel | August 28, 2010Over at Torque Control, Niall Harrison is doing a Short Story Club, hosting discussions of SF short fiction. As I always vaguely regret not reading enough short fiction to make sensible nominations for the Hugos, this seemed like a good opportunity to read a selection of stories that a smart person with pretty good taste thought were worth discussing. As a bonus, these all appear to be available online for free, so it doesn't require me to buy, let alone subscribe to, one of the big magazines.
The first story up in this year's edition is "The Things" by Peter Watts. It's a fast read, if you…
drorzel | August 28, 2010I've never thought of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. I haven't had to, since I don't live in The City, so about all I remember about him is that his choice of party back when he was first running seemed awfully opportunistic. I was really impressed with his appearance on the Daily Show this week:
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Michael Bloomberg
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes
Political Humor
Tea Party
This is about the best response to the endless mosque nonsense that I've seen from an elected official. Granted, he's not…
drorzel | August 28, 2010
Williams College - The Purple Cow goes national: ESPN College Football GameDay commercial looms
"In 2007, when I was but a wee sophomore at Williams College, ESPN College GameDay visited our campus marking the first and possibly last time they visit a Division III school. I thought that would also be the last Williams College would ever hear from ESPN. Boy, was I wrong, and glad to be.
It was an ordinary Wednesday (May 4th) when I received a call from Eph Sports Information Director Dick Quinn (DQ) asking if I knew how to get my hands on the Purple Cow mascot outfit, because if I did, then…
drorzel | August 27, 2010Via Thoreau, a paper from a physicist in Oregon that's pretty much a grenade lobbed into the always-explosive grade inflation discussion:
We use four years of introductory astronomy scores to analyze the ability of the current population to perform college level work and measure the amount of grade inflation across various majors. Using an objective grading scale, one that is independent of grading curves, we find that 29% of intro astronomy students fail to meet minimal standards for college level work. Of the remaining students, 41% achieve satisfactory work, 30% achieve mastery of the…
drorzel | August 27, 2010I'm pretty sure I've used this topic before, but not with PollDaddy. And while I really ought to do a ResearchBlogging post today to make it a clean sweep for the week, I just don't have the energy.
So here's a poll: what's your favorite fundamental force?
What's your favorite fundamental force?online surveys
Those of us with corporeal existence should restrict our answers to the low-energy condition of the present material universe, not any of the higher energy unification scales.
drorzel | August 27, 2010I've said before that I think Fred Clark of Slacktivist is the very best blogger writing about religion and politics in America today. It's not even close. His recent series on things the government ought to be doing to help the economy is also outstanding-- that link goes to the most recent, and you can check my Links dump posts for most of the rest of the series.
I end up tagging a lot of his posts for the Links Dumps, but he's good enough that every now and then I feel I need to give him a little more prominence. His Wednesday post is one that deserves more. He describes two occasions…