November 2004
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Cosmology and schnitzel
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Recently back from a trip to the Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik outside of Munich, Germany, where I talked with colleagues about ESA‘s upcoming Planck Surveyor mission to measure the Cosmic Microwave Background (which we’re working on here at Imperial College), and, of course, eat such delicacies as wandererpfandl mit hirschbraten and weissbraten mit weissbier. More on…
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NASA’s Future: man or machine?
New York Times Editorial: NASA’s Budgetary Gift Horse: With its hands free to redistribute a hefty 2005 budget, the space agency should funnel more resources into its unmanned programs. Congress … granted NASA unprecedented authority to move funds about … to stitch together a viable program within the available resources. That puts a special burden…
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Picture of the day
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A detail from Leonardo’s “A Deluge.” (Courtesy The Queen of England, via The Guardian.)
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(Extraordinary Popular Delusions and) The Madness of Crowds
I arrived at Paddington Station this evening on my usual commute, to find a cluster of thirty-odd young people, swaying and dancing… silently. Looking closely, they were all listening to headphones, dancing to their own music. Onlookers were befuddled, smiling, snapping pictures with their camera-equipped mobile phones (like my jerky attempt here). A couple of…
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Boosting the economy
The London Evening Standard: Huge rise in cannabis use. Adam Curry, back in the UK!
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Google Scholar
I just learned about Google Scholar, a new search engine devoted strictly to so-called scholarly or academic publishing, apparently replacing the html links used for the usual google ranking with citations (i.e., references). I’m not yet sure this is better than the ArXiv that I mentioned in this post, or subject-specific search engines such as…
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Sustainable Island
I live on the very small Osney Island on the River Thames and last night I went to a meeting of the Osney Sustainable Island Group (OSIG). We’d like to take advantage of our location and set up a “micro-hydro” station to produce electricity. But we’re only at the beginning: we need to find funds…
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Science in Bush’s America
Wired News: Science Braces for Second Term Climate change. The teaching of Darwinian evolution. Stem Cell research and reproductive rights. Industrial waste. Exploring Mars. Many or most of us scientists disagree with the Bush Administration’s policies on many of these and other issues. That becomes a real problem when they start interfering with the flow…
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Powell in 2008?
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US Secretary of State Colin Powell resigns: he’s a pro-affirmative action military moderate… So: for the Democrats?
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Academic blogs
Bloggercon happened last weekend at Stanford University in the USA. One of the sessions was on Blogging in Academia; I wasn’t there, but anyone can listen to it at IT Conversations. The moderator was Jay Rosen, and there are notes on the sessions at his site, and on the blogs One Pilgrim’s Walk and JZip.…
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