Greetings

It's been a while. During my "sabbatical" from this blog, I've churned through a number of topics to discuss, but somehow never took the time to write them up. I've had such a tough time keeping up with the blogs I read, it's been tough to allot time for contributing to my own.

My anger has been an issue in my personal life, and I thought about discussing it here. I'm not so much in the mood now, but I suppose the after-school-special, take-home message is that my childhood environment didn't teach me good skills at dealing with my emotions and, lest you think I abandon all personal responsibility, it somehow didn't occur to me that I could actively learn how to deal with them.

I continue in what some might perceive as a purgatory of a physics existence. That is, I have tenure but would prefer to be in a better department with better students. I have more grant money than I know how to spend but my research is being pulled in a direction that worries me. I dream of simply researching what I want. I travel to some great places, but I get bothered that I'm not invited to speak as often as I might. I make decent money, but when I see some others' salaries (via grant proposals that I review) I get envious. Plus, somehow people seem to think professors universally make quite a bit of money.

It's the summer now, and I was very happy to be done teaching. My class last semester was perhaps the least fun ever. The strange part was that i didn't dislike any of them. They were just extremely quiet and I couldn't get them involved. Sure, some will say my teaching was off, but I've taught that class a number of times and have always enjoyed it.

Anyway, I'm finishing up a paper that I'm presenting in two weeks, with another proposal due soon as well. Always more work.

No Title

• Why, every time I use self-checkout at the grocery store, does my machine tell me some form of "Please Wait for Attendant"? Can't they design these machines to be more robust?
  
• I get that Madoff ran a Ponzi scheme and people lost something like $50 billion. What I don't understand is, where did the money go? Sure, maybe he lived high-on-the-hog, but I've seen no evidence that he could have spent billions of dollars. So where is it? It would seem that the money went to the investors who pulled money out and whom Madoff would have been forced to pay just to keep the scheme going. And so when I read this NYT piece entitled Madoff Had Accomplices: His Victims I expected a story something along the lines of this argument, but no. Continuing this line of thought, I wonder about the stock market as a whole. Those who get out early make a profit at the expense of those who don't. The market seems a big Ponzi scheme except with the wrinkle that there's a little real value added to some of the companies with time.
  Update: Freakonomics addresses these questions. Interestingly, they mention that Madoff, by not investing at all, hardly did worse than the market. We need a new Turing test for whether something is a Ponzi scheme or a market. They also suggest that the feeder funds (to which Peter refers in the comments) may indeed have to pay back some of their compensation. One can hope.
  
• Saw the movie Religulous the other day. Not especially good, but certainly more than watchable. I've mentioned I'm an atheist, but generally supportive of unorganized religion. That is to say, I can see that people want to believe in something bigger than themselves, something to give meaning to a possibly meaningless world. This movie, if anything, made me more antagonistic towards religion of any kind. At one point, he points out similarities between the Jesus as Christ story with many others before it...I wasn't aware of the unoriginality of the story.
  
• I was listening to Lisa Randall on NPR's Science Friday. I thought she did well, but at one point in the Q and A, I hear her say "First of all it's Professor," correcting what sounded like a young boy asking her a multi-part question. I had to back up to hear how he had addressed her and sure enough he said "Miss Randall." Not sure what to make of that. (I'm referring to a point about three quarters into the "broadcast" clickable in the upper left of the page.)
  
• Not sure what to make of this "QuantumGravity" watch mentioned by Gizmodo.
  
• Also at Gizmodo, ever wondered whether there's a correlation between college-aged sexual activity and major? At Wellesley perhaps? Somehow "physics" didn't make the chart, but I suspect we can all agree we do better than "Mathematics." Check it out.
  
• Looking for a job? How about as a Quant with D.E. Shaw which had a recent listing in Physics Today. Not your thing? How about teaching Obama's children at Sidwell Friends School?
  

Nada

Don't blame physicists on Wall Street, says the NYT.

Clifford isn't good about submitting travel receipts. I'm one of those prepping the paperwork before I even get home.