Random Thoughts

I love Dropbox. I use it to back up and synchronize all my important files, and it has pretty much replaced my need for external hard drives and USB keys. I also use it to share specific folders with co-authors or students so that any changes they make or files they add are synchronized automatically across everyone's computer. I also don't have to worry about updating all the files on my laptop before traveling -- as long as I will have an internet connection while away, all my files will be updated. If you haven't tried Dropbox yet, you really should. And, if you decide to, go ahead…

Spitting On Graves There is science, there is bad science, there is propaganda and then there is spitting on graves. I recently wrote about Robert McClure, the man who finally proved the existence of a North West passage, in fact the most direct passage out of a number of alternatives. The wreck of Robert McClure's ship HMS Investigator was recently found where it had been abandoned. Please note these simple-to-understand and easily-verified historic facts:  1 - the ship sailed along the coast from Alaska, entered the Prince of Wales Strait, overwintered near the end and then attempted…

Know why BetaMax didn't beat out VCRs even though it was better in every way?   The same reason more people have PCs than Apples.   Strangling the technology with one provider keeps the market small and when a flexible alternative comes out, people flock to it. So it has gone with group science blogging.   There is one large successful platform, Scienceblogs.com, and one trying to gain ground, Discover blogs, but the market never really took off.   Detractors pointed to the more militant cultural and political kookiness in some of the blogs and dismissed the whole field as…

When I was a grad student, I installed SETI@home on a bunch of lab computers, which served as a screen saver and crunched data from scans of the sky in search of aliens whenever the computer was idle. I thought this was a neat idea, as it tapped into the processing power and electricity being wasted on huge numbers of computers that are left on in labs most of the time. Plus, wouldn't it be cool if your computer found a viable signal? An even cooler application of this principle of distributed analysis, crowdsourcing, or whatever-it's-called, is FoldIt, a video game created by Seth Cooper…

"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work... I want to achieve it through not dying"Woody Allen

Aww. I cannot bring myself to enter the contest to win a month living in the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. The website beckons: "Be the experiment. Eat. Sleep. Science."  But I am not proficient at editing or making videos, a prerequisite. The winner will emerge $10,000 wealthier for interacting with the public, doing experiments and documenting the Month at the Museum experience, October 20 to November 18, 2010.  What a dream gig!   The Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM) is less than a mile away from here, and families with children ages 6 to 12 can book, and pay for,…

When I was studying, a long, long time ago I encountered the problem that I was busy with subjects that most of my friends did not understand. Still I considered those subjects so interesting that I proceeded. The result was that after a while I got socially isolated. When I started my career, I wanted to cure that situation and I choose a job where people needed my skills for their purpose. Now I am retired and I want to spend my time again to deep fundamental research. The problem is that I am still surrounded by nice people that have one negative aspect. They hate formulas. When I want to…

Recently Elizabeth Cunningham Perkins brought us a Weedy Rumination on the Creeping Bellflower, Campanula rapunculoides. I will now tell you about a wildflower growing in my own garden, which is full of memories. From the age of 8 until I moved out in my early twenties, we lived in a road one side of which was houses as normal, but the other side marked the boundary of Croydon Airport. From there I could watch many different types of planes taking off and landing, the largest being the Douglas DC-3 (which we called the Dakota, perhaps from wartime memory, though they may have been a different…

Just a note here because I figured it is not clear - I am on vacation these days and, while I continue to post at a regular frequency, I am much more erratic than usual with answering comments in the threads. I would like this to be clear, because I usually do make a point of answering all comments that lend themselves to be answered. With a slow connection and the need to spend as much time as possible swimming  in the blue waters of Elafonisos, this is bound to be a side effect. I will be back in regular blogging mood by August 10th.

BeautifulPeople.com, the dating site where ugly people need not apply, has launched a virtual sperm (and egg) bank for people who want to have beautiful babies.   Really.  They call it the Beautiful Baby service and they have also made it available to non-members  because, let's face it, the only way for more beautiful babies to be created is to have pretty men impregnate ugly women too, so take one for the team, fellow awesome men who are both smart and hot.   They are serious.   Says Greg Hodge, managing director, "There are no financial benefits for us in…