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Back to Caltech, Back to Unreality

Dum, dum, dum, DUM DUM

No, it’s not the monolith from 2001, but instead Millikan library at Caltech which I’m visiting. If you’re ever around Caltech on Halloween, be sure to check out the pumpkin drop where frozen pumpkins are dropped off this gigantic monolith. I thought I saw a blue spark…
Always a bit strange going back to the place where you spent seven plus years of your life. Especially when it’s a place like Caltech, I suppose.

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Blog Posts With Scientific Content

The new father, he of uncertain principles, has analyzed whether his science posts gain viewership over time. My biggest problem with writing scientific content into posts is that when I do that it totally messes up my google searching. I mean when I do that then I end up finding my own blog post when I search for something I’m trying ton understand. On the other hand, it saves a click because I can be pretty certain that the link to my blog doesn’t lead to the answer I’m looking for (or if it does it’s time to get my memory checked out.)

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LHC Ad: Beware Bears

You may have noticed an ad running on scienceblogs which says “Has the LHC destoyed the Earth?” If you click on it you find a webpage that says in big letters simply “NO”. What’s up with that? Check out the webpage source for the page (http://www.hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth.com/).
Update 9/12/08: Check out the comments for more fun and also read the cat projectile analyzers take on how you can click to save the world.
Continue reading “LHC Ad: Beware Bears”

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Google Polarizes America?

The techno wonder pundits say that the internet revolutionizes democracy by leveling the playing field (everyone can be an ass online, oh yeah!) But what I find more fascinating about the internet and politics is the role that search plays in polarizing politics. I mean, sure there are dissenting voices all over the internet, but google “John McCain” or “Obama” or “Sarah Palin” or “Joe Biden” and you won’t discover a single dissenting opinion about any of these candidates on the front page of the search results (the exceptions to this rule are probably the small news items that Google includes: but these tend to be main stream media fluff pieces.) If the world is full of dissent but the main lens by which people view the world never reveals this, does this really make a positive impact on democracy? Indeed if I were totally crazy, I might even argue that Google was aiding tyranny when it decided to combat google bombing.
In other words what I’m saying is that I’m tired of blaming the white male voter for going against my political leanings and today I’ve decided it would be fun to pick on Google instead 🙂 (And yes I picked Google arbitrarily. If by “picked arbitrarily” you mean decided because it was most dominate search webite.)
Update: In a related note, has anyone tried Spinoculers?