polls
drorzel | December 7, 2009It's officially December, so there are no longer really solid reasons for objecting to the playing of Christmas music. With the exception of the sort of stuff that shows up in Mellowmas, that is. And speaking of Mellowmas, there is this. About which, a poll:
A Bob Dylan Christmas album:(survey software)
Please choose only one, hard as it may be to believe.
drorzel | November 27, 2009Here's yesterday's turkey a la Good Eats, a little while after coming out of the oven:
As in past years, we brined it overnight. Unlike past years, we didn't have any of the plastic roasting bags, so instead we took advantage of the spiffy new roasting pan (a Christmas gift after the liquid turkey incident) and the convection roast setting on our oven. A 21-lb turkey cooked in 2hrs, and came out pretty darn tasty.
The rest of the menu: funeral potatoes (recipe here), steamed broccoli and green beans, and stuffing. The stuffing is probably my favorite part. How much do I like stuffing? I made…
drorzel | November 25, 2009The Onion kindly provided this Patton Oswalt demolition of the "Christmas Shoes" song. while it's funny, it is a reminder that we have reached the time of year when radio stations across the country will begin inflicting holiday "cheer" on their listeners. which seems like an excellent subject for a poll:
Which of these holiday songs is the most excruciating?(opinion)
This is thrown together very quickly between steps in the food preparation for tomorrow's Thanksgiving dinner, so I'm sure I've forgotten several horrible songs that belong on the list. Please feel free to offer your own least…
drorzel | November 18, 2009Kate has a court appearance in New York tomorrow, and we're making a long weekend of it. I'm typing this from my parents' house, where I'm dropping SteelyKid off for some quality time with Grandma and Grandpa, and tomorrow, I'm heading down to The City. I've got some meetings scheduled tomorrow afternoon, and Friday at lunch, and then we're going to kick back and enjoy New York.
Of course, one of the paralyzing things about NYC is the sheer variety of cultural options. There's the AMNH, with lots of geeky exhibits, the Met, where you can spend days and not see everything, and MOMA, for a…
drorzel | November 17, 2009As every physics-loving dog knows, the idea that electrons behave like waves was first suggested by Loius Victor Pierre Raymond de Broglie (the 7th duc de Broglie) in 1923. The proper pronunciation of his surname is a mystery even to human physicists, though. So, how would you say it?
Louis Victor Pierre Raymond de Broglie's surname is pronounced:(polls)
Even though Louis was a quantum pioneer, please choose only one of the available options.
drorzel | November 10, 2009I failed to write something on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall yesterday, partly because I think the other six million blog posts on the subject had it pretty well covered. Another factor, though, was the fact that I don't have the sort of crystal-clear recollection of where I was and what I was doing on that night. I can reconstruct where I must've been-- I was a college freshman, so I would've watched it in the tv room on the second floor of Fayerweather-- but I don't clearly recall the event itself. It's all mixed together with the endless discussions of What It All Meant…
drorzel | November 9, 2009I am curious as to what people at other institutions think about "Greek organizations," the slightly confusing catch-all term for fraternities and sororities (very few of whose members are ethnically Greek, and very few of whom know more Greek than a handful of the letters of the alphabet). Thus, a totally scientific poll on the subject:
Fraternities and sororities are:(survey software)
I don't have any particular agenda, here, I'm just curious and it seemed like a reasonable subject for a post.
drorzel | November 6, 2009"It's a question of character, of friendship. Hell, Leo, I ain't afraid to say it, it's a question of ethics." --Giovanni Gaspari
I'm back to lunchtime hoops after a two-week layoff due to teaching responsibilities. And this has reminded me of one of the great character tests that sports provide. Imagine that you're playing basketball, but are too tired to keep running with the fast break in both directions. You can't quit without pissing everybody off, though, and there's no-one you can have sub in for you. What do you do?
What do you do when you're too tired to run the floor in a…
drorzel | November 6, 2009Today's Quantum Optics lecture is about quantum computing experiments, and how different types of systems stack up. Quantum computing, as you probably know if you're reading this blog, is based on building a computer whose "bits" can not only take on "0" and "1" states, but arbitrary superpositions of "0" and "1". Such a computer would be able to out-perform any classical computer on certain types of problems, and would open the exciting possibility of a windows installation that is both working and hung up at the same time.
There are roughly as many types of proposed quantum computers as…
drorzel | November 5, 2009I have a lab all morning, so I won't get to more substantive blogging before this afternoon. The Yankees won their 27th World Series title last night, though, and given their status as the most polarizing team in baseball, this seems like a good excuse for a poll:
What do you think about the Yankees winning the World Series?(surveys)
Choose only one.
drorzel | October 30, 2009It's fall, which means that the major American sports are all ramping up (baseball is in its brief period of being interesting, the NFL is nearing the middle of its season, the NBA has just gotten underway, which means that real basketball will start soon). This also means that the major advertisers have rolled out the commercial that will be annoying the hell out of everybody for the next several months.
Sports are really the only place that I see commercials-- I tend to watch sporting events live, but use the DVR to time-shift other programming, allowing me to fast-forward through the ads.…
drorzel | October 28, 2009Here's an extremely dorky Dorky Poll topic. I can't believe I haven't used this one before:
What sort of particles do you prefer?(poll)
Choose only one.
drorzel | October 26, 2009I'm kind of in a fog today, which I'm choosing to attribute to airport lag (it can't be jet lag, because I didn't change time zones, but you get some of the same disorientation from spending too much time in airports and on planes), because the other option is incipient flu (half a dozen students in my classes have taken ill with flu-like symptoms, and been sent home or quarantined). I have too much to do to bag the whole day, though, so I'm going to resort to stealing a blog post topic from Chuck Klosterman.
In one of the essays in his new book Eating the Dinosaur, he writes:
Here's a…
drorzel | October 14, 2009SteelyKid has a fever, and can't go to day care, so I'm staying home with her. This pretty much rules out significant serious blogging, so here's a poll to keep you amused:
Which of these threats is most threatening?(survey)
Choose only one.
drorzel | October 9, 2009Inspired by yesterday's post about the speed of light, a poll about c:
What do you think of the speed of light?(surveys)
So, how do you feel about the speed of light?
drorzel | October 7, 2009Prompted by working on lecture notes for Quantum Optics last night, a Dorky Poll about the mathematical formalism of photon number states
What's your favorite photon operator?(polls)
I know it's hard to pick, but choose only one.
drorzel | October 7, 2009I have a Dorky Poll idea for later in the day, but let's get this out of the way first:
Choose only one:(opinion)
Don't say I never gave you these options.
drorzel | September 30, 2009I'm a little fried from yesterday's frantic running around, so while there are a couple of physics things I'd like to write about, I have neither the time nor the brainpower. So here's a silly little poll, prompted by the large amount of ice I go through at home (I'm trying to lose some weight, so I'm drinking a lot of ice water these days). How do you like your cold beverages to be served?
How do you like your drinks?(online surveys)
(It was that, or a rant about the silly faux-controversy over the Angels' post-game celebration, which is taking up wayyyy too much time on sports shows.)
drorzel | September 24, 2009I'm nearly done with Graham Farmelo's biography of Dirac (honest), which discusses the major attempts to understand the behavior of electrons in quantum mechanics. this calls for a dorky poll:
Which theorist of the electron was the best?(poll)
Try not to base your selection on which of these historical physicists has the best biography written about them.
drorzel | September 23, 2009I usually try to stay out of religious wars, but there's one that is affecting my teaching this term, and it struck me as a good topic for a blog poll:
Which do you prefer for low-tech presentations?(surveys)
So, what's your favorite low-tech presentation technology?