Random
catdynamics | June 26, 2006Good game by the Ozzies, they are actually somewhat dominating the midfield at halftime and the Italians are trying to slow things down to regain control. Toni looks a bit off pace, he's had good shots, very good shots, but he's not been running onto balls his teammates looked for.
The Ozzies are incredibly fit, if this game is close late they'll run the Italians into the ground the way they've beat up other teams. If Italy goes one ahead look for them to try to close down the back and sit on it.
Fun.
That sucks.
Worst ref call ever. And that is saying something.
There was no foul, total…
catdynamics | June 25, 2006Quick trip to California, and between life, the neighbours dogs, and a late connection I was drive to the ultimate in desperation...
I bought one of the "snack boxes" on United Airlines.
The "healthy" one.
Judging by the state of the contents, I was the only customer dumb enough to actually buy one this month. Though it had not quite hit the expiry date, I checked.
Anyway, you expect the crackers to be stale, but the rest was basically a tin of cat food and a jar of baby food. Suspicously mouldy looking baby food.
Ok, the mini-toblerone was ok, hard to go wrong there.
You have been warned.…
catdynamics | June 23, 2006
Rainy friday, and we approach the mighty iPod with a topical question.
Oh, mighty iPod, when LISA is finally launched, will it see shitloads of EMRIs?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: La seenade interrompue - Claudio Arrau
The Crossing: Accident Waiting to Happen - Billy Bragg
The Crown: Do Anything you Wanna Do - Eddie and the Hot Rods
The Root: Sur Le Pont d'Avignon - Sien Diels
The Past: First of the Gang - Morrissey
The Future: Travelin' Soldier - Dixie Chicks
The Questioner: Lilli Hittir Mikka Ref - Thorbjorn Egner
The House: Waiting in Vain - Bob Marley
The Inside…
catdynamics | June 22, 2006Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are on a roll tonight.
I too think the WSJ editorial board should be left behind to tough it out in the event of a suitable catastrophe. like the SCOTUS ruling gay marriage constitutional.
"More of the Same" I don't think so.
Red Staters to the Red Planet.
catdynamics | June 22, 2006I just bought $100 of skyr. Vanilla and blueberry, both.
And I transported it across State boundaries.
And now I am going to enjoy it. With my wife. The kids are asleep. Phbt.
catdynamics | June 20, 2006
Seen on floppingaces.net
Operation "Valiant Shield" - 3 aircraft carriers doing operations together in the Pacific, off Guam, first time in 30 years.
USS Enterprise is in the Persian gulf and as far as I can tell three other aircraft carriers are at sea, two in the Atlantic and one off California.
That is a lot of firepower in an interesting place in the world.
China Post has an interesting wrap up article
New moon tomorrow - if anyone wants to use this beautiful group of ships, they have a 3-5 day window, then they'll disperse and conditions are non-optimal until July, and probably…
catdynamics | June 20, 2006Bloomin' heck, that combined the best and worst football I've seen for a while.
Good fun, but both teams need to be a bit more consistent if they're going to get through the next round...
Sunday morning should be interesting.
Shame about T&T they played a fun game.
catdynamics | June 17, 2006Happy Father's Day!
The Big Kid sat through all of USA vs Italy, and enjoyed it.
Made for a good lesson in sportsmanlike conduct.
And. I was wrong, the USA team did show up, about 10 minutes into the game, and played at a world level, at least the few players that rather overzealous referee left on the field in the second half.
Bad luck not to beat the Italians, maybe next time they'll send their football team on, not the Olympic Diving team.
Ghana vs Czech was a joy, although the Czech's let themselves get ruffled and didn't play to their true level. Strangely group E now looks to be the…
catdynamics | June 16, 2006It is friday, and I am late.
We ask the Great and Mighty iPod: is there a reason for us to get a manned presence off Earth on a time scale of a century or less?
Whoosh goes the randomizer:
Whoosh...
The Covering: Boy Done Good - Billy Bragg
The Crossing: Don't Leave Me Now - Pink Floyd
The Crown: Train Train - Billy Bragg
The Root: Eisler on the Go - Billy Bragg
The Past: No Puede Ser - Three Tenors
The Future: Come un bel di di maggio - Pavarotti
The Questioner: In the Midnight Hour - Maloko
The House: Carnival of the Animals
The Inside: Bílavísur - Björk
The Outcome: Nicaragua,…
catdynamics | June 16, 2006
Hvalur 8 RE-388
The Icelandic whaling fleet has been in harbour for 17 years now.
The International Whaling Commission is meeting in St Kitts right now the whaling nations may have bought in enough minor nations to get a majority in favour of resuming whaling although under voting rules that is only a moral victory, takes a super-majority to resume.
This may seem like cheating, buying votes of nations, and it is. But what is sauce for the goose... the tactic of bringing in minor and landlocked nations to vote on whaling was an innovation by anti-whaling environmentalists 20-30 years ago..…
catdynamics | June 16, 2006So, I popped down to the campus bookstore and browsed C*u*ters latest tome on the "Church of Liberalism"...
A large part of the book is regurgitated crap from the intelligent design moron crowd, which PZ has dissected along with several other netizens.
Most of the rest is the usual incoherent lunatic ravings about sex, crime and war.
So... what about "their own cosmology"?
Well, I was a bit disappointed, it is there in the preamble, but then nada.
Not in the index, couple of contextless asides on how "well at least relativity has experimental evidence", and a rambling listing of "famous…
catdynamics | June 16, 2006SEED is doing a $10,000 match to charity donations to the "Donors Choose" educational charity.
Sounds like a good cause, and a lot of the Sb bloggers jumped in.
If you want to chip in, go for it, can I ask that you go to Uncertain Principles and click through there, I'm not in a place where I can tinker with html button codes. Chad is all set up.
catdynamics | June 13, 2006Pancake family brunch; soccer (Big Kid playing, me assistant coach temp); ballet (family appreciation day); pig roast with belly dancing (really, organic pig at that).
There are worse ways to spend a day.
Perfect weather here this weekend, and after proposal hell week (more on that later) and early summer stomach 'flu (everyone in rapid succession), it was nice to have a busy but pleasant day.
Got a large paper (thesis chapter) read and commented; one referee's report done.
That leaves 8 papers currently in various stages where I am the hold up, and one referee's report due that I remember.…
catdynamics | June 12, 2006Ok, I caught 5 mins of ESPN coverage this afternoon (during a commercial break in SpongeBob), and the commentator is standing in a suit, on an open floor, holding a soccer ball.
Why is he doing that?
catdynamics | June 11, 2006Jane over at Ethics and Science tags the New Kids on the block with a Neighbourhood Pi mem
We obey, and please mam, may we have some more?
3 reasons you blog about science:
I know some.
I like it.
I think it is important.
Point at which you would stop blogging:
Real life catches up with me.
1 thing you frequently blog besides science:
NASA politics
4 words that describe your blogging style:
Rambling
Cryptic
Occasionally strident
Casual
1 aspect of blogging you find difficult:
Keeping current with what is interesting.
5 ScienceBlogs blogs that are new to you:
Framing Science
The…
catdynamics | June 10, 2006Stochastic, our master's voice, asks:
Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why?
Well, of course it'd be
bioinformatics.
Why?
Interestingly technical, lots of data, wide open fundamental problems, impression that is is undersubscribed by researchers, both pure and applied problems, interdisciplinary.
I've seen some of the serious side of bioinfo related issues through my astrobiology hat, and it looks interesting and fun.
catdynamics | June 9, 2006Every friday, life permitting, we do an "iPod iChing".
It is well known that the randomizer on the iPod is oracular, and in recent times it has been used widely on the Net as a fountain of wisdom.
...
Most people use the iPod's powers trivially, for "random ten" lists to reflect their psychic angsts, here we do things scientifically! In 2005, Sean Carroll realised the fundamental structure of the iPod mimics that of the Tarot, so we thereofore do this scientifically.
Sean has moved on to greater things, pondering dark energy or some such nonsense, leaving me to keep up the tradition of…