Random
catdynamics | August 7, 2012
More random topics that crossed my path:
bureaucratic entropy: "...In 1987, except at private research universities, where administrators outnumbered tenure-track faculty, colleges had approximately as many tenure-track faculty as full-time administrators. By 2008 there were more than twice as many administrators as tenure-track faculty at all types of institutions."
Cuts loom for US science.
Wise and Shine - UC Berkeley startup providing machine learning and big data services.
Significant astro and time domain data analysis group.
High Speed Trading goes berserk - morbidly fascinating…
catdynamics | July 24, 2012This week I was treated to an impressive illustration of the power of modern security technology.
I was passing through Reagan National Airport, having been deflected from my previous schedule (which had originally included a stay at the hotel complex in Aurora, CO last thursday night - serendipitously I had cancelled the reservation and then couldn't get out of DC anyway).
I had an early morning flight, security check was busy, and I was directed to the millimeter wave scanner.
The scanners are basically low power THz active radar, and penetrate thin layers of dielectric materials, such as…
catdynamics | July 9, 2012time for all new linkedy links here at the new digs
Quantum Frontiers - a new blog from the Institute for Quantum Information and Matter, with kickoff by John Preskill hisself.
Question of the day: explain quantum mechanics in five words
My attempt: Probability Amplitudes, Observables don't Commute
Good to know John still does khakis and chalk, but we gots to know: does he still have the diet pepsi?
Took me years to break the habit... not that I was overly impressionable as a tender young grad turkey taking QFT or anything.
Subtleties of the Crappy Job Market - for Scientists, that is.…
catdynamics | July 7, 2012In which we remind people of the Ten Commandments of the God Particle.
Now with added footnotes.
I I am the Higgs. Thou shalt have no other Higgs before me.1
II Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the HIGGS thy God Particle am a jealous God Particle, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. 2
III Thou shalt not take…
catdynamics | June 29, 2012It is another hot and sultry friday, and that means it is time for the iPod iChing!
Oh, Mighty iPod One, what may come in the near term of our endless quest to seek Extraterrestrial Intelligence?
Woosh goes the randomizer.
Woosh.
The Covering: Peter and Wolf: The Story Begins - Prokoviev
The Crossing: Take It All - Adele
The Crown: Girlfriend is Better (Live) - Talking Heads
The Root: Vertigo - U2
The Past: Shadow Play - Joy Division
The Future: Downbound Train - Raul Malo
The Questioner: Crosseyed and Painless - Talking Heads
The House: Nú Er Glatt Í Hverjum Hól - Trad.
The Inside: I…
catdynamics | June 24, 2012David Brin has a new novel out, Existence
Brin is on a book tour at independent book stores on the west coast and was in the Bay Area saturday, where he spoke at Kepler's Books in Menlo Park, having stopped by at SETIcon II earlier.
David Brin
The book is nice and chunky, and is a medium future novel, somewhat in the spirit of Earth.
I am told that the story also includes the beginning of Uplift as a side plot.
David is one of my all time favourite authors, and while at Caltech, as a founding member of SPECTRE, the legendary Caltech Science Fiction Club, I hosted him for the first of…
catdynamics | June 23, 2012Seen in the exihibition room at SETIcon
Yes, that is what you think it is:
Romulan Ale from Rocket Fizz
From Real Art
catdynamics | May 22, 2012Interesting new look, could do with a coat of paint, some decor and maybe a pic on the wall, eh?
Lets take this for a spin and see how it works.
To dos:
Blogroll
Favourite posts
Pic
Hm, does ð html coding work?
Awesome.
catdynamics | May 14, 2012
From The Rock
Recently I've spent far more time than I care to pondering this concept...
catdynamics | May 14, 2012Nah, not as serious as it sounds - the National Geographic Overlords are transitioning the Sb collective to newer blog platform:
Transitional Technical Difficulties - Chad explains.
It is why the Scienceblogs have been a bit subdued recently
I promise I'll clean house after the move, including updating the blogroll, if the new digs have such quaint olde things as blogrolls
Some linkedy links that need to be placemarked
Asking the students
Gender Issues
Trickle Down Science
Backreaction: Top Ten
Dark Matter vs MOND: a Trialogue - Sean hosts a rational exchange
catdynamics | May 1, 2012this dates me, but here are the best songs, like, ever
why, yes, I am in the final stretch of grading!
how can you tell?
Stál og Hnífur
White Man in Hammersmith Palais
Love Will Tear Us Apart
New England
catdynamics | April 25, 2012assorted linkedy links for your amusement
Geoff Marcy to do optical SETI?
How to tell if you live in a simulation
The REAL Reason for the Uncertainty Principle!
Sabine's take on hologram tests using baby laser interferometers
Astrophysicist's Phrasebook
David Grinspoon awarded Baruch Blumberg NASA-Library of Congress Chair
JJ on grad admissions on astrobites
Planetary Resources is looking for a few good asteroid miners - more on this later, methinks.
Talking of which ~ 5kT fireball over the Sierras
Gender Issues - Chad rant
kbonham | April 24, 2012A few months ago, I wrote about the problems with academic publishing:
These days, there's an entire industry of academic publishers that have become so fully integrated into the research system that many scientists don't realize that there's any distinction between doing science and publishing in journals. However, these journals cost an enormous amount of money (mostly public tax dollars), yet add little value to scientific research, while simultaneously slowing the pace of discovery and limiting the dissemination of knowledge.
Many individual scientists have taken personal action to combat…
kbonham | April 17, 2012My birthday was last week, which means I get a whole new chance to set some New Year's resolutions. My regular readers (all 3 of you) might have noticed a serious dearth of posting lately. I have many excuses:
1) I'm (hopefully) coming up on my last year as a PhD student, and I'm in serious data-generation mode.
2) I've been spending more time on climbing, photography, and other things that are not science-related in order to give my brain some down time.
A photo I took of 2 friends on the side of Mt Cannon in New Hampshire
3) The current back-end of Scienceblogs is truly awful. While…
catdynamics | April 4, 2012we just switched to a "no can" policy
in practise, what this means is that rubbish bins in our offices are no longer emptied (though they are still there, and I helpfully pointed out that most of the bins had not been emptied that one last time when we switched this month - they were emptied this morning...)
instead we have 8 (I counted) sorting bins in the hallways, most of which are for recycling, of course
this is a good thing, and the goal is to get to zero waste (not possible, too much stuff is wrapped in that unrecyclable soft plastic that ends up in landfills)
so now I pile garbage on…
catdynamics | April 2, 2012snippets to ponder:
"Gods as Topological Invariants" - D. Schoch
"We show that the number of gods in a universe must equal the Euler characteristics of its underlying manifold. By incorporating the classical cosmological argument for creation, this result builds a bridge between theology and physics and makes theism a testable hypothesis. Theological implications are profound since the theorem gives us new insights in the topological structure of heavens and hells. Recent astronomical observations can not reject theism, but data are slightly in favor of atheism."
Close a hole. Kill a god!
"…
catdynamics | March 26, 2012This here blog has not ceased to be,
appearances to the contrary not withstanding.
It is not elevating the asteraceae,
it is just resting.
Seriously.
The lack of activity this month is deplorable, and all my fault, as real life has made a forceful appearance.
Normally this sort of tapering off in activity is a blog death sentence, but I have not been short of material, just time.
Life has also been complicated by impending changes in layout, and the fact that I backed myself into a situation where I have assumed or been given Real Life Obligations that sharply limit my ability to…
catdynamics | March 12, 2012Seems like all the action is in Norway these last few years...
Meteorite crashes through roof in Oslo
from Verdens Gang
Fist size meteorite smashes through roof in Oslo suburb
Nice looking chunk - be worth a pretty penny, as one of the few meteorites with confirmed provenance of hitting a structure.
see also Fireball over Norway - at VG
catdynamics | March 2, 2012stuff I need to contemplate and therefore you probably should do:
"So Forget Jesus, Stars Died So You Could Live" - Miley Cyrus, aka Hannah Montana gets death threats for quoting Lawrence Krauss on twitter...
Philocosmology - Our Blog - Templeton foundation sponsors a Cosmology/Philosophy blog at Rutgers.
Looks like a good crew - now put up some content folks!
Walker reviews the origins of radial velocity searches for exoplanets
Xcode and fortran fix for OSX 10.7 Lion - yup, they broke it, again.
Iceland Goes Loonie - eh?
It is, actually, an interesting idea, thinking about it.
NASA Senior…