catdynamics | May 15, 2007A correspondent points me to an interesting point made on rateyourstudents.blogspot.com
The issue is the "students as customers" but with some interesting points...
The argument is that each particular student expects individual service, whereas the university as an institution really deals with the students collectively.
In particular, the university as part of its business has to maintain standards, part of its brand value is to sustain its reputation and the added value of its diplomas. This is the crude market value of the broader goal of university to educate and create a liberally…
catdynamics | May 15, 2007Virginia Trimble's legendary annual survey of hot research in astrophysics is out
References are kinda annoying this year, first author only and no titles!
Ah well, I see at least one of my papers in there...
Always a fun read.
catdynamics | May 15, 2007Unconfirmed report on CommonDreams that the White House wanted to put three carriers in the Persian Gulf in early April by having the Nimitz get there early.
Supposedly Admiral Fallon refused to do this, which is curious and problematic in itself.
On the one hand putting three carriers in the gulf is tantamount to a declaration of war, on the other hand CENTCOM commander does not make policy. The story implies Fallon was asked to request the carrier to provide cover and refused to do so, which is slightly plausible.
Quite weird, and quite worrying in view of Cheney's recent bluster and…
catdynamics | May 15, 2007Sitting in a hotel room, reading Generation Rx by Greg Critser, it is very disconcerting to see out of the corner of your eye the topic of the book - the ad for the "purple pill", the generic pretty people running through the field, and the very strange two bathtubs-on-a-cliff ad...
ok, so I know what the third one is for, but why are there two bathtubs, and do these ads really work on the east coast in winter? Also, I have got to check what I'm viewing, I'm just not in those demographics...
Generation Rx (Mariner Books ISBN-13: 978-0-618-77356-5 is a nice little book.
It rambles a bit,…
catdynamics | May 14, 2007Fascinating post on Scott's shtetl-optimized on logical inference, religion and the parsimony of evolutionary optimised reasoning
Read the whole thing.
There is always a worry that scientific rationalism is a darwinian dead-end, in that it is suboptimal for reproductive fitness, and Scott touches on that. Mathematics, beyond basic arithmetic, may be a peacock feather in the long run. Or not, the fitness landscape changes and memes, not just genes, compete.
We don't just reproduce, we convert...
More important is the cognitive dissonance: Scott thinks prevention of suffering is a good basis…
catdynamics | May 13, 2007So I'm catching up on stuff.
And I come across a short in Science (314, 1231 24 Nov 2006) on the resignation of the head of the US census bureay and his deputy.
Ok, interesting. It comes after a new Commerce Secretary is appointed. BFD.
Well, the Census Bureau does the census - coming up in 2010 - which detemines congressional seat allocation, could that be it? In particular, is the fight over the "undercount" correction at issue?
(There is a robust argument that the Census should do a "completeness correction" to correct for underreporting on census forms, and it is known that poor people…
catdynamics | May 13, 2007The debate over the tenure process that Rob kicked up at Galactic Interactions continues with Chad worrying about senior academic complacence and the Incoherent Ponderer pondering some more
the latter makes a good point - the big hurdle is moving from postdoc to tenure track, that is anecdotally where most of the involuntary attrition takes place (a lot of people who stop after PhD seem to do it by choice, they've had a taste and decided to do something else, thank you).
Once on the tenure track, the odds are better; the real issue seems to be the process, not the outcome.
It is a brutal…
catdynamics | May 12, 2007experimental results show strong negative refraction in the optical
this could be very useful for astronomical imaging
Lezec et al report n ~ -5 negative refraction synthetic material that works in the optical (~ 500 nm) over a respectable bandwidth (~ 50 nm) (website and link here).
Negative Refractive Index materials were pointed out by Veselago (1968) and made concrete theoretically by Pendry (2000).
Shortly after synthetic metamaterials were constructed with the requisite properties at microwave wavelengths, demonstrating the reality of some of the more interesting properties such as "…
catdynamics | May 11, 2007I hear second hand rumours about the Beyond Einstein NRC review committee status
I am reliably informed, that the committee did reach their conclusions, probably very shortly after the Chicago townhall meeting, and that they have a definite ranking. The formal report is being written.
They report to NASA in June and the formal announcment is by September.
No word on what the actual recommendations are.
Curious as I am, I would rather see the committee maintain its integrity than leak the news prematurely and mess up the process. I can wait.
catdynamics | May 11, 2007It is windy friday and we ask the Mighty iPod One, in the spirit of the soon to be news: a ring of dark matter? Really?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Strax í Dag - Stuðmenn
The Crossing: Wonderland - XTC
The Crown: Splunkunýtt Lag - Stuðmenn
The Root: Death or Glory - Clash
The Past: Do You Really Want To Hurt Me? - Violent Femmes
The Future: Sigurður er Sjómaður
The Questioner: Út íVeður og Vind - Stuðmenn
The House: Four Ruffles and Flourishes
The Inside: Móðir - Ego
The Outcome: Afgan - Stríð og Friður
Hm, I forgot I only had the reduced set of obscure music on this…
catdynamics | May 11, 2007For Mother's Day: "Betty Friedan Honored With Second-Class Postage Stamp"
Onion Special Issue
(h/t FSP)
One of these funny but makes you cry issues.
catdynamics | May 10, 2007The Angry Physicist makes a good spot
Press conference next week on a "ring of dark matter" discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope, Advanced Camera for Surveys (RIP).
This is almost certainly this result reported at the AAS
The authors took strong and weak lensing data from a moderate redshift cluster and see a ring mass density enhancement at about 1.5 core radii.
The interpret it, with supporting collisionless numerical models, as a "turnaround ripple" from a near head-on collision of two clusters 1-2 Gyrs ago.
I am skeptical but intrigued. Not having seen the actual paper, I'd worry…
catdynamics | May 10, 200725 years ago I flew to the UK, after having been completely out of touch with all media for a week, and found the country was at war.
This was particularly awkward because traveling in our group was a young Argentinian woman, with a broken leg, who didn't know either.
Her family were prominent opponents of the Argentinian government, and had she been deported, as was the immigration peoples' first instinct, she would assuredly have "disappeared".
Fortunately sanity prevailed.
In the meantime, the Y-Ranter revisits history and dissects the myth of the war
part I and part II
and now part III…
catdynamics | May 10, 2007Brad deLong explains the issue with Wolfowitz and the World Bank, succinctly
catdynamics | May 9, 2007Four Dee
Fourty
Two.
If you read any more I will sue.
4D 42 0B 61 97 8F B5 07 D4 66 EE 63 73 AA B0 85
That number is mine.
Freedom to Tinker generated it, and deeded it to me
It is my very own, tip-top super secret decryption code to a very valuable and copyrighted text.
You may not know it, read it, copy it, display it or memorize it.
Not like this, or this
77661197151143181721210223899115170176133
or this
3 * 11 * 607921 * 38711767
Not as an image, or a poem, or through any algorithm that may generate it.
That is a lot. 'Specially since there are a lot of algorithms to generate it...
I own…
catdynamics | May 9, 2007Rob at Galactic Interactions has existential issues
Sean has some thoughts on the issue
It is an interesting topic, but one that is very hard to comment on.
The criteria for tenure vary somewhat between different universities, but at the "R1" level (annoying but useful bio concept that) the broad guideline, in my humble opinion as a tenured faculty member who is not on the promotion and tenure committee(!) is
"million dollars, fifty papers and don't screw up on the teaching".
The actual number depend on details, some fields just don't have that sort of money, or the number of papers expected…
catdynamics | May 9, 2007Most universities have both office specific keys and more general "master keys", I have observed a curious trend among those keys.
The "F" keys - those that open only the inner sanctum of faculty offices, closed seminar rooms and coffee supply cupboards - as opposed to the more general building keys, or keys for student offices - are "pointier", and this means they are far superior for opening bottles.
Using keys to open bottles, specifcially beer bottles, is an old survival skill from student days; particularly useful now that it is almost impossible to travel with tools, like bottle…
catdynamics | May 9, 2007The EU and US signed an "open skies" agreement earlier this week.
The primary purpose of the agreement is to relax landing right restrictions and open internal flights to international competition, but I hear anecdotally that there will be an added benefit.
Currently, in the US, federal workers and academic taking international flights paid for by federal grants must fly out of the US on a US flag carrier.
They also should take US carriers as far as possible to their final destination.
This can make it interestingly tricky to find reasonably priced international flights on some routes.
It is…
catdynamics | May 4, 2007Sunny, sunny friday at home!
So, we cheerfully skip to The Mighty iPod One and ask blithely:
oh, Mighty iPod, will we be seeing some interestingly habitable planets in the zone soon?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: When Love Comes to Town - U2
The Crossing: If I didn't Lover You - Squeeze
The Crown: Forse la soglia attinse - Pavarotti
The Root: Billie's Blues - Billie Holiday
The Past: Still Ill - The Smiths
The Future: Let's Do Rock Steady - Bodysnatchers
The Questioner: Þá líður okkur vel - Hemmi Gunn
The House: I Sing of a Maiden - King's College Choir
The Inside: The…
catdynamics | May 3, 2007Corot has first discovery announcement
Corot Exo1b - 1.3 Jupiter masses, radius of 1.5-1.8 Jupiter radiii around G dwardf with 1.5 day orbital period.
So another short period, bloated Jupiter. Star is 500 pc away, so I'm guessing roughly 12th magnitude.
Specs at extrasolar encyclopedia
The big news is the very high precision photometry they are claiming, their sensitivity looks very good, and they should go to lower masses than anticipated over the next year.
Current photometry looks to be 50 micromagnitudes, compared with specs of 0.7 millimagnitudes and they still haven't beaten down the…