Archive for the 'humour' Category

Random Web Stuff, I - The Princes

by
Clifford
on May 8, 2008
in asymptotia and humour
. 2 Comments

Well, every now and again the link tracker from google’s blog search engine (which reports some links to the blog to me on the blog software’s control panel) throws up some weird random stuff. the princesThere was a funny one today. Some site that aggregates random stuff had a post about the Fresh Prince. It then gathered images from the web to illustrate, and somehow grabbed an image from this blog among the haul, which is why I knew of this. Two that ended up together are to the right.

Prince pictures, it said. Excellent.

Continue reading ‘Random Web Stuff, I - The Princes’

So What Are the Odds?

by
Clifford
on April 15, 2008
in black holes, humour and science
. 9 Comments

John Howe’s Glorund vs Turin imageWell, I’ve said (and pointed to) enough on the matter, but I could not resist a quote from today’s essay by Dennis Overbye in the New York Times (do have a look at the rest of it):

Besides, the random nature of quantum physics means that there is always a minuscule, but nonzero, chance of anything occurring, including that the new collider could spit out man-eating dragons.

Excellent! Proper flying, armoured, fire-breathing, talking, treasure-hoarding, Continue reading ‘So What Are the Odds?’

Lighting Up Field Theory

by
Clifford
on March 22, 2008
in humour, science and work
. 9 Comments

Sidney Coleman lecturingI got an email from one of the group’s graduate students today*, pointing to an archive of videos of lectures by the great Sidney Coleman. He’s doing quantum field theory. This makes this a marvelous resource, in principle, and so I thought I’d share them with you. They are here.

I wonder: are these the lectures that Jacques Distler has mentioned attending a few times in the past on his blog? This was the 1975-1976 year, a graduate course. I wonder if anyone (else) I know was in that class room…

[Update: I learned from the discussion over on Jonathan Shock’s site that there are some partial lecture notes from the course here, by Bryan Gin-ge Chen, based on notes by Brian Hill. He’s looking for help on completing the project, so get in touch if you want to help out.]

I’ve never seen Coleman in action before, and so I was immediately rather curious, Continue reading ‘Lighting Up Field Theory’

Tales From The Industry XIX - Black Comedy

by
Clifford
on March 11, 2008
in Los Angeles, fun, humour, science and society, science in the media and television
. 4 Comments

Wow, a lot of time has passed since I thought I’d get around to posting about this. You’ll recall that I went to take part in the taping of a segment for Comedy Central some time ago. Well, later on I went to the taping of the full show in which it will appear, and it was an amusing and interesting experience.

Lewis Black on set of Root of All Evil

The show? Comedy Central, and in particular, Daily Show fans will be pleased to learn that Lewis Black finally has a show of his own, and it is called “The Root of All Evil”. The format is that he presides as a judge over a case examining which of two popular Continue reading ‘Tales From The Industry XIX - Black Comedy’

Simple Steps to Becoming an Astrophysicist

by
Clifford
on February 18, 2008
in astronomy, humour, science and television
. 4 Comments

Neil deGrasse Tyson helped Stephen Colbert with his training to be an Astrophysicist recently. Neil’s advice is excellent of course, urging (for example) questioning and open-mindedness. You can learn from the clip below about Colbert’s take on this advice.



Among the many great exchanges:

Continue reading ‘Simple Steps to Becoming an Astrophysicist’

Stellar Basketball Physics

by
Clifford
on February 15, 2008
in humour, science and science and society
. 2 Comments

shaq on supernovae (from the onion)So the Onion’s gone and mixed some astrophysics with basketball. Headline:

“Shaq Terrified Of Phoenix Suns After Reading About Supernovas”

(Image on right also from the Onion.)
You can tell how it’s going to go from the title, although it’s rather amusing just how much stellar astrophysics they pour into the article (not even trying to disguise it much). Extract:

…new Phoenix Suns center Shaquille O’Neal admitted Monday that, upon reading about the phenomenon of massive stellar explosions popularly known as supernovas, he is now terrified of the entire organization.

(Wow… Shaq isn’t in LA any more? Huh. I’m so out of it. Update: Oh, yeah, I remember now. He went to Miami in 2004. Evidently I don’t follow the NBA.)

…and further:

Continue reading ‘Stellar Basketball Physics’

While Reading the Physics Personals…

by
Clifford
on February 14, 2008
in humour and science
. 2 Comments

valentine’s day ad

A match made in the heavens? (sorry….couldn’t resist…)

Continue reading ‘While Reading the Physics Personals…’

Gandalf, Balrog, Physics…

by
Clifford
on January 28, 2008
in film, humour, movies and science
. 6 Comments

So while you have a look at the following enthusiastic and amusing discussion about how far the Balrog and Gandalf must have fallen (in the film version of the Two Towers), involving discussions of terminal velocities and Balrog profile approximations for air resistance estimates (and so forth)…

(links here, here and here*)

…ask yourself why on earth nobody in the discussion (as far as I can tell from a quick Continue reading ‘Gandalf, Balrog, Physics…’

Clinton Fun

by
Clifford
on January 25, 2008
in humour and politics
. 0 Comments

Taking a break from scribbling equations, I confirmed the he-must-be-crazy suspicions of people around me in a cafe the other day by bursting out laughing out loud at this Onion article: Bill Clinton: `Screw It, I’m Running For President’:

After spending two months accompanying his wife, Hillary, on the campaign trail, former president Bill Clinton announced Monday that he is joining the 2008 presidential race, saying he “could no longer resist the urge.”

You’ve probably heard about it already (it was even mentioned on today’s Morning Edition on NPR), but in case you have not, it’s a timely read. My favourite bit:

“No longer will I have to endure watching candidates like Hillary Clinton engaging in single-pump handshakes with voters, as I use every last Continue reading ‘Clinton Fun’

Categorically Not! - Science Goes Hollywood

by
Clifford
on January 25, 2008
in Los Angeles, film, fun, humour, movies, science, science and society, science education, science in drama, science in the media and television
. 0 Comments

Reza Aslan at Categorically Not!The next Categorically Not! is on Sunday January 27th (upcoming). The Categorically Not! series of events that are held at the Santa Monica Art Studios, (with occasional exceptions). It’s a series - started and run by science writer K. C. Cole Reza Aslan at Categorically Not! - of fun and informative conversations deliberately ignoring the traditional boundaries between art, science, humanities, and other subjects. I strongly encourage you to come to them if you’re in the area. Here is the website that describes past ones, and upcoming ones. See also the links at the end of the post for some announcements and descriptions (and even video) of previous events. (Above right and left: Reza Aslan speaking on the origin of various ideas in Religion at the event entitled “Beginnings” on 16th December, 2007. Click right one for larger view.)

The theme this month is Science Goes Hollywood. Here’s the description from K C Cole:

Despite our prejudices to the contrary, Hollywood and Science have a lot to say to each other. Take special effects: Nothing Disney dreams up can Continue reading ‘Categorically Not! - Science Goes Hollywood’

Physics and Whiskey

by
Clifford
on January 11, 2008
in food and drink, fun, humour, radio, science and society and science in the media
. 9 Comments

jameson irish whiskeyBeing a loyal fan of Scottish single malt whisky, I never thought I’d be blogging about Irish whiskey, but this is why we get out of bed in the morning - we seek the stuff we can’t guess*.

So I was going to point out to you an amusing distraction. The series of radio ads for Jameson Irish Whiskey that you can listen to here. There’s one featuring a physicist, you see, and a friend of mine sent me the link for that reason**. There’s the idea of attraction, and so gravity is brought in by the ad man trying to use the concept to sell the product, and the physicist is obviously not having it… a short bit of fun play between segments of some program on some station somewhere or another. I can see that they’d work rather well. Have a listen.

That was going to be it, until I found another - real - physics connection. Turns out that Guglielmo Marconi - he of the use of electromagnetic waves for telegraph communication, Nobel prize, and so forth - is the the key to the connection. Do you know what it is?

Continue reading ‘Physics and Whiskey’

Our Achilles Heel

by
Clifford
on December 30, 2007
in humour
. 10 Comments

From xkcd*:

xkcd nerd sniping

(Click image for larger view over at the source.)

-cvj

*Thanks Jude!

Nerdiometer

by
Clifford
on December 10, 2007
in fun and humour
. 37 Comments


I am nerdier than 87% of all people. Are you a nerd? Click here to find out! Well, I don’t like this whole “nerd” business, a term that’s somewhat about marginalizing people who actually care to devote themselves to something*, but I lightened up for a while to take this test**. As you can see from the score on the left, I get to keep my membership card. I might even get to sit on some committees in the club. But I don’t think I get to chair any, and certainly won’t be president. That’s probably a good thing.

Why do it? Some of the questions are just really funny!

Continue reading ‘Nerdiometer’

The History Channel Joke

by
Clifford
on December 4, 2007
in Los Angeles, astronomy, cosmology, humour, science, science education, science in the media and television
. 8 Comments

If you saw it, did you get the joke? They included it!

Ok, here it is:

Continue reading ‘The History Channel Joke’

Listen Against

by
Clifford
on November 29, 2007
in fun, humour and radio
. 6 Comments

Oh boy. I laughed very loudly in my office at this in many places. I had the door closed, mercifully. I’m sorry, but most of you won’t get this, but I need to let the relative few who’ll find this hilarious know about it. So scroll on down to another post if you’ve no idea why this would be funny for you. Basically, you have to be into Radio, and moreover into BBC Radio. Quite a bit. If you’re familiar with it (especially Radio 4 and Radio 3) then please please please listen to this new program: It’s called Listen Against. It is a remarkably good and hilarious parody of Radio 4 and a host of other Continue reading ‘Listen Against’

A Flawed Model

by
Clifford
on November 19, 2007
in biology, humour and science
. 0 Comments

News report on research into the fundamental constituents of little boys. It seems that the “frogs, snails and puppy dog’s tails” model may not stand up to experiment:



-cvj

(Thanks Sarah!)

Everybody Loves Everybody Here

by
Clifford
on November 12, 2007
in Los Angeles, film, humour, movies and television
. 6 Comments

Since I’ve maybe done a bad thing and spoken ill of a TV show in which I took part (I may never make an unpaid appearance as a talking head in this town again), I’ll try to set the balance right with this important finding reported recently in the Onion:

Continue reading ‘Everybody Loves Everybody Here’

Iranian Atomic Secrets

by
Clifford
on November 11, 2007
in humour and politics
. 1 Comment

This just in from the Onion (America’s Finest News Source, I remind you). Seems that there’s been a definite confirmation of potentially dangerous objects in Iran’s possession. Article’s title: “U.S. Intelligence: Iran Possesses Trillions Of Potentially Dangerous Atoms”. Extract:

condoleezza rice atoms[…] the Department of Homeland Security uncovered new information Monday proving the Middle Eastern nation has obtained literally trillions of atoms—the same particles sometimes used to make atomic bombs—for unknown purposes.

Onion’s image caption: Condoleezza Rice displays for reporters one of the many varieties of atoms Iran is believed to already possess. (Of course, she’s holding a model of a molecule, but let’s not quibble here.)

Continuing…

Continue reading ‘Iranian Atomic Secrets’

Tales From The Industry XIV - MANswers

by
Clifford
on November 11, 2007
in Los Angeles, entertainment, humour, science and society, science education, science in the media and television
. 17 Comments

Ok, ok. Since more than a few people have spotted it, I think it is best to (as they used to say in Hill Street Blues back in the 90s) “get out in front of this thing”.

You’ll recall (see list of related posts) many of the good things that I’ve talked about concerning the work various program makers are doing for the History Channel’s The Universe, and KCET is doing for PBS’ WIRED Science, Discovery’s Science Channel, and other science shows I’ve mentioned (and there are more I’ve not yet mentioned). I’ve shared with you some details about some of my own small role in some of these sorts of things so that you can see some of how these programmes come to be, including various shoots I’ve mentioned here and there, various behind-the-scenes activities, and my optimism about what seems to be a general renewed interest by program makers on various channels in making more and better science programs, working more closely with scientists in the process.

From all this you’ll be of the expectation that within a year or two, my dream that everybody on the street will be chatting about science topics/culture just as often as any other topic in our culture might be realized. Well, of course, that’s a bit hasty. The vast majority of stuff out there is just as it always was, and some efforts go rather wrong. Here’s an example:

You’ll remember a couple of fun shoots I did last year. I blogged them here and here. I had high hopes that they’d turn out to be part of something promising. I was (and am) willing to try to bring a little science flavouring to places where it is not normally found, to audiences who don’t normally seek out science programming. Who knows where that can lead? But… the show turned out to be, how shall I put it? Low on science and high on… other stuff, shall we say.

The show I’m talking about is on Spike TV and it is called MANswers. I always knew it was going to be close to the mark, but was willing to take the risk just in case it got a few people thinking about science for a second or two or more. My reasons? No Continue reading ‘Tales From The Industry XIV - MANswers’

Categorically Not! - Mistakes!

by
Clifford
on September 5, 2007
in Los Angeles, art, film, humour, movies, science, television and theatre
. 4 Comments

Julia Sweeney during a Categorically Not! eventThe next Categorically Not! is Sunday September 9th. The Categorically Not! series of events that are held at the Santa Monica Art Studios, (with occasional exceptions). It’s a series - started and run by science writer K. C. Cole - of fun and informative conversations deliberately ignoring the traditional boundaries between art, science, humanities, and other subjects. I strongly encourage you to come to them if you’re in the area.

Here is the website that describes past ones, and upcoming ones. See also the links at the end of the post for some announcements and descriptions (and even video) of previous events. (Above right: Julia Sweeney performing an extract from her play “Letting Go of God”, in the event with the theme “Uncertainty”.)

The theme this month is Mistakes! Here’s the description from K C Cole:

Blunders, boo boos, bloopers, errors, slip-ups, goofs, misinterpretations and misunderstandings. Everyone makes mistakes. In science, the notion of “mistake” is often itself misunderstood. Frequently, a “mistake” often turns out to be nothing more than a limited or skewed perspective. Or as Einstein put it, discovering a new theory is not so much like tearing down a house to build a new one as climbing a mountain from which one can see farther; the old “house” is still there, but is seen in a vastly different context. Mistakes in personal life and Continue reading ‘Categorically Not! - Mistakes!’

Henri Poincaré and the Order of the Polynomial

by
Clifford
on July 13, 2007
in Los Angeles, books, fun, humour and movies
. 14 Comments

I’m conflicted. I read the first Harry Potter book and decided that while it is a good thing that many people are reading more as a result of them, I could not really recommend it highly as great work because it’s just so derivative. Having grown up reading all those boarding school books J. K. Rowling borrowed from (for example) without adding anything to them much, I was frustrated

Well, of course, in the scheme of things, it does not matter. Not all things we like have to be Great Works. And I eventually convinced myself that there’s nothing wrong with people (who did not read those works that she’s imitating) discovering the genre for themselves in the pages of her books. Then others told me that the books got better. harry potter special relativityThey got darker, and more grown up (do they approach the excellence and relative originality of the once largely ignored Philip Pullman books I wonder?), and better written, I’ve been told, by people whose opinion I trust. Well, good.

The films came out and they were all very ho-hum and then happily Chris Columbus stopped directing them after the first two and - Wow! They were suddenly really rather good. (The third one was by the wonderful Alfonso Cuarón, so - of course!) (Clickable above right for clarity: Extract from my own attempt to tap into the mania some years back by using characters from the books/films to illustrate the derivation of time dilation in a class on Special Relativity.)

Anyway, I saw the fifth one last night*, and I was very impressed with it as a film. Not having read the book, I find myself hoping that there was more to it than the film, since it still seems all rather derivative. There’s a bit of 1984 and a lot of Lord of the Rings mixed in with the Boarding School motif. I suspect that’s all as a result of stripping it down to look for something to hang a film on? I’m going to assume that, since there’s an awful lot of transparent (but entertaining) dark motifs about the Continue reading ‘Henri Poincaré and the Order of the Polynomial’

Chart of Charts

by
Clifford
on July 12, 2007
in humour
. 1 Comment

onion: america's most popular charts

Where else? The Onion, of course.

-cvj

Testing String Theory

by
Clifford
on June 19, 2007
in humour and string theory
. 5 Comments

You’ll be pleased to know that some of our best people are on it:

Continue reading ‘Testing String Theory’

Loud Laughter About To Happen

by
Clifford
on June 19, 2007
in humour
. 0 Comments

This is quite brilliant..! (Be patient… it gets even better as it goes along. Some familiarity with the Star Wars films required for full understanding, I’d say. There are some brilliantly conceived extensions of various scenes, excellent re-imaginings of others, completely new added scenes (the John-Cleese-esque scene is just perfect, for example), and so forth. Hollywood Reporter background story here. ):

  robot chicken star wars   robot chicken star wars   robot chicken star wars

Continue reading ‘Loud Laughter About To Happen’

Roz Chast On Physics

by
Clifford
on June 14, 2007
in art, humour, science and science in the media
. 9 Comments

I learned from Often in Error that Roz Chast, whose work some of you may know from the New Yorker, had some physics-themed cartoons in the May edition of Symmetry Magazine (one of them the cover). Here they are (click for larger, then perhaps click again to zoom):

  roz chast on physics   roz chast on physics

I like the one on the left, I have to say. (A pseudoparticle called “poserino” is just Continue reading ‘Roz Chast On Physics’

Amara Graps: What happened to Bush’s Cadillac One?

by
Clifford
on June 11, 2007
in humour
. 7 Comments

amara grapsNow for something a little different…

I’ve been trying for some time to get one of Asymptotia’s regulars, Amara Graps, (click on image to the right for larger view) to give us a guest post. She sent me one by email, somewhat unexpectedly, a couple of hours ago, and I must say I did not anticipate the topic!

So here we have it… Amara telling us a bit about certain recent events in Rome. Enjoy!

-cvj

_________________________________________________________________________________

What happened to Bush’s Cadillac One?

As recorded by a viewer of the motorcade and posted to YouTube [jump to 3:15 point to get to the main event]:

It apparently sputtered to a stop. It broke down, right there, on via del Tritone (near the Trevi fountain) in Rome, in the middle of the motorcade. He was ripe picking for a sharp shooter too; no wonder the police were pushing people further back, off of the street. It looks like the solution was to switch limos, because he got out of the limo with Mrs. Bush and climbed into another one.

This is a very special car. If it is a mechanical failure, then the manufacturers have a lot of explaining to do. His visit to Rome had been preceded by a large security operation (perhaps inconsistently). The Tiber was dragged. The sewers were searched. Squares were cleared and roofs occupied. The presidential motorcade Continue reading ‘Amara Graps: What happened to Bush’s Cadillac One?’

That Ain’t Workin’

by
Clifford
on June 1, 2007
in fun, humour, string theory and work
. 1 Comment

dire straitsRemember the Tune “Money for Nothing”, by Dire Straits? It was a big hit in the 80s. (Remember those?) Well, Warren of the new blog A Strange Universe* wrote a rather brilliant physics version of it, to be sung to the same tune. The “stringer” is the object of the ridicule of the song’s character. The original post is here, where he’ll tell you his thoughts on the song. I can’t resist (I hope he forgives me) posting the entire thing here, rather than an extract, which would break up its impact. (Original song’s lyrics are here, by the way, for comparison.)

So here it is:
Continue reading ‘That Ain’t Workin’’

Poor Pluto!

by
Clifford
on May 31, 2007
in art, astronomy, fun, humour, planets and science
. 16 Comments

Remember our discussions of Pluto’s demotion/reclassification? (Lots of link reminders at bottom of post.) Well, here’s a sad (and amusing) image* created by artist Mathias Pedersen:

poor pluto mathias pedersen


You can see a high resolution version of this image here. Don’t forget to look at more of the graphic art of Mathias Pedersen**.

Poor Pluto indeed!

(Take some time to appreciate how good a job he’s done on colours and other Continue reading ‘Poor Pluto!’

Remote Thoughts

by
Clifford
on April 18, 2007
in Los Angeles, humour and personal
. 14 Comments

While coming into work today just before lunchtime, I carried with me one of those little remote controls for today’s seminar speaker to use to click through his computer slides (I highly recommend such a remote, by the way, as they completely free you from having to stand next to the computer, often resulting in a better presentation for all concerned).

Thinking idle off-beat thoughts as I sometimes do, I couldn’t resist pointing and experimentally pressing the button a few times. What was I thinking? Well, it would have been nice to:

    remote 1
  • STOP the 11:55am bus I just missed, and used the BACK button to bring it back to the stop so I could get on it. This would have been useful since (a) I would have made it to the seminar at the right time, and (b) I’m sure I would have sat next to and talked to that fascinating and beautiful woman I’m supposed to meet on some sort of public transport some day. She must be on that one I just missed since she sure as hell is never on the bus I manage to catch! (Wait… maybe I had my one shot at that and blew it already. I remember now…)
  • remote 2STOP that toddler over there from enthusiastically licking the hand rail (I got a bus 9 minutes later) while his mother is not looking! I’m all for kids interacting a bit with the world to auto-immunize, but this seems a bit of an overdose.
  • STOP not just my watch, but all time just for about 9 minutes in order to catch up and make the seminar.

Well, none of that happened (you’re probably not surprised to learn), and the remote stayed in my bag for most of the rest of the journey….

A bit later I realized why the button would not work!

Continue reading ‘Remote Thoughts’

Barbed

by
Clifford
on April 3, 2007
in humour
. 1 Comment

agent takes questionWhile listening this morning to President Bush splutter and stumble his way through a bunch of mostly softball questions from the press at the Whitehouse (as usual), I was put in mind of this recent excellent Onion article, entitled “Heroic Secret Service Agent Takes Question Intended For Bush”.

It’s brilliantly funny. There’s analysis of the event, interviews, etc.

Have a read.

-cvj

Best Of The Day

by
Clifford
on April 1, 2007
in fun and humour
. 13 Comments

So far today, the three best April Fool’s Day jokes I’ve heard or read have been as follows:

  • On NPR’s Morning Edition this morning, they had a good piece about new regulation to limit mobile phone ring tones in New York:

    mobile phoneThe city’s Center for Reduction of Noise Pollution issued a public call to action last month, citing an increased number of confrontations spawned by a new phenomenon: It’s called “ring rage,” and it involves strangers getting into fights over obnoxious cell phone ringtones.

    David Yassky, a member of the New York City Council for the 33rd District in Brooklyn, has proposed a bill to regulate cell phone rings.

    Distracting ringtones in the workplace cost the economy more than $1.2 billion each year, says Yassky. His bill mandates that New York residents choose between four more palatable rings, custom-made by the city.

    The audio of the interview is here (along with the funny ringtones). NPR almost completely ruined the idea by being too obvious (you could almost hear them going “eh!?”, “eh!?”, after every sentence), not choosing a credible-sounding interviewee as the main subject, and then immediately reminding you of the date at the end of the interview. Are they afraid people will sue? It’s such a shame they had to be so obvious.

    • Much better was the following:
    Continue reading ‘Best Of The Day’

Trying To Tell Me Something?

by
Clifford
on March 16, 2007
in humour and work
. 5 Comments

The other day I was making one of my (half-) joking “kids today” mini-speeches to one of my (very patient) graduate students, Tameem, as part of an IM chat we were having about graduate teaching matters. He then said that he remembered something he wanted to share with me, and IM-ed me this*:

boondocks bannerboondocks grandad

…which I’ll readily admit is both funny and very familiar!

-cvj

(*You can click to make it a bit larger)

Teacup Mashup

by
Clifford
on March 13, 2007
in fun, humour and string theory
. 6 Comments

storm in a teacup… and now, thanks to the Talented Ms Bee (a genius DJ/MC in the making if there ever was one), you can carry around on your ipod an audio pastiche of some of the choicest (sometimes unfortunate!) phrases said during the “storm in a teacup”:

The excellent mp3 file is: Continue reading ‘Teacup Mashup’

New Directions in Real Estate?

by
Clifford
on February 23, 2007
in fun, humour, science and string theory
. 18 Comments

keats real estate imageOn NPR’s finance programme Marketplace yesterday, there was a somewhat unusual piece. It seems that conceptual artist Jonathan Keats is making some money by selling the extra dimensional rights to various properties in San Francisco! (You can see him at the Modernism Gallery there1).

Since there’s no known way to build on or otherwise occupy this new extra dimensional property (let me explain a bit further in an enormous footnote2), the prices are awfully reasonable. Here’s a transcript of a transaction that I found on their website. Reporter Nathaneal Johnson is observing a sale to punters Oscar Villalon and Mary Ladd:

Continue reading ‘New Directions in Real Estate?’

B Flat, but Stay Sharp

by
Clifford
on February 16, 2007
in fun, humour and music
. 14 Comments

b flat key

Bâ™­, C, D, Eâ™­, F, G, A, Bâ™­

There’s something that resonates with me about the B flat scale. I don’t know why. I like the sound and feel of it. A lot of pieces of music are written in it (although I do not know if it is actually the most popular key), incidentally, and so I imagine that others like it a lot too. I wonder why that is? Is it just the result of convention? Is there something about the way we (those who like it a lot) are constructed that fits that frequency rather well?

Consider having a listen to Robert Krulwich’s NPR piece called “Have you heard about B flat?”. It’s got light humour sprinkled around liberally, and some amusing music. And there are a few pieces of information about the (apparent) unreasonable ubiquity of the note B flat in Nature. He tells you about B Flat and alligators, B flat and a staircase, and he ends with B flat and a black hole, and I’ll quote from the website for this one:

Continue reading ‘B Flat, but Stay Sharp’

Those Fun Paper Titles

by
Clifford
on February 12, 2007
in fun, humour and work
. 24 Comments

Scanning the listings on the arxiv just now, I found what has to be the best paper title I’ve seen for a while:

“Would Bohr be born if Bohm were born before Born?”

It is a paper by H. Nikolic, in the history of physics classification, and I have not read it, but I love the title. It’s brilliant!

This reminds me of the process that happens to me sometimes when I’m working on a research project. I suddenly think of a really great title, and then get excited about finishing the project so that I can write the paper with that title! (You’ll have noticed that I do that with some of my blog posts too.) It’s often just a nice turn of phrase, like Continue reading ‘Those Fun Paper Titles’

In A Cafe Near You?

by
Clifford
on January 21, 2007
in humour, science, science and society and string theory
. 7 Comments

I’ve been meaning to post this for a couple of weeks and forgot. From the New Yorker two weeks ago (I can’t decipher the artist’s name [Update: Lee Lorenz, I think.]):

strings cafe

I’m pleased to see this for lots of reasons. It reminds me that it was in the New Yorker Continue reading ‘In A Cafe Near You?’

Missed Chance

by
Clifford
on January 19, 2007
in Los Angeles, entertainment, humour and television
. 12 Comments

The show on television called “24” has an interesting format. It is sort of meant to be in real time, and so each episode - roughly an hour long, including advertisements - charts what took place in an hour of a particular day. A whole season is one day. A very harrowing day for the characters in the show, particularly agent Jack Bauer. They are part of an counter-terrorist unit (CTU) trying to save the America from various highly complicated terrorist plots. The terrorists are obsessed with Los Angeles, it seems, which is convenient given that the unit is based in Los Angeles. Having watched two or three seasons of the show now, I’ve also come to appreciate the fact that the terrorist plots hand over to more and more complex and dastardly ones as the show goes along through the day. And the “controlling mind” bad guy earlier in the day is hardly ever the worst and most dastardly person our heroes will meet. There’ll be a really really bad guy along later on with an even worse plan than the one before lunchtime, and so forth. Another reason that it’s lucky that they’re obsessed with Los Angeles, since there’s an excellent supply of theatre and television actors here to be cast in various partsa.

What I’ve really been hoping to see is an episode of the show when Jack Bauer is not saving America/LA. Instead, he’s just… chillin’. Imagine it now:
Continue reading ‘Missed Chance’

Citrus

by
Clifford
on January 17, 2007
in Los Angeles, gardening, humour and work
. 21 Comments

lemons “..It’s pretty serious.”

“Yeah…” (chuckle) “…right!”

“No, it is serious… Your smoothies are going to be more expensive.”

(Silence, as the enormity of this economic revelation sinks in…)

* * *

Part of a conversation I overheard between two students while I waited for a class to start. One student was apparently a bit dismissive of the other’s concern about the effects of the recent sustained cold temperatures on the local farmers. He did not see why she was concerned about the farmers. She could have Continue reading ‘Citrus’

More iPhone Features

by
Clifford
on January 15, 2007
in gadgets and humour
. 2 Comments

Recall all the excitement of last week about the iPhone? Humourist Brian Unger of Continue reading ‘More iPhone Features’