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.
  

Various

• Why do hotels provide bags for the ice bucket which never actually fit? Remember when we braved the bucket with no bag?
  
• Not bad for one year of work:
  

  
  James Simons, a 69-year-old publicity shy former math professor, uses complex computer-driven mathematical models to make bets on stocks, bonds and commodities, among other things.
  
  His earnings last year were $1.7 billion.
  

  
  
• Watch out for very large foreign transaction fees on your credit card when going overseas.
  
• I'm still utterly amazed at the corruption of this Administration. Whom to blame? The individuals who act without integrity in their position? Or the people who continue to support them? I always wonder at a system where a misanthrope like myself is at the mercy of a general populace. I don't feel a strong need to convince people of my way of thinking, but it's just hard to believe how anyone could tolerate this level of pervasive corruption.
  
• No physics yet, so let me just comment that there's at least one string theorist not helping the cause. I've seen this person give better talks, but the latest was way too technical and uninteresting. I was ready to hear about the landscape as per the abstract, but that was only discussed in the last few minutes.
  

Certain Principle: String Theory == Bush lover?

Awhile back Chad pissed off all those enamored folks of string theory (well at least some vocal ones). It was a silly joke, but he's really tossing some chum in the waters with this latest posting. Mind you, I'm not offended, I think it's hilarious and look forward to the comments. I especially liked this tweaking:

the entire history of human culture has been nothing more than a steady progression ... to the twin pinnacles of George Bush and string theory.

After all, all the Bush lovers I run into really can't get enough string theory. All the letters to the editor I see decrying how one in three aborted fetuses would have eventually cured some dreadful disease include a postscript describing their favor Calabi-Yao manifold!

What he leaves me wondering is, to which politician do experimentalists bow down? Al Sharpton, a true man of the people? No fence sitting folks!

Geek Gifts

Let A be the set of people who read this blog and B be the set of people who read Gizmodo, assuming that I am the only member of the intersection of these sets, let me refer the remainder to this relativity watch mentioned there. Act now, and you too can own an Einstein action figure.