Things That Go Bump in Physicists' Night

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2005/11/things_that_go_.html

Things That Go Bump in Physicists' Night

Truth be told, physicists are terrified of quantum mechanics. Really. The rules of quantum calculation seem so strange that anyone afraid of losing his or her mind should be scared. (Those who love to lose their minds, on the other hand, adore it.)

Struggling to make the quantum rules square with a reality "out there," many physicist's position is "shut up and calculate." Others have abandoned standard logic, probability, or decision theory for "quantum" versions of these things, or have decided that consciousness must play a fundamental role. (There is even a quantum game theory.)

In eleven days I give my first talk at a physics department, on my conservative research program that tries to have it all: the quantum rules, a reality out there with no special role for consciousness, and keeping standard logic, probability, and decision theory. I'm not quite there yet, and I may be too close to my work to be objective, but I feel I'm very close.

Of course we can't make all the quantum strangeness go away. For example, reality seems to be intrinsically non-local, and it seems to be far larger than we ever imagined. But the universe we are all familiar with now is far larger than our ancestors ever imagined, and even Newton gave up on locality.

Fear not the quantum night - it really will all make sense someday.

Douglas Baird's podcast of "Coase's Journey"

http://agoraphilia.blogspot.com/2006/02/coasean-blues_23.html
The Coasean Blues
posted 8:14 PM by Glen Whitman

The weirdest thing about Douglas Baird's podcast of "Coase's Journey" (aside from the disturbing news that I, along with most of the economics profession, have been pronouncing 'Coase' incorrectly for all these years) is what you'll find out if you drop the MP3 file into iTunes. The lecture's genre classification? Blues.

http://webcast-law.uchicago.edu/2006/winter/baird-cbi.mp3

Helicopter photos of Mexico city

Helicopter shots of Mexico City neighborhoods -- stunning and unreal
A former Mexico City helicopter pilot has posted a stunning gallery of his aerial photos of the city and environs. Most interesting are the houses, which range from dire slums to these incredible, cookie-cutter low-income houses that look like grids of Monopoly houses. There's lots else to love in this gallery, besides. Link
http://homepage.mac.com/helipilot/PhotoAlbum31.html

Mechanical computer kit from 1960s available again

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/02/21/mechanical_computer_.html
http://www.mindsontoys.com/kits.htm?dc1_main.htm

Mechanical computer kit from 1960s available again
A toy company has reintroduced the Digicomp, a mechanical computer kit from the 1960s. This looks like an amazing educational toy. As Retrothing notes:


The Digicomp is a plastic mechanical computer from the 1960s. It offered three bits of tabletop computing, back in an age where corded telephones were considered high-tech. The machine arrived in kit form; your first task was to assemble the jumble of tubes, rods, and elastic bands into something that resembles a Jetson's parking garage. Once complete, it's a fantastic hands-on way to teach Boolean algebra and binary numbers.

Specialized Search Tools for Academic Content

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060213-075310

When you're looking for magazine or journal articles, search engines can be helpful, but other specialized search tools are often a better bet—particularly in the academic, scholarly and sci-tech areas. Guest writer Mary Ellen Bates looks at a number of these highly focused services in today's SearchDay article, Finding Articles Online.
Posted by Chris Sherman on Feb. 13, 2006 | Permalink

CD burning

from ResearchBuzz http://www.researchbuzz.org/2006/02/researchbuzz_roundup_021406.shtml
Thanks to Robert Richardson for his pointer to BurnCDCC, which is another freeware utility that lets Windows users burn ISO files to CD or DVD -- just in case you want to make an Ubuntu or Knoppix or whatever disc.

SF story podcasts

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/02/15/corys_human_readable.html

Cory's Human Readable podcast concludes
I've just posted the concluding installment in the podcast of me reading my novella, Human Readable, a story originally published in the Future Washington anthology and now short-listed for the Locus Award and forthcoming in the Science Fiction Book Club's Best Short Novels of 2005 anthology. The story was podcast in seven parts, and you can pick them all up by subscribing to the podcast feed or by hitting these links below: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7