My wife has recently been given a work laptop for her research on the “CDMS”:http://cdms.berkeley.edu experiment. This laptop happens to be a gorgeous Apple PowerBook G4. It’s a great machine for work – nice and light-weight, solid processor, lots of disk space – and the first time I’ve ever seen […]
This past week was what is usually called “BaBar Collaboration Week”. This is a week of morning to night meetings of the entire collaboration. This typically involves something like 1/3 – 1/2 of the collaboration all showing up at the same location (SLAC) and presenting their progress in research. The […]
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 […]
I’ve been a bit glum these last few weeks. At first I wasn’t able to exactly pinpoint the problem, but given how well I’ve felt this week I think I’ve figured it out. I needed research, and I needed it **bad**. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed my time at […]
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 […]
**Written in Chicago, Midway airport on Feb. 4, 2005** As my favorite comedian, Lewis Black, once said – and here I paraphrase – “for only the second time in history, Sodom and Gomorrah have been rebuilt”. He was referring to Las Vegas, and for a long time I think I […]
“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 […]
This past weekend was a very pleasant departure from the norm. After a very successful work day on Friday, I hurried from my last meeting at 6 to the red line station. This was to be the beginning of my commute south and then westward to Riverside, where my sister […]
Bob Park’s column, “What’s New” (“available at aps.org”:http://www.aps.org/WN) is the way I close out every Friday. Most of the time, I read and smile (or groan). Today, though, his column raised a point which I think counts as fair turn-about. As you may know, there is a strong anti-evolution movement […]