I just learned the very sad news that John A. Wheeler has passed away. Wheeler was one of my heroes and inspired me in many ways to be where I am today. I’m buried under a heap of work today, but will write more when I can come up for air. Below I’ve pasted a post from my old blog describing a result I first learned about by reading a Wheeler paper.
Continue reading “John Archibald Wheeler (1911-2008)”
CSE 322 Week 2: Nondeterminism Rocks
Last week, in the class I’m teaching, we talked about the basics of deterministic finite automata. In week two we moved on to more interesting and slightly less basic material. In particular we introduced the notion of a nondeterministic finite automata and, by the end of the week, had showed that the class of languages accepted by deterministic finite automata is exactly the same class of languages accepted by nondeterministic finite automata.
Continue reading “CSE 322 Week 2: Nondeterminism Rocks”
Rube Goldberg Advertising
It may take a second to load, but this webpage is pretty darn over the top.
Makin' Bacon
Come on, you know you want to watch it, “How It’s Made: Bacon”:
That’s some awesome background music, I must say. Good to know they check for pieces of metal which might have fallen onto the pork bellies.
Seattle Has the World's First Quantum Computer
The ads on scienceblogs today lead me to find out that, apparently, I can buy a quantum computer right here from Seattle based REI:
And only $70 bucks! Jeez, those D-wave investors overpaid. I wonder how you use it to factor? But the number in the bag and wait?
Nunchuck Demo
I’m not sure what this is good for, and yet I found it amazingly responsive:
Der Took Our Science N Engineering Jerbs!
Whatever you do, Mr. and Mrs. Joe and Mary America, make sure to tell everyone you know not to go into science and engineering! You see those who major in science and engineering are certain to not get jobs, because, as many commenters love to point out, all those jobs are being exported overseas! But wait, what is this:
The overall unemployment rate of scientists and engineers in the United States dropped from 3.2% in 2003 to 2.5% in 2006…according to data from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Scientists and Engineers Statistical Data System (SESTAT). This is the lowest unemployment rate measured by SESTAT since the early 1990s. It continues a trend of lower unemployment rates for scientists and engineers compared with unemployment rates in the rest of the U.S. economy.
Who knew? A degree in science and engineering actually appears to help your employment chances 🙂
Factoid of the Day
Who knew: Jello is best paired with Moscato D’asti.
Monte Hall and Cognitive Dissonance
Quake3 on iTouch
One of the reasons I signed up to develop for the iPhone:
Accelerometers are so cool. And I don’t just say that because I’m a physicist.