Self: Meet Center. Center: Meet Self.
pontiff | January 3, 2008Look, I'm on physicsworld.com! Sometimes I have a vision that references on the world wide web which form a cycle lead to a runaway internet. You know...looping self-referentially forever and ever and resulting, of course, in a break in the space time continuum. I'm guessing the above link won't do that. But if it did, I guess this would be the last sentence I've ev
pontiff | January 1, 2008Happy New Year! Seattle's fireworks at the space needle had some technical difficulties (and the pyrotechnicians had to light them by hand...yeah I wrote that just to use the word "pyrotechnician"), but were still beautiful as ever:
Welcome 2008! 2008 is the international year of the potato, the international year of planet earth, and the international year of sanitation. Oh, and it is a leap year! And of further note, according to Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle in "The Mote in God's Eye" 2008 is the year that faster than light travel was invented. Now that should be exciting.
pontiff | December 26, 2007Well I finally made it to the ski slopes. Hopefully my late start to this year's ski season will just mean that I push harder to get up to the slopes. Here is a picture taken from the base of the Mt. Shasta Ski area:
The two lifts servicing advanced terrain were shut down in the morning due to the wind, the wind chill factor was brutal, and the snow looked liked it had been shipped out directly from the East Coast: all ice and crud. But hey, it was the first day skiing!
pontiff | December 22, 2007Ernesto points me to Bacon Zen, a collection of savory bacon links. But really? Bacon chocolate chip cookies?
pontiff | November 27, 2007My grandfather liked to write letters to the editor. I think I inherited this disease from him. Here are the contents of a recent letter I wrote to the editor of Physics Today which I hope some of you may find amusing.
I greatly enjoyed reading N. David Mermin's last two Reference Frame columns on factoring and quantum computing ("What has quantum mechanics to do with factoring?", Physics Today, April 2007, page 8 and "Some curious facts about quantum factoring", Physics Today, October 2007, page 10.) However as the proud one-time owner of the California license plate "QUBIT" (which I had…
pontiff | November 19, 2007Here is a picture I call "STOC 2008 deadline":
STOC 2008 will be in Victoria, British Columbia. I was just across the border in Surey, BC, and shot this picture which I call "Crazy Canadian Fireplace Channel":
pontiff | November 16, 2007Will the real quantum pontiff please stand up? From the Taiwan Journal:Lee Yuan-tseh, a Taiwanese-born scholar and the 1986 Nobel Prize laureate in chemistry, was named Oct. 9 as a new member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences by Pope Benedict XVI. He is the fourth ethnic Chinese scientist to receive this honor.
pontiff | November 3, 2007Look, up in the air, is it a bird? No. Is it a plane? No. Is it the quantum pontiff? Yes! Yes! The Quantum Pontiff! Um, okay....but what exactly is the quantum pontiff? Besides, of course, the juxtaposition of two words which don't often find themselves seated together at the dinner table...
Some quick digging turns up the following disturbing list of facts about "The Quantum Pontiff":
"The quantum pontiff" is, according to Google, the second most likely thing you are looking for if you have searched for the word pontiff. At one point it was the number one thing you were looking for…