The G10 is here!

• Peter laments physicists remaining anonymous on the web. Well, those who launch nasty attacks under cover of anonymity anyway. I mostly agree, but I think there's a place for anonymous comments. This industry we're in is based on a pretty strict power structure, and anonymity can give voice to the powerless. After all, some of the people complaining about such attacks are full professors at top schools and it's a bit hard to have too much sympathy if their feelings get hurt. But, to reiterate, certainly there are abuses and it can be taken too far (as can most things in life).
  
  
• Driving home from my University in my fuel-efficient car, listening to NPR while wearing sandals being nostalgic about my Ivy League education...how much better could I match a stereotype?
  
  
• My department chair was talking to me about a father of a student threatening to sue about his son's grade. I'm not one to back down from a fight, but were I the one threatened, how would I pay for lawyers? Anyone out there know? Does the University typically provide a lawyer? I imagine any suit would be against both the school and the individual instructor, but presumably the instructor needs his or her own lawyer. I have an umbrella policy but I checked that such policies are meant to provide additional coverage on auto and home related claims only. Apparently, there's something called "professional liability insurance" which I imagine is something like medical malpractice insurance. Does anyone out there have such a policy? I did some Google searching but couldn't find much particularly relevant.
  This would seem a good topic for blogs because who wants to go around asking about such a policy engendering some curiosity about why one might need it.
  
  
• More Gizmodo:
  
  
  
  • Have you seen the movie Lars and the Real Girl? Is this a real life example?
    
  • Anything you can do with thermite is cool!
    
  • THE G10 is HERE!: The news is all over, but here's Gizmodo's post. It's got the wide-angle that I want, it has RAW output, the brand new DIGIC 4 processor, image stabilization (in the lens). It has movie output, but not high-definition output. I can probably live with that. I don't see how big a sensor it has. I don't care how many pixels, but rather its light gathering ability. If only it had a big sensor, but since it's not mentioned in the release, it's probably the standard size (ie small).
    
  
  

Anger Management

• I've always been convinced that too much income inequality is not a good thing. It's nice to read someone who can explain why. I'm no socialist, but I just can't buy the whole libertarian position.
  
• What do I think of McCain's selection of Palin as his VP running mate? I'm pleased that he picked a woman, even if he did so purely for political reasons (well that, and probably a bit because he couldn't get along with the men under consideration). She seems like the kind of woman you might want to have a beer with or go camping with. But a heartbeat away from the Presidency (and a 72 year old heart at that)? I never faulted Obama for a lack of experience because no one has the experience to be President. But at least he seemed a bit battle tested and as ready as someone could be. Palin? Sure, she may be up to it, but how would we know? Ultimately though, the thing I want to get on the record is that, whether McCain wins or loses this election, everyone will be attributing it to his choice of running mate.
  
• I come into my office today to find an expense reimbursement returned to me in my mail box. I had submitted this over three weeks ago, and it's a couple thousand dollars. There's a note in there with a couple issues which don't apply in this case, and one matter that should have been easily resolved without my involvement. I'm steaming. So much so, I can't work. I call the administrator who returned it, knowing she'll be at lunch since it's noon. I turn to email her but know that I shouldn't, not in my agitated state. At 1:30pm, I call again and she's still not there. I write an email addressing each matter. I spend 10 minutes deleting every word and phrase that's not absolutely necessary. The email is terse, but not obviously angered. Though still mad, I'm at least pleased I've not yelled at anyone yet. Five minutes later I get an email from her with the first sentence saying she's working from home, but either through dedication or insanity she's responding to emails. The next paragraph basically just tells me to send the paperwork back and she'll address it promptly. Fine. It's dealt with. I email her back a nice thanks, hopeful she'll be better next time. But here's the rub...I had emailed her boss as well, and sure enough about an hour later, her boss emails that the administrator is out today for a family medical issue but should be back in tomorrow. So I respond that she took care of it from home, and the boss emails me back extolling the virtues of the people under him! So this administrator who seems barely able to do her job, is getting kudos from her boss because of me! What did I do wrong?
  

• Gizmodo:
  
  
  
  • Cool high-speed pictures
    
  • High-speed shots of lightening
    
  
  
• Thoughts on the Olympics:
  
  
  
  • I thought I saw cheerleaders at the women's beach volleyball events. That was strange enough, but the announcing also seemed...a bit unconventional.
    
  • I'm not sure that the sprinter Bolt's performance overshadows that of Phelps, but certainly just winning 8 gold medals doesn't imply being the best Olympian. And Freakonomics make all this admiration graphical.
    
  
  
• I've finally caught up on Backreaction:
  
  
  
  • I like that she complains about academia because certain physics blogs are way too cheery for my taste. However, when she says "I don't know anybody who was particularly happy during his PhD," I have to laugh. I was just saying the other day how stress-free my life was during grad school. No more so than once I was done with classes, and just researching. I suppose I've always been a bit of an underachieving, laid-back, slacker so perhaps I'm not the norm. It was only when I stumbled upon a tenure-track position that I got somewhat ambitious. Most of the stress in my life is fighting that ambition (or giving in to it, depending on how you look at it).
    
  • In the same post, she talks about the lack of availability of supervisors. Again, I play the contrarian. I pretty much sought to avoid mine. I always found it best to ask questions during social occasions, especially ones with alcohol present.
    
  • Sabine has broken a cardinal rule of physics blogging. Just as Stephen Colbert cannot see color, we cannot judge the attractiveness of colleagues. Luckily, she apologizes in the same breath which may hold off the hordes for a bit, when she says "who is really cute, sorry, but this has to be mentioned."
    
  
  

The First Post To Demonstrate....

• Why are so many banks going up? I haven't entered any branches of my main bank in many years. I just don't understand why these chain banks need so many branches? Perhaps, the physical buildings don't represent too much cost but presumably employee salary and benefits must be significant. Or perhaps, such a physical presence attracts enough business and serves as advertising to make it worth their while? Not sure I buy that argument even though it's my only one.
  
• I'm no fan of using "first" in a paper. Everything that get published should be the first to do something. So when I see people using the word, as in "We present the first case of ..." it strikes me as inappropriate in an academic pursuit. Just tell me the result. Besides, someone may have done it already and just not published or not published in anything read by you. Which naturally leads to the derivative "To our knowledge, this represents the first time...." which lays bare the ambition of the authors...it's pure salesmanship, not science.
  
• Clearly, this guy needs to start yet another "angry" blog. Does mooning fall under academic freedom?
  
• Anyone with any remaining faith in McCain's character from 2000 should follow the link and read Joe Klein.
  

Whom you know

• Further doubt about nuclear fusion coming from sonoluminesence since Purdue has found scientific misconduct.
  
• DVRs are not yet commodities. I've got a Scientific Atlanta box free for a year and its UI is lightyears behind that of Tivo.
  
• Gizmodo does more physics movies: fluid dancing on water and lightening hits camera.
  
• My Facebook activity has continued...lots of old high school friends. Strange when some people ask me to "be their friend," contrasting sharply with their rather indifferent behavior towards me so many years ago. Strange also juggling personal information...in Facebook I have a name which can feel a bit strange sometimes when switching from blogging to Facebook'ing or vice a versa. Another strange thing...looking at these old high school "mates" puts one in the awkward position of evaluating one's accomplishments relative to what one expected of others in high school. Current friends have confirmed that such reacquaintences leads to such reconsideration.
  
• What's the deal with these conference webpages using various certificates? I often have to accept them or they cause some browser error, and I really don't see the point. And my browser always seems to find something wrong them. What in the world are they protecting? Furthermore, for any conference organizers out there, for coffee breaks, please try to find some sort of non-sugar snack. I'm a sucker for free food but when all that's available is either high sugar or high simple carbs, what am I to do? Inevitably, I succumb and quickly crash or get a headache.
  
• A somewhat interesting answer to "Does using revolving doors help?"
  
• I share Doug's skepticism about the FQXI grants. I'm also a bit skeptical about the amount of correlation among Panel members and awardees.
  
• Camera news: I think I've mentioned that I'm waiting till the Fall to get a new camera. Apparently, the new stuff comes up in August or September, and new news has been leaking out. Here's some more, via Gizmodo: a Nikon SLR which records video, the promise of yet smaller SLRs from Olympus, and a wide angle superzoom from Fuji. Still no news of a Canon G10.
  

Lottery

• I went Google searching a colleague in order to find info on his latest unpublished work and came across his page on RateMyProfessors. Keep in mind, this guy is widely and highly regarded, and is a nice guy. So I'm not sure what it says about me personally that it gave me some pleasure reading all the very negative comments about his teaching. My own comments reflect that I'm a bit tough, but otherwise good (with a few scatterings of negative reviews just to ensure I don't appear too easy).
  
• These physics toys might be of interest.
  
• Do you play the lottery? Your odds may be even less that than you think. I don't quite get the lottery. State governments mandate a state-sponsored monopoly on gambling, presumably with some justification along the lines of, "Well, if the people want gambling, we'll provide a safe and secure way." And then they go and advertise it? Do they want to generate more gambling? If so, then why not just legalize it for non-state sponsored gambling. If not, then "provide" the lottery, but do not advertise it.
  
• Gizmodo link dump:
  
  
  
  • Digital cameras: Hasselblad; Nikon; Canon (I still haven't decided on a new camera...will probably wait for something like what this person wants)
    
  • Perfect spheres
    
  • Cool, combat Ship
    
  • More boats...rescuing a big ship
    
  • Cool, but hardly "solely" lit by magnetic fields
    
  
  
• Is it just me or does the physics blogosphere seem a bit boring lately?
  

Untitled

• Krugman questions whether we as a country place too much importance on home ownership. It certainly felt strange when I bought my first house...the subsidy given by the government was huge by allowing the deduction of interest and property tax. I had a vague feeling of crossing some threshold from being held down to being helped up. Of course, I think they've since moved the line now!
  
• Gizmodo has some cool pictures of a damper...Maybe a good problem for intro mechanics to calculate the motion of an idealized building with such a damper.
  
• I'm glad this aura of intelligence associated with Justice Scalia appears to be feeding. Wherever one stands on gun control, Scalia's defense of his latest decision is not defensible.
  
• I've wondered whether our IT department monitors our browsing as discussed by the CHE. In part I wonder because I occasionally click on stuff labeled NSFW (mostly from Oliver). Some faculty here are paranoid that such "monitoring" extends such that our emails are being read!
  
• Camera update: There were no SLRs sub-$600 that I really liked. I had a film SLR (actually still do), but I'm not sure I'm ready to go back to the bulk and the expense...and in today's digital world, SLRs have two other disadvantages: (i) very susceptible to dust collecting on the CCD and (ii) none record movies which can be handy even if not up to the standard set by cheap camcorders. So then I looked at so-called bridge cameras...high-end cameras with lots of manual control but not interchangeable lenses. The Canon G series has generally set the bar in this category but the current model, the G9, isn't particularly well reviewed. So then I figured I'd wait for a new model, e.g. the G10. But then somehow I got researching a bridge to a bridge camera...ie a point-and-shoot. Since I started with cameras near $600, a $300 point-and-shoot sounded pretty cheap. I was pretty set on the $300 Panasonic TZ5...a wide angle, good video recording (high def at that!), face detection, and optical image stabilization. I just can't pull the trigger. It's not clear how happy I'll be with the quality of the images, and because it's pocketable, the sensor isn't big so its low light performance won't be great. And it doesn't have any viewfinder. So while I'm debating that, I'm seeing all these deals on the various incarnations of the Canon ELPH series for around $175. Uggh, so difficult.
  

Photography

• I've hardly watched any of the NBA playoffs. I started watching some of the New Orleans versus San Antonio series, but it wasn't fun to watch. The home team just kept winning and by big margins. I know some of the theories about the advantages enjoyed by the home team, but I'm not buying them. Especially when I see the refs play such a large role. I'm not saying they're crooked, but they're at least biased...and now I've got some support from Freakonomics (unlike me, they have names, but I don't feel like looking them up).
  
• More kid gift ideas:
  
  
  
  • $35 basketball hoop at Walmart for a 4 year old which you can use indoors.
    
  • $35 EyeClops microscope-like thing which you connect to a TV for a 7 year old.
    
  
  
• How's this for a new class?
  Physics of Photography--Introduction to the physics involved with photography for nonscience majors. Prerequisites include high school math though experience with (algebraic) geometry and (abstract) algebra are helpful. Topics to be discussed:
  
  
  
  • Light: From geometric optics to second harmonic generation
    
  • Lenses: Negative indices of refraction and gravitational lenses
    
  • Holography: Interference to AdS/CFT, and the nature of information
    
  • Resolution: Film to CCD to spin foam and the Planck Scale
    
  • Aesthetics: Loops or Strings?
    
  
  
• You all haven't been the most helpful blog readers, but I'll give you a chance to make it up to me: I want a new camera. I've looked at the SLRs, but none excite me too much. The Olympus E-520 looks nice and compact, but the reviews say it's slow to focus. I don't care about status, size, or variety of lenses...I want:
  
  
  
  • a reasonably fast focusing and shooting camera
    
  • with good white balance indoors (which rules out most Nikons)
    
  • pretty good low-light sensitivity
    
  • a fairly wide angle lens (zoom is fine)
    
  • RAW capture
    
  • Update: Price for body & lens under $600
    
  
  I'm not shooting sports, but I like to be able to freeze candid reactions of people when I press the button. As I mentioned, I wouldn't think I necessarily need an SLR, but it seems that it is only within the domain of SLRs that one can expect such speed. I was thinking something along the lines of Canon's S5 or G9, but those don't seem to fit the bill in terms of excellent picture quality and speed. Any help?
  

Success

• Why does my school's online catalog for the library provide less information on books than Amazon?
  
• I put the Fedora 9 Linux distribution on a machine the other day and it didn't have tcsh on it! I was able to find Stellarium on there though.
  
• While listening to the radio in the car today, a good song came on and I found myself reaching towards the dash to tell the radio I liked that song...too much listening to Pandora I guess.
  
• The other day, while walking across campus, I went a bit out of my way to chat up a Dean. Normally, I'd just avoid such an encounter and certainly not make an effort to engage. So perhaps I'm making progress in my sociability.
  
• I recently saw the movie Into the Wild. I had heard it was good but expected it to be that kind of good where it deserves a good review, but is otherwise not that enjoyable to watch. In any case, I found it captivating. I completely sympathized with the protagonist's desire to be free and experience life. But I also sympathized with the guy's parents and what they were going through. And of course, I was envious of being in those locales.
  In any case, the movie fits with the motif of success running through my head lately. I've been envisioning a "success test" along the lines of a personality test. You'd plug in your job description, number of kids, committed relationships...heck even the kind of car you drive if that's your thing. Out pops a measure of your success. I just Googled to see if anyone had constructed such a test, but all I find are tests supposedly predicting successfulness. Au contrare, I want to know how successful I am now!
  Continuing with the theme, I was thinking what people might hope for their kids. For example, would you rather one of your kids (or future kids) growup, get some mid-level corporate job with two kids and a house in the suburbs or for that kid not to growup, but instead head off to save the polar bears in the Arctic? Would you rather have a boring A- kid who dutifully does their homework or a wild B- child who never does homework but is passionate about...well anything, but let's just say...music?
  

Juggling as meditation

I've always been a fairly introspective type, and juggling has fit well with that. I've not seriously juggled for quite some time, but I can say that I served as an unpaid extra juggling in a commercial play. But even if you're not a juggler, this NY Times piece about one of the best jugglers in the world is well worth the read. A son of a math professor and someone who eschews the showbiz aspects of juggling, I can really relate.

And article or no, check out some of his juggling videos on YouTube.

Stamps

• I agree wholeheartedly that young Americans need some improved basic financial education.
  
• I had meant to mention that I picked up some stamps honoring Pauling, Hubble, and Bardeen (and Gerty Cori of whom I've not heard). Since that was months ago and since the rate has increased from 41 cents to 42 centers, I'm not even sure if they're still available.
  
• Philip Greenspun, who usually has what might be called a "fresh take" on current events, has a rather strange post questioning why Farrakhan/Jackson/Wright would vote for Barack Obama.
  

Sonoluminescence

• Krugman seems to be showing quite a bias towards Hilary Clinton. No big deal I suppose, but I've certainly looked to him as one of the more intelligent and objective observers out there.
  
• With classes over, I'm trying to decide on what to concentrate this summer. Be safe, and just do what I'm equipped to do? Or start this new project I've got in mind for which I'll have to learn new stuff and which may not work out?
  
• These so called rebate checks from the government's stimulus program... in what sense are they a rebate? The letter I got from the IRS called it something like a "stimulus payment" that doesn't need to be repaid when one files 2008 taxes. So, unless I'm missing something, it's just the government giving me money. (I don't consider a rebate on 2008 taxes since the payments can be more than one has paid in tax).
  
  Update (5/30/08): Here is a FAQ on the so-called "rebates" which mentions this naming issue:
  
  You have a good memory and, like the 2001 rebates, this really ought to be called a "prebate" because it is a prepayment of a special tax credit created for 2008. Because the point is to stimulate the sluggish economy, though, Congress didn't want Americans to have to wait for their money until they file 2008 tax returns next spring. So, the prepayment was authorized and the "rebate" misnomer was born.
  
  
• Chad notes one of the funnier problems with students and uncertainties, that being their religious faith in all things digital. I find teaching uncertainties totally frustrating. Some (neh, most) kids will never get it...and what's going on in their bio and chem classes? It seems that those classes don't even mention uncertainties.
  
• Via Gizmodo, an article at Popular Science on experiments to model brane inflation with a BEC. Somehow it transitions to black hole analogues.
  
• What's new with sonoluminescence? Not my field (which field is it?), but can some physics blogger out there give us the latest? It seems I've not heard anything new for a few years.
  

The Faculty Shuffle

• The Ponderer wonders why there aren't more faculty shuffles. On the contrary I can easily see how such moves aren't so common. Sure the superstars can pick where they go, but for a school to hire an established, proven, quality professor presents a number of obstacles. Assuming tenured, the hiring school has to convince a department and administration to make a big commitment. But more than that, the school has to come to grips with itself. I think most departments have an inferiority complex and suffer from the complex "if this person wants to come here, they must not be stellar." With a beginning person, they see it as a gamble and there's not a clear sense of how good a new person is. But for an established person, it's so hard to rate them appropriately that you get some strange stuff. Recently, someone in my field did a mid-career shuffle, but they're the exception. They're easily subpar in the field, but have an uncanny ability to project a sense of "expertness" to those outside it. Very discouraging, but what can you do?
  
• I'm not too clear on this whole Facebook etiquette thing. Can someone enlighten me...Recently I've had a few friends from back in high school try to "friend" me. I dutifully say "sure," expecting to get some message to the effect of "hey, what's up?" However, no such message comes. After all this time, they find me listed on Facebook, and just want to add my entry to their ever-growing list of friends? It seems almost rude. Am I the one who's supposed to send the message?
  
• Regarding sports, I'm quite happy that Roger Clemons is being dragged through the mud. I've disliked him for a long, long time, but especially after his wussy behavior with Piazza a while back. On another note, I wonder what percentage of the audience for PTI watches American Idol?
  
• Nina Totenburg interviews Scalia and corrects him about an Oregon case on which he ruled. Not sure which segment I heard, but here's a link.
  And then The Daily Show the other day showed a clip of him on 60 Minutes totally dismissing the Gore-v-Bush case in 2000. What an ass.
  
• Doug and the Ponderer discuss cheating. I was recently amazed to hear about a number of professors at my school who simply ignore cheating. Beyond simply abdicating what is part of their job, they make things harder for me by essentially encouraging the practice of cheating.
  
• When this presidential race started, I was delighted we had a good female and a good African American candidate in the mix. I didn't have a strong preference, though I wasn't so thrilled with having yet another political dynasty (Bush/Clinton). But Clinton has really turned me off. Fine, she can go after Obama and fight hard and maybe a bit dirty. But to say nice things about McCain in her effort to question Obama! I'm referring to her comments about her perception that only she and McCain have proven their ability to be president. And now her support of the cessation of the gas tax? Come on! The NYT has a nice editorial pointing out how silly that is.
  

Quotes

• I know I'm too old to listen to Miley Cyrus' song "See you Again," and certainly too pedantic to be critiquing its contents, but it just bugs me to hear the lyrics:
  

  
  I got my sights set on you and I'm ready to aim
  

  
  I ain't no gun nut, but if you've got your sights set, haven't you already aimed?
  
• I saw this quote at Confessions of a Community College Dean
  

  
  After going through several fruitless interviews in a short span, it's easy to fall into the 'always a bridesmaid' kind of self-pity and self-questioning.
  

  
  and was really hoping for some consoling words of wisdom. Oh well, at least others feel it as well.
  
• Avis has a new fuel policy which bugs me to no end. If you drive fewer than 75 miles, then they will automatically charge you for fuel unless you show a receipt. I often drive very few miles and don't get refueled since the gauge still reports a fuel tank. To combat people like me and to extract more money, they institute this new policy. You might say "fine," but the nerve they have to act like it's a convenience. My inclination is not to show a receipt even if I did stop for fuel. I returned my car and said "I'm not showing a receipt, but the tank is full." The attendant said he had to charge me anyway even though the tank is full. I ask that all readers of this either avoid Avis, show a receipt for fuel purchased months ago (there's no fine print about dates), or a receipt for $0.01 of gas. Please report all good stories.
  

Collaborations II

• I mentioned collaborations last time. In keeping with what the Incoherent Ponderer said, the dynamics of these can get bad very quickly. In particular, people in the collaboration will have other projects outside the collaboration, naturally. However, then each individual is basically faced with deciding how much time to dedicate to the collaboration in sort of a reverse of the prisoner's dilemma...that is, if all dedicate themselves to the collaboration, then all succeed. However, if some do not, then they receive the benefits of the collaboration (name on papers, funding, etc) but also enjoy the fruits of their outside work (which is essentially all of their work). So then it doesn't pay for *anyone* to work in the collaboration and it stalls, or, at best, proceeds on the basis of graduate students alone since they essentially have no choice what to work on. Uggh.
  
• Not to sound like a Seinfeld-esque comedian, but what's the deal with showing logos during one's academic talks? A couple on the title slide or ending acknowledgments is one thing, but I've seen people with a logo in each corner and the name of their associated lab as a footer on *every* slide! I'd feel dirty doing that, and I suspect these people are in no way compelled to do so. They must get some kick out of this, though I don't understand at all how.
  
• Who watches any of the 24hour news networks for any length of time? I'm pretty well read when it comes to current events. Politics, sports, etc. I read two or three newspaper sites regularly. But when I'm stuck in a hotel and sick of working, there's often nothing to watch so I just put on the news networks. It's so repetitive and uninsightful (if that's a word). I could forgive them if they frequently did the silly stuff that the Daily Show ribs them for because at least that's entertaining. What a skewed view of the world one must have from watching...and I don't mean conservative or liberal.
  
• I was in a bit of a funk there for the last month or so. They say things come in threes, and I got three bad decisions in the past few months. How quickly things change...I've had a series of three good to very good things occur in....the last three days actually! Pretty cool. Strangely, I have to force myself to think about this to make myself happy. In technical terms, it seems that the relaxation time of my psyche to its stable equilibrium is very short. BTW, thinking of the happiness/sadness landscape in dynamical terms is something I do often, and I wonder about human beings in general. Sometimes I'm amazed that the suicide rate isn't much larger than it is. I also wonder what evolution should be expected to have done for these dynamics. To guard against suicide, it would seem we'd evolve to being very stable. However, it is our urges and desires which can bring about procreation and survival (and hence further procreation). I wonder if one could do some type of modeling and find some "natural" balance between sanity and so-called "animalistic" urges/desires/rages/etc.
  

Collaborations

I've been meaning to write about collaborations for a while and hearing this (not too convincing) story on NPR today helped motivate me. Apparently this study, using a slightly modified "prisoner's dilemma" game found that those who cooperate and don't punish slackers do the best.

Throughout my years (I like to sound like I'm an octogenarian), I have enjoyed/endured a number of collaborations. There are all types. There's the "tease" in which someone talks up a project at a conference only to never follow through. Those aren't a big deal since all you've invested is some thought and excitement. One step up is the person who gets you to start something but never follows-up. In my case, I hit an obstacle and didn't have the expertise to push past without some help. Oh well.

There's another, much more involved one that I've mostly put behind me. The lot of us were left scarred and maybe I'll discuss that later.

Of more importance is one I'm in now. There's one person who is a pro at these things. He does the bare minimum to remain involved, but otherwise doesn't even respond. He's always gung ho at the beginning of something to ensure his name gets attached but little follow through. I'm pretty much used to him, though I don't appreciate the dilution (and cost) of his presence. It's hard to leave him off though and he knows just what little is to be done so that it is difficult.

But perhaps the worst of all is this one person who gets much of the credit. Some grad student will ask a pretty standard question and this guy is the first to answer as if the answer springs from some bottomless well of knowledge. Have a problem? This guy will be the first to say he'll look at it. Nevermind, that his look never comes and if it does, with no help. But this guy is a pro. He talks the talk as if he's humble, as if all the underlings deserve the credit, but I (if only "we") know better.

So why do I stay? Of course, because it benefits me. These people can do things I can't or won't. Even if I could, I'm more productive with them than without them. In terms of advice, I would just reiterate that doing well in academic physics is very much about perceptions, interactions, and networking, things I had hoped to avoid by going into academia. Sure there are some who go off and work on their own and become stars, but those are few and there's a large element of luck in it. The safest bet is to go into things aware from the beginning.

Wo is me

Reasons to be depressed:

• My intro physics class consists of students who have no interest in the subject and in whom none can be inspired.
  
• The University committee I chair consists of the laziest faculty on campus.
  
• The NSF budget is wreaking havoc on my plans/research.
  
• I've been plugging away on two different projects for months with only incremental success and continued obstacles appearing.
  
• I wasn't invited to talk at the last couple significant meetings.
  
• A certain someone I've self-appointed as my most comparable competition put out a pretty good paper in the last couple weeks.
  
• Wondering if it's normal to think in lists all the time...or maybe I just started this when I started blogging? Or maybe I've got some kind of Lisp virus infecting me? I try to wash my hands.
  
• I've been so busy, I haven't had time to read blogs, let alone to blog myself. Now, I'm all caught up on my blog reading which is, itself, reason to be depressed because I'm not working hard enough.
  

Logical reasons to be happy

• I've got my health.
  
• I've got a pretty good job with a likely pay raise coming.
  
• My NSF funding might actually hold up until the budget havoc straightens out.
  
• I've actually had some time to try to figure out some physics lately in between all the proposal writing, refereeing, etc.
  
• My home life is mostly good.
  
• None of my secret, wicked ways have been made public with a force resignation, nor have I lied to Congress recently.
  

Sanity Test

• Does 1+1 equal something other than 2?
  
• Have you seen an alien?
  
• Was the Holocaust a fabrication?
  
• Was the moon landing a fabrication?
  
• Do you think Creationism or Intelligent Design qualify as scientific theories deserving of being taught in public school science classes?
  
• Do you put any credence in a horoscope?
  
• Does the US Constitution protect a child's right to participate in organized prayer in public school?
  
• Given all we know about the execution of the Iraq War, if you could go back in time, would you still support going to war?
  
• Despite all the reports about warming, is the Earth fine with no reason to change anything?
  
• Do you respect draft dodgers who criticize wounded and decorated veterans as a political ploy?
  
• Do you respect Senators with medical degrees pronouncing diagnoses based on a video of a patient?
  
• Do you consume more than one gallon of gas in your one-way commute to work each day?
  
• Are you so computer-partisan that you have any OS-affiliated adornments in your office (e.g. Microsoft/Apple/Linux poster)?
  
• Are you so lazy that you make a habit of (i) littering (ii) pressing the "handicap" switch to open a door?
  
• Do you generally associate certain cars with genders, such as "I couldn't drive a minivan instead of an SUV" or "That's a girl's car"?
  
• Do you regular (i) use the left-most lane of highway for cruising? (ii) refuse to signal turns (iii) refuse to turn on your lights when it's raining?
  
• Have you ever forwarded some internet story which you later came to realize was a complete hoax or urban myth?
  
• Are you still unclear about how to score this test?
  

Eponymous

• Some blogger recently used an offensive word that I think a lot of people don't realize is a slur. I forgot exactly who and I don't want to call attention to anyone. However, consider this a PSA that words such as "gypped," and "welsh" are slurs. Remarkably, it seems "chintzy" is safe.
  
• I think we've got some good candidates this time, so I really haven't paid any attention to the subtle differences in policy between the three, Edwards, Obama, and Hilary. But I really am opposed to dynasties, and would prefer Obama on that count alone.
  
• I have been tagged to answer the question
  

  
  Why do you teach and do the work they do and why academic freedom is critical to that effort?
  

  
  I've always enjoyed teaching...till I started getting paid for it! No, seriously folks, I enjoy about one class a semester. Anything more becomes a burden. I like the challenge of seeing something from many viewpoints. I like having people ask me strange questions...these can challenge me and show me perspectives I never would have thought of on my own. I like seeing people light up with interest (well, it happens sometimes). As an agnostic solipsist (you might exist!), everytime as a kid I thought about the purpose of life, it all came down to my senses...cram it full. Learning, listening to music, eating, and doing stuff outside. That's what life is about. I'm no good at music and couldn't make a living outside, so I stuck with the learning. In fact, I doubted I'd become a professor. As opposed to many in the blogosphere, my professors did make me quite aware of the chances of getting a position. For me graduate school was just the logical conclusion to keep learning physics. I figured I'd eventually leave the field and go to Wall Street or some other society-sucking profession (such as patent lawyer...I even took the LSAT).
  
  So I've been teaching for a long time. Tutoring all through high school and college, some TA positions in undergrad and grad, and then this job. I've got lots of ex-students that have liked my classes, but I'm not one of those with uniformly good student reviews (about whom I tend to be quite skeptical). I can do a pretty decent job of it without sacrificing on my research much. And I usually like it. So I teach.
  
  My friends tell me I could never hold down a "real" job. I'm not so sure, but certainly I couldn't do it without some crushing of my soul. When I was a teenager I worked thirty hours a week (during school) in typical teenager jobs. During college summers I had a couple internships at your standard big employer. The challenge was to look busy after completing a two-week task in a day or two. I have a great job now. On the best of days, I get to figure out ways to do things no one else has *ever* figured out. On the worst of days, I have silly meetings, and grading to catch up on. On other good days, I'm in some far off country listening to a good talk after which a bunch of us head out to a great restaurant. On other bad days, I get nothing done and simply decide to open up a long dormant book or magazine and read about some other cool physics.
  
  As for academic freedom, I'm not sure it's really been an issue for me. Certainly I was more outspoken before I got tenure.
  
• I keep meaning to discuss some of the issues by the Incoherent Ponderer, but he is
  just too prolific.
  

Demimonde

• I long ago stopped buying music. I can't stand the RIAA. I know there's independent music out there, but the days when I could afford the time to just listen to great music and be transported elsewhere are long gone. But if I were younger, the overprocessing of music these days would bother me.
  Funny, I remember in college an EE major was trying to argue with me that CDs were demonstrably better (neh, perfect) than analog recordings with some simple sampling arguments. So this stuff doesn't affect me much, but I have a similar complaint w/r/t the audio on current movies. The first of which is why do movie studio movies lack reasonable audio sometimes? Two people talking outside but sounding like they're in a small room really bugs me. And then you watch a movie on DVD at home, and the movie is super loud in the action sequences but the conversations are so low you can't hear it. Here's we need such audio compression. As a followup, you might read on Slashdot about the return of vinyl.
  
• A surprising amount of physics in a NYT article on the role of heat in cooking.
  
• If, like me, you've wondered how people can possibly vote as they do, you might enjoy this article. Update: Sean has some more comments on this.
  
• I go through notebook computer batteries pretty quickly. I think because I actually use it as an extra desktop. So this time, every time I park my laptop on my desk for any extended length of time, I switch out my recent, good battery for the old one. I'll let you know how well this works. And yes, I know I could just leave the battery out, but it's nice to have a battery in there in case I have to move it or the power goes out or something.
  
• The Incoherent Ponderer has some posts on faculty pay and on tenured folk's ability to say "no." Regarding the former, I wanted to mention that one of the nice things about this job is that I can look forward to someday simply changing what I research. I can simply take a sabbatical and learn a whole new field. Regarding the latter, there are many who abuse tenure. I've pretty much thought of it the same way I do about welfare. Yeah, people abuse it, but it's still a good idea. However, I'm becoming more and more skeptical (of tenure that is, not welfare programs).
  
• Chad turned me on to this new physics blog, which discusses refereeing. I can certainly concur that there's way too much which gets published in my field. This over-abundance means that I'm hesitant to respond to an editor that the paper is out of my field. Basically, I give the paper a quick read (e.g. a "smell test"). If I can tell it's probably bad and if I have a chance of making a convincing case of it, I take it. If I can't make much of it or can't argue against it, then I pass it back. What's more interesting is that, for some reason, I'm often called in essentially to arbitrate papers when either the authors and referees are getting hostile or different referees wildly disagree. I get a small ego boost out of such requests, but I imagine it is only because I basically make it a rule to pretend that my reports might become public with my name attached.
  
• I went to a show the other night, and a woman from behind me tapped me on the shoulder. She just wanted to let me know that if her daughter, who was directly behind me, kicked the seat or acted up it was because she was autistic. I didn't know quite what to say, and basically just said that was fine, and thanked her for letting me know. Indeed, I was quite thankful because I could easily dismiss such behavior in that case, but it would drive me nutty otherwise. It turns out, the girl behaved quite well with only occasional kicking and a couple very brief exclamations. A boy who appeared to be her brother however was very loud and buggy, but I suspect he's not autistic (I didn't say anything).
  

Brought to you by Goldman Sachs

• I really can't see wondering into a bookstore, and just buying a book because it looks good. I'd want to see what others have to say about it first or maybe even google some reviews or something. I wonder if any brick & mortar stores are including terminals with which to check reviews. It's not just the money but my time I don't want to waste on a stinker.
  
• Anyone know of a good shopping list generator? Not something tied to recipes, but just one that let's you select the stuff you usually buy from some comprehensive list. Then, before each time you go to the store, you can look at what you often buy and pick what you actually need or want? So that, for example, if you try some new dish one week, it doesn't evaporate into memory..instead its ingredients can be put on the comprehensive list so you might actually remember to say, "Hey, I liked such-and-such, I'll buy the ingredients again."
  
• Why can't the Registrar post the finals schedule at the beginning of the semester? There must be some motivation for waiting till just a few weeks before the end of the term?
  
• The NYT a few days ago covered the status of particle accelerators in use for treating cancer. An interesting article which I think, despite the costs, points to the future of modern medicine. For any physics students so inclined, it's probably a good idea to head in this direction.
  
• Via the Freakonomics Blog, here's a cool article concerning
  

  
  You don't see with the eyes. You see with the brain.
  

  
  As a half-hearted solipsist, I've always been fascinated by the senses.
  

Tone

Sean correctly closes the comments in a car-wreck of a physics discussion...a horrible mess which is nevertheless difficult not to look at:

Okay, children. Essentially everyone in this comment thread has managed to be some combination of whiny, obnoxious, incorrect, disingenuous, unhelpful, and plain old embarrassing.

Trying to crystallize my own feelings on it, I happened, funnily enough, to catch this quote from Professor Frink on The Simpsons this morning

It should be obvious to even the most dimwitted individual who holds an advanced degree in hyperbolic topology that Homer Simpson has stumbled into the third dimension.

To find the precise wording, I found this article which, to introduce the above quote, states

The Simpsons writers often play on mathematical cultural stereotypes, extracting humor by exaggerating both the mathematical illiteracy of the U.S. public and the nerdiness and self-aggrandizement of the mathematically gifted.

Media

I wanted to be the first (of what I'm sure will be many) blogger to link to this article at the NYT about Walter Lewin's popularity in his online lecture videos. You've probably seen this MIT physicist on many NOVA shows such as "The Elegant Universe."

Speaking of vids, I just finished watching "No End In Sight." I watch it and just cannot fathom how otherwise respectable people still support this administration. If nothing else, it is at least somewhat heartening to think that the legacy of these people (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and probably to a lesser extent, Rice) will in fact suffer quite a bit...though I suppose we'll have to see who writes the textbooks under possible legacy administrations by Jeb and Jenna.

This viewing follows a recent viewing of "Sicko" which interestingly points out an apparently key decision by the Nixon administration leading to a for-profit health care system in this country. Both of these really go a long way toward showing sane people how important government and competence is (as I expect will my planned viewing of "When the Levees Break" about Katrina). Of course on the other hand, I suppose insane people take such documentaries as signs of a liberal or terrorist conspiracy (if they see a distinction between the two).

Biographies

ROTD: Your reading for today consists of a couple bio's of some scientists. The Washington Post does a nice job w/ Neil deGrasse Tyson who probably needs no introduction. There's a bit about the movie Titanic at the end if you need a hook to keep you reading.

The other is a story of an up-and-coming biologist which I spotted via the Freakonomics blog, but then subsequently saw Lubos talking about it and his previous interview with her. Reader beware ;), a number of properties of the subject are mentioned in the article such as her weight, hipness, and previous training as an 18-wheeler driver.

An Interview with a Relativist

Kip Thorne, in an interview published by Discover magazine gives a couple interesting quotes

• Regarding rumors that he's working with Steven Spielberg:
  

  
  I’m working on a science fiction film with Steven that’s based on a treatment I coauthored with the producer Lynda Obst. I will be an executive producer on the film, basically focused on bringing good science into it. I expect that nothing in the film will violate fundamental physical law, and all the wild speculations in the film will spring from science. The working title is Interstellar, but it’s unlikely that will be the final title. It is a story in which the warped side of the universe plays a major role.
  

  
  
• Regarding the merits of string theory:
  

  
  It shows many signs of being on the right track toward a correct quantum theory of gravity. It has given rise to a number of very important ideas that have a good shot at being correct, such as higher dimensions, such as the possibility of forming mini-black holes at the LHC [Large Hadron Collider, a new particle accelerator that may be up and running next year], and thereby probing higher dimensions. String theory is now beginning to make concrete, observational predictions which will be tested. Claims that it is just theorists playing mental masturbation are, I think, nonsense.
  

  
  Interestingly, the article provides a link with the words "mental masturbation" to an article about Peter Woit's book, though it's not perfectly clear (to me at least) that Kip is refering to "Not Even Wrong." Not to mention the fact that both Woit's and Smolin's criticisms don't really reduce to that particular alliterative phrase. Have either of these two, or anyone else for that matter, used such a criticism?
  

(via It's Equal, but It's Different)

The State of Physics in 100 Years

First, I wanted to point out a good read on math/science achievement differences between the sexes which I found via the Freakonomics blog.

I took a poll in my class the other day asking the students to rate their "belief" in certain aspects of modern physics. To get them started and to normalize the 0..10 scale, I basically asked them the probability they felt described the chance that a given theory/idea would still be around in 100 years. I put up the following (roughly in order of how I would rank them):

• Special Relativity (SR)
  
• Quantum Mechanics (QM)
  
• General Relativity (GR)
  
• The Big Bang (BB)
  
• Inflation
  

SR finds itself at the top because it's hard to see how any new theory wouldn't conform to it. Likewise w/ QM, but to perhaps a somewhat lesser extent with hidden variables, non-locality, and interpretations. GR, despite its success, will surely come up for some modification, if only to fit into quantum gravity. But of course, there could be higher order curvature terms, other couplings, etc. Even more far out, maybe gravity is emergent. As for BB, depending on how one limits the theory, will surely be around, but to what extent? How changed will it be? And then there's inflation, and to this, one could add the anthropic principle. I'm not sure how much I want to say here, but I suspect we're getting pretty controversial. Of course, I wisely left off any theories-which-must-not-be-named, I think I'd rather go off and name a Teddy bear "Mohamed," than open that can of worms.

Contempt

I come up with plenty of gems filled with the wisdom I've collected in my physics career, but I just have the problem of getting to a computer in time to type them up for this blog. One of these gems concerns the tone one often encounters in physics.

It's a hard thing to discuss, in part, because it's hard to pin down and describe. At its essence is contempt. If one were trying to "cook" up the sauce corresponding to this conversational tone, contempt would be the chicken broth base. There's subtle spice added so that the contempt may not be directed at the audience, but instead to others who don't understand.

Somewhat paradoxically, you need to speak as if only the very intelligent can understand while at the same time making the subject appear child's play. In such a way, it is very perilous to ask a question because that may indicate how little is understood. And if your audience asks a deep question or one to which you don't know the answer, by all means, hide this fact. Act as if it's a stupid question, but you need to do so in a viable way so that on the off chance your audience actually does understand things better than you, they don't see through your bluff.

If you've never encountered such a tone (meaning you've had very limited exposure to physicists), this description may not do you much good. An example is in order, and thus we get to the cause which engendered this post (three and four syllable words are like a touch of cinnamon when adopting this superior tone).

Now before I provide a link, let me say that I don't relish harping on fellow bloggers from behind the safety of my anonymity. I've got three reasons for doing so. The first is that this blogger, in the words our president might use, "brought in on" himself. Another is that I'm not really harping on him, personally. Jacques' been trained just as so many others have. And the third is to defend Jacques after appearing to be such a jerk. He's been trained that way. Arguably, one must act like this in his field to maintain the respect of his peers. In person, he seems a pretty reasonable guy.

So, if you've not read it, you might take a look at Jacques Distler's adventure into all that is E8/Lisi:

• If you look at all the italics he uses in the first sentence, you clearly see that this is all beneath him. He doesn't see any benefit, but just had to speak up. Why so?
  
• In the next paragraph he slams the Physics blogosphere (of which he is a member) and Sean in particular. Sean publishes a reasonable discussion of why he chose not to read the paper, a process of thought executed tens, if not hundreds of times by every active physicist every week or month. He further hammers home his point in the update by declaring "the Physics blogosphere as an intellectual wasteland." Umm, sure there's some garbage out there, but when Steinn/Sean/Chad/Doug/etc explains some recent paper, how can that not be considered intelligent? Just as garbage shows up on the Arxiv, some shows up on the blogosphere.
  
• He finally gets to some physics where his "tone" becomes a bit more apparent (in contrast to just being a jerk). He mentions something that "Garret[t] never deigns to tell us" as if Garrett is somehow the one adopting a superior tone. What's funny is that Jacques gets corrected on this point later.
  
• He then expresses vaguely directed contempt by explaining "for reasons that are obvious to anyone who has taken more than a passing glance at Garrett's paper." Right, "anyone" should understand this point...meaning you are a big idiot if you glanced at the paper and still don't know the reasons. This really serves no other purpose than conveying his contempt or bolstering his own ego.
  
• In the comments, he really tries hard to provide good examples. He sighs at one point in explaining some horribly simple thing.
  
• In responding to Garrett (yes, he actually tries to help Jacques, and one should really contrast their two ways of "talking"), Jacques asks Garrett to "enlighten" him...he couldn't use the word "explain" because that would imply Jacques didn't know something, and one can't do that (easily) in his field of competence. One must always maintain the attitude that you are the teacher and thereby any question is just an opportunity for the pupil to gain praise.
  
• Jacques later advises Garrett that "it would be best to pick one story and stick to it." That just plain isn't nice.
  
• Later, he brings out more italics saying he "really didn't want to post." But then why did he? And why must he protest so much (besides the logically inconsistency of not wanting to post yet doing it). Surely he knew he couldn't tamp down the media hype. Because other bloggers weren't being sufficiently critical? I've read quite a bit of criticism and skepticism in the wasteland. I wonder if it was because the skepticism was actually polite and reasoned (I didn't read Motl, though).
  
• He follows this up with "I'm annoyed enough at the apparent intellectual standards of the physics blogosphere."
  

Questions

• I've only done Sudoko once. I don't really see the point. My lazy students say they do it. And someone on the plane recently was doing it. But she must have spent two hours on a single one. And I didn't see her write anything other than the numbers in the box. No notes at all about the possible solutions. Maybe that explains why she was so slow. Is that how most people do it?
  
• Why do hotels buy fancy, flat panel (LCD or plasma) TVs and then feed them with either a standard definition signal or an awful, noisy high-def one?
  
• Does Sean get any money for all the quotes that APS News uses from him?
  
• More and more, I'm being upgraded from economy to an SUV rental vehicle. Who buys a Jeep Liberty anyway? I suppose lots of people given my difficulty picking out my car in parking lots. The steering is so loose, that you need to use two hands just to keep the thing going straight on the highway. I suppose this impresses those who test drive it in a parking lot and you can steer with one finger?
  
• Does reading a paper on the computer result in a net benefit to the environment? I had always gone on that assumption, but I've since gained an appreciation for power sucked down by computers. I suppose it depends on how often one refers to the paper, and whether the computer would be running anyway.
  
• I know that Blackberries and the like, have really come down in price, but am I right in assuming that everyone walking around with such a device is paying something like, at the minimum, $30/month for voice and another $30/month for data?
  

Insulting Job Offers of less than $5 Million

This whole Joe Torre stuff reminds me of a job offer I got once. I had interviewed, and things had gone well. I really liked the department, and thought there would be a good fit. After waiting a few weeks, hoping to strike a balance between being an over eager pest and showing a lack of interest, I contacted the chair. He was being a bit coy saying I'd hear from the Dean quite soon. That wasn't encouraging. A week later and still no word, I called the Chair and he said I should have received a letter. That was strange because if they were rejecting me, why couldn't he just tell me at that point. And if they weren't rejecting me, then we needed start negotiating salary, teaching load, etc. Well, sure enough the next day an offer letter arrives. I don't recall if there was any startup, but I sure remember the salary, about 2/3 my then current salary...even though they had no idea what my salary was because we hadn't gotten to the point of discussing it. I found that whole episode very strange. Nothing I had read prepared me for it. Ultimately, I decided that the department wanted me, but the dean didn't. So he gives me an obviously low salary in a manner, if not outright insulting, then at the least quite out of the ordinary. Luckily, I was in a tenure-track job already and had the luxury of turning it down. I was tempted to stir things up a bit, complain to someone hire than the dean, or tell some of the less meek members of the department what the dean was doing, but I didn't. I suppose I should count myself lucky I avoided such a political place.

Screaming, Laughing, Crying

• This story of Rush Limbaugh bragging about intimidating a journalist sheds some light on why I prefer to remain outside any limelight. More germane to a blog such as this, one has to be careful which fights one chooses in the academic world. Rob is still struggling even after having left it. Me? I nearly erupted on the phone with an administrator today. I put in the paperwork a month ago to buy some equipment, and was told two weeks ago that the purchase order would be sent out in a day or two. Yesterday, when the vendor told me no PO had shown up, my phone call got passed up to an "assistant director." I still had a folksy, friendly tone when I was asking what was holding things up, and she had the nerve to reply "Ahh, if we could be on top of things 24 hours a day..." as if giving them weeks was the same as asking for a 24-hour turnaround! The nerve! The higher one goes up the administrative ladder, the closer one gets to reptilian.
  
• If you like these types of right/left brain things, you might check out this animated gif of a dancer. Some people see her going clockwise, some counter-clockwise, and a surprising number see her going different directions each time they look. Me? I can't see her going any other way than clockwise. You might look at her first before reading what is very likely a silly interpretation of any result.
  
• Keeping with the fun theme, you might check out this site which generates cool ASCII pictures from regular ones. They've got some samples there.
  
• Breaking with the fun theme, have you heard about this Carnegie Mellon CS prof who's dying? A really bitter-sweet story from the always lovable folks at the Wall Street Journal, believe it or not.
  
• Sticking to no theme at all, I've got a Windows notebook here which keeps losing its network connection because there's another machine on the same subnet with the same IP. I've tried using DHCP as well as a registered IP address I have. Clearly, IT can't configure a DHCP server correctly, but I've notified IT a couple times, so my strategy is to leave it on 24 hours a day in the hopes that whoever else has the same IP will complain enough to get the problem fixed. Am I jerk? Or am I learning?
  

Childrens Do Learn

• Does anyone know an easy way to display the most recent diff of a file in CVS? Right now, I'll go to work on some text file in a CVS distribution on which many people are working. Very often, the first thing I want is to view what they've done recently. What I end up doing is:
  

  
  cvs update -Rd
  
  cvs log text.txt | more
  
  cvs diff -r 1.33 -r 1.32 text.txt | more
  

  
  where the most recent version of text.txt is 1.33. But it seems there must be an easier way than having to determine what the most recent version is. Any help?
  
• I know mushrooms are fungi (``A mushroom walks into a bar...''), and not plants. But does that necessarily mean they are not vegetables?
  
• Have you seen the latest spy shots of the new Toyota Prius? What's that...you don't trust those darn batteries, then how 'bout the new Honda Fit?
  
• Where do you go for all your missile defense news? If any of you have any remaining faith that such a system will protect, you might want to head over to Wired and on to the referenced Rolling Stone article.
  
• Why is it that the longer I go without posting, it seems the harder it is to actually post? Do I have a subconscious desire to make the period in between my posts scale as a power law? Or am I into "long tails"?
  
• Yesterday I ran into a big problem. Something wasn't going right in that the same thing, done twice, got me two different results. It put me in a bad mood. So today the problem is still there, so why do I feel better? Why am I about to go see what I've got on Tivo? Because I've "bracketed" the problem. The non-repeatability is repeatable and hence, with enough work, I'll figure out what's going wrong. I'm not sure the most efficient way, so I'll let things stew a bit while watching Mythbusters and it should come to me.
  

Wake up those sleeping dogs!

Have you read the most recent post on Cosmic Variance about the issue of varying aspect ratios in various video sources? John pulls a sample frame from some CNN video with a picture of a woman and a child. He's amazed that people claim not see a distortion when the original aspect ratio is changed. All very good...of course the high def people I know get very defensive if you bring up that this issue exists.

Anyway, in his text, he casually makes mention of

And if you don’t prefer the one where the nice-looking mom’s face is not grossly distorted, then I am even more baffled!

...is this not similar in intent (if not to the same degree) as Tommaso's crush on Lisa Randall? Sure this woman is not a physicist, but does that matter? The comment appears on a physics blog and isn't that the important part? And the comment is similarly "irrelevant" to the context.

Don't get me wrong...I don't fault John in the least. I'm just not clear I really get the reasoning behind thinking there's much harm to these types of comments.

Craig! Craig!

• I've been forgetting to mention this news...You know that corrupt politician? No, not that one. No, not that one either. No, not either of the two arrested in the bathroom. Ah, right him! Well, turns out that Senator Stevens of Alaska has somehow brought the NSF into the fold.
  
• Someone's post recently had the melodious word in the title "tarball." I like that word for some reason. Which reminds me of something I very often do that makes me suspect a mild form of dyslexia. I type fast. Probably, faster than most anyone you know. And I often switch around letters (I even do this on a chalkboard). What's strange is that I somehow know I've made a typing mistake (but not necessarily that I switched letters, just that there was some failure). This happens a lot with options to commands in which the order doesn't matter. So my standard is to type "tar xzvf junk.tgz junk". No real point here, but I thought it was interesting.
  
• I'm a bit reluctant to comment on the quickly polarizing arguments traversing the physogosphere. I think I'm pretty much in the middle, thinking I can see both sides...a surefire way to be criticized by all, I'm sure. I'll use bullets to gain an air of authority and objectivity:
  
  
  
  • Some actions by males can really contribute to an unhealthy environment for women. Grabbing some women's backside, for example, would certainly be way over the line. That these comments occur in the context of a public forum on physics (despite his claim to being his private thoughts) puts them certainly on the same spectrum whether or not they are over the line.
    
  • With that said, it's not clear to me at all that the comments are over the line as so many seem to believe. Do they make women
    uncomfortable being in the realm of physics (at least moreso, than some initial, knee-jerk, PC reaction)? It's hard for me to see that they do.
    
  • In either of these cases, I'm confident that he meant no harm, and if indeed, he crossed some line, he did so barely. In the limit that women are no less comfortable being physicists than men (maybe we'll reach that point in the next couple of centures), I think any harm from these comments approach their vacuum value, so-to-speak.
    
  
  
• The IP reads 100% of the things I write. Now, that's the kind of devotion I expect...neh, require! Seriously though, I have also noticed that there seems to be an ideal SNR for a blog. Some folks post lots and gets lots of readers, but presumably don't get read as closely. As the saying goes, "You say nucular and I say nuclear."
  
• The NYT just reported the death of P.B. MacCready. I only know he is because I just finished watching a Scientific American Frontiers all about him and his flying machines this morning. What a coincidence. It's a bit dated, but I still liked it.
  

Alberto! Alberto!

Another resignation, another post...

• I've seen a couple ads for a new show with the apropos title "The Big Bang Theory"...apparently it's a sitcom believe it or not.
  
• Gizmodo roundup:
  
  
  
  • Yet another supercomputer pix
    
  • A new and more robust Roomba is out. We really liked ours, but we haven't enjoyed the significant effort of cleaning it. And a couple of the parts have "somewhat" broken. So a more robust one is welcome though I'll wait till cheaper ones can be had.
    
  • For some reason, I really enjoyed this picture of a yacht falling vertically into the ocean. It's somehow surreal, yet Gizmodo assures the picture is in fact just real.
    
  
  
• The new Science Times is out, but you might take a look at lask week's article on "Sleights of Mind"...it features Teller of Penn & Teller and makes for a good read.
  
• There's been a big scare with children's toys painted with lead paint, and so I was interested to read a couple articles about why lead is used at all:
  NYT and Slate.
  
• Not sure what to make of this new site http://www.scivee.tv/...anyone tried it?
  
• The IP has a new series on faculty job searches, the second of which can be found here. I began this blog in part to comment on some of my job searches...they cause so much stress, frustration, and exhaustion. They also seem to bring out the worst in people. I suppose if I had to boil things down to their fundamentals, that one vital homeopathic essence, it is to kiss up. No matter how bad you are at it, no matter how obvious you might think you're being, do it. Get good at it. Be able to do it without showering right afterword. Once, I only realized in hindsight that one person with whom I interviewed was looking to get back into a field and needed someone to work with. Once, I didn't ooh and awe enough. Once, the decision was literally being made by one guy who as much as admitted that the chosen one showed initiative by sucking up. The bottom line is, in all seriousness, that you need a few people who will not only vote for you in committee, but will actively fight for you.
  

Karl! Karl!

• Slate has a somewhat interesting take on the mathematics of counting sexual partners.
  
• The NYT has a short article on some solipsistic ideas. (More commentary on this week's Science Times)
  
• Also in the NYT, a nice fluff piece on the Veyron (if you wonder what it is, you're probably not interested). I actually debated mentioning it here but the kicker was the line ``like an antiproton in a particle collider.''
  
• From Gizmodo:
  
  
  
  • A homemade telescope made with a cooking pot?
    
  • Ever seen a large supercomputer?
    
  
  
• The FSP is upset about a crude and offensive conversation she overhead between two male ministers. I certainly don't defend what was said, but I would hate to be judged by various conversations I've had! I think I can objectively say I'm fairly progressive, but in the confines of good friends, it can be a bit exhilarating to say verboten stuff. Of course, you could argue then I must be a cretin even to be able to say them in private (even though I don't really think them). Perhaps, but I can sense my primitive, ``animal'' roots within...sort of like one might say "he/she is in touch with his/her female/male side."
  
• Julianne at Cosmic Variance has some weird eating habits that she suspects typifies science geeks (Sean is not going to be happy about such generalizations of science-types). I find this a bit strange. I don't do such things, but food for me is fairly sacred. Nor do I do crossword puzzles (we just saw the reasonably captivating documentary Wordplay). In fact, I've never been any sort of puzzle person. I'd read all the popular physics stuff I could find. And I'd take apart anything I could...that I couldn't get it back together again was always a nuisance. Oh, one other geek thing I did was to construct an elaborate string-crane system by which, without leaving my bed, I could maneuver a paper clip anywhere in the room and retrieve things (well lightweight things).
  
• I've been trying to understand why Bush supporters piss me off so much. Intuitively I've known, but it's hard to put into words. It's not that they disagree with me or my positions...such diversity is good. No, instead it's a bit reminiscent of the classroom environment of Bart Simpson...sort of like Martin Prince piping up asking for the assignment to require more pages and that it be typed. Or imagine aliens come invade and enslave the Earth, only to find some resident of say Albania helping the aliens. You could accept them working to further Albania's interests, but not the aliens'. In the current environment, support for Bush is essentially unforgivable. Sort of like those people who make it profitable for spammers and like people who support inane and inflammatory talk radio/tv (speaking of, it sounds like Imus is coming back).
  

More of the same

• Cool crystals and scary skateboarding fall.
  
• From Slashdot, the physics of beer bubbles.
  
• From Gizmodo, a big truck to assemble telescopes.
  
• Sean's three-part series on what it takes to get a theory paper out got me thinking that there can be much more stress to it. It's not always (often?) that one simply chats with colleagues or has epiphanies in upscale bars (my epiphanies usually come in the shower). What's missing from his discussion is the stress, the drive, the stubborn refusal to let some issue stand in the way. I'm working on a problem right now that is ostensibly easy. But as I got close it became clear that I needed to change how I was computing something. Fine, I knew how to do that. But the method didn't quite work as expected. A certain instability was preventing getting a result. A few hours later, I remembered another trick that should overcome that problem. I still have to implement and then I should be on track again...at least until something else creeps up and tries to block me. That's the thing with research. You have to have an attitude that you'll get to the end, otherwise you'll just move on to something easier (and presumably less significant). You can't just go home 5pm, show up at the office at 9am and say to yourself, "Ok, let's see what we can do about that problem today." It's mostly self-driven and most people outside of research don't have much of a clue. But more importantly this type of stress can make personal relationships tough. I don't have any hard numbers, but it seems academic physics research has more than its share of divorces.
  

Interest

• Fans of baseball might be interested in the following little news blurb about a study of the efficiency of competitions, especially considering their already diminished threshold of what provokes interest.
  
• Some interesting stuff at Gizmodo recently:
  
  
  
  • Cool spacewalk pictures.
    
  • Using your Wii-mote to control a telescope
    
  • Jay Leno reviews the Tesla Roadster electric sports-car.
    
  
  
• Reading a fairly generic international thriller in which the central protagonist describes an ordinary meeting with some new character as a defining moment, separating two distinct periods in his life. A meeting after which he could never return to his earlier state even though at the time of the meeting none of this significance was apparent. Reminded me of one's path across a black hole's event horizon.
  
• Saw "The Simpson's Movie" today. Didn't expect too much despite being a huge fan and admirer of the show. Had heard good reviews. The movie was certainly okay, but ultimately it just felt like an animated movie. It lacked the wit and penetration of the best of the TV shows. It also barely involved my favorite characters (e.g. Mr. Burns and Barney). Lisa is arguably my favorite character and she's involved, but not in a very satisfying way. Again, not bad. I suppose when an episode let's you down a bit it's no big deal. But after paying your $7 and making a special trip to a once in two decades movie experience, there's not the luxury of just saying it's not the best.
  

Three Things You Can't Be

• You can't be selfless. No matter what, it's always because you want to.
  
• You can't behave unnaturally. You are part of nature.
  
• You can't be busy. Ok, this is a bit more debatable than the others, but I basically always have stuff to do. If I take a break, I'm busy relaxing.
  

Other:

• Funny quote from Scott Aaronson:
  

  
  I'm telling you, if a giant asteroid were going to hit the earth in a week, the first question academics would ask would be how to beat out competing proposals for the "$50-million Deflection of Space-Based Objects" initiative at NSF.
  

  
  
• You know you travel too much when you forget which light switches match with which lights in your own home.
  
• Saw this in the NYTimes feed by George Johnson on Meta Physicists (I mention it only because I didn't see any of the usual 6' 5" suspects mention it).
  

Pol Potpourri

• Cluster computing during an Earthquake? That's what Sun was testing with an interesting video about the results (notice that the test results are shown on Windows platforms, not a Sun operating system).
  
• Nice to hear some sane thoughts on a difference between Macs and Windows boxes...even if it concerns the rather mundane details of each of them deals with rendering fonts.
  
• There's been lots of talk lately about people pissing off judges. Not just the sheriff defying the judge in Paris Hilton's case, but also in the Scooter Libby case. I think this footnote he stuck in is brilliant, and, unless you've been reading Talking Points Memo as I've recommended, you've probably heard nothing of it.
  
• FSP gets asked "Didn't the senior co-authors read this thing?" concerning one of her submissions. I've asked the same question a number of times, but not about simple editing. No, I've challenged a couple of the ostensible leaders of a small field concerning overly general applications of simple theorems. I'm still left wondering if they're really as stupid as both their original manuscript and their responses indicate. I suppose they're just used to bullying referees or something. I'm comforted by two facts: (i) their papers didn't get accepted and (ii) they don't know who I am, but I know who they are.
  
• The Cavs are so outclassed. As the strange dude on ESPN says (paraphrasing) "The Cavs are a good team in the JV league that is the Eastern Conference." I like LeBron, but he needs help on defense and offense. It may be sacrilege to some, but MJ needed help as well.
  
• Federer lost and I'm happy. I don't really have anything against him, but I figure his rivalry with Nadal is best preserved if Nadal maintains his reign at the French Open. And oh yeah, though I hate to root against records being broken, I love Sampras so if Federer never wins it, it'll be tougher to say Federer is better than Sampras. And if anyone dares mention Agassi in the comments...
  

Errata

• You know those alumni magazines? I really don't understand the custom of including a spouse's alma mater. The chances that any readers went to that school are nearly nil, so presumably it's just some sort of pedigree sort of like saying "Joe Schmoe married Susan Aragon of the Cheshire Aragons." It bugs me. I wonder if I could sneak this by the editors:
  

  
  John Smith '84 is happy to announce his engagement to Susie Doe (York Middle School '06). The wedding is scheduled for Susie's 17 birthday in Kentucky.
  

  
  
• I'm looking to buy one of those universal power adapters for the airplane and am looking at iGo's Juice70. I'm no electrical engineer, but my notebook's power adapter is a 90 watt unit. In addition to the power adapter, I'm thinking I'd invest in a little plug adapter so that I can just bring this setup overseas without bringing the US power supply that came with the notebook. Is the 70 watt adapter going to be sufficient? For those non-physicists, you might be surprised at the general ignorance of any practical electrical knowledge among career physicists (not all, but some). For those engineers out there, the surprise is probably instead that I would even realize the adapters differ in different countries!
  
• Slashdot refers us to an interview with Guth and Turok about the Big Bang (Censor's note: "Big Bang Theory").
  
• I still haven't commented much on Rob's tenure woes. Once again, I don't have anything too deep to say, but I did want to comment on one issue that Rob raises. That is, the job market is very much non-liquid. That is, once you get a tenure-track job, it's not that you've broken through and can move around to a school which provides a good fit. This may seem obvious, but this makes for a fair amount of frustration. Of course, for those in their fifth postdoc not able to get a tenure-track position, there's probably not much sympathy.
  
• FSP talks about what it takes to succeed as a science professor:
  

  
  So, even if you're not brilliant: if you are smart, can get things done, and can think of new things to do, you've got most of what it takes to be a science professor.
  

  
  My experience suggests most (if not all) prospective physicists think themselves brilliant for some amount of time. That perception suffers increasing attacks as you progress out of high school. But I pretty much agree with her...it takes all kinds in physics, somewhat like a basketball team. It always helps to have a superstar but you also need the workhorses and the role players. Not necessarily brilliant physicists, but people who can get a job done.
  

Automotive Motif

• Lots of physics bloggers talking about Toyota's Prius lately...I just wanted to point out that the Prius is also notable for having lots of safety features: VSC (optional), tire pressure monitoring, etc. The latter I consider a safety feature not just because it might help avoid a dangerous blowout. But also if it helps you avoid being stuck on the road somewhere changing a tire, that helps with safety. I tried to convince my sister that getting her child a big SUV isn't necessarily the best path to safety for a variety of reasons, but reliability being one (to no avail of course..she bought a Volvo and was rewarded with the breaks going out a year later!).
  
• Speaking of cars, it seems that very often I find late-model cars with one brake light out in the rear. And it's always a domestic or European car. I'm sure there's some amount of my bias there, but it's hard to imagine that accounts for it all.
  
• If this works out as a way of producing hydrogen fuel it sure would be good news...the sad thing is that when I saw that it was from Purdue, I became dubious.
  
• A cute pic of a geeky car
  

Bonus: Slashdot is hosting a question about which careers math & science majors should pursue.

Angry

• NSF requires us to book our international flights on American carriers which often means a code-shared flight. So I do so, spending more taxpayer-funded grant money than I should, and what does it get me? Well, I can't book the seats until I show up at the airport. So I'm spending 50% more than I should to get service worse than if I booked directly. Let's us all pray that I get a good seat...if she's not too busy choosing sides in sporting events.
• I never liked Mathematica. I "grew-up" with Maple and just figured my DNA didn't go that way. Sure, Mathematica is just about the most unforgiving (and arguably least natural) syntax out there, I'm sure to folks in Illinois it makes some sense. But then there's their (site) licensing. Every year, Wolfram makes sure to remind you that productivity doesn't matter one lick when you need a quick answer and it won't run because the password is expired. Sure, we have paid for the license, but they make us enter these silly passwords. And no, no warnings that we might want to make sure to get our passwords soon or else we'll encounter this situation. It's so avoidable, but hey, their new and improved version has the periodic table included...oh boy!
  
• The topic de jour is tenure and the attainment thereof. I figure I'll post some thoughts eventually once they crystallize, but in the mean time, it gets me thinking about school administrators. Afterall, tenure decisions usually get input from one's dean and is ultimately made by some cabal of Vice President and Board. Anyway, I was going to say that they are one's enemy, not just in getting tenure but in your very survival. But really, as scientists, I suppose that's too lofty a role because ignorance is the enemy of research and teaching. No, administration (with all due respect to Dean Dad) is some lower evil force through which you must battle. The incessant sand whipping around you as you battle in the desert; the yucky mud as you travel through a swamp. You can't battle the administration, you slog through it. If you're good, really good, you use its energy against itself ala Tai Chi. But it takes time for such mastery.
  

New Dark Matter Discovery?

Seems strange that Nasa would announce a press conference five days early but this might be interesting. Dark matter in a ring...not condensed into a sphere? Is it really the dark matter or is it just a small contribution (such a bunch of MACHO brown dwarfs which don't add up to the expected twenty something percent of the universe's dark matter?

How do you spell Olajuwon?

I know everyone loves to read about politics on a physics blog. Well, either that or good travel stories. I have at the moment, what Colbert calls upon to begin his show, a big dose of "rage" (or ``rage" for all you LaTeX fans) at the moment.

If you don't read Talking Points Memo every once in a while, you're really missing out. Sure there's Daily Kos, Atrios, etc, but those are more like coaches constantly yelling and screaming on the sidelines. Josh (Micah...do I really need to add his middle name?) Marshall provides more a nuanced motivation. Kind of like the opening scenes of the generic revenge, action thriller in which the bad person/company kills the close relative of the protagonist. For Josh, it's less about liberals versus conservatives, and more about the everyman (everyperson) versus the hypocritical powers that be. The latest entries concern Bush's corruption of the DOJ details of which I have a hard time finding in newspapers.

As for the NBA playoffs, I was finally able to sit down and watch the last half hour of game six of the Rockets-Jazz series. Wow...it was like a time-warp back to the Stockton/Malone versus Clyde/Olajuwon, except both teams suck in comparison to the rest of the West (which says a lot about the East). Lots of flopping and picks by Utah, and a complete inability to close out the other team on the part of the Rockets.

One last thing regarding Imus. I had said that it was his job. Well, Don must be reading this blog because, sure enough, it looks like he's going to sue CBS for breach of contract. It turns out his contract had a clause for just this eventuality:

Company (CBS Radio) acknowledges that Artist's (Imus') services to be rendered hereunder are of a unique, extraordinary, irreverent, intellectual, topical, controversial and personal character and that programs of the same general type and nature containing these components are desired by Company and are consistent with Company rules and policies.

Thoughts

• People keep asking me what I think of the whole Imus "incident." Well, I took no offense when he said what he said...I doubt that many of those actually listening at the time would be offended. Sure, they're horribly offensive words. But that's his job! I don't so much blame him...I wouldn't make my living that way...but people listen. It's the public airwaves he's using, but the FCC didn't fire him. When will Rush be fired? And what about Ann Coulter? And there probably are some liberals out there who say some horrible stuff as well though I can't seem to think of any. In short, big deal...well, perhaps the big deal is just that so many people want to listen to such garbage.
  
• If you can't describe what you do for a living in one sentence, I probably can't stand your job. If that one sentence reduces to something like "a {vice-president-type} of {buzzword} for {big company}," that's even worse.
  
• It's great that A-Rod is kicking butt just before (hopefully) going to another team. The Yankees suck...if they win, well they should with that payroll, and if they lose, then they really suck. Plus, what kind of people with no connection to NYC cheer for them?
  
• And the Heat are out of the playoffs to the lowly Bulls. I like Wade, but he's got lots of chances left in him. The classless hulk with whom he plays should retire. And why does CNN's Sports default web page show a box with today's regular season baseball schedule so that you have to click to find out what playooff basketball games are tonight?
  
• "Hilary or Obama?" is an oft heard question. I don't really care, but I'm sick of hearing that Obama is too young and inexperienced. Sure, the media mentions this all the time, but people actually believe it? Being cloistered in the Senate for a couple decades with lots of experience getting elected is going to make one a better President? Hardly. Having read some history books, valuing integrity, and knowing which advisors to trust and when makes a good President.
  
• Blogger has recently become a real pain...with any browser other than IE it doesn't let me login.