Sep 30 2008
With all the hooplah about the proposed $700B bail out of bad Wall St. investments, the fact that the United States is now on a continuing budget resolution went completely unnoticed by the press. I’ll bet this escaped everybody’s attention. It didn’t escape physicists’ attention.
You can find links to the legislation in THOMAS, the Library [...]
Sep 30 2008
I gave my seminar at Syracuse yesterday. I had a very busy day – not a dull moment in the entire visit! I spent a lot of time meeting with faculty on the LHCb experiment, a B-physics experiment based at the LHC. While not one of the experiments that gets a lot of press, LHCb [...]
Sep 28 2008
[Note: this entry was written on Sep. 28 but couldn't be posted until today (Sep. 30). I have backdated the entry to keep the time flow linear]
I arrived tonight in Syracuse, NY. The faculty member hosting me for this seminar went beyond the call of duty and graciously invited me to stay at his house [...]
Sep 28 2008
It has been extremely rainy in the New England area for several days, thanks in large part to a series of tropical storms that worked their way north along the eastern coast. Today, a category 1 hurricane is parked off the coast, darkening our skies and giving us some drizzle but not making too much [...]
Sep 27 2008
For those interested in knowing how that money McCain complained about was spent, you can find the study online [1]. McCain, in the past and in last night’s debate, used this research as an example of pork-barrel spending without actually saying what the study was for. According to the online explanation,
Managers and biologists are working [...]
Sep 27 2008
I finally had a chance to watch “The Next Big Bang” tonight. I actually enjoyed it a lot. Apart from the beautiful shots of the LHC experiments and seeing faces I recognize, I thought the sampling of physics topics was great. I especially noticed the focus on dark matter, then Higgs, then extra dimensions, then [...]
Sep 26 2008
Very briefly, what stood out for me was the dedication with which Obama brought back to the fore the need to strengthen the U.S. science and technology effort. Incredible that he mentioned it, two to three times, at moments when the issues was foreign policy. Regarding McCain, what really jumped out was the sincerity of [...]
Sep 26 2008
I’ll jot thoughts here, with timestamps (EDT) as the debate unfolds.
[9:04] where do the candidates stand on the current economic recovery plan
Obama:
- oversight of the financial rescue spending
- taxpayers must get money from bailout back when market improves
- no CEO golden parachutes
- solve the root problem: loans and foreclosures
McCain:
- loans to failing businesses
- [...]
Sep 23 2008
In my last post, I started by complaining about the way in which information is not cited in news articles. As I got caught up in the actual reference for the Times article on the new Splenda study, I completely stopped caring about my original complaint. Instead, I found some fascinating little things in this [...]
Sep 23 2008
Citations are the best way to let readers go back through the chain of references that were source material for statements in your work. While I generally have a lot of respect for journalists, I find the practice of making statements without citing the reference both frustrating and undermining. It is frustrating, because when I [...]
Chirp, a microblog Going Up Alleys The Perils of the Ice Queen
