Miscellanea
-
Front Page Probability
In a bid to combine numeracy with sports coverage, The Observer presents the Poisson distribution as a headline on its front page today. Supposedly, it has something to do with predicting the number of goals a team will score in the World Cup. The Poisson distribution is P(n) = λn e-λ/n! This gives the probability,…
-
Also…
·
Wine: California beats the French (again). Meanwhile, wine seems to be taking over the net, with podcasts and a a spate of sites for reviewing, ranking and cataloguing your wine, some with all sorts of new Web 2.0 goodies. (More commentary when and if I get to around to actually using them.) Song: go read…
-
UFOs exist…
·
…but not aliens. Or so they would have us believe.
-
Gonzo Lama
Today is the anniversary of the death of Hunter Thompson. In commemoration, his wife is offering this picture, along with the quote, “At the top of the mountain, we are all snow leopards” — Dr Hunter S. Thompson (although, as pointed out in the comments, it’s not Hunter, but Hemmingway). Without his usual guns, pills…
-
Four things
·
Today’s internet meme has been passed to me by Gia, so, yep, more bloggy rubbish for you, and more about me than you wanted to know. Four jobs I’ve had: University Lecturer and Astrophysicist Bookstore clerk Book, comic and music reviewer for New City News Atmospheric chemistry researcher at GISS, whose director has an excellent…
-
Traffic
·
In a response to the question “what are your fave science/tech bloggers,” this blog is listed, with the comment “astrophysics and bloggy rubbish.” I’m lumped in with my colleagues over at Cosmic Variance, among others, as having “too much politics at the level typical of blogs (i.e., shrill idiocy) or mindless propogation of the same…
-
Holiday Spirit
I was going to present a long disquisition on secularism, religion and society at large, but this is better: “Whether you believe with an absolute literalism or with a more analogic faith, whether you believe at all, whether you are Christian or Jewish or Muslim or merely human, the word we would like to feel…
-
London Pleasures
Sitting at the front of the top of a double-decker bus; Borough Market: chorizo & rocket sandwiches from Brindisa Not so pleasurable: no public transport on Christmas Day (even without a strike!). How am I supposed to keep my busy social schedule??
-
More light, more science, no subways
Yesterday was the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. So it all gets better from now on (Seasonal Affective Disorder seems to me a perfectly reasonable response to the darkness). But what else? A Republican-appointed member of the federal judiciary has slammed the Intelligent Design crackpots, seeing them for the crypto-creationists they can…
-
Placeholder
·
Quick lunch-hour dispatch, all to be clarified soon: Last week I participated in a collaboration between the Dana Centre (the adult wing of the Science Museum) and some artists, entitled “Big Ideas.” Imperial College is to be leaving the University of London. Fantastic late-night Dinner last weekend, with (among many others!) Kosso, Rachel, Imp, Deirdre,…
Search
Recent Posts
Categories
- Academia (64)
- Art (57)
- Blog (1)
- Miscellanea (103)
- Music (71)
- Net (63)
- News (28)
- Politics (110)
- Science (333)
- Uncategorized (4)