Random Thoughts
Hank |
As mentioned, I had a chance to break some bread with uber-Geek book author Garth Sundem a few days back and posted a Bloggy pic. But, as is common, we took more than one to try and get it right. So below is the pic I posted from my article and then down farther is an 'outtake' that didn't make the cut.
Can your keen eyes fathom why the waitress snapping the photo said that one was not so good?
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
Oscar Wilde
Hank |
When the Batphone rang in my office late Wednesday, I knew it had to be important, like someone being wrong on the Internet, because, really, no one calls me. It helps that I never call anyone back(1).
It turned out to instead be everyone's favorite math geek, Garth Sundem. He got an impromptu gig on a Sacramento morning show so he was driving up I-5 and wanted to know if Bloggy would be available to break some bread. I could come along too, he said.
So break bread we did. Garth is just as engaging and personable over a Fat Tire as he is on TV.
But we weren't there…
Recently I've seen the questions come up regarding why the market doesn't respond to health care or why supply and demand don't seem to work in health care as in other economic models.
The answer is simple. There is no free market nor is there a supply/demand model for health care.
While some might dispute that claim, consider the way the process works. Supply and demand is based upon the notion that prices will be set based on what the market will bear and consequently supply and demand will rise or fall in response to those prices. Even though one could argue that such a…
I am not a believer of any faith, and the most common prayer you can hear from my voice is "pass the salt". However, I claim I have the right to have my own opinion on what is worth praying for. Praying for oneself or one's beloved relatives or friends is too selfish an occupation to deserve my attention. Praying for the world in general, for world peace, or for the human race, on the other hand, sounds a bit too ambitious for any single voice. There must be a middle ground.
And indeed there is. I think the tragedy that unfolds in the galleries below the Atacama desert in northern Chile…
The physics news in August have so far disappointed me, with the only remarkable one being the sad departure of Nicola Cabibbo. After ICHEP 2010, with the frenzy of paper production that has characterized the month of July in all major particle physics experiments, it was easy to predict a slower pace. So I did not lose too much, apparently, by spending four weeks in Greece and one week in the Italian Alps.
But effective today, I am back in business. This means no more four-day hiatuses in updates of my blog (due to the trouble with accessing the web from the remote locations I have confined…
Day-Trip
Every once in a while I post a poem in my blog.
I hope that my readers may enjoy my poems and that educators may find them helpful as teaching aids.
For a very long time in the UK people would travel by train to the seaside during the summer. The day-trip to the seaside was something of a national institution. For small children, such a day-trip was a grand adventure.
DAY - TRIP Sitting on the sea - shore …
Hank |
It's been a good decade for "The Wizard of Oz" - much better than the Oz books merit but in that one story there is the kernel of something terrific that has resonated with people for decades. There was a time when it was less cool - anyone watching "The Wiz" had to wonder what they were thinking but re-tellings of the story in more recent years have been terrific.
"Wicked", for example, tells the story of the Wicked Witch and she ends up being a lot more sympathetic. The core storyline of "The Wizard of Oz" pops in and out but it is her story - and the musical is…
I found this song in a playlist that an ex had given me; for some reason, I don't ever remember hearing it. Maybe if I had, we'd still be together- who knows? In any case, here it is, Josh Ritter, singing "Stuck to You". He's dreamy, in a real sciency way. *swoon!*
Here are the lyrics: (video follows the lyrics- one live version, the other is the recorded version)
Well there's one thing Mama, I think you should knowThat it's not Love, that makes the flowers growBut a complex electron transfer process known as photosynthesis when chlorophyll reacts with the light of daySince you're gone, the…
Hank |
Anthropology rules!
If a physicist tried to do a research study playing "World of Warcraft" for 3 years his peers would say, "Don't try to church it up, Tommaso, you're just playing World of Warcraft" but when an ethnographer does it, they get funding from the National Science Foundation, Intel, and write a book about it.
Bonnie Nardi, professor in the Department of Informatics, School of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Irvine, got the idea in late 2005 and eventually discovered what every teenager already knew - social gaming doesn't take…