Uncertain Dots 20

In which Rhett and I talk about awful academic computing systems, Worldcon, our Wikipedia pages, and AAPT meeting envy. Some links: — Rhett’s Wikipedia entry — My Wikipedia entry — The 2014 AAPT Summer Meeting — LonCon 3, this year’s Worldcon — My puzzling Worldcon schedule We have some ideas for what to do next […]

Ten Inessential Papers in Quantum Physics

I should really know better than to click any tweeted link with a huff.to shortened URL, but for some reason, I actually followed one to an article with the limited-reach clickbait title Curious About Quantum Physics? Read These 10 Articles!. Which is only part one, because Huffington Post, so it’s actually five articles. Three of […]

The Physicists of Journalism

This Alberto Cairo piece on “data journalism” has been kicking around for a while, and it’s taken me a while to pin down what bugs me about it. I think my problem with it ultimately has to do with the first two section headers in which he identifies problems with FiveThirtyEight and Vox: 1. Data […]

My LonCon Schedule

Since lots of other people are posting their Worldcon progrm(me) schedules, I might as well share mine, too. Frankly, I find it a little baffling: Kaffeeklatsch Thursday 18:00 – 19:00, London Suite 5 (ExCeL) Kay Kenyon, Chad Orzel Banksian Saturday 11:00 – 12:00, Capital Suite 9 (ExCeL) ‘Banksian’ has become a commonplace descriptor in SF […]

What Sort of New Car Should I Buy?

We spent the weekend down in the Boston area, where Kate was doing stuff at Readercon and I was running the kids around the New England Aquarium and the Museum of Science (nominally in the company of a friend form college and his family, and some of Kate’s cousins (respectively), but either SteelyKid or The […]