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Displaying results 501 - 550 of 854
My 10 favorite science fiction movies
I'm just back from Hypericon, the Nashville area science fiction convention where, as I mentioned previously, I gave a couple of talks about science stuff— although one was about science in science fiction movies. I was also on a panel with two other guys, Jim Messer and Fred Grimm, where we each constructed a list of our top-10 favorite science fiction movies. We presented that list and said something about why they were on our list, and compared the lists with each other... and sometimes made fun of each other for having such bad ideas. We also talked with others in the room about why…
My ethical style (according to an internet quiz).
Chad thinks it's a good point in the week for internet quizzes. So, since I saw it at Arbitrary Marks, I took a quiz to determine my ethical style. (No, "bossy" isn't one of the possible results.) What the quiz says about me after the jump. Jean-Paul Sartre (100%) Kant (97%) John Stuart Mill (83%) Jeremy Bentham (77%) Stoics (73%) Aquinas (63%) Ayn Rand (59%) Spinoza (55%) Prescriptivism (49%) Nel Noddings (46%) St. Augustine (46%) Plato (40%) Nietzsche (39%) Aristotle (35%) David Hume (34%) Epicureans (34%) Ockham (27%) Cynics (20%) Thomas Hobbes (20…
The Humongous Darwin Day Linkfest
[Moved to the top of the page. First posted at 1:43am] Last year, I collected the links to notable posts about Darwin Day and posted them here. That was fun, so I decided to do it again. I checked the Technorati and Google Blogsearch and took my picks that you can see below. I will update this post several times today and move the post to the top in the evening. If you want your post to appear here, please e-mail me at: Coturnix AT gmail DOT com. Also, later today, I will update this post with a special announcement (pending the approval by the person in question) - naming the winner of…
Weekend Diversion: Holiday Roundup, Reviews and an out-of-this-world Giveaway!
"I like to compare the holiday season with the way a child listens to a favorite story. The pleasure is in the familiar way the story begins, the anticipation of familiar turns it takes, the familiar moments of suspense, and the familiar climax and ending." -Fred Rogers I know it's still the middle of November, but I know that many of you are already thinking about holiday gifts for the lovers of physics, astronomy and the Universe in your life. People send me books and other educational materials throughout the year for review, and although they all have good and bad points about them, I'm…
Science fiction & science
Chad has a post up discussing the crappiness of physics in science fiction. Rob has more. This was all prompted by a post titled R-E-S-P-E-C-T; which makes the case that biology gets no respect in science fiction (e.g., notice the abundance of dangerous and large predators stalking deserts with no sign of plant life or herbivores). Chad & Rob focused on science fiction films as opposed to print. I'm not a big fan of science fiction films or television in general, but, back in the day I was a voracious consumer of novels and short stories within the genre. First, I have to say that in…
Scientist Rock Star!
In an interview in Time magazine, Morgan Spurlock said, among else (and you should go and read the "else"): We've started to make science and empirical evidence not nearly as important as punditry--people wusing p.r.-speak to push a corporate or political agenda. I think we need to turn scientists back into the rock stars they are. Chris brought this quote to the bloggers' attention and Shelley was the first to respond: I find this quote so refreshing (not just because it places us scientists up on a lofty pedestal), because it validates scientific authority figures as someone worth listening…
Gore takes the prize; British judge less impressed
Instead of celebrating the news that my man Al Gore is sharing the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the thousands of scientists who supplied the raw material for the slide show that made him "the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding" of climate change, I am compelled to address a list of alleged errors in said slide show. Thank you High Court Justice Michael Burton. No really. Thanks. As a member of Gore's Climate Project, the team our new Nobel laureate has entrusted to present his slide show, I could take umbrage at the mere notion of inaccuracies therein…
What's A Network Banner?
Did you know about the network banner? One of the features of Seed Media Group websites (that's ScienceBlogs.com, Seedmagazine.com, and Phylotaxis.com to you) is called the network banner. It's the thin gray strip you see at the top of your screen. What is the network banner? What does it do? Well, because the banner is the same across all the sites, it helps you know you're in Seed Media country. But it's more than just a visual marker. The network banner is updated every day with links to blog posts, magazine articles, and other features that the Seed editors think you'd enjoy. If you're in…
Continuing Conversation
Blows against supersymmetry and facebook. Matthew Bailes continues ruminations at the Conversation - the general riff is on crowd sourcing and distributed computing, with a bit of bragging on The Beast they got down under. Ok, I'm, just jealous. I had not heard of Diaspora - be interesting to see if it can crowd out fb or other commercial social networks. The Raspberry Pi I had indeed heard of, and will be acquisitioning. My kids are so looking forward to have their own computers... ;-) But, what we really conclude, is that Matt needs to meet Charlie Stross for a quiet beer or three. On a…
linkedy links VI
more random tidbits worth a peek, including a new Henri le Chat video... New coronavirus from bats - related to SARS seen in several cases from Middle East. Looks nasty. Producing Ethylene via Photosynthesis - surpringly efficient, and easily capturably hydrocarbon ready from some petrochemistry. Still requires huge amounts of land (100,000 km2++ to make much difference, but so does anything that uses any solar to provide primary power Joe Polchinski (KITP, UCSB) on Firewalls and Black Holes - interesting developments on the black hole information paradox. Been keeping half an eye on it.…
linkedy links xiv
I'm kinda behind on this blogging thing, but here's some stuff other people have done to amuse y'all Abtruse Goose - like xkcd good Lord of the Finances - a First Draft - like this good More simplified finanical truths - it is ok, really, it is not like Goldman Sachs would destroy the US economy just so their senior partners could get higher bonuses for one more year... Bear Music - polyphonic rendition of the time series of market prices for the four great bear markets of this century - a real downer Someone is stepping up the pace on Alpha Cen - Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists…
Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization?
asks Unscientific American (and CP). The short answer is no. As you can find from the FAO, calories per day are going up, not down. [W]orld grain prices in the spring and summer of last year climbed to the highest level ever. says USciAm - but somehow can't find space to mention that since then food prices have crashed to far below the 2008 average, and below the 2007 average, and remained stable in 2009. Now it took me 5 minutes and google to find that, can it be that Lester R Brown might be a teensy bit one-sided? The new idea seems to be, if people won't worry about GW for themselves,…
"It's a monstrosity," Brown said.
A little while ago, intrepid reporters from the Baltimore Sun dropped by my lab to investigate the newsworthiness of a paper (also on the ArXiv) that had just been published, about which I might talk a little bit before Chad gets back. Surprisingly, the article actually got published, complete with photo and great quotes. I'm tragically not in the picture, as I was gone that day, but also wasn't an author on the paper; the data were taken last summer, before my arrival, which gives you an idea of the delay in this business between data, writing, and publishing. Highlights from the…
Of course the dog won
A while back, the Way of the Master (Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron) came out with a board game, Intelligent Design vs. Evolution. I imagine the Discovery Institute cringes in pain every time those two clowns associate themselves with their brand, which is good; but you know it has to be an awful, horrible, brain-damaging game, which is bad. I thought about picking up a copy just for the kitsch value, but just couldn't bring myself to pay them money for it (and now it seems to have vanished from their online store). But Chad bought it and played it against his dog (his wife was too smart to…
Passion quilt: a meme for teachers.
More than a month ago William the Coroner tagged me. It is not just that I am slow; this meme is challenging! Not mush, methodology. A surprising number of people seem to think being ethical amounts to not being an inherently evil person. I am passionate about teaching my students that making ethical decisions involves moving beyond gut feelings and instincts. It means understanding how your decisions impact others, and considering the ways your interests and theirs intersect. It means thinking through possible impacts of the various choices available to you. It means understanding the…
Friday random ten (on Saturday)
The Friday Random Ten is a bit of a blog tradition that many bloggers periodically indulge in, including fellow ScienceBloggers PZ, Chad, and John. However, Orac, ever the contrarian, likes to indulge in this practice on Saturdays (when he does it at all). So, without further ado, take a plunge into a very small sampling (0.08776%) of Orac's music collection that happened to come up randomly on a shuffle play set for my entire iTunes library: The Harbinger Complex, I Think I'm Down (from: Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era). Suede (I refuse to call them "The London…
Audio Island & Pattern Juggling
I have added two new categories to the refuge, Audio Island and Pattern Juggling, for the convenience of those interested in a couple of my "off the beaten path" jaunts. I have gone back and retagged a bunch of old posts and will use these tags in the future. Audio Island is basically a catch-all for audio/acoustics/electronics gear, new technologies, observations, and the like. Pattern Juggling is the location for my ramblings regarding the intersection of drumming, co-ordination, art and so forth (for example, the DIY Neuromotor Experiments posts). Audio Island is perhaps a bit obvious,…
Ask Dr. Science!
Are there scientific terms or concepts that you'd like to know more about? Looking for a bit more of an explanation? Confused about the difference between DNA and RNA? Some of my fellow SciBlings, Tara, Chad, John, Janet, and Bora; have proposed that we consider going back to basics. Others have pointed out that we ScienceBloggers might be a little clueless ourselves about which basics that you'd like us to define. Here's my proposal: You can ask me a question in the comments here - or via e-mail (digitalbio at gmail.com) and I will pick one every week or so and try to answer it. Or,…
Negative deism
The question is: who gets to choose my null hypothesis? Chad asks whether there are "reasons" for being an atheist. This is an axiomatically incorrect question: the bigger question is what is the null hypothesis? Do we assume that there is a God and that she has some attributes, until evidence to the contrary is presented? Or, do we assume that there is no such thing as a God, until some evidence to the effect is presented? It would certainly seem simpler, ab initio, to start with the premise of No God, until and unless there is positive evidence to the contrary. A counter-argument would be…
Dictatorial Tendencies?
Chad made me take the Brutally Honest Personality Test: Crackpot - INTJ33% Extraversion, 60% Intuition, 93% Thinking, 56% Judging People hate you. Paris Hilton hates Nicole Richie. Lex Luther hates Superman. Garfield hates Mondays. But none these even rates against the insurmountable hate, people have for you. I mean, you're pretty damn clever and you know it. You love to flaunt your potential. Heard the word "arrogant" lately? How about "jerk?" Or perhaps they only say that behind your back. That's right. I know I can say this cause you're not going to cry. You're not exactly the most…
Why Blog?
My brother started blogging. I encourage this kind of behavior. His blog (bluerope.org) is mostly about cocoa programming (which he seems to be fairly competent at). Anyway, I wrote this comment on his first post. "I applaud your effort to begin a blog again. If everyone had a blog, this world (the internet) would be a better place. Just remember, the first person you are writing for is yourself. Even if no one else ever looks at this, it should still be useful to you. The next person you are writing for is that one person that has a particular problem that you just solved. I still don't…
July Search Engine Keywords
I'm very pleased to report that in the month of July, no less than 35 people found this site by searching for some variant of the phrase "Queen of Niskayuna." The dog's going to be insufferable when she hears this. I'm also pleased to report that Aaron Bergman no longer shows up in the top ten results-- Chris Mooney does show up before I do, but at least I'm the second proper name in the search terms list. Of course, a disturbing number of people also got here by searching for some variant of "butt propellor" and, in one case, "balloon ass." I really, really, didn't need to know that. Anyway…
Role Models in Science & Engineering: Jawed Karim -- Computer Science Innovator
--Co-creator and co-founder of YouTube with partners Chad Hurley and Steven Chen --One of the first computer engineers behind the success of PayPal, the online payment service --Recently started his own internet service, Youniversity Ventures Even as a teen, Jawed Karim displayed considerable talent and genius in the realm of computer science. Among his early feats: As a high school senior, while creating a website for a research lab at the University of Minnesota, he came up with a complex computational process to help the lab map the atomic structure of a crucial protein -- a process that…
Basic Terms and Concepts
I know I kinda burried that at the bottom of the previous post, but now that I see that a number of my SciBlings are trumpeting it loudly (see Chad, Tara, Janet, Afarensis and Mark, so far), I guess I'll make a little bit louder call myself. When you are immersed in a scientific field for a number of years, it is easy to forget that not everybody undrestands the basic concepts and terms of your field. While I always try to keep that in mind, I am sure I baffled you on occasion. Does everyone know the difference between phase, period and amplitude, the difference between phase-delay and…
Attention, Hollywood
Fred Clark has an idea for you: Start with the housekeeping staff at a Manhattan hotel. They've just learned that their next contract includes no raise, but doubles the employee share of the cost of health benefits. The Norma Rae of this bunch -- let's say Jennifer Lopez* -- convinces them to strike, but they have little leverage and she's struggling to hold the line. These women can't afford the new contract, but they can't afford a lengthy strike either. As it happens, this very same Manhattan hotel is the site of negotiations between the NFL Players Union and the owners. Mixed up in all…
Jackass Wide Receiver Night in America
So, the Cowboys-Redskins game yesterday apparently had a wild finish. There were three field goal attempts in the final 31 seconds, one of them blocked and partially returned, with a penalty setting up the game-winning attempt with no time on the clock. Wild stuff, sure to be good highlight fodder, right? So, I made a point to stay around for halftime in the Pats-Colts game, when the "Football Night in America" crowd on NBC talks about interesting games from earlier in the day. And sure enough, we get highlights from this game: we got to see Terrell Owens catching a touchdown pass, and…
Notes From the World's Best Health Care System
I came home Wednesday night to find a message on the answering machine. This is somewhat unusual, as most of the people who call us are trying to get us to donate money to some cause or another, and they don't leave messages. I hit play: Hi, this is [Name] from [Gastroenterology Practice]. This message is for Chad, I'm calling to confirm your appointment for a procedure at [Hospital] on May 7th. This was somewhat alarming, because I had no recollection of scheduling any sort of procedure at [Hospital], let alone one for Monday... I called them yesterday afternoon, and left a message. A…
Weinstein v. Krugman v. Orzel (Mathematical Elegance Death Match)
Over at the most uncertain blog, he of uncertain principles (aka Chad) takes up a challenge posed by @EricRWeinstein on twitter concerning Paul Krugman's recent article on why economists got the economic crisis so wrong. Since I know even less economics than anyone around here this seems like a great opportunity for me to weigh in (this is, after all, the blogosphere!) Krugman's article is deceptively enticing, yet I find it disturbingly inadequate. In particular the critique is very much written as a just-so story, and there is very little in terms of concrete claims made nor of actual…
The Rift in the Biological Sciences
I can't speak for each and every one of the other biologist types in the house here at ScienceBlogs, but one comment on Chad's post on highfalutin particle physicists struck a chord with me. It all starts with this quote getting back at people who think their research is the be all and end all of all science: One thing that bugs the heck out of me, is when I hear particle physicists talk about their field as if it is all of physics. I have a great love of particle physics, so I'm not dissing the field at all, nor arguing that it isn't more fundamental, but it rubs me the wrong way to…
Science Bloggers and their Books
These days I am swallowing one good science book after another. 2010 seems to be a great year for science book publishing! But I have also noticed that almost all of these books are written by science bloggers (or at least active Twitterers)! Some are writers first, and started blogging later. Others started as bloggers, and decided to also write a book. Some use their blogs as writing labs, putting out ideas, getting feedback, honing the message, then collecting, fine-tuning and editing a couple of years of blog material into a book. Others keep the two worlds pretty much apart - book…
What's So Interesting About AMO Physics?
That's the title of my slightly insane talk at the DAMOP (Division of Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics of the American Physical Society) conference a couple of weeks ago, summarizing current topics of interest in Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics. I'll re-embed the slides at the end of this post, for anyone who missed my earlier discussion. I put a ton of work into that talk, and had a huge amount of material that I didn't have time to include. I'd hate for that to go to waste, so I'm going to repurpose it for blog content over the next week or so. It'll probably be about a half-…
Basic Concepts: Numbers
Many of my SciBlings have been doing posts in which they define basic concepts in various scientific fields. For example, physicist Chad Orzel has done posts on Force and Fields, biologist P. Z. Myers has covered Genes, computer scientist Mark Chu-Carroll offers up wise words on Margin of Error and Standard Deviation, and philosopher John Wilkins discusses fitness. And, in the few minutes it took me to put together that list, I notice that Wilkins has just put up this post, gathering all of the basic concepts posts together. I figured it was high time I weighed in with some basic concept in…
Orac's favorite tunes from 2006
One of the great things about blogging is that I can do things that I always wanted to do but would never get hired in a million years to do, for example, to be a rock critic. Prior to blogging, the only time I ever got to indulge my critic wannabe side was in high school, where I wrote a couple of (in retrospect) badly done reviews of a couple of prominent albums from the 1979-1980 period. I don't know if I'm any better at it now, but I am a lot older and have developed much more varied tastes in music. Consequently, even from the very beginning of this blog, every year I've done a "Top Ten…
About that letter
Chad Orzel says Support the National Center for Science Education: I try not to do any shilling for political groups on the blog, but I'll make an exception for the National Center for Science Education. Why? Three reasons: 1) They do good and important, if not always glamorous work, supporting the teaching of evolution in public schools, both in the classroom and in the courts. 2) Josh Rosenau has a really good blog, one of the best on science-and-politics issues, and his day job is with NCSE. 3) Jerry Coyne is a jackass, whose latest bit of jackassery involves sending an open letter to NCSE…
Monday Bookish Fun: Give someone you love a scary book!
You know, there just aren't enough useless holiday excuses to give books to people. Giving books as presents has to be one of my all-time favourite things to do in life -- especially the opportunity to give books to my family! So, it seems that Neil Gaiman has a really, really good idea. I propose that, on Hallowe'en or during the week of Hallowe'en, we give each other scary books. Give children scary books they'll like and can handle. Give adults scary books they'll enjoy. I propose that stories by authors like John Bellairs and Stephen King and Arthur Machen and Ramsey Campbell and M R…
Occupational Health News Roundup
Recent events remind us about the difficult and valuable work of rescue and recovery. Celeste Monforton has already taken a look at the mine rescue teams that respond to disasters like the collapse at the Crandall County mine in Utah. Meanwhile, divers are at work in the aftermath of last weekâs bridge collapse. Dee DePass at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune follows the work of a Wisconsin dive crew as they face powerful currents, 82-degree water, and poor visibility that makes it hard to navigate around dangerous debris. In Time Magazine, Mitch Anderson describes the precautions divers have to…
Why Nigeria for first African H5N1 outbreak?
This question was discussed yesterday in the comments to this post. An article in yesterday's New Scientist offers some ideas: But New Scientist can reveal that the location of Africa's first reported outbreak should not come as a surprise. The region affected is right beside a major wintering ground for two relatively common species of duck. Those ducks shared breeding grounds in Siberia last summer with birds that winter in Turkey and around the Black Sea, where the virus also appeared recently. Furthermore, Kano is near the Hadejia-Nguru inland river delta, which is a major wintering…
Pluto: A Modest Proposal
Ok, time to stop the madness. I propose consistent, competing definitons of planets; one leave Pluto in, the other not. Up or down vote. The IAU now has a competing resolution that looks likely to delete Pluto as a planet, and the original IAU resolution is being voted on piecewise - which will likely leave an inconsistent mess. As opposed to... So here is a serious proposal; no more messing around, no more pretending to find artificial consistency from some favourite corner of microphysics (much as I like the dynamical definition.... it is actually quite stupid). Proposal: 1) a planet is…
Make your own debate
ScienceDebate 2008 is a an idea whose time has come. But, it may not happen. So, maybe we can make our own debate. via NASAwatch There is a pair of primary debates coming up - Jan 30/31 for the republicans and democrats respectively. It is sponsored by CNN, politico.com and the LA Times.Politico is soliciting on-line for questions to the candidates. Keith over at NASAwatch suggested his reader swamp it with NASA policy questions to try to get one into the actual debate. Scienceblog readers could do the samesomething similar - send in a lot of good, coherent, concise question on general or…
Malnutrition Rates are High in Pakistan's Sindh Province
Some villages in Pakistan's Sindh province are still underwater following August's floods, and a new UNICEF survey has found that nearly one-fourth of the children under five there are malnourished. The deputy head of UNICEF Pakistan, Karen Allen, calls conditions "shockingly bad" and compares them to "the worst of the famine in Ethiopia, Darfur, and Chad." The Guardian's Declan Walsh notes that other parts of the country are successfully recovering from the floods (the number of people in camps and roadside settlements has dropped from 3.3 million in October to 166,000), but Sindh "has long…
Casual Fridays: What's an appropriate email sign-off?
A recent New York Times article suggests that signing off an email message with "Best" is an indication that a relationship is cooling down. Businessman Chad Troutwine claims that using "Best" to sign off is more like a brush-off: Mr. Troutwine is not alone in thinking that an e-mail sender who writes "Best," then a name, is offering something close to a brush-off. He said he chooses his own business sign-offs in a descending order of cordiality, from "Warmest regards" to "All the best" to a curt "Sincerely." There's naturally been a lot of casual conversation about this article online, so we…
Fun with numbers: Blogger Challenge update (day 4).
We're in the middle of the fourth day of the month-long DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge 2007, and thanks to his generous readers Mike Dunford has raised 100% of his initial goal, funding classroom projects that will impact 370 students. The awesomeness of that is pretty breathtaking. In light of Mike's impressive milestone, I thought this might be a good time to check in on the progress of the other ScienceBloggers participating in the challenge. Here are some "Top 5" lists: Greatest % of goal funded:The Questionable Authority (100)Retrospectacle (45.2)Uncertain Principles (32.6)The…
That's what susceptibility to peer pressure gets me, I guess.
SInce John took it, and Chad took it, I figured I'd try the Brutally Honest Personality Test too. Oh, how very glad I am that I did: Loser- INTP 33% Extraversion, 80% Intuition, 73% Thinking, 46% Judging Talked to another human being lately? I'm serious. You value knowledge above ALL else. You love new ideas, and become very excited over abstractions and theories. The fact that nobody else cares still hasn't become apparent to you... Nerd's a great word to describe you, and I seriously couldn't care less about the different definitions of the word and why you're actually more of a geek than…
Darwin's Dust
All I have is the press release, but it's fun: Cosmopolitan microbes -- hitchhikers on Darwin's dust Scientists have analysed aerial dust samples collected by Charles Darwin and confirmed that microbes can travel across continents without the need for planes or trains - rather bacteria and fungi hitch-hike by attaching to dust particles. In a paper published in Environmental Microbiology, Dr. Anna Gorbushina (Carl-von-Ossietzky University, Oldenburg, Germany), Professor William Broughton (University of Geneva, Switzerland) and their colleagues analysed dust samples collected by Charles…
Fitness Fun
I hate to be left out. ScienceBlogs, Starts with Bang has started a fitness theme that we are encouraged to participate in. I like to participate. I even had some good ideas. Here is what I was thinking: Look at the physics of Wii-fit (actually, this one is good, I should come back to it someday) Energy and forces involved in a push-up Blogging push-up challenge - where I do a push-up for every 10 visits to my blog each day for a week (my estimation is that this could end up being dangerous - or maybe safe) The physics of the gymnastics kip move. This one IS on my todo list since my two…
Thomas Cowles twisting in the wind defending the "cancer boy" urban legend
I'm rather amused. No, I'm very amused. Yesterday, as you may recall, I discussed a seemingly alarming e-mail that's going around about a 17-year-old boy with melanoma whom the State of California had allegedly removed from the custody of his mother because she and he had wanted to use "advanced natural medicine" to treat his melanoma, rather than surgery and chemotherapy. I pointed out a number of questionable elements in the story that made me very suspicious of its accuracy, not the least of which is the fact that the mainstay of melanoma treatment is surgery plus biological therapy, not…
The story of the 17-year-old with melanoma being forced to undergo chemotherapy: Urban legend?
My recent update of my ongoing discussion of the Abraham Cherrix case reminded me that there's a bit of alarming e-mail being sent out and forwarded far and wide. If you read it, at first glance, you will think it sounds utterly horrifying, the Abraham Cherrix and Katie Wernecke cases all rolled up into one and then placed on steroids to the point that even a maven of evidence-based medicine would have to take pause--if the story were true. The source of the e-mail seems to be the Natural Solutions Foundation/Health Freedom USA, given all the "donate" buttons in the webpage to which I tracked…
Update on the nine alleged errors in An Inconvenient Truth
Several climate scientists have now examined the alleged errors in An Inconvenient Truth. At RealClimate Gavin Schmidt (NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies) and Michael Mann (director Penn State Earth System Science Center) write: First of all, "An Inconvenient Truth" was a movie and people expecting the same depth from a movie as from a scientific paper are setting an impossible standard. Secondly, the judge's characterisation of the 9 points is substantially flawed. He appears to have put words in Gore's mouth that would indeed have been wrong had they been said (but they weren't).…
The Making of a Sign Error
One thing I left out of the making-of story about the squeezed state BEC paper last week happened a while after publication-- a few months to a year later. I don't quite recall when it was-- I vaguely think I was still at Yale, but I could be misremembering. It's kind of amusing, in an exceedingly geeky way, so I'll share it, though it's also a story of an embarrassing mis-step on my part. So, the physical situation we were studying is described by the "Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian": Bose because it's dealing with bosons (there's also a Fermi-Hubbard version, I believe); Hubbard after [mumble]…
Bailey discovers squirrels
It's Saturday and therefore time for some lazy non-science blogging, especially since after I finish this post I'm going to bury myself in grant writing. Multiple grant deadlines are approaching, and, given that most of my grant support expires towards the middle of next year, I have to go full tilt to keep my lab funded and keep my people employed. Such is how it will be throughout most of 2009 until I obtain some more funding. As I mentioned nearly weeks ago, we have a new six month old puppy named Bailey. He's definitely changed our life in a lot of good ways. One thing that I've noticed…
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