A word I accidentally mumbled in class: “crudimentary.” I think it means both rudimentary and crude. Anyway, I like it, and am going to try to start weaseling it into as many talks as I possibly can. Speaking of which, here are slides for a guest lecture I gave to the local alternative models of computing class at UW.
Play, Play, Play, Play, Play
One year ago:
Today: still playing on the floor with the kiddies and loving it!
The Computer, the Universe, and John Wheeler
It was an unassuming blue-grey volume tucked away in the popular science section of the Siskiyou County Library. “Spacetime Physics” it announced proudly in gold letters across the front of the book. Published in 1965, the book looked as if it hadn’t been touched in the decades since 1965. A quick opening of the book revealed diagrams of dogs floating beside rocket ships, infinite cubic lattices, and buses orbiting the Earth, all interspaced with a mathematical equations containing symbols the likes of which I’d never seen before. What was this strange book, and what, exactly, did those equations mean? How could there be equations and dogs and buses all in the same book? Answering these questions would be the beginning, for me, of a lifelong love of physics. It would also inspire in me a deep love of science books which make you smile, and, more importantly perhaps, led me to works of the physicist John Archibald Wheeler, who would serve as the model of the researcher I have always wanted to be.
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ArXiv on Your iPhone
For those interested in accessing the arXiv on your iPhone, here is a web based iPhone page:http://arxiv.mobi. Sweet! This has been on my list of things to do, and now I can cross it off without having to do it myself!
John Archibald Wheeler (1911-2008)
I just learned the very sad news that John A. Wheeler has passed away. Wheeler was one of my heroes and inspired me in many ways to be where I am today. I’m buried under a heap of work today, but will write more when I can come up for air. Below I’ve pasted a post from my old blog describing a result I first learned about by reading a Wheeler paper.
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CSE 322 Week 2: Nondeterminism Rocks
Last week, in the class I’m teaching, we talked about the basics of deterministic finite automata. In week two we moved on to more interesting and slightly less basic material. In particular we introduced the notion of a nondeterministic finite automata and, by the end of the week, had showed that the class of languages accepted by deterministic finite automata is exactly the same class of languages accepted by nondeterministic finite automata.
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Rube Goldberg Advertising
It may take a second to load, but this webpage is pretty darn over the top.
Makin' Bacon
Come on, you know you want to watch it, “How It’s Made: Bacon”:
That’s some awesome background music, I must say. Good to know they check for pieces of metal which might have fallen onto the pork bellies.
Seattle Has the World's First Quantum Computer
The ads on scienceblogs today lead me to find out that, apparently, I can buy a quantum computer right here from Seattle based REI:
And only $70 bucks! Jeez, those D-wave investors overpaid. I wonder how you use it to factor? But the number in the bag and wait?
Nunchuck Demo
I’m not sure what this is good for, and yet I found it amazingly responsive: