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a map of nucleations
| archive for March, 2005 |
States
26 Mar 2005 22:46 EST
bold The states I’ve been to, underline the states I’ve lived in and italicize the state I’m in now…
Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida / Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennessee / Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / District of Columbia /
Go HERE to have a form generate the HTML (which I then modified by hand) for you.
The Science Behind Common Sense
10 Mar 2005 19:35 EST
Article at Tech Central Station about the value of ‘Common Sense’ vs. Scientific Reasoning vs. Appeal to Authority.
Most interesting part is about babies and colic…
…we should always have respect for propositions that prove true even though we aren’t quite sure why.
Which brings us to a fascinating article in the New York Times, on the matter of colic in infants. Colic is the prolonged, unexplained crying that some babies habitually do during the early months of their lives. Scientists, the article notes, are in great disagreement over the causes of colic, and equally discordant over what parents should best do about it.
What is particularly interesting about this as regards common sense is the solution suggested by a doctor who has studied the problem and come up with a five-step treatment that seems to do wonders in quelling infants’ crying jags. It is an excellent case of human experience over the ages being codified into common-sense truths that are nonetheless true despite being difficult to prove in logical, scientific terms.
…but even beyond that single topic, this question is an important one to explore. Science too often turns into “X is true because Dr. Famous Scientist says so” or “Y is a fact; just look at this letter signed by 1,250 Famous Scientists”.
On the other hand, Common Sense can be devastatingly wrong as well. Or maybe Common Sense is useful, but too few people actually possess it…
More on Mario
09 Mar 2005 21:52 EST
Mario Mario, the quick-witted plumber, is getting a star on the new “Video Game” Walk of Fame in San Francisco.
Well, not really. But his creators are…
Pong creator Nolan Bushnell and Donkey Kong maker Shigeru Miyamoto have received the first-ever ‘Walk of Game’ stars for video games in San Francisco. The two men were honoured at a ceremony on Tuesday for their services to the video game industry.
Modern military language training…
08 Mar 2005 23:42 EST
…using videogames. Cool stuff.
DARWARS Tactical Language Trainer: http://www.dodgamecommunity.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=79
Hyperdimensional "Solids"
08 Mar 2005 22:36 EST
It’s fun to imagine in 4 or more dimensions!
Glomes!
24-cells!
Poltyope visualization using “Peek“. The Peek code is currently under (re)development and is apparently not available for download, but the screen shots are Very Cool. You can watch a hypersolid rotate and slide its way through our 3-space.
And, of course, today’s new kernels of knowledge:
- “Polychoron” is 4-space’s equivalent of the concept “polyhedron”.
- “Polytope” is the generalized n-dimensional term for “polygon/polyhedron/polychoron…”
- In 3-space, there are 5 regular polyhedra. Per Euclid and Plato, these are the tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron, and icosahedron.
- In 4-space, there are 6 regular polychora. Per Schlafli and Coxeter, these are the tesseract, ’5-cell’, ’16-cell’, ’24-cell’, ’120-cell’, and ’600-cell’. There are many alternative namees for each of these.
- In 5-space and above, there are always 3 (!) regular polytopes. These are the n-simplex, the n-cube, and the n-D cross-polytope.
See for example this site on the history of regular convex polytopes.
Much of the above taken from “MathWorld–A Wolfram Web Resource. http://mathworld.wolfram.com“
Yes, this is an admission of former D&D geekiness by the author.
07 Mar 2005 21:15 EST
It pretty much pegged me, even physically (see highlights below)…
You Are A: True Neutral Dwarf Mage
True Neutral characters are very rare. They believe that balance is the most important thing, and will not side with any other force. They will do whatever is necessary to preserve that balance, even if it means switching allegiances suddenly.
Dwarves are short and stout, and easily recognizable by their well-cared-for beards. They are hard workers, and adept at stonework and engineering. They tend to live apart from other races; generally in deep, underground excavated systems, and as such tend to be distant from other races.
Mages harness the magical energies for their own use. Spells, spell books, and long hours in the library are their loves. While often not physically strong, their mental talents can make up for this.
H/T to Ace of Spades
Update: OK, on reflection, I realize that guessing at a physical description of some guy on the Internet as being short, stout, and bearded really isn’t too much of a long shot. — brain
Double-slit experiment extension
04 Mar 2005 23:53 EST
Slashdot sez:
Double-Slit Experiment in Time, Not Space
Posted by timothy on Wednesday March 02,
@06:04PMfrom the that-young-guy-did-a-bunch-of-stuff dept.TheMatt writes “Thomas Young‘s double-slit experiment is a classic experiment that helped establish the wave-like nature of light. Since then, it has been done with atoms, buckyballs, and biomolecules. It has even been seen in a single molecule, and the single electron version was voted the most beautiful experiment by Physics World readers (covered previously on Slashdot). Now, PhysicsWeb is reporting that Gerhard Paulus and coworkers have conducted the double-slit experiment using a double-slit in time, not space. The “slit” was a crafted femtosecond pulse consisting of one-and-a-half cycles–say, two maxima and one minima–passed through an argon gas. Each maxima has a probability of ionizing an argon atom and producing an electron. The electrons were accelerated to a detector which observed an interference pattern since the detector had no idea which maximum produced the electron.”
More later.
Here's some crap
04 Mar 2005 23:33 EST
Can’t believe Newsmax is hawking this snake oil.
“The Killer Vaccines An Honest Physician Warns of Serious Dangers”
"Characterization of major histocompatibility complex-associated peptides from a small volume of whole blood"
04 Mar 2005 23:27 EST
Recent (well, less than a year old) paper by a friend of mine: “Characterization of major histocompatibility complex-associated peptides from a small volume of whole blood”, Leann M. Hopkinsa, Michael Schallb, Joseph F. Leykamc and John A. Gerlach.
Analytical Biochemistry Volume 328, Issue 2 , 15 May 2004, Pages 155-161
about mark beadles
I write the things you read here. Polymath renaissance redneck. I build software, stories, and young men. More...on the desk
around the web
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