I was picking about in the internet, checking out some of the places I don’t usually go. One of those is the “Discovery Institute”:http://www.discovery.org, the leading institution pushing the philosophy of “intelligent design”. Intelligent design has so far only been an attempt to veil creationism as pseudoscience, claiming that the […]
Science
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I was a graduate student at the Universe of Wisconsin-Madison from 1998-2004. When I first moved there, I lived in a studio apartment on Spring St., two blocks from the physics department. I also happened to live right behind the geology department. While thumbing through “Yahoo! News”:http://news.yahoo.com tonight when I […]
I am on shift today, here in building 5 (the SLAC accelerator main control center, or MCC). I am filling the shift position referred to as “liaison”, and my job is to make sure that the experiment (Babar) know’s what the accelerator (LINAC and PEP) is doing, and vice versa. […]
Yeah, I don’t normally read SPAM. Let me state that for the record – full disclosure! – so that you folks out there don’t get the wrong idea. However, I got one today I thought was funny in its misguidance. It was one of these “religious SPAM disguised as science” […]
Despite the intervening 24 hours, I am still pretty shaken by the young voices from yersterday’s “News Hour with Jim Lehrer” segment on the debate on evolution. My wife and I discussed this last night on the way home from work, and a little after she watched the re-run of […]
I am shocked. Sickened and shocked. If you have a connection to the internet, or a TV, listen to the report on tonights “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer” (“http://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/index.html”:http://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/index.html) . This report by the News Hour’s science team has detailed interviews with students in rural America, proponents of Christian […]
After weeks of putting it off, I finally went to the Redwood City Library and picked up my library card. It’s been ready for several weeks, but I just wasn’t making the time for it. However, I am certainly glad I did get it, because it led me to a […]
I saw this article hit the mainstream press today, “concerning the huge emission of gamma rays back in December by a neutron star on the other side of our galaxy”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4278005.stm. If we dig a little bit on this, we soon find mention of the “SWIFT”:http://swift.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/swift/swiftsc.html gamma-ray burst (GRB) probe. A […]
It’s been a remarkable week. First, I got back into my research at full speed and it felt **great**. Second, the reality of the President’s FY06 budget proposal has hit home. While the U.S. particle physics community, especially the national lab programs, is vigorously discussing the implications, some consequences have […]
When I was in high school, I participated in only one sport: quiz bowl. I know what you’re thinking: quiz bowl isn’t a sport. Only a stupid jock who’s never played would say that. You stupid jock. Anyway, this weekend is my chance to give back to the bowl. SLAC […]
It’s been a busy week on many fronts, and this is the first opportunity I have found to add some thoughts to this page. Besides the fact that this is high-energy physics conference time (one of two spikes in conference activity for my field each year), this is also the […]
“Tonight is President Bush’s State of the Union address”:http://www.cspan.org. If we flash back to this time last year, the Mars rovers had made their historic landings on the surface of the red planet. From there, they set out on a remote-controlled quest which eventually led to a body of persuasive […]