Random
catdynamics | July 30, 2009As you may know, Landsbanki, one of the three former Icelandic commercial banks, left a few billion euros in uninsured deposits lying around, when it collapsed in ignomy.
Mostly in the UK and Netherlands.
The Dutch are getting irate about this...
For perspective, shortly after Landsbanki was privatized, in 2003, as I recall, I closed my account there in 2004 - I had had that account for about 30 years, and closing it was a significant inconvenience.
Y'all should have done as I did.
Anyway, through the gross incompetence of the Icelandic National Bank and various regulators, Iceland…
catdynamics | July 27, 2009That is when a prominent psychic in Iceland predicts there'll be a major earthquake.
Specifically in the Krýsuvík area in the southwest.
This is an area where there have been some minor earthquakes recently.
Ok... we'll see in a few hours I guess.
Quantitative value of "major" is not specified.
Personally I'd put it at magnitude 6 or larger.
She claims to have predicted the earthquakes in Iceland in 2000 and 2008, though I don't see a dated cite for this.
In case you're interested: she also claims to know where Madeleine McCann is, I'd like to think she'd tell Madeleine's parents this, soon…
rallain | July 25, 2009This is not really physics stuff. Well, it could be, but I am not going to take it that way. This is just a post that I consider to possibly add to the usefulness of the internet. When ever I want to do something, I always search online first. Suppose I want to make one of my dive lights into an led - if someone has done it that will help.
So, I am super pumped up. I am getting ready to dive the Oriskany (off the coast of Pensacola) soon with some of my old dive buddies. Will I need a light? You bet. Do I think led lights are awesome? Oh, yeah. Do I want to spend tons of money on a…
rallain | July 21, 2009The Anacapa Society is a professional organization promoting research in all areas of theoretical and computational physics at primarily undergraduate institutions.
If you are at such an institution, I would recommend taking a look and perhaps joining. In my views, undergraduate research is one of the best things about an undergraduate institution. What better way to learn physics than by doing physics. My institution is primarily undergraduate and I can say that although working with undergraduates has it's challenges, it has benefits also. I think it is the thing that smaller schools…
rallain | July 21, 2009Chad is posting some very useful stuff at Uncertain Principles. Basically, he has quite a few scientists that are not professors or such answering some questions. This is a great way for students to get a feel for what scientists actually do. If you don't subscribe to Chad's blog, you totally should. A great resource for physics stuff.
Here are the interviews he has. I am not sure what the P stands for in PNAS, but the NAS is probably Non-Academic Scientist.
If you are a high school or middle school student looking to do some type of report or presentation, this would be a great place to…
catdynamics | July 20, 2009yup, I'm doing a lot of these,
moon, high school, hard sci-fi and california among others
some randomly interesting stuff out there,
some of which I mean to blog about meself,
but real life interceded
click to embiggen
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Photographs Apollo landing sites - this is all over the blogs, Starts with a Bang has it
impressive imaging LRO does
112th Carnival of Space
- bunch of lunatics if you ask me...
The Angry Physicist is back - still angry
online Feynman lecture videos
- via the Pontiff, so I do not have to link directly to M$
- I sat through a number of…
catdynamics | July 14, 2009Frabjous day.
Marchons, marchons!
A major financial institution announces, at last, it has become profitable again
This is rather good since Goldman Sachs allegedly had their proprietary high frequency trading code stolen.
This was very serious, since, according to the prosecutor, the code could enable unscrupulous people to unfairly manipulate the markets.
So we better make sure only Goldman Sachs has a copy of the code, since they wouldn't use their privileged positions as a Supplementary Liquidity Provider to do anything unfair in the markets.
This will also hopefully preclude any more…
catdynamics | June 26, 2009Did I mention I am catching up on some stuff?
I came across some interesting bits in Science recently:
Icelandic sheep really are special - we always knew this, nice to see it confirmed by modern science... (free abs)
Nice article on horse colour selection in same issue
Decent discussion on NASA cost overruns
Science robots - NYT article on this and this - er, chaps, are we sure this is really such a good idea?
Fe/N/C catalyst for a PEM fuel cell - that is almost as good as Pt/C, but cheaper. Now to make it stable, and little bit better...
Persistent North Atlantic Oscillations driving…
catdynamics | June 26, 2009I'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…
catdynamics | June 25, 2009Icelander responds to housing and car loan crisis in classical style
for a berserker
from IceNews
and he did it on independence day.
I keep telling you, Iceland is just way ahead of everyone else!
RUV news item
Article in visir.is
ok, here it is in english from icenews
with video
60 something, lost house and car to the bank, had the demolition professionally videotaped, when he faced eviction.
He had also apparently defrauded a family of 10 million ISK on a deal for a pre-fab house.
clearing away the debris,
estimated value was about 50 million ISK.
h/t Iceland Weather Report
catdynamics | June 25, 2009does this thing still work?
some mood music
foreshadowing....
tomorrow will be fun
catdynamics | June 21, 2009Prof. Steinn, now that you have spent six months as a member of KITP, what will you do next?
Me?
I'm going to Disneyland!!!
Aaarrrrgggghhhhhh!!!!!!!
catdynamics | June 17, 2009As I was strolling through town a few weeks ago, I saw a flyer advertising a talk on campus by Prof. Barbara Oakley, talking about her book "Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed and My Sister Stole My Mother's Boyfriend"
I couldn't go to the talk, due to a conflicting engagement, but the book was in my review pile, so I popped it up to the top and plowed through it.
The book is quite a fun read.
It starts off as a personal story, with the death of the author's sister, and her reflection on the life of her sister, and why she was as she was: was it genetic, environmental, due…
catdynamics | June 15, 2009The Order Of The Science Scouts Of Exemplary Repute And Above Average Physique has new mo' better badges
since I am a long standing member of ootssoeraaap, I need to update:
I get it all right... ok, some might argue, but you gotta call it as you see it
I need to get to LEVEL III here
define "requires"...
probably...
the fact that I didn't want to admit to this one clinched it
yes, I am LEVEL III and II, but not I
"astrobiology" natch
hm, I wonder if they iron on this time
sciencepunk | June 3, 2009
Apathy Sketchpad has an excellent article musing on the problems of delivering a truly random sequence. Not only is this very hard, humans are also exceptionally bad at recognising a truly random sequence when they see one:
Unfortunately, it's very difficult to tell if your numbers are random enough or not. For example, some episodes of the dreary logical fallacy roadshow that is Deal Or No Deal used an Excel spreadsheet to randomise the assignment of 22 sums of money to 22 boxes -- for which there are probably more sequences than there are grains of sand in the world -- and the seeding was…
catdynamics | June 1, 2009had to stop at a large bank today and saw some signs of the time
no, no that one, another of the Too Big Too Fail banks
it was very busy, and the staff looked a bit frazzled, it being the first of the month and all, and a manager came to ask me if I didn't want to do my transaction through one of their "quick drop" services - especially since I "had little ones with me
I politely declined, and told her I wanted a dated receipt for the transaction,
and, no, the handwritten-by-me counterfoil would not do
- on a side note, an acquaintance recently told us how a cash deposit through a drop-off…
rallain | June 1, 2009So, there is this Science Blogging Award from 3 QuarksDaily. Of course I nominated one of my own post - The Physics of Fantastic Contraption. The first stage of the competition lets readers vote for their favorite blog post. This seems sort of like a popularity contest. Then the top votes will be judged and a winner determined. The biggest problem I see is that there is a wide variety of posts, from physics to biology to medicine. It is kind of like voting for the best food with bananas and steak in there for the voting. Sometimes, you just need a banana.
Anyway, in looking at this…
catdynamics | May 31, 2009in the short run
remake the Blues Brother's movie
creative destruction...
not, of course, that they can ever replace Belushi
this is business, not art