I am again live blogging impressions and reactions to the Nobel Prize in Physics. Live entries are below. The liveblog has ended.No liveblog updates yet. Load more
The “fediverse” is the term for the federated social web, a collection of social media concepts (Mastodon, PeerTube, Pixelfed, Friendica, Bookwyrm, etc.) that can all talk to each other by virtue of a common protocol: ActivityPub. The technical details don’t matter. What matters is that, in the fediverse, everyone can […]
We are headed into the season of the Nobel Prize. Announcements of awards will begin on October 6, with the Physics Prize being announced on the 7th. This year, I decided to have some fun in the “fediverse” and try to tease some nuggets out of the wisdom of the […]
Will a 2019 Intel-based iMac (without the T2 security chip) happily run GNU/Linux? This was the question I set out to answer when we recently retired the first Mac we ever bought for our house. The answer is YES. But the details matter. Background: Forced Obsolescence of Good Hardware For-profit […]
This answer is for Alan. After my keynote talk at the Hartness House Workshop last night, he approached me with a really interesting question. What is the total mass of the neutrinos emitted by a core-collapse supernova (CCSN)? This is a great question and a chance to do some estimating […]
I am presently back in the US on a short vacation before heading to Vermont to participate in the Stellafane Convention. In what has been an intense and extremely busy year, this has been a few days of much needed rest and peace. After exercising in a state park yesterday, […]
The adventures continue! I run a number of computers at home, almost entirely GNU/Linux-based. As the hardware continues to age, data integrity had become more and more of a concern. I am particularly worried about sudden disk failures, and with a combination of ddrescue and timeshift I have been setting […]
In October 2023, I had the great pleasure to journey from Sudbury to Modane, France to participate in a workshop at the Modane Underground Laboratory (Laboratoire Souterrain de Modane, or LSM). That was an incredible work period and a great chance to visit the underground laboratory, which is a “horizontal […]
Join me in this continuing series of posts that explores the development of the material for my public lecture on Thursday, March 14, entitled “Catch a Dying Star: Astronomy Deep Underground”. Today, I explore the development of the storyline.
Join me for a series of posts that explores the development of the material for my public lecture on Thursday, March 14, entitled “Catch a Dying Star: Astronomy Deep Underground”. Today, I explore the origin of the title and the material that is the rough foundation of the lecture.
Updated October 28, 2024: I added information about the new companion website for the book! We’ve launched! While the official release date of the book is October 31 (aka Dark Matter Day … aka Halloween!), it is now available to order. Copies should start arriving on or about October 31 […]
I have decided to make a commitment to cover all three of the basic science Nobel Prizes this year. Next up is the Chemistry Prize! The prize announcement will begin not earlier than 05:45am Eastern Time (11:45am CEST) on Wednesday, October 9. I’ll be up with coffee in-hand to watch […]