On President’s day I attended the sSQUINT followup conference to SQUINT 2008. sSQUINT? Never heard of it? Neither had I. But when I learned that the “s” stood for “ski” (or maybe “snowboard”) and that some of my fellow quantum informationers would be trekking to Wolf Creek Ski Area, well I had to submit a paper. Mine paper was about mogul formation as a self-organizing system. Another paper was on the ski bum as an outcast and iconoclast. Much to our delight the weather gods gave us some beautiful blue southern Colorado sunshine. For your delight, pictures below.
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SqUINT Live Blogging – Saturday Talks
Yes we work on Saturdays. Okay work may be the wrong word. Updated as the day goes along and my brain doesn’t fill up (plus I’m chairing a session, so is it ethical to chair and blog at the same time?)
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Quantum Sloan Winners
Sloan awards have been announced for this year. On the list I noticed at least two three quantum computing/information related names: Alexandre Blais (University of Sherbrooke), Andris Ambainis (University of Waterloo), and Jason Petta (Princeton.) Congrats!
Interview with Jeff Kimble
Jeff Kimble, who taught me all about waves as a second year undergraduate at Caltech, is interviewed by Scientific American.
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SquinT Live Blogging – Friday Talks
Live blogging from day one of the talks at SquInT 2008. Updated as the day goes along. So hit that refresh button 🙂
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SquInT Live Blogging – Thursday Tutorials
I’ve never live blogged before (well I’ve been alive while I’ve blogged, but that is different, I guess), but maybe it will make me pay more attention to the talks, so here goes nothing. Oh, and happy Hallmark(TM) Valentines day! I’ll be updating these posts as the conference goes along.
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Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Off to Santa Fe I Go
Yep, lucky me I’m off to Santa Fe tomorrow morning for the tenth annual SquInT conference. Holy moly ten years of SqUiNT conferences really makes me feel old. I wonder how many Chiles I’ve eaten over all of those conferences (and I don’t even want to think about how many Margaritas or quantum beers I’ve had.)
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Fight Anecdote with Anecdote
A website dedicated to chronicling the lives, injuries, and money lost due to a lack of critical thinking. Woah. Is it just me or is there is somethink kind of creepy about assembling this kind of website?
Because Nature Isn't Classical
Via the Computational Complexity (welcome back Lance), the list of accepted papers for CCC 2008 has been posted. Woot, that’s a lot of quantum inspired papers. By my count 7 of 33. Quoteth Feynman
…and I’m not happy with all the analyses that go with just the classical theory, because nature isn’t classical, dammit, and if you want to make a simulation of nature, you’d better make it quantum mechanical…
Self Cleaning Hyperbolic Tweed Clothing for Academics
Some days it seems the universe is trying to tell you something. The last few days, this has apparently been something to do with clothing:
- Self cleaning clothes. I really need these as I am in a constant battle with mustard.
- Via Three-Toed Sloth, A Call for Professional Attire on dressing in academia. Recently my dog ate the elbows out of a new sweater, so I now have a sweater with patched elbows, the ultimate in professorial attire, I suppose. Sadly the article doesn’t take the argument to its conclusion and require that not just profs wear fancy clothes, but that students also be required to wear uniforms of less sophistication, so that those little rats know their place in life.
- In a related note, New York’s fashion week features tweed. So take that you scruffy enforcer of suits and ties: soon professorial tweed will be all the rage.
- Crocheted models of hyperbolic space. Impressive, but I’m still waiting for “Crocheted models of eleven dimensional space time.” On a related note, knitting and cellular automata.
