catdynamics | January 31, 2008The domestic cat has a range of up to 10 km per day
this is significantly shorter than human which are excellent migrants, can sustain maybe 30 km per day.
At 10 km/day it would take a cat about 11 billion years to walk to alpha Centauri.
Which unfortunately would have burned out by then.
But since humans would have got there about 8 billion years earlier, we'd no doubt leave some crunchies and a bowl of fresh water around proxima Centauri
catdynamics | January 30, 2008Cute
and tasty - them's good eatin'!
Lightly boiled breast of Lundi, with sweet mashed potatos, mushy green peas and rhubarb jam. (From Höska Búa - food and poetry).
Yum.
Ok, so you need to boil them a lot to get the fish oil taste down.
Not of course puffin season, it it Þorri, the winter month of starvation.
You should be eating your food pickled in some lactic acid this week...
catdynamics | January 30, 2008A part of the typical graduate school application is the "essay" or personal statement
I also did this, when I were a wee lad.
I came from Europe, but for obscure historical reasons was mostly applying to universities in the US.
Upon reading the application forms, I found a small box which said something to the effect of "tell us why you want to go to grad school".
It was, typically, a very small box.
Because US application deadlines were, much to my surprise, much earlier than typical European deadlines, I was in a bit of a rush.
So I wrote, in #2 pencil of course: "I like physics. I have…
catdynamics | January 28, 2008Which is a better metric of faculty research performance, H or G?
I already pontificated about the Hirsch index - where you rank your published papers by citation rank, and the H-index is the largest number such that you have k papers with the number of cites greater than or equal to k.
It is an interesting measure, grows monotonically with time, gives some weight to number of "pretty good" papers, rather than small number of very highly cited papers.
I now learn there is also a "G index" proposed by Leo Egghe, apparently, to fix the problems with the H-index. See here though it appears the…
catdynamics | January 28, 2008Physics bloggers are quite taken with the recent financial market turmoil.
Hsu considers propagator effects and asymmetries of time averaged risk, while the Incoherent Ponderer seizes upon my comment about the root cause between the Superconducting SuperCollider cancellation and current financial shenanigans
What brought the original comment I made to mind, is that I recognized a name or two in a list of major players in the east coast financial and mortgage markets... er, Hey Guys!
It was very clear when I was graduating that the academic job market in the physical sciences was in a bad…
catdynamics | January 28, 2008bo gi ru sa
af er og um
There are about 250 legal two word combinations in the english language, looking just at the basic vowels - a,e,i,o,u,y and the remaining 20 consonants. I'm allowing y to be a pseudo-consonant for some extra combinations.
There are apparently 101 legal two letters words in Scrabble - though some are interjections, abbreviations or foreign words. Oh, and there is "aa" and "oe"...
This is strange, since two letter words are useful, and english does not use many of the nicer ones, like the ones above.
Now, some of that is because english is a hybrid with heavy latin…
catdynamics | January 25, 2008Two unrelated threads came together in my mind on the issue of physics, careers issues and the world.
Did you know that there is an not half-bad science fiction story that as backplot notes that physicists take over the hard drug trade in the US and Europe in the early 21st century - only way to pay for the next generation particle accelerators, natch.
In the meantime, the Incoherent Ponderer has triggered a strong reaction with a post on the GREs and graduate admission - it is worth a read, including the comments. I can't really comment on the issue right now due to conflict of interest…
catdynamics | January 25, 2008Frosty friday, but no snow! We can has snow?
Oh, mighty iPod, we approach thee - is the key insight retrograde asymmetry on long time scales?
Woosh goes the randomizer.
Woosh.
The Covering: Don't Look Back in Anger (live) - Oasis
The Crossing: Land of Confusion - Genesis
The Crown: American Music - Violent Femmes
The Root: Energí Og Trú - Stuðmenn
The Past: Blindfullur - Stuðmenn
The Future: The Only Flame in Town - Elvis Costello
The Questioner: Isolation - Joy Division
The House: Brimful of Asha - Cornershop
The Inside: Parachutes - Pearl Jam
The Outcome: Clock - Elementz of Noise
Wow,…
catdynamics | January 24, 2008Jason Jones' quest for a Modern Valkyrie ends
Comedy Show's great two part visit to Iceland reaches its dramatic conclusions
For your viewing pleasure.
The similarty to a committee meeting I just attended is eerie... somethings are just universal.
It is funny. when Jason went to her apartment, he of course showed everyone where she lives - just down from one of my aunts, and about 3 block across from one uncle and a couple of cousins. And about a block from the apartment we stayed in the other summer (though Herdís must have been either in Brussels or Baghdad at the time). Hm, I wonder if…
catdynamics | January 23, 2008Did I mention space is big
Really big...
Did you know that the typical separation between stars in the neighbourhood is many millions of time the typical size of a star and about ten thousand times larger than the typical size of the planetary systems.
catdynamics | January 23, 2008Finally, the Comedy Show starts airing the sequence shot in Iceland last autumn.
and who says scandihoovians have no sense of humour
It is worth seeing, if you missed the show - guess this is one benefit of the writer's strike.
Part II tonight, worth staying up for.
Hey, just remember You heard it here first... - Dynamics of Cats is months ahead of everyone else when it comes to cutting edge comedy and world geopolitics!
catdynamics | January 23, 2008Keck gives Caltech $24 million to fund a new space studies institute.
$3 million per year for 8 years from Keck -
"...Caltech has received an eight-year, $24-million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation to establish a space studies institute dedicated to developing a new generation of space missions and research.
The W.M. Keck Institute for Space Studies will consider such sweeping questions as how the universe began, its ultimate fate and the likelihood that life exists elsewhere in the cosmos, Caltech said Tuesday.
Each year, the institute will adopt one or more of these themes and explore…
catdynamics | January 18, 2008I need photos of cats.
Cute, quirky or feline. Whichever.
As long as they are cat only or cat dominated, they are your pictures (you took them and own copyright) and you're willing to let me use them online lightly photoshopped for text and trimming. I'll provide link, acknowledgement or anonymity as desired, but I need a couple of dozen or more photos.
So send them in. Please..
UPDATE: thanks everyone. Between commenters and private e-mail I have a rather nice selection. Keep an eye out for your favourite wee beastie appearing in a subtly photoshopped kosmological concept.
I'm still…
catdynamics | January 18, 2008Snowy sunny friday, and the big chill is moving in, finally.
So, we ask the tres cool iPod - whence the Frontier?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Floreat Inertia - Half Man Half Biscuit
The Crossing: Við Gróttu - Stríð Og Friður
The Crown:Accident Waiting to Happen - Billy Bragg
The Root: I Only Have Eyes For You - Billie Holliday
The Past: Science Fiction/Double Feature - Richard O'Brien
The Future: Now And Then - Arlo Guthrie
The Questioner: Bought Me A Cat
The House: Í Háttin Kl. 8 - Stuðmenn
The Inside: Time Flies By (When You're A Driver of a Train) - Half…
catdynamics | January 17, 2008Love and Sex with Robots
Colbert just had David Levy, author of "Love and Sex with Robots" on
Quite amusing, quite good and quite likely predictive, although reality will no doubt surprise us.
And, most of it was covered at some point by 70s science fiction writers.
But, a significant fraction of these robots are likely to have core OS which are linear descendants of Microsoft Windows... "Blue Screen of Death" anyone?
Puts an entirely new perspective on La petite mort...
I'll leave other obvious puns to the reader.
catdynamics | January 16, 2008So, how much do faculty make.
The Incoherent Ponderer Pseudonymously Reveals All
The US system seems very byzantine on occasion to Us Europeans, lot of gamesmanship.
The IP discusses the situation well, the top private universities - Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Caltech crowd definitely pay top dollar - with the IAS probably paying best.
The large public universities probably pay better than most of the private small liberal arts universities, although it is generally incorrect to say that they receive a lot of funding from the government - faculty term salaries come primarily out of student…
catdynamics | January 16, 2008There are principles in cosmology
We discuss cosmogony and principles...
It could be argued that Ginnungagap is a remarkable metaphor for the modern view of quantum cosmology, I personally think that the detailed description of the spontaneous appearance of a temperature gradient followed by non-linear evolution is quite remarkable. The hint of the multiverse is also interesting, but why stop at nine?
Eschatology, not so hot, though the hint of a cyclic cosmology is intriguing.
On the other hand I have a fondness for pastafarianism.
Maybe this indicates I am a flawed Boltzmann Brain…