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900

Congratulations to Texas Tech coach Bob Knight, who extended his own NCAA record by winning his 900th game as a coach against Texas A&M last night. Knight being Knight, he couldn't get through this without a tiny display of churlishness: After the game fans chanted Knight's name as he walked off the court to a thunderous ovation. ''You folks being here, seats being full for a change, really made a difference tonight,'' Knight told the crowd before leaving the court. He's nobody's idea of a nice guy, but he sure can coach basketball. Unfortunate mental image after the cut: Clip from Frank…

Google Passeth All Understanding

As previously mentioned, I plan to end the book with a chapter on quantum flim-flam. As research for this, I've been looking at kook sites on the web, and Googled "quantum healing," which turns up all manner of gibberish from Deepak Chopra. It also includes a helpful little item at the bottom of the page: Searches related to: quantum healing maurice chevalier hugh grant deepak chopra ectomorphic The Chopra search makes sense, and "ectomorphic" is a gibberish word that shows up in that sort of stuff. But Maurice Chevalier? And Hugh Grant? If I could just figure out the connection between…

Musical Poll: British Invaders

No Links Dump today because a combination of work and a nasty cold kept me off the Internet most of yesterday. Here's the moral equivalent, though: a poll question brought to you by the letters "U" and "K" and the song "Gimme Sympathy" by Metric: Who would you rather be?online surveys The song is unclear on exactly what criteria you should be using to judge whether you'd rather be the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, so feel free to invent whatever criteria you like. Feel free to explain them in the comments, as well. And I suppose there's no way I can stop you from complaining that Elvis/…

Betsy McCaughey Bags 30K Bribe Source To Fix Image

Betsy McCaughey (see this) has been receiving $30,000 per year from a medical supply company to be on their "board." This is of course totally unrelated to her efforts to kill health care reform under both the Clinton and Obama administrations. And Pink Unicorns can fly. The name of the company that has been paying McCaughey off, er, I mean, paying for her I'm sure very useful service as a board member is Cantel Medical. Cantel provides a wide range of medical products. They still list McCaughey on their web site as Elizabeth McCaughey, Ph.D. Chairman - Committee to Reduce Infection…

Erratum ... on the whole death threat thing....

Erratum published in the Times Observer: An errant classified "personal" ad which appeared in Thursday's Times Observer has drawn the attention of law enforcement officials. A person from Warren placed the ad, which apparently alludes to the wish that President Obama meet an untimely end by linking him with four assassinated presidents. The ad representative didn't make the connection among the four other presidents mentioned and mistakenly allowed the ad to run. Upon realizing the mistake early Thursday morning, the ad was immediately discontinued and the identity of the person who placed…

1970s Swine Flu Training Video

The swine flu maneno in the 1970s was actually a key moment in the history of epidemiology politics. It also relates to the history of anti-vaccine activism in important and interesting ways. I should probably write a whole post about it. For now, suffice it to say that the government reaction to the sudden appearance of swine flu on the scene was somewhat bungled, it is probably true that the wrong people got screwed, and the swine flu itself turned out to be a false start. But please also note that the epidemiology of the present swine flu is very different from what we had then. And…

Printing Problems

The other day I wanted to print a single 4 by 6 photo on the all-in-one printer Lizzie gave me last year. I was doing this from my Linux computer. I assumed that this would be tricky because this is one of those machines that's gotta have a complex and strange printer driver and maybe it would not work on my humble Linux box. I don' t know why I had such a stoopid thought. I got the image up in The Gimp, opened "Printer Properties" and specified that I wanted a 4 by 6 photo quality, and hit "Print." And it was done. Linux in Exile has a post on Windows Printing and how much of a pain it…

CNN must have felt the heat

That wretched excuse to bash atheists on the Paula Zahn program that I criticized must have generated some intense and voluminous correspondence, because right now they're scrambling to do damage control. I just got word from Richard Dawkins that they are going to repeat the lead segment (the part with the ostracized atheist family), and then instead of showing the bumbling bigot panel, they're planning to replace that debacle with a new interview with Richard Dawkins. That's tonight, Thursday, at 8PM EST. For symmetry, it would have been better to have a panel with Dawkins, Dennett, and…

Cold Blooded Animals + Warming Planet = Not Good

A new study warns that cold-blooded land animals like lizards and insects in the tropics may wither as the world warms. "Cold-blooded" is the layman's term for ectotherms--animals whose body temperature is contingent on the surrounding environment, rather than internally regulated like that of warm-blooded creatures. They thrive in temperatures ranging from 68 degrees to 104 degrees Fahrenheit (20 to 40 degrees Celsius), above which they overheat. As the globe warms, researchers warn they may be forced to swelter in burrows and under bushes with little time to eat, find mates or rear young…

Yer in big trouble if you buy this woo

A Bolivian woman has died from an injection of urine allegedly administered by her friend as a form of health therapy, a prosecutor said Tuesday. Investigating prosecutor Oscar Flores told The Associated Press that 35-year-old Gabriela Ascarrunz died Saturday of an "infection caused by urine that was injected by fashion designer Monica Schultz." Local newspapers reported that Schultz, who is known across Bolivia for her clothing lines, is a practitioner of urine therapy -- a form of alternative medicine using human urine for cosmetic purposes or to treat various diseases. Some people rub it…

Franken Campaign and the Absentee Ballots

On the eve of a key State Canvassing Board meeting on the U.S. Senate race, Democrat Al Franken presented affidavits today from 62 Minnesotans who said their absentee ballots were improperly rejected. With Franken behind in the official Senate recount, the affidavits were the latest attempt by the campaign to increase the pressure on the board to count absentee ballots that were improperly rejected. The affidavits followed the release of a web video Wednesday by the campaign that portrayed the stories of seven Minnesotans whose ballots were improperly rejected. A campaign spokesman said the…

Square-lipped (White) Rhinoceros

Ceratotherium simum, or "White" Rhinoceros, a.k.a. Square-lipped Rhinoceros. Click the caption for a much larger image. This is a young white, or square-lipped rhinoceros that was still traveling with its mom (not shown) at Pilanesberg, a mineral and game park in South Africa not far from the famous "Sun City" Casino northwest of Pretoria. Notice the wide lip. It could easily be called the wide-lipped rhino to distinguish it form the other African species ("black" or "bush" rhinoceros). The mouth parts of this creature are actually designed to act as a lawn mower, as the animals spend…

Mystery of Mysteries

This is one of the nicest explanations for one of the deepest mysteries of our modern (as in post Bronze Age) technological era: Why is it that when you look in a mirror, left and right are reversed, but not up and down? The answer is simple: Neither is reversed. What is switched around is not one side vs. the other or top vs. bottom, but rather, which side of your face your nose is on. When you look in a mirror, you do not see the back of your head. The image in the mirror is the image of yourself with front and back reversed. All else follows from that. Anyway, enjoy the show. Hat…

Dust Devils in Gusev Crater, Mars

Gusev Crater is decorated by tracks made by dust devils that have been observed by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit, Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC), and HiRISE images. Dust devils are of interest because they may clean the solar panels that provide power to Spirit, and are partially responsible for dust transportation on the surface of Mars. ... As the dust devil picks up material from the bright dust-mantled surface, it exposes the darker basaltic substrate. These scribble marks will follow the prevailing winds and tend to cluster together as the lower albedo surface heats up more quickly.…

Yet Another PLoS Success Story, and some interesting stuff about sex and genes.

From Sex, Genes and Evolution, a story of publishing in PLoS Open Access Journal: My lab has taken its initial journey on the PLoS ONE train. Yesterday, our paper entitled "An Expanded Inventory of Conserved Meiotic Genes Provides Evidence for Sex in Trichomonas vaginalis" was published in PLoS ONE. It's a updated and detailed report on the ongoing work in my lab to generate and curate an "inventory" of genes involved in meiosis that are present across major eukaryotic lineages. This paper focuses on the protist, Trichomonas vaginalis, an organism not known to have a sexual phase in its life…

Georgia Update

I am hearing things from within Georgia that are best not repeated until a day or so has passed, but genrally my understanding is that the situation is primarily one of confusion. The Georgians have declared a cease fire (some 24 hours or so ago) and claim to have stopped fighting. The Russians claim that this is not the case, and they continue to move troops and carry out bombing runs. The international airport near Tblisi has been bombed, and a Geogian naval ship has been sunk. People are fleeing not only South Ossetia but other regions including around Tblisis as well. This sitution…

The Earth Will Not Be Sucked Into A Black Hole. But it may coexist with a large number of tiny black holes until the end of time as we know it

An utterly incomprehensible paper has been produced by a team of physicists, designed to make everyone feel better about the possibility that the Large Hadron Collider will produce black holes that will suck the Earth into themselves. There is no effort whatsoever in this paper to speak to normal people. The most I can get out of it is that yes, black holes can form, and possibly very many of them, but it will take them longer to destroy the planet than it will take the sun to destroy the planet by exploding on its present schedule (of some billions of years from now). Which makes no…

Converging in ignorance

Denyse O'Leary is a very silly person, but you all knew that. One of her latest entries on her silly Design of Life blog, which purports to be promoting Dembski's silly book of the same name, is treading old ground. She's claiming that convergence is common, and that marsupial lions and wolves and squirrels are evidence of some kind of natural destiny. She's getting all of this from Michael Denton, but the similarities are in ecological niches (sometimes, not even that) and in the names, and contrary to Denton, the similarities are only superficial. Laelaps has the details on those convergent…

Hitchens on the Religious Right

All sorts of items in the news about science, religion and politics. As a warm-up, here's Christopher Hitchens stating it plain about the odius denizens of the religious right: Isn't it amazing how self-pitying and self-aggrandizing the religious freaks in this country are? It's not enough that they can make straight-faced professions of "faith" at election times and impose their language on everything from the Pledge of Allegiance to the currency. It's not enough that they can claim tax exemption and even subsidy for anything "faith-based." It's that when they are even slightly criticized…

Anand Wins World Chess Championship!

Viswanathan Anand of India is the new, mostly undisputed, World Chess Champion, thanks to his stellar performance at the Mexico City tournament. The Chess Ninja has the details. By all accounts Anand is a class act and a well-deserving champion. He played, and lost, a title match with Gary Kasparov in 1995. This steback did not long stop him from returning to top form, and he has ben a fixture in top level chess for more than twenty years. So congratulations to him! If all goes according to plan, Anand will play a match with Kramnik (who officially lost his title by only finishing tied for…

Dog Physics on the Read Science! Hangout Today

Rhett and I haven't done Uncertain Dots for a couple of weeks due to scheduling issues, but that doesn't mean I'm neglecting the multimedia side of things. In fact, I'll be doing a hangout today, as a guest on the Read Science! hangout hosted by Joanne Manaster and Jeff Shaumeyer. The event page is here. I've also got four summer research students to supervise this year, who quite reasonably expect a fair bit of my time (thus the blog silence this week), and thus I'll be doing this from my office on campus, which means Emmy isn't going to be joining in. Alas. Odds are good that I'll have to…

A brief history of Futurama

The lesson is that you should never, ever give a network executive control of your fate. Those kinds of macabre twists would be Futurama's undoing. Fox was expecting something familiar, The Simpsons in space. Executives certainly were not prepared for the bizarre contours of Groening and Cohen's brave new world. "The network's attitude quickly went from tremendous excitement to great fear," Groening says. "They were very troubled by the suicide booth. They didn't like the 'All-Tentacle Massage' parlor." How can you not like the 'All-Tentacle Massage' parlor? Obviously, Groening and Co.…

Uncertain Dots, Episode 6

This week's episode of Uncertain Dots is, if anything, even more free-form than previous weeks, including a brief cameo from one of Rhett's kids: Topic covered include the arrangement of faculty offices, the relative lack of demos for E&M (compared to mechanics, where there are endless videos to analyze, etc.) a little bit about science journalism and sports journalism, how we deal with (or don't) the problem of including background information in our blogs, the need to sometimes bring your kids to campus or cancel classes, teaching while sick, tracking the flu, precision measurement and…

Martin Gardner, 1914-2010

Martin Gardner has died at the age of 95. He was a prolific writer in three different areas: mathematics, magic and debunking pseudoscience. Since those happen to be three of my favorite things in life you can imagine how big a fan I was of his writing. His book Puzzles From Other Worlds made a big impression on me when I stumbled onto a copy when I was about ten. It was a great thrill for me when Gardner volunteered to write a jacket endorsement for my book on the Monty Hall problem. Obituaries are available all over the internet, but I think this profile, published in 1995 in Scientific…

Etiquette Poll: Trash Day

Chateau Steelypips lost power this morning for unknown reasons, preventing me from putting up the post I planned to do with lots of cute toddler pictures. Thus, a quickie poll in honor of the crazy person a couple of blocks away who sometimes yells at me for dropping Emmy's bagged poop into her full trash cans while they're at the curb: Somebody else dropping a bag of dog poop into your trash can when it's at the curb awaiting pickup is:online surveys As noted a long time ago, this would be a great opening scene for an episode of CSI (Call me, CBS. We'll talk.), but beyond that, I'm kind of…

Friday Vanity Blogging: Physics Central Profile

Earlier this summer, I talked about the blog and the book on the phone with somebody from the APS, providing material for a profile of me that was posted yesterday on Physics Central. It's pretty good, but it's still a little strange to see my name and picture on their profile index with some of the other names there-- I don't really think of myself as being in the same category as Margaret Murnane or Mildred Dresselhaus, who are really amazing scientists. So, it's very flattering to see this up there. It would also probably be a useful reference for anybody who would like to update my stub…

More Adult Politicians, Please

I'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…

Talking to My Dog About Science: Why Public Communication of Science Matters, and How Weblogs Can Help

My talk at Maryland last Thursday went pretty well-- the impending Snowpocalypse kept the audience down, as people tried to fit in enough work to compensate for the Friday shutdown, but the people who were there seemed to like it, and asked good questions. If you weren't there, but want to know what I talked about, here are the slides on SlideShare: Talking to My Dog About Science: Why Public Communication of Science Matters and How Weblogs Can Help View more presentations from Chad Orzel. This flattens out some of the more animation-dependent jokes, but gets you the basic idea. It is, of…

links for 2008-04-24

Acephalous: Interview with a Candidate for Many Jobs (but Winner of None) "So your advice to candidates is to take consolation in the fact that the entire planet isn't being devoured by The Eater of Worlds?" (tags: academia jobs blogs silly) nanoscale views: Career comments There's really no end to the number of people willing to give sensible advice to tenure-track faculty. (tags: academia jobs physics science) Cocktail Party Physics: let me explain "When I mis-speak, it's usually assumed I am ignorant. Or sloppy. Or both. At least by men. " (tags: gender science physics society…

links for 2008-03-23

Relativity: Measuring the speed of light « Skulls in the Stars A history of experiments through the ages. (tags: precision-measurement experiment history science) Nanocrystals could help recover waste heat - physicsworld.com "[T]he thermoelectric figure of merit (ZT) for the ingots increased to 1.2 at room temperature (from a value of 1.0 previously). Moreover, they found that the ZT peaks at 1.4 at 100 °C." (tags: physics materials science news energy experiment nano) Unsolicited Advice, Part Six: Talking to the Media | Cosmic Variance A guide to discussing scientific issues with…

Strobe Ants

New this week at alexanderwild.com we have photographs of the Savanna Strobe Ant Opisthopsis haddoni. These delightfully perky insects inhabit open environments in northern Australia and are one of my favorite ants. Opisthopsis has excellent vision. The location of the compound eyes atop the head allows it to spot a photographer approaching from any direction and take appropriate evasive action. This wasn't the easiest ant to shoot. The peculiarly erratic style of walking is also not conducive to photography. The common name "strobe ant" refers to this ant's unpredictable little fits and…

Tuesday ant links

The U.K.-based film company Ammonite has been blogging their ant-filming experiences in Costa Rica and Spain. The glamor of making nature documentaries apparently includes skin parasites and volcano-related travel limbo. The journal Myrmecological News has a trio of new articles, including descriptions of two new myrmicine species. Ted MacRae thinks ant taxonomy is entirely too complicated and proposes an alternative. Ant developmental biologist Ehab Abouheif is featured in a short but excellent documentary (French language). (h/t Archetype). Marvel's Ant-Man inches closer to the big screen…

Answer to the Monday Night Mystery

Who were those magical mystery insects? The ant is Prenolepis imparis, recognizable by the attractive hourglass constriction in her mid-thorax. Congrats to Julie for the answer. The ant's hapless prey was, as Ted McRae proferred, a hackberry psyllid Pachypsylla celtidismamma (Hemiptera: Psyllidae). The hard part was figuring out what the heck sort of group the oddball prey insect belonged to. Psyllids are related to aphids but haven't suffered such extreme modification over the course of their evolutionary descent. They retain all sorts of general buggy traits, rendering them difficult to…

My tenure at Photo Synthesis has ended...

...and it was fun. Here are some highlights from the past week: Why do only some ants sting? Competing for space on a fake walnut The case of the Malagasy mystery ants Here's one bit of information that might be useful for anyone thinking about starting a blog. The ScienceBlogs network- which hosts Photo Synthesis- is driven by Moveable Type software. The Myrmecos Blog uses Wordpress.  Having spent time now in both platforms, I've decided that I much prefer Wordpress- it's more intuitive, more flexible, and it handles images more smoothly. This isn't to say that blogging for ScienceBlogs…

Touring the Audubon Insectarium

New Orleans, January 2009 The first major public exhibit to open in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina was the Audubon Nature Institute's Insectarium.  We took advantage of a lull in our schedule last week to make the pilgrimage to what turns out to be a surprisingly ambitious operation.  It well exceeded our expectations. The entrance on Canal Street. Spying on live bumblebees. Inside the bees' nest. Yes, educational bits too. This ant looks familiar. Not a family exhibit: stick insects have sexual relations in public. They let non-insects in too. Another one. The proud…

Question: Ritualized Fighting in Harvester Ants?

Here's a question for my myrmecologist readers.  Has anyone published observations of ritualized fighting among colonies of Pogonomyrmex harvester ants?  I know such behavior was famously studied by Bert Hoelldobler in Myrmecocystus, and that ritual combat has been noted in Camponotus and Iridomyrmex.  The reason I ask is that the pogos in my front yard back in Tucson would engage in what looks like the same sort of behavior.  Ants from opposing colonies stand up on little stilt-legs and push each other about without anyone getting hurt. I suspect these non-lethal ways of establishing…

Check this out: ant innards

Oecophylla weaver ants are exceptionally cooperative subjects for photography, allowing for plenty of experimentation with lighting while the ants preen and pose. While developing the photographs from South Africa I discovered that strong backlighting allows a crystal-clear view of the tracheal system: Oecophylla longinoda, St. Lucia, KZN, South Africa The tracheae are visible as dark canals running through the body. These connect to the outside air in a series of circular spiracles and are essentially the lungs of the insect, channeling oxygen to the respiring cells and carrying away…

Friday Beetle Blogging: Eusattus Dune Beetle

Eusattus dilatatus - dune darkling beetle (Tenebrionidae) California, USA Sand dunes are an unusual habitat, and the creatures found on them are equally odd. One of the more charismatic dune endemics is Eusattus dilatatus, a large darkling beetle found in southern California. This scavenging insect has long legs for digging and a waxy cuticle to prevent dessication. Eusattus is not the easiest photographic subject. It seemed uncomfortable out in the open and would burrow as soon as I placed it on the sand. The series below spans 30 seconds. **update** Tenebrionid expert Kojun Kanda…

Scientists conclude that Peggy Noonan kills brain cells

Even reading Peggy Noonan through an Attaturk filter is dangerous. I read this little scrap and felt neurons popping throughout my cortex. During the past week's heat wave--it hit 100 degrees in New York City Monday--I got thinking, again, of how sad and frustrating it is that the world's greatest scientists cannot gather, discuss the question of global warming, pore over all the data from every angle, study meteorological patterns and temperature histories, and come to a believable conclusion on these questions: Is global warming real or not? Jebus. Now not only do scientists have to…

Carbon dioxide really is pollution: SCOTUS

The U.S. Supreme Court says the Environmental Protection Agency has offered "no reasoned explanation" why it shouldn't regulate carbon dioxide, just like every other pollutant spewing from tailpipes and smokestacks. You'd think that would be a no-brainer, but ... The court's four most conservative members -- Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, both appointees of President George W. Bush, and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas -- dissented. The implications are theoretically immense. Of course, Bush will probably just sign a piece of paper noting that he doesn't agree…

Things that are pretty: London's Natural History Museum

(Image by The Norweigian) Chalk it up to a life size model of the blue whale. Yup, I can say with certainty that the reason I got into science, biology, all of the things that have led to my current place as an academic, started with a freakishly impressive (especially if you're a young child looking up up up) model of a blue whale. This blue whale, of course, is housed in London's Natural History Museum, one of the coolest museums on the planet, and also mostly with free admission (some special exhibits have a charge) It's also one of the most architecturally inspiring places around.…

It's not science porn (or is it?)

So, apologies again for the recent lack of posts. There's been a number of things going on of late, including getting a chance to meet fellow Scienceblogger, Chris Mooney, as well as being in full wedding planner mode for an upcoming visit by Dr. Vandana Shiva. To get back into the swing of things, let's first start with a link elsewhere. Is it science porn? I don't know - although the thought of these pin-ups gracing the locker rooms of laboratories across the planet is strangely appealing to me. This is the second pin-up from the SCQ and in keeping with a "skin" theme, it's on our…

How's that astrobiology gig working out for you, Dr Wickramasinghe?

Ooops. Hot off the dramatic fizzle of the bacteria in meteorites story comes word that Chandra Wickramasinghe is losing his job and the University of Cardiff is closing their astrobiology center. Not because they oppose his work, of course, but simply because the weird science isn't cost-effective. It turns out it was a pretty rinky-tink operation to begin with. All it was was Wickramasinghe, getting paid a part-time salary of $24,000/year, with a little unpaid assistance from other people working at the university. In other words, the Astrobiology Center of the University of Cardiff was…

Being Friday the 13th and all - a short list of scientific papers on the subject of the day at hand.

From the ever entertaining (and, of course, useful), PUBMED search: Radun I, Summala H.Females do not have more injury road accidents on Friday the 13th. BMC Public Health. 2004 Nov 16;4:54. Exadaktylos AK, Sclabas G, Siegenthaler A, Eggli S, Kohler HP, Luterbacher J. Friday the 13th and full-moon: the "worst case scenario" or only superstition? Am J Emerg Med. 2001 Jul;19(4):319-20. Veale D. Friday the 13th and obsessive compulsive disorder. BMJ. 1995 Oct 14;311(7011):963-4. Scanlon TJ, Luben RN, Scanlon FL, Singleton N.Is Friday the 13th bad for your health? BMJ. 1993 Dec 18-25;307(6919):…

And that's why we call them IDiots

Joe Felsenstein has a guest post on the Panda's Thumb in which he dissects a totally bogus statistical game some intelligent design creationist was playing. In a few short paragraphs he shows clearly and plainly how wrong the creationist is, which is why he is Joe Felsenstein, I guess. Meanwhile, the creationists go on imperturbably, completely failing to recognize that they've been cut off at the knees. It's hilarious. For further hilarity, Felsenstein quotes an amusing revelation from the gang at Uncommon Descent: At UD we have many brilliant ID apologists, and they continue to mount what I…

Slouching towards stupidity

John West over at the DI moans: David Klinghoffer has a provocative essay commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado. Klinghoffer notes that Columbine killer Eric Harris was inspired in part by his fanatical devotion to Darwinian natural selection, a trait Harris unfortunately shared with many opponents of human dignity during the past century. Given the pervasive influence of Social Darwinism in our culture, Klinghoffer suggests that Darwin's Tree of Life might be more appropriately viewed as a Tree of Death. Wow. So much wrong, so little time. Let'…

Apocalypse Avoided

As I discussed a few blog posts ago a serious hole in our apocalypse protection network was about to be compromised with the non-renewal of the website http://www.hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth.com/. But it seems that Domenic has come to the rescue! See comment in the above blog post and the RSS feed update: Domenic (a true fan of this site) was so distraught at the thought of missing out on further reassurances of the earth's continued existence that he's ponied up the registration cost for another year. So, we're not going anywhere after all. 1. The world has not ended. 2. The website is…

Teacher of the Year

For a second straight year, the winner of the U.S. Teacher of the Year, is a University of Washington graduate. Of course I'm not supposed to say that, as not bragging is an sacred northwest tradition. (Did you know that the University of Washington receives the second most federal research funding of any institute in the United States?) The teacher who won the award is Michael Geisen, who teaches in Prineville, Oregon, wish is just north and east of Bend, OR. Dude, not only is he an awesome science teacher, but he also gets to live in a sweet locale. Bend is an outdoor enthusiasts…

CSE 322 Spring 2008, Week 1

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 lectures for those with nothing better to do during their weekend: Lecture 1: Welcome and Introduction Lecture 2: Formal Definition of Deterministic Finite Automata Lecture 3: Regular Operations on Languages The notes are certainly full of many typos and such, but maybe there is a young teenager who isn…

An ArXiv PDF Mime Fix for Firefox 3.0

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: It seems that the source of this bug is the following problem: Arxiv.org does not like Macs! :-O Fortunately, there is an easy work around: Using the UserAgent Switcher extension, you fool arxiv.org into thinking your web-browser is running Windows. Then the PDF download problem goes away! No MIME…