Lots of news about the Chris Monroe’s group teleporting between ions in different traps.
Continue reading “Teleportation Between Separately Trapped Matter Qubits”
Quantum Open Notebook
Sir Tobias Osborne of the Quantum Boolean Functions has made the plunge and is trying out open notebook science: Tobias J. Osborne’s Research Notes.
Continue reading “Quantum Open Notebook”
Paper Reviewing Ratio
A long time ago, in a blog far far away, I ran a small poll about paper refereeing. The poll asked “What is your ratio of reviewed to submitted manuscripts?”. The results were
- >=6 reviewed for every 1 submitted: 7 votes (8 percent)
- 5 reviewed for every 1 submitted: 3 votes (4 percent)
- 4 reviewed for every 1 submitted: 9 votes (10 percent)
- 3 reviewed for every 1 submitted: 12 votes (14 percent)
- 2 reviewed for every 1 submitted: 13 votes (15 percent)
- 1 reviewed for every 1 submitted: 20 votes (24 percent)
- 1 reviewed for every 2 submitted: 6 votes (7 percent)
- 1 reviewed for every 3 submitted: 5 votes (6 percent)
- 1 reviewed for every 4 submitted: 2 votes (2 percent)
- 1 reviewed for every 5 submitted: 0 votes (0 percent)
- 1 reviewed for every >=6 submitted: 7 votes (8 percent)
This works out to an average 2.2 papers reviewed for every one submitted.
But the question I didn’t ask is what should your ratio of reviewed (refereed) to submitted be?
Book Reviews
State of the ?
Amusing line from a New York Times article this morning:
“Are you aware under what conditions I worked in 1996?” he said by telephone from Mexico. “It’s only because of my lawsuit that you or anybody else can pick up a tape. In those days, I could not leave the archives with that material. I used state-of-the-lost-art equipment. I brought in a team of court reporters to help me with the first drafts.
State-of-the-lost-art? He used a telephonoscope?
Brains, Brains, Brains, Brains
Like many an arrogant kid before me, when I graduate from high school in my podunk hometown (no, it wasn’t marshy, and I say podunk with all the warm feelings of a idyllic childhood), I was filled with confidence that I was one of the smartest people I knew. Oh, I’d never say it, and yes I knew I was good mostly at only one small thing, mathematics, but I’m pretty certain looking back that I was a pretty confident ass. As you can well imagine, then, transitioning from my high school to Caltech, an institution filled with near-perfect-SAT-scoring students, Nobel laureate faculty members, and a wide range of just frickin’ brilliant people, resulted in a large dislocation in my perspective concerning my own capabilities. But over time, I began to realize that, while I wasn’t the sharpest cookie in the cookie jar, every once in a very rare while I could do something worthy of interest to my fellow genii in grooming (mostly jokes, mad rantings, or random acts of bizarreness, if you must know.) Thus I came to the perspective that there was no such thing as a universal genius, that possibly, just possibly, there are people who are good at differing things—little genii of their own domains. It’s often disheartening to sit in a room with a large number of brilliant people, until I remind myself of this fact. And Monday, while doing exactly this form of sitting, I began to ponder the different ways in which these people have their own styles of brilliance. Or, in short, I made a list.
If Only It Were This Easy
Via Alea: the CME trading simulation game. If only it were this easy:
I suspect that in the real world, doing the opposite of what I did would be required to actually make money 🙂
Florida
Amusings.
Continue reading “Florida”
A Curmudgeon's and Improv's Guide to Outliers: Chapter 2
Part three in my continuing pedantic slow-as-molasses walk through Outliers: The Story of Success
List of posts here: introduction, ch 1, ch 2.
SPOILER ALERT: Dude, I can’t talk about the book without giving away what the book is about, so if you don’t want the book’s main ideas to be spoiled, don’t continue reading.
IDIOT ALERT: I’m in no way qualified in most of the fields Gladwell will touch on, so please, a grain of salt, before you start complaining about my ignorance. Yes I’m an idiot, please tell me why!
Continue reading “A Curmudgeon's and Improv's Guide to Outliers: Chapter 2”
The Risk-Takers, the Doers, the Makers of Things
My favorite line from today’s inauguration speech:
In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted – for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things – some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labour, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.
The following line, as you can imagine, made crowd gathered in the Paul Allen Center to watch the speech pretty damn happy:
We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.