Web Design Is Stupid

The College maintain an “OnCampus” page, intended to serve as a clearinghouse for electronic resources on campus. I have it set as the home page for all my campus computers, because it lets me access a lot of stuff very quickly– Blackboard, course rosters, academic calendars, etc. This page has always consisted of two bands… Continue reading Web Design Is Stupid

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Categorized as Technology

links for 2008-04-09

Most powerful laser in the world fires up “The Texas Petawatt laser reached greater than one petawatt of laser power on Monday morning, March 31,” Good thing, or they’d feel pretty dumb about the name. (tags: physics optics science news) Cats Laughing Everybody’s favorite band of SF authors, on the Intenet. (tags: SF music internet)… Continue reading links for 2008-04-09

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Categorized as Links Dump

What Do You Need to Make a Quantum Computer?

(This is the second of two background posts for a peer-reviewed research blogging post that has now slipped to tomorrow. I started writing it, but realized that it needed some more background information, which became this post. And now I don’t have time to write the originally intended post…) Making a quantum computer is a… Continue reading What Do You Need to Make a Quantum Computer?

Political Indoctrination by Faculty

An ad-lib from yesterday’s lecture about interactions between electric fields and neutral matter, paraphrased: So, we can divide macroscopic objects into two categories, based on what happens when you bring large numbers of atoms together. In materials that are insulators, the electrons aren’t free to move. The atoms hold onto their electrons very tightly. They’re… Continue reading Political Indoctrination by Faculty

Vitale in the Hall of Fame

The world’s best known shrieking basketball analyst was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame yesterday, and event which ESPN is understandbly hyping to no end. I’ve written before about how Vitale is, in my opinion, one of the very worst color commentators in the business, so you might be wondering “What do you think… Continue reading Vitale in the Hall of Fame

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Categorized as Basketball

Rock, Chalk, Championship

When I went to bed last night, I thought the crucial moment of the NCAA men’s basketball championship game was Bill Self’s mystifying decision to go to a box-and-one on Chris Douglas-Roberts in the middle of the second half. That’s because I went to be lat night with two minutes to play and Memphis up… Continue reading Rock, Chalk, Championship

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Categorized as Basketball

links for 2008-04-08

Administrating « Confused at a higher level “Why did I say yes to the Dean when he asked whether I would take on this position? He made the request/offer to me a week after calling me to let me know I had tenure — he claimed that this gave me a fair shot at saying… Continue reading links for 2008-04-08

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Categorized as Links Dump

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

Having brought in a huge new audience at the end of last week– partly through the “framing”/”screechy monkeys” things, but mostly because my What Everyone Should Know About Science post hit the front page on Reddit– I figured I should take this opportunity to… Well, drive them all right the hell away again with a… Continue reading Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

Moderation, Not Apathy

I had planned to let the current round of screechy-monkey-bashing die, but I woke up this morning to an accusation from commenter Andrew that I don’t want to leave unanswered: As for the blog – I’m not sure you are actually moderate really, it sounds more like vaguely apathetic. Or more accurately (and without the… Continue reading Moderation, Not Apathy

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Categorized as Religion