Happy Valentines!

Who better to discuss love in the physics universe today than our community's own newly christened love couple?

Hopelessly, Hopelessly...

I'm way behind on things with barely a moment for catching up on the latest of our small corner of the blogosphere. Apparently, our country finally has some vague plans to go to the moon but no money to pay for it. I haven't seen Sean's post yet about his invite to be among the first to go up there but I look forward to hearing about those "peregrinations"! (I kid! I kid!)

Less importantly, Clifford egged Peter into a fight and now Clifford and Jacques are tag teaming.

Chad got a new car that is not a Honda Fit and he and Phil are getting interviewed. I think we need to develop a physics versions of that French guy's quiz. Job I would most not want to do? Host of a morning program ala "The Today Show."

Oh, forgot to add that people are looking for plagiarism on the arXiv but not finding much...that's good news.

Around Town

• Take a look at some of these pictures of this incredibly big machine. It looks like a special effect right out of a movie. Update: Well, the picture doesn't seem to work, but click through.
  
  
• Well, you know how I've been a bit obsessed with Sean lately. So I was so disheartened to hear that someone has snatched Sean up (in particular the blog world's own). I'm guessing with Sean's record of ubiquity, she invited him to their wedding! Seriously though, congrats and good luck to both of them.
  
  
• Umm, not sure what to say about this post, but if there's any place for such...colorful analogies, it must be the web. If older than 15 years old say, check out Dorigo's recent contribution.
  
  
• This essay on Who Can Name the Bigger Number? has apparently been around a long time, but I just recently saw it and liked it.
  
  
• Here's a nice, but somewhat unrealistic idea that we should submit code and data along with our manuscripts. One nice thing is that then someone else would be responsible for not losing track of the stuff years later.
  
  
• Pharyngula points us to a "science for pre-schoolers" cartoon "Peep and the Big Wide World." I saw it once, but I don't recall much science. I think the characters were chasing a blowing leaf to great comic effect, but I don't remember much science.
  
  
• Doug has the second installment of his wildly popular series (who knew?) on faculty searches. The third installment is promised, but I suspect we still won't get the real dirt :). Reading through the discussion makes me think I should post some of my horror stories from days long gone. Suffice it for me to say that it's grueling (on both sides of the search, but more so on the applicant).
  
  

Sean is everywhere

I see Sean is giving a talk at NSF next January titled Dark Energy, or Worse: Was Einstein Wrong?.

And he also shows up in Overbye's latest today in the NYT (free sub. reqd.) defending the Big Bang theory (which seems in excellent shape).

Nothing against Sean, but these invites and mentionings tend to coalesce to the same people. The "deciders" start seeing the same name, and when they need a cosmologists (in this case), they figure they can't go wrong picking this person. One might say these people get their name out there for a reason, which is certainly partly true. The thing is, a few years back, I saw the same person invited to something like three conferences in a row and this person gave essentially the same talk. Nothing new, and nothing groundbreaking. So it can get out of hand and can be pretty demoralizing to others.

But, again, it's not the invitee's fault, it's those in power. And Sean is a very good speaker. So do go see him if you're near Arlington, VA.