The Quantum Pontiff

Bumper sticker spotted last night: “God bless the whole world. No exceptions.”

Things fall apart. Normally we think about our computers as deterministic machines which never make a mistake. But with a very small probability, your hardware will make a mistake (information in a storage device is probably the most likely place where this will occur.) The point, however, is that for the task we need our [...]

(Lisa is bowled over by a college girl.) LISA (awed): “Are you reading `Gravity’s Rainbow’?” COLLEGE GIRL (snidely): “Well, rereading.”

Today is supposed to be a “day of purity” which I’m told is a supposed to be a day to promote abstinence. But don’t worry. Tomorrow is valentines day where you can root as much as you want.

Well, I’m almost to my goal! Over the past few months I have lost a small child’s worth of weight. The key? 1hour exercise every morning, low low caloric intake, and if I feel stressed I go to the gym and take it out on the machines there.

If physics is an artform, then what would be in a physicist’s studio? How can we sell physics like artists sell their works of art? What is the business of physics as art. Most of a theorist’s art is knowledge. Maybe physics is more like poetry. So does that mean we have to write books? [...]

Here’s why Washington needs the Washington Institute of Technology. More here. Speaking of which, does anyone know of any institutes of higher education with elitist ambitions which have been founded in the last decade. I can think of only one, Olin.

Happy Ronald Reagan Day! Now go shop at Walmart and oppress some poor people.

Tozan said to his monks, “You monks should know there is an even higher understanding than Buddhism.” A monk stepped forward and asked, “What is the higher Buddishm?” Tozan answered, “It is not Buddha.”

If writers get writer’s block, what do scientists get? Scientist’s block? Research stagnation? Creative Blockage? Perhaps the greatest parallel between doing theory and being a writer is not that they are both creative endeavors (because artistic creativity is very different from scientific creativity. two cultures? no! but different skills, most definitely!) but that practitioners of [...]

The radio station we are listening to is playing some strange bass background with lots of strange echoed voices over the top. The voices say something like “Howard is coming,” and “Howard will bring the music.” My mom asks, “This radio is bizarre. What is this? Is this some sort of psychic radio station?” “Are [...]