Has the arXiv been hacked or is it offline? When I connect to arxiv.org it shoots me to mirror sites which haven’t been updated since Oct 08. Via @MartinQuantum. Also nanoscale views reports the arXiv down.
Since this is a blog we can easily spread rumors by including a link to an article today about cyberattacks going on right now possibly originating from North Korea.
Update 9:03 am PST: At lanl.arxiv.org you can now get papers greater than October 2008 by searching, but the “recents” and “new” isn’t working. Also the RSS feed seems to only have yesterdays posts. A comment on Secret Blogging Seminar got a response back on the problem: “technical difficulties”.
Update 8:31 pm PST: Full day of meetings, but before they started the arXiv got at least yesterday’s posts up (and I could run scirates scripts to download the day.) Anyone know if you can submit papers?
Happy 4th of July!
Never a bad time to take a look at Mr. Jefferson’s document (and also thank you Thomas, for serving tubers at Monticello at a time when people thought they would kill you.)
When I lived in Berkeley for my first year I had my fathers Ford Explorer SUV. One day I woke up and found a little piece of paper under the windshield wiper of the car. On this car was a long list of reasons why SUVs were bad (gas guzzling, more dangerous, etc.) Many of these points I agreed with, but what really cracked me up was the last line:
So sell your SUV!
Um, how does selling my SUV fix the problem?
Today I woke up and read that Sarah Palin had spoken:
And so as I thought about this announcement that I wouldn’t run for re-election and what it means for Alaska, I thought about how much fun some governors have as lame ducks… travel around the state, to the Lower 48 (maybe), overseas on international trade – as so many politicians do. And then I thought – that’s what’s wrong – many just accept that lame duck status, hit the road, draw the paycheck, and “milk it”. I’m not putting Alaska through that – I promised efficiencies and effectiveness! ? That’s not how I am wired. I am not wired to operate under the same old “politics as usual.” I promised that four years ago – and I meant it.
and the
New DARPA Director
DARPA, you know the people who invented the internet (“100 geniuses connected by a travel agent”), has a new director:
The Department of Defense (DoD) today announced the appointment of Regina E. Dugan as the 19th director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). DARPA is the principal agency within the DoD for research, development, and demonstration of concepts, devices, and systems that provide highly advanced military capabilities for the current and future combat force. In this role of developing high-risk, high-payoff projects, DARPA compliments and balances the overall science and technology program of the DoD.
Go MechE’s from Caltech! DARPA’s last director Tony Tether ruffled a lot of feathers as it was widely perceived that the agency was shifting to short term research at the expense of the kind of groundbreaking work that had been funded in the past (See Peter Lee for details and recommendations for changes at DARPA.) Hopefully Dr. Dugan will take a different tack. That would certainly make a lot of computer science researchers a lot happier.
ArXiview 1.2 for iPhone OS 3.0 Out
ArXiview, my arXiv browsing iPhone app, has been updated for the new iPhone OS 3.0. New features include:
- Search fields now accept boolean queries and exact phrase queries. Touch the little (i) icon to get info on this feature from the search page.
- Search by identifier has been added.
- There is now an in application emailer. So when you want to email yourself a reference the program doesn’t quit out of the app.
- Added the cond-mat category for quantum gases.
- The app now sorts resorts in reverse chronological order.
- A bunch of bug fixes (search by category in particular was acting buggy.) The bugs were mostly pointed out to me by Andrew. Thanks Andrew!
In the mean time, reviews of the app have appeared in a couple places. Over at MacWorld Kate Dohe reviews the app and pointed out the lack of boolean searching. This should now be all fixed up in the new version. The one feature that Kate requests that I have yet to find a good solution to is how to transfer the pdfs stored on the device to a local desktop. Next on my list.
Another review by Ian Douglas compared all three arXiv apps out there (one is $0.99 and the other is free or $0.99 depending on what the developer decided for that day. It’s a great way to boost up your meter on the store: switch between free and paid. Free will boost your popularity meter and then you can get more from the paid! Score! Look for a “arXiview free for a day” promotion coming to this blog soon 🙂 ) Ian puts my app on top:
Dave Bacon is the Quantum Pontiff of the quantum computing-themed blog of the same name. I like the blog very much and didn’t want to give his app a bad review, which is why it was a great relief when I found it was the best of the three by quite a long way.
Woot! I think I owe him a beer.
Here is a review in French. Science librarians have also taken note: Mobile Libraries, the science librarian at Drexel physics, Science Libraries in Transition, and the Biomedical and Physical Science library at Michigan State. To name but a few.
An on the ITunes store itself there is finally a review up by ebitnet: “Of the three arxiv apps, this one is the best…” Thanks ebitnet! Does the nickname stand for entangled bit network?
On a similar note, I highly recommend Life as a Physicist who discusses issues with reading pdfs on small mobile displays. I’ve been playing around with some ideas for how to fix this for arXiv docs…we will see if this gets anywhere.
Bacon Bubble
Okay, I’m calling it. We have officially reached the top of the Bacon loving bubble. Why? The dress made of Bacon indicator has been tripped. This indicator has a 50 percent probability of beating the magic 8 ball in predicting the top of past Bacon bubbles. I predict a hard landing for Bacon lovers everywhere. Until they shed their few extra pounds (a lagging indicator) we are entering a dark period for Bacon.
Hat tip: Jorge.
Fido Left Behind
Over at my old blog one thread which keeps on giving is my missive about Dr. Wayne Dyer which now has over 2000 comments. I can always tell when it’s PBS pledge drive time by the bump in traffic on my old website and the increase in comments on this post. Today I got a spam comment on the post. Now usually spam comments aren’t to exciting (bad Viagra joke deleted), but this one is…well…different.
Continue reading “Fido Left Behind”
Power Tool Races
This last weekend we made it out to artopia in Seattle’s Georgetown neighborhood. One of the cool event at artopia was the power tool races. That’s right, power tool’s or other appliances propelling themselves down a long track! Here, for instance, is my favorite, the Piña Collider:
Won the race, finishing perfectly at the end of the track, where the owner popped open the blender and poured himself a nice Piña Colida (this shot taken by Mrs. Pontiff, who is much better at aiming her iPhone than I am.)
Summer Time
Summer doesn’t officially start here in Seattle until the fourth of July, but the summer vibe is definitely here. Which means no teaching, so it’s all research all the time. But a man cannot live by his own research alone, which leads me to the vast brain dump that is the internet.
Things found…
Continue reading “Summer Time”
Quantum Twitter
Is Waterloo’s Institute for Quantum Information the first quantum institute to have a twitter feed?
Update: @WaterlooIQC tells me that no they probably aren’t the first. That title probably goes to iqoqi.