Random Thoughts
"I envy University Professors. They are paid to question people who know nothing but try very hard to say something, while I have to question people who know everything but do their utmost to say nothing at all."
Piercamillo Davigo, Italian Judge investigating corrupt politicians
I discovered several of my articles at http://onbilgi.com/ today, all of them lifted from here, all of them without my name as author, all of them without links back to here. Not only did I find my work, it looks like all the articles they have are taken from here. They've taken your posts, too."Scientific Consensus" by Patricl Lockerby (not that you'd know it over there) is there. So is his "Charity, What Does It Mean? - Sadaqa, Matlab Kya He?" complete with the photos he used.
Steve Davis's 2009 piece "Evolutionary Biology - Home Of The Idiot Savant" is there, too.While it doesn't…
Jackson Pollock (d.1956) is famous to mainstream people more for the movie about his troubled life than his art, but his drip paintings have intrigued more than art historians.
A quantitative analysis of Pollock's streams, drips, and coils reveals some deep knowledge of applied physics and an ability to exploit fluid dynamics. Crossovers between art and science are nothing new, of course, Leonardo da Vinci's is the archetype of the "Renaissance man" because of his botanical sketches, proportional studies, flying machines, war engines and a painting or two.
Pollock's signature style…
How many famlies have more electronic devices than people? It's not hard to be swimming in a digital sea in today's culture. Americans appear to worship the latest upgrade, willing to wait overnight in lines just to get the next version of an iphone or ipad. Finding balance in the digital age is incredibly difficult, and some families feel overwhelmed when it comes to finding ways to disconnect their children from their digital devices.
When you live in West Texas and melt in the heat, it's even easier to stay couped up inside and wired in. It's a natural protection against heat stroke…
The topic of Dante came up recently here in a comment stream following an article on parsley. So I am taking this opportunity to share with you two of my favourite bits.
First, from Canto XVI of Paradiso
Setting: Dante has reached the Heaven of Mars, and meets his great-great-grandfather Cacciaguida degli Elisei. Dante marvels at his nobility, and laments the corruption of Florence in his time.
O poca nostra nobiltà di sangue,se gloriar di te la gente faiqua giù dove l’affetto nostro langue,mirabil cosa non mi sarà mai:ché là dove appetito non si torce,dico nel cielo, io me ne…
We’ve just finished a documentary on Stephen Hawking and I hand Bobby the dvd and ask him to put it in. “What now, Mama?”
“Wait and see,” I tell them.
As the film starts, my three children, all at various points in the spectrum, all engaged in their own private worlds, perk up and stop to look at the tv where sounds of a person humming begin spontaneously upon the dvd loading.
All three set aside their cards or books and watch. Lily peppers me with questions as music plays and a child(?) draws people in vibrant markers.
The screen fades to black and…
Democracy should never be given for granted. So if you are given a chance to cast a vote, you should not overlook the fact that voting is both your duty toward your country, and a right you need to exercise if you don't want to lose it.
In Italy on June 12th and 13th citizens are called to vote directly to abolish a couple of laws that the current government insisted on forcing upon us. I will not spend a word on the laws themselves, since that is not the point of this short post. Rather, I want to explain the importance of going to vote, and why I hope that Italian readers of this blog will…
vongehr |
Recent articles
are chronologically at: column.
But here, articles are categorized thematically. Topics are in no particular
order, starting with Physics before
going to Consciousness, Drugs,
Atheism, Science and the Media, Transhumanism, China, Skepticism, Nanotech, Suicide/Autism/Asperger/ADHD
related and many more.
-----------------Quantum
Physics
Quantum-Cryptography
Core-Question, Heart of QM Information Theory Answered
Answer To “Where Are
The Parallel Worlds?”
Smart Girls Guide To Guys Who Pretend
Knowing Physics (on many-worlds)
Quantum Randi Challenge Peer Review…
Hank |
Government work is usually a thankless job - yes, thanks to guaranteed pay raises and a union that can shut down the government, government employees make more money than the private sector and have better benefits and retirement, so it is not exactly thankless, but there are few instances where we can say 'government gets it right'.
One instance where government gets it right is the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. By that, I mean government lawyers. Yes, I just endorsed government and lawyers in the same sentence - but when Science 2.0 and Scientific Blogging both took off, I…
The Big Bang Theory is a great show for promoting both science and acceptance. It's a favorite show in our household, and all three of my children, who are at various spots on the autism spectrum, find something appealing in the show, see some aspect of themselves in the quirky social misfits. My daughters' favorite, though, is Sheldon. Lily in particular adores Sheldon and wants to be like him. She wants to understand his job, what it means to be a theoretical physicist, and how to think like he does.
By promoting science and scientists as interesting and fun, this show does a…