drorzel | November 25, 2007A couple of months ago, I embarked on an experiment to read some SF magazines, and see if I was really missing out on the wonderful stuff that people are always haranguing con-goers about. I bought paper copies of Analog's November issue and the October/ November Asimov's, and commented on them here. I was unable to find paper copies of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, apparently due to their obnoxious return policy, but Kate got me an electronic version of the October issue, which I read slowly on my Palm over the next month or so. I finished it a while back, but never got around…
drorzel | November 24, 2007LSU lost to Arkansas in "overtime" yesterday (scare quotes are because the college overtime system is bizarre), becoming the latest highly-ranked team to lose to an unranked opponent. This throws the BCS championship system into chaos for the Nth time this season-- by the end of the weekend, at least three of the top ten teams will have lost, and there are only two undefeated teams left. There's never been more confusion about who is the best team in college football.
Boy, if only there were some way to settle this. I mean, imagine if you could get, say, the top eight teams together somehow,…
drorzel | November 24, 2007It turns out that there's a Facebook group for quantum information types called the Church of the Larger Hilbert Space after a remark by John Smolin (Facebook link here), which I thought was the nerdiest thing I ever saw. Until I looked at the "Related Groups," and saw "I support the right to choose one element from each set in a collection" (here, if you have access), which is, of course, a political group for people who are Pro-(Axiom-of-)Choice. Who are, of course, opposed by "The Axiom of Life (aka Negation of Axiom of Choice)" (here). Both of those are nerdier than the Church of the…
drorzel | November 23, 2007
Web Log -- Charles Bernstein: "Doping Scandal Rocks Poetry
'Cooper pairs' can be found in insulators as well superconductors
They explain superconductivity, and also some insulating behavior-- is there anything they can't do?
(tags: physics quantum experiment science news)
Have we sealed the universe's fate by looking at it?
In which the Quantum Zeno Effect applied to the entire universe, and wackiness ensues
(tags: physics quantum science news astronomy theory)
High-Tc superconductors plug 'terahertz gap' - physicsworld.com
A possible way to generate coherent radiation in the useful…
drorzel | November 23, 2007As mentioned a while back, I recently obtained a Lenovo ThinkPad X61 Tablet PC, which I've been playing around with a bunch. I like it quite a bit-- the handwriting recognition is a whole lot better than the older Toshiba model I used for a while last year, and the interface works a little more smoothly. Of course, it runs Vista, and the Office redesign is a world of pain, but you can't win 'em all.
There are a couple of things I'd like to be able to do with this that I suspect will require new software. In particular, I'd like to be able to use it to make occasional sketches, and put…
drorzel | November 23, 2007We live just a few blocks away from the local high school, which has had some sort of massive construction project going on for a few months now. I've been wondering what created the giant pile of dirt to one side of the grounds, but haven't been bothered enough to actually, you know, look it up to find out.
We got a newsletter thing this week that gets sent out to all the homes in the district, though, and the lead story (which I can't find online) is all about the construction project, which includes for the high school:
Replace the building's inefficient and ineffective heating system with…
drorzel | November 22, 2007
[0711.0745] Imaging the Internal Structure of the Earth with Atmospheric Neutrinos
"The absorption of neutrinos with energies in excess of 10 TeV when traversing the Earth is capable of revealing its density distribution."
(tags: physics theory articles science)
mmcirvin: Retract your ad homonyms
Matt McIrvin explains a classic of Usenet debate.
(tags: politics blogs computing)
Berry's phase seen in solid-state qubit - physicsworld.com
I've never understood Berry's Phase, and now I can not understand it as applied to quantum computing.
(tags: physics experiment computing quantum science…
drorzel | November 22, 2007Kate and I will be hosting Thanksgiving again this year, but not until Saturday, for reasons having to do with pet-sitting-- the Queen of Niskayuna will not tolerate inferior dogs (i.e., any dog who isn't her) in her house, and for some reason, it's hard to find a pet-sitter for Thanksgiving Day. Imagine that. Anyway, we'll be doing some advance food prep today, but the big turkey dinner will but put off for a couple of days.
So, we won't be having the traditional gluttony, but it's still traditional to take at least a few moments to reflect on what you're grateful for over the past year, and…
drorzel | November 21, 2007
Jobs, News and Views for All of Higher Education - Inside Higher Ed :: More Doctors of Philosophy (and Science)
The number of Ph.D.'s awarded goes up, but most of the increase is among foreign-born researchers.
(tags: academia US education)
Confessions of a Community College Dean: Access and Limits
A "law and order liberal" on access to higher education
(tags: academia economics class-war politics)
I has a icecap. « Lolcats 'n' Funny Pictures - I Can Has Cheezburger?
Noo they be stealin' my icecap!
(tags: environment pictures silly)
Matthew Yglesias (November 21, 2007) - The…
drorzel | November 21, 2007On a happier science-related note, the AIP's Physics News Update highlights a very nice article in The American Journal of Physics about the wide-ranging scientific investigations of Luis Alvarez:
Scientist as detective: Luis Alvarez and the pyramid burial chambers, the JFK assassination, and the end of the dinosaurs
Luis Alvarez (1911-1988) was one of the most brilliant and productive experimental physicists of the twentieth century. His investigations of three mysteries, all of them outside his normal areas of research, show what remarkable things a far-ranging imagination working with an…
drorzel | November 21, 2007I generally like Gregg Easterbrook's writing about football (though he's kind of gone off the deep end regarding the Patriots this year), but everything else he turns his hand to is a disaster. In particular, he tends to pad his columns out with references to science and technology issues. I'm not quite sure what the point of these is supposed to be, other than to demonstrate that he, Gregg Easterbrook, is so much smarter than the average football fan that he knows, like, rocket science and stuff. The problem with that is that his knowledge of rocket science seems to owe more to Star Trek…
drorzel | November 20, 2007
Crooked Timber » » Disciplines and deterrence
A brief history of shoddy death penalty scholarship.
(tags: economics academia politics society US)
New Stem Cell Method Could Ease Ethical Concerns - New York Times
Let's all take a few minutes to appreciate the accomplishment here, before getting all worked up about the political implications.
(tags: biology science news)
Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog: Chaucer the Holy-Wood Scabbe
It peyneth me soore to be an scabbe and an protest-lyne crosser, but my sone wisheth to goon to Oxford and my wyf desireth a patio. Forgive me, o ye merveillous…
drorzel | November 20, 2007Believe it or not, this is actually book-related: I have in mind to do a chapter at the end of the book about the use of misrepresentations of quantum physics to promise magical results. I've been writing the dialogue to go with that this morning (because it's more fun than what I'm supposed to be doing), and it struck me that this might be a decent question for the audience. So,
What's your favorite example of quantum chicanery?
By "quantum chicanery," I mean somebody using the language of quantum theory to make wildly unrealistc promises of magical results. Examples abound-- Bob Park got…
drorzel | November 20, 2007I am writing this letter in support of J. Randomstudent's application to your graduate or professional program. I have known J. since the fall of 20__, when he was a student in my introductory physics class.
From the very first day of that course, J. was a constant presence on my grade roster. I assume he came to class as well, as I have quiz and homework grades for him, though I do not have any specific recollection of him participating in class.
I have had many "B" students in my years as a professor, but I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that J. Randomstudent was the most…
drorzel | November 20, 2007A college basketball game takes a bit over two hours-- 2:10 is pretty typical, what with all the timeouts and miscellaneous stoppages of play. A blowout takes a bit less, a close game a bit more (what with all the intentional fouling at the end), but it's a rare game that finishes in under two hours.
And yet, ESPN persists in scheduling college games for two-hour time slots. Which means that if the game you want to see is the second game of a double-header (or more), you're more or less guaranteed to miss the first 5 minutes or so of game time. And so it was that they joined the Maryland-UCLA…
drorzel | November 19, 2007
5 Upcoming Comic Book Movies That Must Be Stopped | Cracked.com
'How the project obtained funding for their proposal, entitled "give diamond-hard skin and superhuman strength to angry young ethnic convicts" is yet another prime example of the dangerous incompetence of the Nixon administration.'
(tags: movies comics stupid)
Confessions of a Community College Dean: Presidents on Allowances
The Dean Dad calls for an end to the practice of giving college presidents cars and houses
(tags: academia economics education)
Jobs, News and Views for All of Higher Education - Inside Higher Ed ::…
drorzel | November 19, 2007I have to spend the day working with a thesis student who needs to finish up by tomorrow (no pressure), so I don't have time to write up the seven-part detailed explanation of the physics of deep-fried turkey that I was hoping to do. Maybe next year.
In its place, inspired by Backreaction's post on scaling behavior, here's a question for my readership:
How do you feel about deadlines?
Do you do your best work with a tight deadline, or do you seize up under the pressure? Does the approach of an important deadline lead you into a procrastinatory frenzy in which you affix processed meat to…
drorzel | November 19, 2007In one of those "Living in the Future" sorts of moments, our regular lunchtime pick-up basketball game has an email listserver. Pretty much every day there's a game, there's some email chatter and trash talk. My signature comment is to describe one of the other players as being "Weak like a really weak thing."
One of my colleagues from the bio department decided to up the ante, and videotape some trash talk:
Of course, this couldn't go unanswered:
(It helps if you know that Steve's a biologist doing research on the canopy structure of moss...)
There's been a recent elevation in the level of…
drorzel | November 18, 2007
These Scientific Minds Think (and Drink) Alike - New York Times
Scientists acting like rock stars. Buckaroo Banzai, call your agent.
(tags: science society culture)
In U.S. Name Count, Garcias Are Catching Up With Joneses - New York Times
You'll be shocked--shocked!-- to learn that neither Kate nor I have one of the 5,000 most common surnames in the US.
(tags: society silly)
drorzel | November 18, 2007If you go to the California Bar home page, you will see that only 56.1% of the applicants who took the bar exam this year passed. If you poke around a little, you can find the list of those who passed, and on that list, you'll find my sister's name. She graduated law school back in May, and took the test in July, and has been waiting on the results for months.
So, here's a blog post to congratulate her on a non-trivial accomplishment: Congratulations, Erin!
(And if any of my readers happen to be running a law firm in the San Francisco area and are looking to hire an up-and-coming young…