Category Archives: Off The Deep End

Should Papers Have Unit Tests?

Posted on January 7, 2015 by dabacon

Perhaps the greatest shock I’ve had in moving from the hallowed halls of academia to the workman depths of everyday software development is the amount of testing that is done when writing code. Likely I’ve written more test code than … Continue reading →

Posted in Off The Deep End, Programming | 5 Comments

Two Cultures in One of the Cultures

Posted on January 26, 2014 by dabacon

A long time ago in a mental universe far far away I gave a talk to a theory seminar about quantum algorithms. An excerpt from the abstract: Quantum computers can outperform their classical brethren at a variety of algorithmic tasks….[yadda … Continue reading →

Posted in Extralusionary Intelligence, Off The Deep End, Quantum Computing | 3 Comments

Error correcting aliens

Posted on January 2, 2014 by dabacon

Happy New Year!  To celebrate let’s talk about error correcting codes and….aliens. The universe, as many have noted, is kind of like a computer.  Or at least our best description of the universe is given by equations that prescribe how … Continue reading →

Posted in Astrobiology, Computer Science, Extralusionary Intelligence, Off The Deep End | 10 Comments

Why I Left Academia

Posted on September 22, 2013 by dabacon

TLDR: scroll here for the pretty interactive picture. Over two years ago I abandoned my post at the University of Washington as a assistant research professor studying quantum computing and started a new career as a software developer for Google. … Continue reading →

Posted in Extralusionary Intelligence, Go Ahead, Waste Your Time, Off The Deep End, Programming, Self: Meet Center. Center: Meet Self., The Loony Bin Called Academia | 12 Comments

Cosmology meets Philanthropy — guest post by Jess Riedel

Posted on August 20, 2013 by chb

My colleague Jess Riedel recently attended a conference  exploring the connection between these seemingly disparate subjects, which led him to compose the following essay.–CHB People sometimes ask me what how my research will help society.  This question is familiar to … Continue reading →

Posted in Astrobiology, Astronomy, Economics, Off The Deep End, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

4 Pages

Posted on May 8, 2013 by dabacon

Walk up to a physicist at a party (we could add a conditional about the amount of beer consumed by the physicist at this point, but that would be redundant, it is a party after all), and say to him or … Continue reading →

Posted in Go Ahead, Waste Your Time, Off The Deep End, Physics, Quantum, The Loony Bin Called Academia | 4 Comments

Apocalypses, Firewalls, and Boltzmann Brains

Posted on December 29, 2012 by chb

Last week’s plebeian scare-mongering about the world ending at the wraparound of the Mayan calendar did not distract sophisticated readers of gr-qc and quant-ph from a more arcane problem, the so-called Firewall Question.  This concerns what happens to Alice when … Continue reading →

Posted in Off The Deep End, Quantum, Science | 1 Comment

The Nine Circles of LaTeX Hell

Posted on March 12, 2012 by sflammia

Poorly written LaTeX is like a rash. No, you won’t die from it, but it needlessly complicates your life and makes it difficult to focus on pertinent matters. The victims of this unfortunate blight can be both the readers, as … Continue reading →

Posted in Off The Deep End, Scientific Publishing | 46 Comments

More cracks in the theory of relativity?

Posted on December 24, 2011 by sflammia

When the OPERA collaboration announced their result that they had observed neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light, it rocked the entire physics community. However, despite the high statistical certainty of the claim, any sober physicist knew that the possibility … Continue reading →

Posted in Funny Ha Ha, Off The Deep End, Physics Bastardizations, Politics | 7 Comments

What are the odds?

Posted on November 9, 2011 by sflammia

Let’s multiply together a bunch of numbers which are less than one and see how small they get! If that sounds like fun, then you’ll love this sleek new infographic (of which the above is just the teaser) posted this morning at … Continue reading →

Posted in Extralusionary Intelligence, Mathematics Basterdizations, Nitpicker's Paradiso, Off The Deep End | 15 Comments