Dynamics of Cats

Foreshadowing

2010-07-08T02:12:00.000-04:00

Someone is really smart

ping

2010-03-07T22:46:00.000-05:00

this is a ping of this blog
it lives but is pining for the fjords...

List of Loans

2009-08-03T14:10:00.001-04:00

The List of Large Loans by the Old Icelandic Banks - from Wikileaks.

Pass it on.

keeping it live

2009-07-21T13:01:00.002-04:00

hey did everyone hear jupiter got hit this weekend?

this is a test
this is only a test

if this were a real blogpost, it would have actual content...

testing...

2009-05-13T16:42:00.001-04:00

the blog, it lives...

adopt-a-blog - a Parthian Shot

2006-06-09T23:52:00.000-04:00

ScienceBlogs has now expanded to 40+ blogs, with 25 new additions in the current "Big Bang" expansion phase.

Yours truly has been assimilated into the Autonomous Collective.
Someone has supreme executive power, but I only received a movable type account, no scimitars in sight.
Internal rumours are that the Old Farts over on scienceblogs are planning some sort of aquatic ceremony for the New Kids though.

Anyway, for posterity, and y'know, 'cause links are an intrinsic good...

QRT

2006-06-09T00:13:00.001-04:00

Bye.

This blog is shutting down operation.

I'm moving to ScienceBlogs.

Move pointers, blogrolls, links etc to http://scienceblogs.com/catdynamics/

Dynamics of Cats is dead

Long live Dynamics of Cats

iPod iChing - the Autonomous Collective

2006-06-08T23:26:00.000-04:00

Friday, and we ask: oh, mighty iPod - Big Move coming. What shall it portend? And how will it work out?

The Covering: Hjá Bakaranum - Thorbjorn Egner

The Crossing: Panis Angelicus - Pavarotti

The Crown: Have A Heart - Bonnie Raitt

The Root: Burning Down the House - Talking Heads

The Past: Jólalagasyrpa

The Future: Dry Bed - Billy Bragg

The Questioner: Goodbye Blue Sky - Pink Floyd

The House: Alabama Song -Doors

The Inside: A Sailor Went to Sea

The Outcome: Waiting - Green Day

Intriguing. You decide.

As always, the Key as explained by Sean

Waiting

I've been waiting for a long time
For this moment to come
I'm destined
For anything...at all
Downtown lights will be shining
On me like a diamond
Ring out under the midnight hour
No one can touch me now
And I can't turn my back
It's too late ready or not at all

Squyres vs Colbert

2006-06-08T00:00:00.000-04:00

Steve Squyres (Mars Rover PI) was on The Colbert Show.

Did well. I really like Colbert putting on the occasional scientist - Neil de Grasse Tyson, Brian Greene and now Squyres.

Pen and Sword

2006-06-07T10:24:00.000-04:00

Pen and Sword

blog seen on FDL

Looks worth a read.

Built Like a Tank

2006-06-07T10:21:00.000-04:00

GrrlScientist has a cool pic of a new dino

I'm late for a meeting.
If I only knew where the meeting was.

Spacecraft with a view

2006-06-06T22:53:00.000-04:00

Cassini catches backlit Titan silhouetted against The Rings

It is just pretty.

Unsportsmanlike Conduct

2006-06-05T23:04:00.000-04:00

Big Kid is playing football (proper association football, or soccer for you misguided yanks out there).
Er, well, three-a-side on a mini-pitch with infinite substitution and no goalies, but they run around a lot and kick the ball.

So... I've already got over the realization that some of the coaches are coaching bodychecking and elbowing... seems a bit unnecessary, but I suppose it is part of the game. But, last sunday it went too far.

The opposing team, after going down early on, if I may say so, a brilliant goal involving good hustle and well timed passing, started to line up for setplays scowling and growling and screaming. Bad little sports.
Well, the bloody coach, I finally heard first hand, was coaching them to use their "mean faces" and "angry voices"!

WTF is with that?!
IT IS A GAME. WE WEREN"T EVEN ACTUALLY KEEPING SCORE!

Oh, the coaches self-referee. Did I mention that?
Because if you pulled this crap in a real game you'd be yellow carded for unsportsmanlike conduct.
What is the point? It is not part of the game, those kids were not having fun, and win/loss record was not kept.
Well, it works. Even the parents who had never played football realised something was wrong because our kids body language was wrong, they were holding back, not charging the ball or running through the defence - 'cause from their perspective there was something seriously wrong, psycho wrong, with those other kids.

Anyway, we had a chat at halftime and decided humour was the best defence. Didn't work.
Human kid brains are really trained to flinch from open anger and hostility.
The other kids can't have been having any fun, I expect none will continue playing, but for an hour, neither did our kids.

World Cup 2106

2006-06-04T00:02:00.000-04:00

Greg Egan

Currently reading Rainbows End - it is very good btw, but curiously flawed in a way that is consistent with the flaws in Fast Times at Fairmont High, but more on that later - anyway there is an amusing aside there to "Egan Soccer" in an illustrative discussion on consensual reality.
Hm, thought I, sounds familiar.

Off to EganSpace we jump (and if you don't read Greg Egan, you should).

Quantum Soccer!

With Applets! And a full explanation of the math, and the context from the original story,.

Enjoy!

An Ode to 2006

2006-06-02T22:37:00.000-04:00

Gangsters

Why must you record my phone calls?
Are you planning a bootleg L.P?
Said you've been threatened by gangsters
Now it's you that’s threatening me.

Can't fight corruption with con tricks
They use the law to commit crime?
I dread, dread to think what the future will bring
When we’re living in gangster times.

"Don't call me Scarface!"

Don't interrupt while I'm talking
Or they'll confiscate all your guitars.
A catch - 22 says if I sing the truth
They won't make me an overnight star.

Don't offer us legal protection
They use the law to commit crime.
I dread to think what the future will bring
When we're living in real gangster times.

Specials

iPod iChing - Oracular Six

2006-06-02T08:57:00.000-04:00

A cryptic friday, and we are late. No noscience today.

iPod, we ask: what will the next month bring?

Whoosh.

The Covering: Lost John - Lonnie Donnegan

The Crossing: Exodus - Bob Marley

The Crown: Encore - O Sole Mio - Three Tenors

The Root: Magic Flute - Mozart

The Past: Girlfriend is Better - Talking Heads

The Future: Somewhere only we know - Keane

The Questioner: The Internationale - Billy Bragg

The House: Ó blessuð vertu sumarsól - traditional

The Inside: Meunier Tu Dors - Sien Diels

The Outcome: Mommy, Daddy, You and I - Talking Heads

#11 Redundant - Green Day; #12 Rite of Spring

Hm. Changes, revolution, summer and love.

As always, the Key as explained by Sean

carrier convergence

2006-06-02T00:19:00.000-04:00

Nuclear Mangos has a link to a web page in japan that US Aircraft carriers
No idea how reliable are, though some of their info is consistent with stuff in the news, and some is dated.

So... the USS Reagan was in the Persian Gulf, been there 3 months, but been almost six months at sea.
Carrier rotation is six months, so it should be headin back to the US soon. It backed out of the Gulf this week and was in the Indian Ocean.

The USS Enterprise was in the Med, but supposedly crossed the canal to the Red Sea and is near the Persian Gulf.
Norfolk news reported in April she was deploying to the Gulf.

USS Lincoln is in the Pacific, with a six month rotation should go back at the end of June, just made a short stop in Japan.
The USS Stennis scooted out to sea, apparently, right after a visit from Cheney last weekend.
The Stennis could be going to replace the Lincoln.

Anyway, if the US wanted, they could have four carriers just outside the Persian Gulf in the next 4 weeks.
Or they could send two home for well deserved rest. Hope to hear the Reagan and Lincoln are back in harbour soon.

Everything you ever wanted to know about black holes

2006-05-31T23:54:00.000-04:00

Is in a multi-media web presentation at Space Telescope Institute,
http://hubblesite.org/discoveries/black_holes/
courtesy of Dr van der Marel

High bandwidth connection useful I expect

tales from Iraq

2006-05-30T12:55:00.000-04:00

A link to back-to-iraq

because sometimes it is just important to link to things

Smackdown at Science

2006-05-30T10:38:00.000-04:00

NASAwatch points to an interesting exchange at Science

Three months ago, D. Kennedy, editor of Science opined on l'affaire Deutsch at NASA PAO.

Dean Acosta from NASA PAO responds in friday's Letter section

Kennedy replies:

"Acosta offers not a single instance of misrepresentation, fabrication, inaccuracy, or shoddy journalism in my Editorial. Readers can check the New York Times article we both cited to see whether I misrepresented it. His letter is short on facts but rich in rhetoric, presumably to support his central point: that public affairs types need to collaborate with scientists because the latter can't write well."
Donald Kennedy

Ouch.

Exoenvironmentalism

2006-05-29T23:25:00.000-04:00

Sometimes we just put things on the web for posterity

Like Environmental Impact on Exoplanets

Exoenvironmentalism is indeed not on Google.

We must fix this.

I need a life...

2006-05-26T14:04:00.000-04:00

I just saw the phrase "X2" on the internet, and immediately clicked through to see if there was anything new on orbit classification in barred spirals...

iPod iChing - B Monopole-ies

2006-05-26T12:16:00.000-04:00

Friday, and it'll be lite blogging for the next week.
So iPod: Are there Magnetic Monopoles?

Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.

The Covering: Invitato a qui seguirmi - Verdi

The Crossing: Ainsi Font Font Font - Diels

The Crown: Learning to Add Is Fun - Twin Sisters

The Root: He Likes Me - Violent Femmes

The Past: To The Kill - Violent Femmes

The Future: Ingrid Bergman - Billy Bragg

The Questioner: Lover, Come Back To Me - Billie Holiday

The House: Aisle of Plenty - Genesis

The Inside: La Glace Au Citron - Henri Dés

The Outcome: Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra: Theme: Full Orchestra - Benjamin Britten

That is interesting.
As usual the iPod likes me.
I'm thinking "yes", but we're missing something - still learning.

As always, the Key as explained by Sean

What's the Difference

2006-05-25T13:40:00.000-04:00

What's the Difference

NASA Ames Learning Technologies has what looks like a fun toy for K-12 or "stars for poets" level classes.

In fact LT at Ames seems to have several fun things in their repertoire

World Wind update off planet

2006-05-25T13:30:00.000-04:00

NASA World Wind has been updated

New version includes datasets for other solar system objects.

Mac version scheduled for Sep '06. Should be a significant improvement.

Tangled Bank #54

2006-05-24T09:28:00.000-04:00

Bora at Science & Politics is hosting Tangled Bank #54 - up now; read about PZ's four favourite things, "development, evolution and breasts..." - the article on the evolution of the mammary gland is very good.

drugs@home

2006-05-23T23:09:00.000-04:00

Couple of distributed computing efforts to screen anti-viral drug candidates etc

pointers here

seen on Effect Measure comments

Avian 'flu status update

2006-05-23T23:01:00.000-04:00

Effect Measure has latest on Indonesian 'flu cluster development

I guess we now know where the US sent the stock of anti-virals for contingencies earlier.

Summary: significant family cluster in Indonesia, strong circumstantial evidence for human-to-human transmission, including possibly a chain of 2-3 levels of infection (as opposed to all secondary infections from one primary), Very high mortality rate.

Some concern that the incidence in Indonesia in rural areas is quite a bit higher than reported; a lot of the known cases are apparently near urban areas with access to good medical faciltiies (duh).

One of these things that needs to be linked to for highr profile on the web. Worth keeping an eye on.

What would W do?

2006-05-23T22:48:00.000-04:00

Well, the USS Enterprise is in the eastern Med and has not reached the Persian Gulf to rotate, or supplement, the USS Reagan.
So a May 27++ strike seems less likely (Norfolk papers reported the Gulf as the Enterprise's destination when she sailed in April).
There have been interesting naval movements, including a ammo ship setting sail in the Pacific a couple of weeks ago, fully loaded. Supposedly. Interesting timeline of recent events in Nuclear Mangos.

So, lets say we were in a pessimistic mood: what would be the most inept, undiplomatic thing to do now?
I got it, lets launch a pre-emptive war on someone during the World Cup. A true act of a Unifier.

If you really want to go for maximum mess, demonstrating or threatening Venezuela or Bolivia in June as well.

After all, it is also Hurricane season then, and the WHO is looking to go stage 4 on Avian 'flu, and bin Laden just sent out a tape.

BTW - I stick with my conjecture that bin Laden tape followed by Zarqawi tape shortly after is a "go signal" for some aQ cell; with possibility that a second bin Laden tape is a "wave-off" though I think that has only happened once or twice.

So many possibilities, and that is without worrying about US domestic issues. Such interesting times.

Imminence of the Eschaton: I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For...

2006-05-23T10:51:00.000-04:00

We know what you want

Mighty is the Google.

Love this

2006-05-22T12:02:00.000-04:00

MT informs us of a "Love will tear us apart" cover page

I know it when I hear it

2006-05-22T11:53:00.000-04:00

Priavcy is an interesting problem in a technological age.

David Brin had an interesting take on it in Earth and other books, notably the non-fiction Transparent Society; and the all-pervasive surveillance society is a sub-plot in Vinge's Deepness in the Sky.

Coming from a small country, and living in a small town ("it has something of the village about it" as an old friend once said), I am acutely aware of both the lack of privacy and the need for privacy.
Iceland, btw, is near unique in publishing everyone's summary income tax record (I believe Norway also does this); this has interesting social effects. Mostly beneficial in aggregate, I think. When I suggested this once in the US, one of the objections I got was from someone who feared his ex-wife would discover his current, higher, income, and demand an alimony adjustment.
Fair enough, except of course it is in the ex's interest to know this information, and indirectly, since alimony is a matter of contract or legal ruling, it is in society's interest that it be fairly and justly paid as agreed.

So what.
Well. Consider the recent flap over the NSA phone recordings - and the arguments about whether just tracking the pattern of calls and holding the database of associated information is constitutional, legal or ethical.

Well, here is a functional algorigthm for making that decision: would you accept that information being made public?
Would it be ok with you if the NSA records of who YOU called, and when, and where from, and for how long, was made public, on the Web. Now. For everyone to scan if they so cared to.
You have nothing to hide, right? So nothing to fear.

Well, if it is not ok for the information to be public, then maybe it is not ok for the government to collect, analyse and hold it in secret. Unless of course you trust them, now and forever, no matter who is in office and what the circumstances are.

Iranian dress codes

2006-05-19T16:24:00.000-04:00

Interesting wave of stories spreading out of Canada about an Iranian law on national dress

Here, for posterity, is some info on it from before the National Post story

National Post perspective from Amir Taheri

How clothes became politicized

Iran MPs turn to fashion

Dressed to Kill

Boycott Western Fashion

New dress code - Onset of hostility

Forced Arabization of Persia! - this is an interesting perspective

New dress requirement

Interesting how this story suddenly spun; and how the NP story was picked up so fast

Also, while there is an Iranian Minister of Culture and Islamic Orientation, at least as of a couple of weeks ago, he was not a Mostafa Pourharandi, but Hossein Saffar Harandi. Maybe they changed, or he is a sub-minister so obscure as to never before have been mentioned on the Web.

Interesting.

Bragg Fan Alert!

2006-05-19T12:57:00.000-04:00

Billy Bragg podcast #2 is up - life after Riff Raff Yay.

iPod iChing - Old Habitats

2006-05-19T12:36:00.000-04:00

Spitzer and HD 69830

Yay, cool rainy friday and I have paperwork to do.
So iPod, mighty iPod: does HD69830c have a satellite with a mass greater than 0.1 Earth masses and an atmosphere?

Whoosh goes the randomizer. Whoosh...

The Covering: Mr Brightside - The Killers -

The Crossing: Goodbye Earl - Dixie Chicks

The Crown: I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For - U2

The Root: Landslide - Dixie Chicks

The Past: Schnelle Fusse, rascher Mut - Mozart

The Future: Allegro: Brandenburg Concertos - Bach

The Questioner: She's Got a New Spell - Billy Bragg

The House: John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt - Twin Sisters

The Inside: Buxur, Vesti, Brók Og Skó - Þuríður P.

The Outcome: Letterbomb - Green Day

#11 is Distant Shore - Billy Bragg, #12 is Dance Without Sleeping - Melissa Etheridge

Tricky. The iPod still loves the Questioner...
Lots of "still looking" and "death" in the answers, but with hope at the end, maybe quickly.
I'm figuring that what I asked for is not there, but something interesting is, and if we keep looking we will in fact also find habitable moons around jovians or ice giants in circular orbits in habitable zones.

As always, the Key as explained by Sean

She's Got A New Spell
What is that sound
Where is it coming from
All around
What are you running from
Something you don't understand
Something you cannot command

Chorus:
That's how I know
She's got a new spell
Yes, that's how I know
That she's got a new spell

What's going down
Who's moved this room from round me
Where has it gone
I fear this night will drown me
So I lie awake all night
'Cos I can't sleep with something I can't fight

The laws of gravity are very, very strict
And you're just bending them for your own benefit

One minute she says
She's gone to get the cat in
The next thing I know
She's mumbling in Latin
She cut the stars out of the sky
And baked them in a pie

She stole the scene and scenery
The script and the machinery

Extrasolar Planets: step close to Earth

2006-05-18T14:09:00.000-04:00

ESO PR images and animations

Very interesting Article in Nature today from Lovis et al. Nature 441 305-309 (18 May 2006) [subscription required]

They have three "hot Neptune's" in stable orbits around an interesting star, good old HD 69830 which was found to have a dust disk at ~> 1 AU sugestive of asteroid belt (Beichman et al 2005.
One immediate inference of the Spitzer observations was that this was a good target for planet searches, since where there are asteroids you'd hope to see planets. Sure enough...

Here is the ESO press release

Summary: It is a K0 ~~subdwarf~~ main-sequence star, (6th magnitude, 40 lightyears away) cooler and lower mass than the Sun (by a little bit).
They have detected three planets in nested low eccentricty orbits:

Mass Period Eccentricity
(in Earth masses /sini) in days

10 8.7 0.10 +/- 0.04
12 35.6 0.13 +/- 0.06
18 197 0.07 +/- 0.07

The most interesting thing is the low eccentricity.
The third planet is in the star's Habitable zone
Be interesting to know if it is an gas rich ice giant like Neptune, or rocky with thin atmosphere.
Paper discusses that a bit from a particular theoretical perspective.

Overall: way cool. Be doubly interesting if the third planet had a Triton mass moon, eh?

This would be a good TPF target, if TPF hadn't been killed.
My first impression is that the system is also a "theory killer" - we have close packed fairly massive inner planets in near circular orbits; around a lower mass slightly sub-solar metallicity (-0.08) star.

Ok, big question now is whether there is a Jovian in this planet at > 3 AU.
That would make life very, very interesting for theorists.

Most important thing while at University

2006-05-17T22:48:00.000-04:00

is do not have a television

If you have must-watch-TV, then arrange to watch in some communal area or download it.
Just keep TVs out of your room/apartment.

Seriously.

NASA Science Progress

2006-05-17T14:10:00.000-04:00

Finally some significant progress at NASA Science Mission Directorate.

They have issued a New Organization Chart

Sadly Science@NASA appears not to have got the memo yet about new division titles.

Anyone know which R. Howard is in charge of ~~Universe~~Astrophysics? Is it the same Howard who was on the LASCO instrument on SOHO over in Helio?

High School vs University

2006-05-17T13:55:00.000-04:00

We were chatting the other day about student responses to going up a level - notably the transition from high school to university, and the transition from undergraduate to graduate study.

An interesting consensus emerged: a lot of high school students take some time, weeks, years, or never, to "get" the difference between university studies and high school. At least from our perspective, the high school curriculum is very structured, there is a fixed text that completely defines the content for the exams; the students study to the exams, not to learn the material, and the teaching rarely goes beyong the structured curriculum. In contrast, at university level, even for the introductory classes, the content is dynamic - the instructor may use a text, but it often provides a loose framework or guide to the content, or more bluntly, it is a crutch for students to lean on, or more rarely a broader reference going beyond the curriculum. Class content goes beyond the book, or contradict the book, and there is an implicit expectation that the students read beyond The Text and search out broader, deeper and contradictory sources, preferably at their own initiative.
The transition to graduate school is also often protracted, as students expect for weeks to months to see more of the same; but at grad school the text may not exist at all, and problems are open ended or incompletely defined. While as "warm up" grad students are often given "known problems", exercises with known solutions or well defined parameters, the essence of grad research is to transition to underconstrained problems with unknown answers; potentially non-existent answers.
This is curiously hard for a lot of people, although far more grad students "get it", and rapidly, then do undergrads.
A lot of undergrads get stuck for ever in "high school mode", where everything has preset authoritative answers, and The Text gives all answers.
This is a socially dangerous mode.

changing sleep patterns

2006-05-16T13:20:00.000-04:00

For most of my life I have been a strictly 8+ hours of sleep per night kinda person.
Notoriously so as a teenager, as so many others.
I could go for a few weeks on very little sleep, when working heavy overtime or doing serious "all nighter" pushes, but then I had to catch up on sleep.

But, for the last couple of years I have necessarily been making do with 5-6 hours of sleep, at best.
Right now, this seems to lead to me crashing for a day about once every 2-3 weeks, which seriously displeases the Big Kid.
My coffee consumption is also creeping up, which it does on a ~ 5 year cycle. In the past I've restarted the cycle by going cold turkey on coffee for 2 weeks, once I hit 6-7 cups per day (real cups...). Don't know that I can do that anymore.

So... is it possible to switch sleep patterns and transit my body clock and metabolism to a permanent 5-6 hour sleep pattern (permanent in this case probably means 5+ years), or not?
Anecdotally it would seem this is possible, but I need to do it without an external enforcer, and preferably while letting the rest of the family get their 8-14 hour sleep, as age appropriate.

Astrobiology 2.0

2006-05-16T12:33:00.000-04:00

Keith Cowing has a very interesting article on astrobiology: history, current situation and future

"...You created astrobiology. Forces at NASA now seek to undermine all of that hard work. Fight back. Make astrobiology better than it was. If you do not take the initiative no one will do it for you. If you don't try you have no one to blame but yourself."

Read the whole thing.

WRP: Open Letter to Cohen

2006-05-15T13:00:00.000-04:00

William Rivers Pitt writes an Open Letter to Richard Cohen

Some times I just link to things because they ought to be linked to.

Congratulations!

2006-05-15T11:16:00.000-04:00

Adam - Astro student Marshal

Commencement over the weekend, went to three of the ceremonies friday and saturday. With official duties on two of the three occasions. Good turnout overall. Involves an awful lot of standing around and waiting for short, carefully timed appearances.

Anyway, got four of mine out the door - three advisees (Adam -> IoA, Brian -> OSU, Ryan -> UVa, all Astro/Physics duals with honours) and one honours thesis advisee (Joe -> Ft Benning, Math Phys(minor) with honours in Astro).

Lt. Joe.
Thesis: The effects of quantization of charge and angular momentum on the endpoint of Hawking radiation
In case you're wondering what an airborne ranger needs to know about extremal quantum black holes, you'd be surprised... though I gather the army will make him ride on tracks for his next task.
Personnally I feel it is important for modern infantry officers to be well versed in holography and quantum information theory.

iPod iChing - commence free association

2006-05-12T10:10:00.000-04:00

Friday, and commencement ceremonies start today.
I have three to attend: ROTC commissioning and Honours medals today, then I'm a "marshal" in the Science ceremony tomorrow.

So, we'll depart from normal practise and ask the iPod an open question, in celebration of our students' few moments of freedom.

Oh, mighty iPod, what may commence in our near future?

Whoosh goes the randomizer. Whoosh...

The Covering: Scences From Childhood: Almost too Serious - Schumann

The Crossing: Can't Run But - Paul Simon

The Crown: Rip Her To Shreds - Blondie

The Root: Nite Club - Specials

The Past: Alles fühlt der Liebe Freuden - Mozart

The Future: Love Rescue Me - U2

The Questioner: A13, Trunk Road To The Sea - Billy Bragg

The House: A Pict Song - Billy Bragg

The Inside: Are You Satisfied? - Jesus Jones

The Outcome:Anarchy in the UK - Sex Pistols

#11 is Fiskurinn Hennar Stínu - Haukar; #12 Like Soldiers Do - Billy Bragg

I leave you to free associate on the meaning of it all.

As always, the Key as explained by Sean

Anarchy in the UK

Right! now! Ha ha ha ha ha

I am an antichrist
I am an anarchist
Don’t know what I want but
I know how to get it
I wanna destroy the passer by cos I

I wanna be anarchy!
No dogs body

Anarchy for the u.k it’s coming sometime and maybe
I give a wrong time stop a trafic line
Your future dream is a shopping scheme cos I

I wanna be anarchy!
In the city

How many ways to get what you want
I use the best I use the rest
I use the enemy I use anarchy cos I

I wanna be anarchy!
The only way to be!

Is this the m.p.l.a
Or is this the u.d.a
Or is this the i.r.a
I thought it was the u.k or just
Another country
Another council tenancy

I wanna be an anarchist
Oh what a name
Get pissed destroy!

All the President's Books

2006-05-12T09:52:00.000-04:00

An interesting meta review in the NYT. Seriously worth a read

Scary.

Google Trends

2006-05-12T09:44:00.000-04:00

Google Trends - from A. Sullivan via WaPo (which is a very wrong way for me to find out about a new Google hack. Must Get Out More.

Trends: Iran+nuclear

Top Cities:

#1 Tehran
#2 Washington
#3 Reston

They Google public sources? WTF

On a lighter note:

Trends: pulsar

#1 Tijuana
#2 Bangalore
#3 Poznan

ok, I understand #2 and #3, but Tijuana?!?

Trends: astrophysics

#1 India
#2 Greece
#3 Ireland

Hm. Astronomy gives:

#1 South Africa
#2 India
#3 Ireland

This is fun.

NSA and social networks

2006-05-12T09:29:00.000-04:00

The collection of phone records by the NSA is intriguing.

The old-style surveillance societies (like East Germany decades ago) faced an impossible task, in that true monitoring of people and interactions in real time takes about 3 people, minimum, per person surveilled. So at some critical, and fairly small percentage of surveillance targets, the system breaks down, there just aren't enough people to do it.

Now, AI proponents have long realised that algorithmic data mining and pattern analysis would destroy this limit - cf Vinge's "Deepness in the Sky" or any number of riffs by Charlie Stross.
One fear of "strong AI" is that for practical purposes a strong enough AI would be omniscient about human activities and patterns, and coupled with executive power, could manipulate or destroy "incorrect" human interaction activities.
Feeling reassured?

'Course if you have a half-assed algorithm and weak AI, then you get a lot of false leads and FBI agents running around after the piano teacher of bin Laden's chauffeur's second cousin's high school friend's daughter. (Of course the real targets are either ideologues exposed to radical islam who went native, like young emotionally underdeveloped employess of the CPA; or people who will do anything for money, like some of the contractors who did fraudulent work in Iraq - those are the kind of people who would let al Qaeda into the US)

BUT, some social patterns are small and well defined. Easily tackled by not-so strong AI.
Al Qaeda is not the main threat to US National Security! Corruption among military contractors is!
What could be worse than the limited tax payer dollars being wasted on ineffective or non-existent weapons systems!
What could be more harmful than US soldiers being supplied with inadequate food or defective tools?

It all makes sense now.
Bus, clearly, became righteously infuriated with GOP Congressional petty corruption, and used the permission he has to transfer info between intelligence agencies to explore the pattern of corruption between Congresscritters, Lobbyists and fake military contractors.
Hence the rash of indictments and roll-up of fraud networks by DoJ and FBI. Brilliant.
No wasting the nations intel resources on tracking journalist phone calls, or finding our which political opponent is cheating on her husband in DC.
The President is cleaning the House in the name of National Security. No wonder he didn't brief Congress...

Very Decisive. And the only explanation that makes sense. Isn't it?

Note to self: need to keep a sharper eye out for freudian contextual typos...

silver lining

2006-05-11T22:29:00.000-04:00

Ah, end of semester...

What I should be doing is reading, catching up on the literature and thinking deep thoughts.

What I will be doing is proposals, proposals, and peering at drafts that my diligent students and collaborators have put together with amazing synchrony.

The good news is that while I would normally be looking at doing six proposals this summer, so many Requests for Proposals have been cancelled that I can only do three, realistically.

Of course with normal odds, doing six gives you expected value of one awarded... with fewer opps, the odds against each are likely to be worse. Not such good news.

Bald Faced Blogging

2006-05-11T12:51:00.000-04:00

A Truly Dangeral Explanation

Hover Wasp Workers of the World, Unite!

2006-05-10T23:19:00.000-04:00

"Firstly, the fact that labour is external to the worker – i.e., does not belong to his essential being; that he, therefore, does not confirm himself in his work, but denies himself, feels miserable and not happy, does not develop free mental and physical energy, but mortifies his flesh and ruins his mind. Hence, the worker feels himself only when he is not working; when he is working, he does not feel himself..."

Wrong.

Future fitness and helping in social queues, Field et al, Nature, 441, 214 11 May 2006

"An alternative explanation for this variation lies in a fundamental trade-off faced by helpers: by working harder, they increase the indirect component of their fitness, but simultaneously decrease their own future survival and fecundity. Here, we show that individuals work less hard when they stand to lose more future fitness through working. "

Whateveh...
Neat result actually.
And, no, it doesn't translate directly into Halliburton subcontractors. Not directly.

Life in Science

2006-05-10T13:32:00.000-04:00

Marc Davis

Eric Cornell

local optimization

2006-05-09T23:20:00.000-04:00

another beautiful sunny day

so, I was talking to a colleague, and he mentioned that he likes it warm and sunny, selfish as that may be

this is one of these locally optimal, globally catastrophic issues: on any given day it really is nicer for most people for it to be warm and sunny, but if it were warm and sunny every day, we'd all die.

At least around here, the ecology, farming and water systems are just not set up for prolonged absences of rain.

Rain is forecast for thursday. Hah.

AAS speaks - I yawn

2006-05-09T12:46:00.000-04:00

AAS Statement on Proposed FY2007 NASA Budget - 3 May 2006

Too Little. Too Late.

The AAS let its membership down and has reacted slowly and feebly.
I understand the political issues involved and that people are afraid to lose what they already have, but this was an error and it was a calculated cynical error.

I am disgusted.

NAC reports

2006-05-09T12:24:00.000-04:00

Planetary Society Blog has reports from the NASA Advisory Committee meetings

Depressing Day 2

"a 50% cut is devastating. A 30% cut, in a humane way, you don't need to renege on current commitments -- you miss a year. But if you cut 50% you have to renege."

Someone pointed out that indeed, most R&A grants run three years; a 30% cut means you have to skip a year but you don't take any already-awarded money away.

Curt Niebur: "But I should point out that with astrobiology it gets a lot more complex because in addition to the grants, you have the astrobiology institutes," long-term entities that are independent of the 3-year grant programs.

Jeff Moore: "What's the cost to cut just new people in astrobiology?" "

This is slightly inaccurate in detail. At a 30% cut you're cutting renewals and you break the pipeline if you cut all new grants.
At 50% you lose all new initiatives and renewals, and you take a 25% cut of existing grants.

So here's the problem: most grants support 1 person full time - a student or postdoc; and then marginal support for a supervisor, and "research expenses" (supplies, travel etc).
Most of the money is in the personnel - so that is where the cut goes. And people come in integer units. Unless there are two grants that can be glued together, you immediately lose people. Lots of people.

What is particularly ironic is that at the same time there is a new NASA mandate that in the EPO line, the priority is training new undergraduates and graduate students.
For what?
A career in research is never guaranteed, and the odds dictated that many will not get long term research positions, but what is the purpose in increasing and emphasising student training if all the positions they could occupy after graduation are cut?

Any way, too late now; the current round of grants are rescinded and cuts have been made for grants in progress, and that money can't come back in time for the financial year. Even if money is restored by Congress, it will still push everything out a year.

what was the fourth season again...?

2006-05-08T11:59:00.000-04:00

So I'm in lovely middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania.
It is sunny and mild, all the time.
Housing prices have doubled since I moved here.
We had riots. (Happy riots, this is central Pa).
Flooding from unusual rains.
And now we have forest fires.

At this rate I might as well just live in California.

"It's a miracle"

2006-05-08T11:39:00.000-04:00

I don't know how it happens. but somehow when thesis projects are vaguely proposed and kinda stumble along, all of a sudden a everything works out and no one knows how, and a good coherent thesis emerges just in time.
Mostly.

coincidences

2006-05-05T22:57:00.000-04:00

Goss's resignation is, probably due to something boring, like sex and money.
Although some of the speculation is a bit interesting (CIA got the photos and forced him out? or is he really smart enough to oppose a strike on Iran and the admin forced him out?).
Big questions is whether this leaves the CIA marginalised within the White House, and totally reliant on the DoD for intel.
(LJs take here)

But, what is up with Jack Straw being fired. That is somewhat worrying, and the grauniad is rampantly speculating...

One is curious, two is a coincidence. We await a three.

On a different note, the 8th Air Force has a new commander. Gen Chilton up and out, Gen Elder in. Things are really moving.
8th Air Force... command for the B-2s and 2 B-52 wings.

Foreshadowing

2006-05-05T12:05:00.000-04:00

In the great tradition of random minor blogs, let me cryptically note that there will be a significant change to this wee li'l blog sometime in the not too distant future...

iPod iChing - Holography?

2006-05-05T11:33:00.000-04:00

Friday, end of semester, and we ask a Big Question.
iPod, dood, is the universe holographic?
Whoosh goes the randomizer, whoosh...

The Covering: Alabama Song - The Doors

The Crossing: Peter and the Woolf: The Procession - Prokoviev

The Crown: Psycho Killer - Talking Heads

The Root: Krummi Svaf í Klettagjá - Þuríður

The Past: Apollo 5. - Stravinsky

The Future: We Do What We Can - Sheryl Crow

The Questioner: Invisible Touch - Genesis

The House: O Isis Und Osiris - Mozart

The Inside: Cold Day in July - Dixie Chicks

The Outcome: Pas D'Action - Nutcracker

#11 is The Coast - Paul Simon and #12 is Munich Air Disaster, 1958 - Morrissey.

Hm, the outcome and future suggest there is something to it, but the house is waiting for revelation.
I guess the questioner is a convert though...
The root is an traditional icelandic song about the hardship of a raven in mid-winter but he finds a dead sheep and survives...

As always, the Key as explained by Sean

Invisible Touch

Well I’ve been waiting, waiting here so long
But thinking nothing, nothing could go wrong, ooh now I know
She has a built in ability
To take everything she sees
And now it seems I’m falling, falling for her.

She seems to have an invisible touch yeah
She reaches in, and grabs right hold of your heart
She seems to have an invisible touch yeah
It takes control and slowly tears you apart.

Well I don’t really know her, I only know her name
But she crawls under your skin, you’re never quite the same, and now i
Know
She’s got something you just can’t trust
It’s something mysterious
And now it seems I’m falling, falling for her.

She seems to have an invisible touch yeah
She reaches in, and grabs right hold of your heart
She seems to have an invisible touch yeah
It takes control and slowly tears you apart.

She don’t like losing, to her it’s still a game
And though she will mess up your life,
You’ll want her just the same, and now I know
She has a built in ability
To take everything she sees
And now it seems I’ve fallen, fallen for her.

She seems to have an invisible touch yeah
She reaches in, and grabs right hold of your heart
She seems to have an invisible touch yeah
It takes control and slowly tears you apart.

She seems to have an invisible touch...

externalities

2006-05-04T22:47:00.000-04:00

I live in a nice little borough, taxes are relatively high, but they provide amenities in return.
People who live here most like it.
One of the lesser things they do, is when they pick up leaves and clippings (mostly in the autumn) the borough composts them, they are then returned to one of a handful of neighbourhood locations in the spring as gorgeous black humus, for people to pick up for their gardens.
The surrounding towns don't do this.
So, the people there drive in with f'ing pickups and take the humus when it is delivered, all of it. A single truck can take the whole days delivery (which is twice a week for a few weeks in spring). It is illegal, but poorly enforced, and they work quickly to avoid being busted. Some are landscapers who resell the load for ~ $100 or so.

I really hate people like that.
Just saying.

I was too slow this morning to get a wheelbarrow load, some bastards in a red pickup took it all...

Seasonal Reading

2006-05-03T13:44:00.000-04:00

"Pollen" by Jeff Noon

Good writer.
I hate that book...

Earthquake in Tonga

2006-05-03T13:08:00.000-04:00

Major earthquake in the Pacific, near Tonga.
Tsunami warnings for Fiji and New Zealand.

Prelimiinary magnitude estimate is 8.1 on the Richter scale.

Not nice.

UPDATE: USGS summary

Attack on Cole

2006-05-03T12:45:00.000-04:00

Juan Cole at Informed Comment is pissed off, with cause...

Read.

Little Curious Things: B-2 Bomber command changes

2006-05-02T14:02:00.000-04:00

B-2 lands at Andersen AF Guam. Guam Pacific Daily News

Both the 509th bomb wing and 393rd bomber squadron, one of two operational B-2 bomber squadrons in the wing, as I understand it, got new commanders in the last few weeks.

Col Biscone and Lt Col Tibbets

There are some anomalies here: this should be a Brigadier General slot. Not Colonel,
Biscone is up for a star, but was bounced by the Senate in the 2005 session. Not clear if it was routine stalling or with cause.

The Biscone story referes to Brig Gen Miller moving to Afghanistan, but then claims he's being promoted from 3 to 4 stars.
Which is impossible, maybe they meant he's being promoted to major general.

In and of itself, whatever.

But then there is this...

B-2 squadron deploys to Guam

Oh. bollocks. We're close to a new moon, but probably missed the window for optimal strike conditions.
Moon will be new again in ~ 3 weeks, May 27th...

UPDATE: B-2s deploy to Guam in groups of 2-4 planes on occasion for "Global Power" exercises, typically one day or 1-2 week exercises.
For the last 18 months, groups of 4 planes have been in 3 month rotation to Guam, interleaving with B-1 and B-52 groups as a "ready" force.
So, this deployment is consistent with normal rotation to replace a B-1 group going back to the US. If it stays at 4 planes or less. Of course the point of rotating forward stationed groups is to have a strike force in place.
RAF Fairford had B-2 visits a few weeks ago, seems to have been some sort of readiness exercise, not clear if there are any still there or if they went home.
I also understand there is a ANG tanker readiness exercise in progress right now, but they also do those as "surprise" exercises with some regularity.

Nothing to see here, move on.

But I still put the odds of a strike on Iran at ~> 50% within the next few weeks, most likely near the end of May if the USAF stays with past practises, and if the policital situation so dictates.

nice grad students

2006-05-02T12:30:00.000-04:00

For the record, our grad students really are quite wonderful, and under appreciated.
Especially the first years...

Oo, I'm all a-quiver

2006-05-02T12:23:00.000-04:00

NYT features the recent NASA GSFC press announcementon calculation of gravitational waveform inspiral from black hole coalescence

(more pretty pictures)

animations and full image package

here is the actual paper

Good kick ass science, real hustle to get the brute force sim done after the algorithm stability issues were resolved

Ever so slightly overhyped press release. Most unlike NASA really.
But, hey, it is in a good cause...

Thank You Stephen Colbert

2006-05-01T17:44:00.000-04:00

thankyoustephencolbert.org/

Thanks to modern communications technology I caught the CSPAN rerun of the White House Correspondance Dinner the same night.

I laughed so hard at one point that my wife thought I was going to have a heart attack (the "Welcome Scalia") moment.

Some things just need to be linked to for posterity.

Watch the video if you didn't catch it then... but be careful, truthiness sometimes hurts.

The Grad Students Are Revolting

2006-05-01T13:35:00.000-04:00

A possé of first years arrives at my door... (with one senior grad for moral support and monitoring purposes).

Wot! You want Solution. To Homework Problems!?
"Not bloody likely".

So...

If you are a grad student, you should not worry about grades

OR

If you worry about grades, you should not be a grad student

It all makes sense now...

2006-05-01T13:31:00.000-04:00

Bérubé potpourri hides a key piece of information!

Namely the Secret Plan To Deal With An Avian 'Flu Epidemic

Yeah, yeah, blah, blah, very funny. Abstinence, 9/11, Nukular. How predictable.
NO, really, Read To The End.

Abolition Of the Estate Tax

Of course. Genius. The concentration of wealth will be awesome.
And the Survivors will All Vote Republican.

Grad Students Please Note

2006-04-28T16:28:00.000-04:00

how jedi are you? :: by lawrie malen

So, you want to be an astrophysicist? Part 2.5 - grad school

2006-04-28T14:49:00.000-04:00

Deadline is gone, prospectives have visited and I'm off any conflicting committee!
It is safe to talk about grad school again...

You're in grad school. Yay.
Now wtf do you do...

Well, you need to jump through the hurdles first.
Most places have some course and seminar requirements, you may in some cases test out of them or waive them, but think about whether you really want to. Odds are that your undergraduate curriculum was not complete or advanced enough in at least some areas. Yes, you want to get on with research, but you also want to be solid on the fundamentals.
Take the stoopid exams, whatever they call them, usually some variation on candidacy or comps or both.
Most places admit students they expect to pass, a few have a policy of admit everyone and then flunk whoever out, most don't.
So, trained experts have determined you have the innate capability of most likely passing those exams, with a bit of work. Or possibly shitloads of work. So just do it.

Take seminar courses. They are usually on the "hot topics", and usually very good.
As a grad student I liked to take classes, real classes (mostly math, I still want more math) and seminars, up through my final year. A lot of students want to be done with classes as soon as possible, a lot of advisors think classes are a waste of time and dilute research efforts. I disagree, but not strongly.

GO TO TALKS!

Seriously, and I don't just say that because I'm in charge of colloquia.
Every place has some mix of formal colloquia, informal lunch talks and meetings.
Go to as many as you can stand. Especially at the beginning and at the end of your time. And in the middle...

The colloquiua are usually either "hot topic" talks, or major reviews of sub-fields. Lunch talks are more likely "in progress" talks. Either way you ought to want to hear about it. This is what the faculty think is hot, was hot recently or will be hot soon.
Go especially if it is outside your sub-field, you might learn something!
Introduce yourself to the speaker if possible. Go to lunch or dinner or coffee, or meet formally, if you can. Be nice.
These people will often remember you, they may be your future employers, or friends of your future employer, they are virtually certain to be reviewing a proposal or something of yours eventually. Astronomy is a small field and people talk.

While you're at it - if you have the oomph, go to stuff outside your department. University wide talks, seminars, things in other departments, even classes. A friend of mine in grad school claimed he could eat for free 5 days a week by attenting the right pattern of seminars and colloquia (not recommended, you can live on cookies and chips and coffee, but not well).

Ok, research. Yes, you should do some.
If you know what you want to work on, get going on it as soon as you can.
If you don't know, start exploring around as soon as feasible.
Go talk to faculty. Mostly they don't bite.

DO NOT ASK ABOUT MONEY! If you're doing it for money, then you're in the wrong business.
Ask to do research you are interested in doing.
Do your homework first, check the web page, glance through a paper or three. If you are not interested in doing research, you know, exploring the universe, adding new knowledge to mankinds inventory of nature and technology, then you should not be doing a PhD.
It is possible that what you think you're interested in is not suitable (in the stoopid profs opinion) for PhD research... it may be done, wrong, not interesting, undoable or just not interesting enough. The Prof may be wrong, but the word "advisor" has a meaning. You want to be advised, take it under consideration.
Try again, or ask for input or both. Some people have lists of projects to do, some people have some general ideas, and some people want to hear what you think. Radical thought.
If the answer from a potential advisor is "no" don't take it personally, and maybe try again, faculty have external lives that may preclude working with students or on particular projects at any given time.
If the project is good, a lot of the time money will be found...
Being a research assistant is good, but it won't kill you to be a teaching assistant for a while. You should be a TA for at least 6 months anyway. If you hate teaching, find out early in grad school, not when you become faculty!

If the department permits, or encourages it, then try doing a research project in a sub-field that is not what you think you want to do for a thesis.

Think very seriously about whether you want to do theory, observation, data analysis or instrumentation.
You may end up doing things you never imagined out of necessity (like theorists go take observations, cause if they don't no one else will; or observers running simulations, or building the instrument they need to do the observations etc etc).
Do you have the aptitude? Do you have the background? Can you learn?

Career goals should matter some, think about whether you want to stay in research? In academia? Industry? Observatories? NASA?
You want to pick up certain skills and experiences depending on which is your primary focus. Be ready to be disappointed, the competition is fierce. But most PhDs end up in some combination of interesting or well paid jobs. Opportunity cost is usually recovered even if you end up doing something other than you planned.

It is worth thinking about the medium term future of your chosen sub-field; is it expanding, new faciltiies coming online, is it peaking, or in decline? BUT, predicting the future is futile, particularly now. I don't know anyone who could confidently tell you which sub-field will see growth in the next decade. JWST is the biggest bet, if it launches and works.
Survey science and database mining look promising; so do mm-wave obserbations; I also suspect computer simulations will be a growth field again - BUT, if you had asked me 1-2 years ago my predictions would have been different and very, very wrong.

Pick and advisor you can get on with. Scientists are often "characters". Way high up on the list of "things you do not want to do" is being stuck with a PhD advisor you do not get along with.

BUG YOUR ADVISOR.
Er, but first make sure you pick an advisor who likes to be bugged...

There are two kinds of advisors - those who meet formally with students and expect progress; and those who bump into people in the corridor and blearily say "oh, you're working with me, right? Well, so, how is it going then...?"
KNOW YOURSELF: if you need the push of regular progress reports, then don't sign up with a hands-off advisor.
If you do want to bug your advisor, bring something to the meeting: progress, news, an idea, a question, a complaint. Something.

Self-motivate: particularly if you work with a hands-off type. Everyone procrastinates, but you're not going to have your hand held in most departments, you fizzle out, you're finished (eventually, when someone finally notices).

You're supposed to be working on new original stuff that you find interesting. So do it.

Finally: READ!!! Pro-actively. Check arXiv regularly and thoroughly. Read the papers relevant to you and anything else that looks interesting.
Read the references! They are there for a reason.
Read the citations - if a paper is interesting, papers which cite it are also likely to be interesting. Use the ADS "C" option liberally and look through it quickly.
If in doubt ask you advisor, or just read it anyway.

Next, the slightly tricky issue of what we actually "do", research wise type of thingy. Might take a while...

Fractal Dust Sims

2006-04-28T10:48:00.000-04:00

While I am on a streak...

Explicit numerical modeling of dust aggregates from sub-micron grains, in the presence of short range non-Coulomb forces is an excellent short term student project; 6-12 month starter in numerical simulations. Fun, high risk, but potentially interesting.

Offered it a couple of times, no one bit.
'Course getting funding to do it properly could be a bit tricky. Not much in "blue sky, wild idea" research nowadays.

Maybe it could be sold as nanotech, understanding dust chain formation in microgravity to safeguard space qualified electronic components...

Sigh.

iPod iChing - Anomalies at 70 μ?

2006-04-28T10:30:00.000-04:00

Yay, it is friday! Sun, ice cream and no more dirty looks (ok, I'm the teacher, the dirty looks are calculated...)
So, Mighty iPod dood, we will do the easy topical question, and ask: are the "strange things happening" at around 70 microns in the Adleberger experiments actual signs of non-Newtonian deviation on small scales?

Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.

The Covering: Toy Symphony 3 - Mozart

The Crossing: La Fourmi Amoureuse - Henri Dés

The Crown: Black Wind Blowing - Billy Bragg and Wilco

The Root: Ihr eingeweihten Diener der Gotter Osiris und Isis - Mozart

The Past: She's Got a New Spell - Billy Bragg

The Future: Bakaradrengur Syngur - Thorbjorn Egner

The Questioner: I Won't Share You - The Smiths

The House: Can You Swing Your Arms? - Twin Sisters

The Inside: If I Didn't Love You - Squeeze

The Outcome: Nicaragua, Niacaraguita - Billy Bragg

Well, that doesn't look good.
The Future is the "Song of the Baker's Boy" in which the recipe for "pepper cookies" goes badly wrong (but in way critical to the plot, to be fair).
The Questioner is a bit scary.
The Outcome is a celebration of a revolution, which is curious.
The House clearly things this is just handwaving games...
The Inside reflect the motif of the Questioner answer. Yikes.
The Crossing is frivolous but The Crown is somber...
The Root is intriguing!

The Past really says it all:

The laws of gravity are very, very strict
And you're just bending them for your own benefit

So, ambiguity and obsession.
The Past would seem to say no, but the Outcome if revolution?
I don't know what is going on.

As always, the Key as explained by Sean

Magisterial Science

2006-04-27T13:18:00.000-04:00

There are a lot of ~~theories~~hypotheses and conjectures

Most are contradictory

Therefore most, or all, are wrong.

There are three kinds of theorists:

Those who are right
Those who are wrong for the right reasons
Those who are "not even wrong"

This is of course not a unique decomposition, there is also this one, which is near orthogonal to the previous one:

There are three kinds of theorists:

Those who think they are right
Those who "shut up and calculate"
Those who are interesting

Also, as I tell the "Stars for Poets" class: science is not an adversarial process, but scientists often are. (journalists please note)

Hm, does that mean the Napoleonic Code is an emergent property of the Common Law...?

Fractal Dust, LEDs and Cracks in the Cosmos

2006-04-27T12:21:00.000-04:00

Dust aggregates formed in microgravity aboard the CODAG Shuttle experiment.
Micron sized SiO2 spheres rapdily aggregated in microgravity into low dimension fractal structures (Blum et al "Growth and Form of Planetary Seedlings: Results from a Microgravity Aggregation Experiment," Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 2426 (2000). )

Physics News Update 775:"...At the APS meeting, Eric Adelberger, leader of the Washington group, summarized some of the other efforts underway in his lab such as the search for evidence of extra dimensions in the form of departures from Newtonian gravity (for instance, the inverse-square dependence) at a size scale of tens of microns. In fact, he said that something strange was happening at a measurement scale of about 70 microns; the most likely explanation of this, he conceded, was an experimental artifact."

Oo. Er.

So, a few years ago I did something whacky but fun.

Each year the Gravity Research Foundation runs an essay competition.
It is nice opportunity to indulge in some speculation that may not be mature enough for an actual fer reel letter, but is worth thinking about, a little bit.

So, back in 2001, I was thinking about fractal dust.
The Blum et al paper had just come out, and I had just come back from the Cosmic Genesis and Fundamenal Physics Workshop at Sonoma, so I was just freshly updated on the Large Extra Dimensions speculation...

Now, at the time there was a bubbling puzzle in planet formation, namely how Neptune and Uranus ever got started during the lifetime of the solar system, the timescaled inferred for aggregation were just too long, the gas and dust disk would be gone before planet formation got under way. (This is a non-problem now, best bet scenario is that Neptune formed much further in and was scattered out at early times, but it motivated the chain of thought).

So... thought I, that's funny.
IF micron dust grains are fractal, with low effective dimensions, then grain growth is rapid, and almost mass independent at low mass.
And, lo and behold, they are fractal, with effective dimension ~ 1.3.

Ok, neat. But, how could that be?
Well, one explanation is that when sub-micron grains aggregate, they see a strong non-Coulomb force at small radii, and coalescence is at high specifical angular momenta. This naturally leads to open, fractal structure growth, for a while, until impacts start compactifying the "dust bunnies". (see below)
Cool. Well, we can calculate that, and there are several candidates (van der Waals forces, heterogenous temporary free charge etc etc), but why not look at non-Newtonian gravity on small scales.

So, we plug'n'chug, and this works, for 2 Large Extra Dimensions, and a effective radius of curvature (this also works in Randall-Sundrum theory) is about 80 μ

So, I wrote it up, sent it to GRF, got an honourable mention, and IJMPD 10.6 781 publication.

Also got a writeup by Marcus Chown in New Scientist, and again with the even whackier follow up on Bose-Einstein condensates and Large Extra Dimensions

The interesting thing is not the planet formation, it is whether the fractal dust formation really is due to non-Newtonian gravity and hence "predicted" a n=2 Large Extra Dimension deviation at less than 100 μ.

So... maybe Adelberger is not seeing an experimental artifact.
We can hope, would make life a lot more interesting.

Oh, and I still think something like the BEC stuff would work, but maybe people can tell that I am not an actual experimental designer kinda person...

Experimental hints of Gravity in Large Extra Dimensions?
Recent conjectures suggest the universe may have large extra dimensions, through which gravity propagates. This implies gross departures from Newton's law of gravity at small length scales.
Here I consider some implications for particle dynamics on scales comparable to the compactification radius, $R_c \ltorder 1$ mm.
During planet formation, coalescence of micron sized dust grains to planetesimals is a rate critical step.
Blum et al (2000) found dust grain aggregates form low fractal dimension structures in microgravity, consistent with high angular momentum coalescence.
I consider the effects of non-Newtonian gravity on dust aggregation on scales less than $R_c$ and show they naturally coalesce into low dimensional structures with high specific angular momentum.
We infer $R_c \approx 80$ microns.

Ali G. vs N. Chomsky

2006-04-27T12:18:00.000-04:00

Seen on Sean

Ali G interviews Noam Chomsky.

Awesome...

out till fall...

2006-04-27T11:44:00.000-04:00

...2007

School's Out

Well we got no choice
all the girls and boys
Makin' all that noise cause they found new toys.
Oh we can't salute ya
can't find a flag
If that don't suit ya
that's a drag.
School's out for summer
school's out forever
School's been blown to pieces.
No more pencils
no more books
No more teacher's dirty looks.
Well we got no class and we got no principles
And we got no innocence
We won't even think of a word that rhymes.
School's out for summer
school's out forever
Ah
school's been blown to pieces.
No more pencils
no more books
No more teacher's dirty looks.
Out for summer
out till fall
We might not come back at all.
School's out forever
school's out for summer
School's out
spring fever
school's out completely.

Where would you put the comma?

2006-04-26T14:03:00.000-04:00

Froomkin is a careful writer

But, this sentence needs a comma.

"But beyond the snarky implication that Fox News has become the semi-official network of the Republican Party lies the reality that Fox has been far more successful than the White House communications office at packaging a vision in which Bush is a hero."

Where would you put it, before or after "lies"?

Latter option does leave the sentence slightly incomplete in interesting ways.

On The Proper Subject Order in High School

2006-04-26T13:49:00.000-04:00

Several years ago, a major organ of our professional society raised a troubling issue: namely whether the three major subfields were being taught in the proper order at the high school level .
A furor arose in the letter pages, debating the merits endlessly. Which first, which last? (also here).

Now, I think we can all agree on the basics - there are not enough resources to teach all subfields each year of high school, and I am told scheduling is also impossible if people are taking subjects for more than two years (one year intro, one advanced for college hopefuls). So, decisions have to be made.

I have thought about this, and I think that having general phys ed as grounding in the first year is essential; then basketball, because it requires the least amount of equipment to set up; then baseball; and leave football to the final year. Your typical high school student is not ready for football before their final year anyway, playing it earlier just invites injury.
Now, people argue that the final year should be general phys ed, and that football should be taught first, no later than sophomore year, so that the top players can do a second AP year to prepare for college, which they must do no later than junior year for consideration by the top programs. Now this may be fine for private prep schools, but the realities of public education, and the difficulty in finding qualified coaches clearly precludes this. Maybe the largest schools can do junior level football, or allow exceptional players to play a year early, so they can get a second year before college, but realistically the fraction of players which have the innate talent to compete at the next level is so small that it is simply not an issue for most schools.

A friend of mine suggested leaving general phys ed to the middle schools, and moving all athletic classes up a year; then the advanced students aiming for college would have time to take senior AP classes, maybe even two or three sports for the absolute top athletes, in schools with the resources to offer that. Then, the regular students could take Driver's Ed in their final year, which is when it is most needed anyway. This could be a good compromise, particularly for the larger urban schools.

What puzzles me is, having come through the European system, how they managed to do everything from shooting and archery, to yoga, through soccer, hockey and rugby, and still manage the scheduling. Even in a relatively small school. Must be some ineffable structural difference in the education management system.

The Real Problem

2006-04-26T11:41:00.000-04:00

Bérubé raises some Old Business

I'm speechless.
I guess that means the DoE goal is halfway accomplished.

Given enrollment trends, though, we need to know if journalism profs could teach "stars for poets"?
I mean, I know Bérubé can but we expect versatility from the JoePa Professor.
Could your average Bob Jones University Media Studies Prof really handle "Charles Messier’s late-eighteenth century catalog of stellar objects"? I don't think so... I mean, dude was French!

PS: everyone MUST READ comment #36 in Bérubé's article by "Grumpy Physicist". Priceless.

I quote:

"If you transform the original opinion (call it ’x‘) by making a parody, we can write this as:

x’ = P x

where ’P‘ is the “parody” operation. Now from all possible opinions, one can construct linear combinations that are eigenstates of the operator P (the proof is trivial, and left as an exercise for the student). That is, x’ = a x, where a is a constant. And since a parody of a parody gets one back to the original state, PP = 1, and thus allowable values for a are +1 or -1.

Most sensible opinions have a=-1: when you parody them, you invert their sense.

There must exist, however, sets of opinions that have a=+1; that is, they are ‘invariant under the parody operation’. When subjected to parody, the parodied opinions are indistinguishable from the original opinion."

- Grumpy Physicist

Damn. I wish I had written that...

Musical Links to Enjoy

2006-04-25T11:59:00.000-04:00

Fist of Fury" ;-)

Sometimes we link for the sake of connectivity

"Dear Mr President" - Pink and Indigo Girls

"Bush War Blues" - Billy Bragg

"Not Ready To Make Nice" - Dixie Chicks

"Living With War" - Neil Young

"We Shall Overcome" - Bruce

Avian 'flu - maybe not so mild after all

2006-04-24T13:49:00.000-04:00

one of the buzz about avian 'flu is that people were thinking the true death rate from infection was much lower than the apparent death rate.
Argument, simply put, is that only acute cases were being diagnosed and those are necessarily the ones where the patient is in danger of dying, so the mortality rate is artificially inflated by selection bias. We only know of the sparse really bad cases.
If only, the argument goes, we did a random sample of a population where a case had been found, we would likely find many asymptomatic or mild cases that never came to medical attention.

Or, unfortunately, maybe not...

Not definitive but curious.
Good news is then, that the H5N1 strain really has a hard time spreading; the bad news is that it is very lethal. As is.

SALT Big Time

2006-04-24T11:27:00.000-04:00

First Light: 47 Tuc

WaPo put The South African Large Telescope on the front page.
Nice article.

SALT is an 11 meter segmented optical telescope, optimised for spectroscopic surveys in the optical.
Design concept is based on the venerable Hobby-Eberly Telescope (with some engineering learning experience passed along...).

The key aspect to HET and SALT are that they are basically fixed telescopes which use the secondary to track targets over
a relatively limite range in azimuth and declination. So you sacrifice flexibility but gain light gathering power and cost.
The construction costs, for the size of telescope, is an order of magnitude lower than a full two-degrees-of-freedom telescope.
The telescopes are somewhat limited in both the range of targets they can reach in the sky, and the time they can stay on target, but they are big light buckets and work well for large scale spectroscopic surveys and synoptic spectroscopy.
HET, for example, has been doing steady work doing spectroscopic followup of Sloan and Chandra targets, as well as planet hunting (which requires high resolution synoptic spectroscopy).

I Need to Read

2006-04-21T18:19:00.000-04:00

So Good! :D
You scored 72% Best Seller and 71% Classic!

Oh, yes, somehow you made it. Did you cheat? I hope not. Sophocles is reported to have said, "I would prefer even to fail with honor than to win by cheating." Meh, I'll trust you this time. Anyway, I hope you've had a good time.

My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 50% on Best Seller
You scored higher than 87% on Classic

Link: The Book Character-Savvy Test written by Vorpal_Bunny on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Grr. 87th percentile by age and gender on Classics.
50th percentile on Best Seller.

Glad that at least it wasn't the other way around.

Must. Read. More. Again.

iPod iChing - Varying μ?

2006-04-21T16:22:00.000-04:00

Busy, busy friday. So, we ask the obvious question...

iPod - is the effective mass ratio of the electron to the proton actually varying on cosmological time scales?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.

The Covering: Bad Penny - Billy Bragg

The Crossing: Staldraðu við - Stuðmenn

The Crown: Eric the Half A Bee - Monty Python

The Root: Nature Boy - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

The Past: Can You Swing Your Arms- Twin Sisters

The Future: Oh Well - Fiona Apple

The Questioner: Lilli Stríðir Refnum - Thorbjorn Egner

The House: Late Night, Maudlin Street - Morrissey

The Inside: Litirnir - Edda

The Outcome: Dammi tu forza, o cielo! - La Traviata

#11 is The Boy Feels Strange - Melissa Etheridge and #12 is Shipbuilding - Robert Wyatt

Oh, man, that results is so not there.
Ouch.

The Crossing is a "hang out and take it easy" kinda laid back tune;
The Crown is just a classic, and so appropriate it boggles the mind.
The Questioner is "the little mouse teases the fox". Heh.
The Inside is "Colours" - a children's song teaching people about wavelength determination of electromagnetic radiation...
The Future suits.
The Outcome is just eerie...

As always, the Key as explained by Sean

is it worth the effort?

2006-04-21T16:13:00.000-04:00

it is near the end of semester, and everybody is getting edgy;
it is the time of year when there are reports of fights and harassment between students. Lot of honking of cars, squealing of tires and overheard mutterings of "fuck".

So... walking back to the office I hear some student screaming abuse - at me it turns out, he didn't appreciate me crossing the road at a marked crosswalk with a stop sign. Slowed him down for half a second I guess.
Now this is a big campus, but surprisingly not actually that big, and he was in a fairly distinctive car. Very distinctive car.
Senior I believe, with a friend.

I was mildly bemused, then a bit angry.

So, is it worth it? Should I followup and let them experience some consequences for being obnoxious assholes?
I don't know if they figured they were safely anonymous, or if they didn't figure someone in jeans and t-shirt would be faculty.
Either way it was a stupid thing to do, but stupid enough to make their lives extremely miserable for a couple of weeks, or do
I just figure it is one of those things and let go...?

iPod iChing - Furry Black Holes?

2006-04-20T17:04:00.000-04:00

Not yet friday, but a quickie, to focus the mind...

iPod, dood, are Black Holes Furry?
Whoosh...

The Covering: I Was Born - Natalie Merchant

The Crossing: The Flight of the Bumble-bee - Roge

The Crown: Young Ned of the Hill - the Pogues

The Root: While My Heart is Still Beating - Roxy Music

The Past: Once Upon a Time: Storybook Story (them from the Princess Bride) Knopfler
The Future: I Wanna Be Loved - Elvis Costello

The Questioner: Scenes from Childhood: Knight of the Rocking Horse - Schumann

The House: I'm Burning - Jesus Jones

The Inside: Don't Worry About the Government - Talking Heads

The Outcome: Accident Waiting to Happen - Billy Bragg

Huh. I will wait to ponder this.
Only one person in the world knows wtf this one is about, intriguing...
Regular service may resume tomorrow.

As always, the Key as explained by Sean

What to expect in grad school

2006-04-20T16:01:00.000-04:00

Found on Pharyngula... ...must link.

A mini-survival guide for graduate school - less is more, sometimes

That actually makes me feel better.

David Brin always used to say that the only happy people at university were graduate students in stable relationships whose research was going well.

Ok, he only said it about One Particular University. But he had a point.

that's strange

2006-04-20T14:42:00.000-04:00

Google Ads just jumped the selection from DC Lobbyists, to Tsunami Charities, to Wireless Security Devices and Heavy Lift Leased Helicopters.

Are y'all messing about with Google? 'Cause apparently they release earnings tonight...

Or, maybe Google is just Omniscient and Know Something I Don't. Or maybe just desperate.

Google is a Good God.

Something for Lubo

2006-04-20T14:38:00.000-04:00

Computer glitch hits climate models...

Happy Birthday Matt

2006-04-20T14:37:00.000-04:00

Happy Birthday Matt

Inconstant Muon

2006-04-20T13:44:00.000-04:00

Ok, here's something...

Rheinold et al Phys Rev Lett 151101, v96 (2006) claim a lab measurement showing that μ = m_p/m_e has changed over time.

They compare measurements of UV spectra of molecular hydrogen in the lab sensitive to the electron/proton mass ratio with redshifted measurements of the same transition (so observed in the optical in the local rest frame), and conclude with 3.5σ confidence that there has been a 20 part per million change in the effective mass ratio.

Hmmm.
Well, I believe the lab measurements. The QSO observations were done with UVES on the VLT and are of redshift ~ 2-3 quasars.
Hm, they are measuring absolute wavelengths, so the simplest explanation is that the narrow H2 lines are systematically offset from the lines used to determine the redshift of the complex doing the absorbing - not intrinsically silly, depending on how close they are and what is being measured, haven't tracked down the VLT paper.

File this under "something to keep an eye on", but be skeptical.

this space deliberately left blank

2006-04-20T13:02:00.000-04:00

As far as I can tell, there is nothing terribly interesting happening anywhere right now...

True Trilogies You Ought to Read

2006-04-19T11:56:00.000-04:00

Never mind individual books, here are the trilogies you should read and own to be a true member of the Scientific High Priesthood...

Feynman Lectures
The Art of Computer Programming
Stephenson's Baroque Cycle
Lord of the Rings

Sadly the number of theses I have to ready by friday number 4...

Iranian Mangos

2006-04-19T11:55:00.000-04:00

Nuclear Mangos: Truth, Lies and Weasels about Iran

Oxford Research Group - Iran March 2006

2006-04-18T16:44:00.000-04:00

ORG take on the Iran vs US situation is online.

Worth a read.

Their previous Consequences analysis is also worth a read.

Iranian Nukes: Plain Language version

2006-04-18T13:43:00.000-04:00

In a previous post I did a somewhat cryptic discourse on the physics options for Iran to make nuclear bombs, and why I was concerned about the near future.

There is more discussion at Cosmic Variance and Nuclear Mangos, but I wanted to straighten and simplify what I think the key immediate issue is, partly for my own line of thought.

Iran is a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
As such it is entitled to develop civilian nuclear power, and to receive assistance from the nuclear powers to do so.
The assistance may include proliferation safeguards and IAEA supervision.
Iran has had a nuclear power program for over 30 years dating back to the Shah.
They bought a large (1 GigaWatt) fission reactor from the Russians (current contractor), Bushehr-1. On the gulf coast, it is in a complex that is intended to host more reactors. The Iraqis bombed it in 1984 (several times 1985-88 according to Wiki) I believe; progress on reconstruction was intermittent and it is not yet operational. It is complete, or essentially complete, in construction. What is missing is the fuel - several tons of moderately enriched uranium. The Russians have repeatedly posponed delivery of the fuel.
The Iranians are angry over this, there are huge cost overruns and excessive delays.
The reactor is due to go online, delivering power to the grid in october this year.
To do so, the Russians have either already sent the fuel to Iran, or must to so in the very near future.
The Iranians will need to do some off-line operation to shake down the reactor before it goes online.
That means this summer.
It is actually sensible for Iran to have a nuclear power program. They are large, need to supply a lot of electricity to their grid, and long term they are better off having substantial baseline nuclear power and sell the oil and gas instead of burning it to produce electricity.
Both the USA and Iranian internal political situations are such that each assumes the other is operating in bad faith.
Not just "normal bad faith", both assume the other intends a worst possible outcome.
Internal political situation in both countries is unusually volatile and there may be play in exacerbating external tensions for internal political leverage.
Iran has reasons to want nuclear weapons in a hurry, looking at their situation from the outside with a neutral perspective.
They are surrounded by potentially hostile powers, several of which are nuclear powers, and have recently fought a major war in which WMDs were used against them when the opponent was faltering.
The "axis-of-evil" speech and subsequent events suggest that bilateral deterrence is prudent for the axis-of-evil countries.
Contrast the treatment of North Korea with Iraq.
Over the last 15-20 years, Iran has setup and tested everything they need to have a completely independent nuclear fuel cycle. They can mine uranium. They have tested plutonium production and extraction and done lab scale experiments on plutonium chemistry and matierals science. They have experimented with uranium enrichment and have in construction facilities to do their own enrichment, which can be done to moderate levels for fuel for powers, or continued to highly enriched levels for bomb construction. What they have not apparently done yet is set up production of their own nuclear materials on large scale. They are brushing very close to their treaty committments under NPT but have not made a blatant open breach with their treaty agreements. They're pushing it.
So: how can you get nukes in a hurry.
- Well, simplest way is to buy them.
  There are at least three potential suppliers.
  This has some problems - you don't know if they sold you a dud unless you test; if you test you better have bought several. which is harder than one, and then the game is also up. World will know, and they will know who sold it to you.
  Intelligence agencies ought to be able to isotopically single out where any nuke came from, and I don't think the Iranians know enough to successfully "spike" any test to mask the production signature.
  You can't really deter with bought nukes, just retaliate.
- The Big Worry in the media is the HEU bomb, since the Iranians are setting up enrichment.
  Now, a moderately wealthy nation with ~ 100 physicists (10-20 good, rest competent); few hundred chemists and engineers (competent) and couple of thousand honest construction workers and machine tool operators, and with large electrical power supply, can go from zero to full HEU production, enough to make many kilograms per year, in about 3 years.
  IF the politicians don't micromanage the process, and the technical people are motivated and honest.
  With modern management techniques, it would probably take 10 years.
  An enrichment facility allows a NPT signatory to cut loose, they don't need a nuclear power to supply part of the fuel loop, they don't have to honour any external reprocessing safeguards. They can either have their own completely internal power cycle, build bombs, or both.
  Iran is probably 5-10 years from doing this. It will not get them a bomb this year.
  They can do it somewhat quicker if they take commercial moderately enriched uranium and enrich that rather than raw ore.
  So, they could divert civilian fuel to their own enrichment plant to make HEU quickly. They could hide or obfuscate the process by mixing unenriched uranium in to make up for the missing bit, leaving less enriched uranium. The reactor should still work, but less efficiently. Risky but they might be able to obfuscate long enough to finish enrichment to HEU levels.
- You can make nuclear reactors that work on natural (unenriched) uranium.
  These are somewhat harder to build, the simplest most robust design use "heavy water".
  Iran has a heavy water production facility.
  IF they built a moderate power HIDDEN nuclear reactor and it went operational more than a year ago, they could have made enough plutonium for a bomb or two, and possibly be producing one-to-few per year.
  It seems unlikely they could have done this and gone operational without USA or Israel noticing.
- In my opinion Iran has a window to make several Pu-239 bombs quickly right around now, at a considerable diplomatic cost.
  The way they can do this is to get the fuel for Busherh-1 reactor, and after the core is turned on, shut the reactor down early and pull out the partially burned fuel and chemically extract the Pu-239.
  This would require an open and blatant violation of IAEA safeguards, a breech of the NPT, and possibly the expulsion of the Russian engineers at the reactor (or their detention or passive acquiescence). It would certainly be noticed.
  BUT, if everything else is already in place, the Iranians could then very quickly extract Pu-239 from the partially burned fuel. Enough for something like 3-10 bombs, depending on their efficiency and design capabilities.
  Their window to this is the next 3-9 months. If the fuel is in too long it is useless until the next refueling cycle.
  IF the Russians have or will soon deliver the fuel for Bushehr-1.
  I would be most curious to know if anyone else know for sure whether it has been shipped to Iran.
  
  The Iranians know this.
  The Israelis know this.
  Probably some people in Washington DC know this. Certainly people in some other particular locations in the US know this.
  
  IF you fear Iranian intentions, and assume worst case scenarios, this scenario rationalises a pre-emptive strike, before the Iranians have the opportunity to do a fast burn at Bushehr-1.
  Since you might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, any strike then escalates to a full pre-emptive knock-out against all identified Iranian nuclear facilities.
The political and economic consequences would be very bad. Potentially catastrophic.
Quite frankly, I think the US internal reaction would be a severe schism, while the Iranians would unify.
US political pundits seem to think the opposite, that the Iranians would schism and overthrow the current government while the US would consolidate around the government.

This is why I am seriously concerned that the US may launch a pre-emptive air strike on Iran in the near future.

Oh, I get the sense that the DC "beltway pundits" have become accustomed to thinking of airstrikes as "no big deal". With Iraq from 1991-2003 having repeated small airstrikes, and the bombings in the Balkans in the mid-90s, there seems to be some perception that Iran could just sock it up and accept that the US might choose to send a few squadrons of heavy bombers over. No biggie, grouch about it for a few weeks maybe, some transient market panic, what the call a trading opportunity in Congressional staff offices. (Hm, be interesting to see if oil and gold futures are trading from laptops in DC at anomalous levels).
It is a big deal. Iran is kinda prickly about the whole thing, and nations that are on the receiving end of pre-emptive large air strikes traditionally count it as Acts of War. Ye Olde All Out War, not these late twen-cen half-ass wars.

It would not be fun at all.

Peeves...

2006-04-18T13:31:00.000-04:00

This is an anecdotal, selection biased peeve, but...
A lot of children's books have pictures of the crescent moon, from the context it is clear that the setting is early evening in the northern hemisphere, so it must be a waxing moon.

So wtf do more than half of them (anecdotally) have the crescent pointing to the right?
Is this some art aesthetic?
This is so trivial, yet so easy to do right with negligible extra effort.
And then we wonder why "Stars for Poets" students have a hard time understanding the geometry of the phases of the moon, they've been subliminally indoctrinated since birth to see the moon with the wrong crescent. Assuming they actually read books back then.

One of these days:
I've been dicing-with-death all semester carrying the laptop balanced on top of my folder to and from class. Today it finally took a dive to the floor... case is dinged, DVD drive is making worrying nosies, and the battery now claims to be good for 80+ hours (I could be onto something here). But it still works, for now.

I already knew that carrying the 12" Dongle in my back pocket was not a good idea; earlier this semester I sat on it and bent the "green pin". Fortunately my lecture notes look pretty good in magenta.

iTunes theme of the day - alternating Violent Femmes with Billy Bragg's International (extended play version).

And I have four senior theses to read in 3 days. Oo-ja.

interesting fact

2006-04-17T17:02:00.000-04:00

in early 2006 there were 881 general officers of all rank in all the branches of the US Armed Forces (active service only I believe).

assuming ~ 4 years mean time per grade, and an "up-or-out" policy, I estimate ~ 50-100 retirements per year.
About half of those should be Army and USMC officers.
Parsing the data more finely, something like 10 2-star Army generals retire each year. USMC is about 1/3 the size of the Army.

These numbers scale linearly with the change in assumptions about time in grade etc.

Trailer Snark

2006-04-17T16:24:00.000-04:00

Ok, I can just about understand how someone who sees a blurry picture of a canvas sided trailer with a biofermenter in it might just possibly worry that it could be used to make warbugs rather than boring old molecular hydrogen for balloons

BUT... how could the media and US public possibly take seriously a comment that it could be "used to make anthrax or smallpox"!?

Now, I ain't a biologist, and I ain't brave enough to make stuff like that without something more solid than canvas around me; but how could any half-educated person seriously think that anthrax and smallpox were both possibly produced in these things.
The two are nothing alike.