Oh! I just noticed… The previous post was my 1000th on Asymptotia! Of course I don’t need much more than a flimsy excuse to break out a bottle of something tasty to drink, but this is cause for celebration! Hurrah! Thanks very much to all of you for reading and … Click to continue reading this post
Hollywood Halloween. How about that…. two perfectly matched words side by side like that, and in context. Well… last night’s West Hollywood Halloween Carnaval confirmed my faith in Los Angeles (in the broader sense) as a city where people can indeed come together in vast numbers in if there’s enough will to do so. And boy do I mean vast. I’ve never seen this many people in good spirits in such […] Click to continue reading this post
Well, at some point this week I ought to get around to preparing for this. I spoke about the Center For Inquiry before, here. Well, the promised talk that I was going to give at some point is on Sunday. If you’re up for some thoughts about the universe on your Sunday morning, do come along. Details at this link. Some of their publicity is reproduced below: […] Click to continue reading this post
Looking toward the source of some of that lovely evening light I remarked upon in an earlier post. View from the grounds of the Observatory in Griffith Park, not too long after 6:00 pm.
When I saw this back in August, I laughed in delight. I think it is a rather clever idea, well executed. (It’s by Farley Katz, and was in […] Click to continue reading this post
Warm evening light at Griffith, during my short evening hike last night. (Click for larger view.) The park was lovely, and of course the Griffith Observatory was looking wonderful in this warm light.
I went up to clear my head of a lot of things, and it was a good thing to do to rise up above the street level of the city for short while. I really just had the urge to storm up the hill at speed and get up there and look back over the city. Just for a little while. So it was not a hike so much as a run. I’m not a regular runner, but there are occasionally days when it suits me fine (assuming it is not on a hard flat surface).
It’s a pleasure to wander the grounds just in front of the Observatory and hear […] Click to continue reading this post
Wow! Almost to the day (see last year’s post), they have returned, perhaps stronger than ever! I had two big waves of them this year, one about ten days to a fortnight ago, and another new one starting a couple of days ago. Here’s one:
Flower from my San Pedro cactus (trichocereus pachanoi). (Click for larger view.)
I love these flowers dearly for many reasons. First and foremost, they are beautiful, but there’s an additional enhancement of my love brought about by their short-lived nature. They’ll appear all of a sudden, somewhat unexpectedly, and last just one day […] Click to continue reading this post
I don’t know if you read the report (released on the 15th October) about the damage to the LHC that occurred during the “September 19th incident”. Just in case, it is in pdf format here. The upshot is that there’s a lot of work to do. There are of course … Click to continue reading this post
I got this cute postcard from the people at Workaholic Productions. (Click for larger view.)
You may recall a post I did some time ago about some things I was doing in a demo lab here at USC for a pilot for a new TV show. (Or, you may not. That’s what the archive is for – browse several of the Tales From The Industry” series here.) At the time I did not tell you about the show in detail, since I don’t like to reveal details of show ideas and so forth when things are still in development.
Anyway, the show is done. It’s a pilot, and so with your support, they may well get the go ahead to make more. So if you’re inclined, go and have a look. What is it about? Well, the idea is to start off with some standard (pulp) sci-fi scenario (alien invasion in this case) that you might see in a movie or tv show, and then through the course of the show examine aspects of what you see to investigate the science behind it. They have actual scientists (and engineers, since a lot of can be really about technology) come on and discuss things, explain science, do demonstrations, and so on and so forth.
This particular show, the pilot, has a lot of the standard alien invasion combat weaponry on display – shooting of ray guns, casting of lightning-bolt-like bursts of […] Click to continue reading this post
I’ve been meaning to tell you more about Michael Pollan. I’ve been planning a post or two about Summer reading, and was going to discuss the books of Michael Pollan to kick off a possible series. That plan was hatched in the late Summer of 2007… then the Fall came, and then the Winter and Spring… then Summer of 2008… never got around to it. Drat. (Checking back, I see that I started the series by talking about Haruki Murakami, here. So I’ll call this part of the series too, even though it is not really Summer.)
Anyway, the good news is that Pollan was on Fresh Air (NPR) yesterday, and as usual he was excellent:
In an open letter to the next president, author Michael Pollan writes about the waning health of America’s food systems — and warns that “the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close.”
The future president’s food policies, says Pollan, will have a large impact on a wide range of issues, including national security, climate change, energy independence and health care.
Here’s the link to the audio. Before you rush off to that, let me continue what I was going to say, at least in brief.
Pollan has risen to prominence, justifiably, mostly as a result of his excellent book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History Of Four Meals”. It is a delightful examination of the food industry, charting the route of much of the food that you eat […] Click to continue reading this post
Yes. I am. Still here. Several of you, noticing a gap in my posting, got in contact to ask what’s up, and I appreciate that you care. The story is that I’ve been somewhat frazzled over the last several days, mostly due to an intense combination of work and social … Click to continue reading this post
The next Categorically Not! is on Sunday October 19th (tomorrow!). 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. (Image on left is of bubble master Stirling Johnson, in action during the September 14th 2008 event on Bubbles.)
The theme this month is Entanglement. Here’s the description from K C Cole: […] Click to continue reading this post
Click on the image to go over to a site* that examines the nature of a Palin Presidency. You’ll laugh and shudder at the same time. Once there (not here) be sure to drag your mouse all over the image, clicking when you can, and revisit some of them (like the door) since more than one thing can be found in some parts. Enjoy! (Notice what’s in the trash can…)
(Don’t forget, she’s such a great debater…)
-cvj
(*Thanks Samantha!)
You may have noticed some of Chris Jordan’s work before, maybe not realizing what he’s up to. His work often looks like one thing (a rather beautiful abstract textured painting or photo), only to become something else entirely upon closer examination (the tiny elements making up the texture are paper cups, or mobile phones, for example), depicting some aspect of the vast quantities of some item or substance that we discard. His idea is to try to make […] Click to continue reading this post
I like David Bacon’s musings about the sorts of arithmetic being thrown around a lot in the turbulent financial news these days. He starts out: I wonder how many people this week realized that “ten percent down” followed by “ten percent up” does not equal “no change.” […] Indeed,
