You know, QEC07 participant, you’re supposed to be watching the talks and not reading this blog! But if you are reading this blog, you might as well not just lurk and instead comment. That’s right its a QEC 07 open thread.
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You Down With QIP?
So simultaneous with QEC07, the conference I’m attending, is the QIP 2008. Anyone at QIP see any interesting talks that they’d be willing to comment on? Come on, don’t be shy (or post anonymously 🙂 )
Curmudgeons Winning?
Today I watched a talk on skepticism about quantum error correction. Now I don’t agree with the particular criticism’s leveled, but I’m all for people airing their criticisms and, if the majority view is correct, the majority should be able to answer the questions raised. But this isn’t what interested me today. What interested me today was thinking about the following question: when has it been true that a curmudgeon, which I use in the most positive since of the word, been on the winning side? When has it been that a single or very small group of radicals who opposes a majority whose beliefs are set in concrete has actually ended up on the correct side of the argument? But more than this the definition of a curmudgeon indicates an amount of stubbornness which is above and beyond normal stubbornness. Indeed I would say that it even indicates a small amount of being confronted to by contrary evidence, but persisting in spite of this. And maybe not even being confronted not just by a bit of contrary evidence, but maybe a vast encyclopedia of contrary evidence.
I suppose the reason this fascinates me is that I, myself, certainly have some curmudgeonly characteristics. Does this mean I’m doomed to the losing side of the battle? I’m pretty sure I’m doomed, but for other reasons, and only today did it occur to me that I need to add my curmudgeonness to the list of reasons for doom.
A Startup in a Weekend?
Startup weekend will be coming to my backyard in January (literally in my backyard, Adobe is just down the hill from Villa Sophia.) Startup weekend, you say? What the heck is that?
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QEC07 Conference
The grades are all done, and the students are gone, and now I’m conferencing. (That sentence should be sung to the tune of “Busted”) After a mere hour and a half delay at the airport I arrived last night at USC for QEC07.
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NSF, NIST Budgets Get Hammered
News from Computing Research Policy Blog that the new omnibus appropriations bill will totally hammer the NSF and NIST. Effectively, factoring in some accounting and inflation, both budgets will be shrunk. So much for the America Competes Initiative. I’ve appropriately updated the probability that I will be employed in the next few years.
Is Quantum Theory the Most Bastardized Theory of Physics?
Murray Gell-Mann always makes me laugh. Via Asymptotia here is what Murray said while giving a Ted talk:
I won’t go into a lot of stuff about quantum mechanics and what it’s like and so on…you’ve heard a lot of wrong things about it anyway!
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Plotting Religion iff Freedom
Last week Mitt Romney, in a speech on religion, said that “Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom.” Or, as I like to put it, “Religion iff Freedom.” This bothered me more than a little bit, until I realized that I could turn it into an empirical question. Or a least a question where I could make a plot! Below is a plot of importance of religion in people’s lives versus their political freedom for a 39 countries:
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Jesus Geese
Behold, in Seattle, we have geese that can walk on water:
Presidential Candidate's Science, Technology, and Energy Positions
There’s a new initiative to get a presidential debate on issues of science and technology: Science Debate 2008 (list of supporting Important People (capital letters) and bloggers (no capital letters).) I’m all for the idea, since I know little about the candidates positions related to science and technology. Which of course, is a bad excuse, and thus led me to try to dig deep into the intertubes and see if I could find a list of the candidates positions on science and technology.
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