Category Archives: Los Angeles

Multiverse Musings

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As you may know already there’ll be a new NOVA series on PBS in the Fall, based on one of Brian Greene’s books, The Fabric of the Cosmos. Last Fall I did some a shoot with them for my role in it (I’ve no idea how much they will use), and I learned a short while ago that they’ll be using some of it on the NOVA website too. They extracted some parts of the on-camera interview segments I did concerning the idea of multiple universes and transcribed them into something you can read online. Have a look here. I touch on the idea in a fragmented way, mostly being led by the questions I was asked, but it’s a fun topic to chat about, and may lead you in interesting directions should you wish to learn more, so have a look.

A word on the picture they are using (er…see above left). It seems to be one that the […] Click to continue reading this post →

Science Film Logo

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So, here’s yet another project I’ve been working on. I forgot to tell you about it. After the success of the short films I produced and directed (etc) two Summers ago (remember? Shine a Light and Laser), the next step was to get more people involved in the film-making, to learn more about how it is done, and what is involved, both on the science side and the film-making side. Specifically, I want students from both sides of the divide (science, and film, journalism, communications, etc) to have to work with each other to learn more about communicating science.

So, Anna Krylov (Chemistry dept., and a collaborator on an NSF grant) and I wrote a […] Click to continue reading this post →

Fig Goodness

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Ah. First morning back in LA, and I see that the fig tree at the front is under attack by lots of small birds. I managed to rescue some, picking a few maybe a day or two earlier than I’d prefer, for optimal flavour, but they’ll still be great. Of course, the ripe ones bursting their skins with flavour are wonderful.

I’ve left some of the half-eaten ones on as a distraction to the feathered visitors. The […] Click to continue reading this post →

On Physics, Spiritualism, Fiction, and Non-Fiction

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On Monday evening I chatted with Deborah Cloyed, author of the recently released novel “The Summer We Came to Life”, which I finished reading over the weekend. The conversation was recorded for Rare Bird Literature’s Rare Bird Radio site, and so you can listen. (Embed at the end of this post.) We talked about her use of various physics ideas (Copenhagen and Many Worlds quantum mechanics interpretations, parallel worlds) in her skillfully crafted novel about four friends, loss, the afterlife, and friendship.

At this point, some of you are yelling “Run, run for your life, Mr. Scientist!”. But No. No, no, no. I think that’s a mistake. Deborah is, first of all, writing a novel, not trying to push some self-help book that cherry picks a few ideas from science, conflates them with some stuff people want to hear, and trying to make a buck out of it. Second of all, she really loves the science, and seems to have read a lot about the subject, unusually widely. You don’t ignore someone who really cares about the subject and wants to know more, especially when they want to include it in the work they are producing. So when we were introduced a while back, she thought it would be fun and interesting to have a conversation about various things, and I agreed. I got the chance to comment (at her request) about what I thought she was doing with the science, and how the final result worked, I got to ask her what she thought of it, and from there we talked about lots of related topics, including the whole idea of mixing […] Click to continue reading this post →

Dark Red and Orange

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These are lovely. The dark ones are very unusual, perhaps. They are Purple Russians, usually thought of alongside the Black Russian varieties that I think are usually more round. There’s a whole black tomato category in the tomato-growing world, and this is one of many. (Click for a larger view.) These were the second of the clusters of handsome green tomatoes in a previous post.

The garden continues to produce a variety of tasty things. These were from a little over a week ago. The downside is that one part of the garden is under attack from […] Click to continue reading this post →

Carmageddon Reaction

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Atlantic Station on Gold Line East LA Branch(Scroll to the end of this post for the funny thing I actually intended to post without my own musings getting in the way…) It has certainly been a huge story, with national and maybe even international attention been given to it. Carmageddon is the name given to the event of the 405 highway being closed for a 10 mile stretch for most of this weekend, for maintenance purposes. People are warning of disaster, complaining, predicting calamities for business, stocking up on food supplies, and so on and so forth. Some people are angry, some are amused, some are confused. For the most part however, people are quietly making sensible plans to adjust their routines or plans to take account of the event. (Er, I’m not sure I’d include flying from Burbank to Long Beach among the sensible plans!*)

I’m sort of struck by the huge impact this is having in people’s minds, and it has raised all sorts of discussions, reflections, and arguments about the reliance on cars that people have, public transport, and so on and so forth. All subjects you’ve maybe read being discussed here over the years. (Search the archives and/or use the search bar to the right.) The clichés about there being “no public transport” in LA is a convenient one for all to use at times (or all the time) when we want to stay in our nice cosy cars and ignore the alternatives and the possibility of making adjustments to include even occasional use of them, but I readily admit that the West side is a lot closer to the standard image of Los Angeles in this regard than points further East (still staying decidedly North-leaning in the discussion of course – the South LA conversation is an interesting one for another time). The density of shops, cafes, and long, desirably walkable stretches with other pedestrians (yes, they do exist in LA) does indeed seem lower over there, and while there is some bus coverage, the lower density makes the flaws of that part of the transport system hurt more, and of course the subway/metro […] Click to continue reading this post →

Head Start

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This was sort of a quick doodle in Brushes while waiting*, as an exercise in just starting at a random feature and building (rather than the global construction approach seen in the previous post on this subject), using simple lines to hold and suggest form… but I liked the person who emerged, so I decided to finish her up a bit more and throw on some colour.

I actually think I sort of know her a bit. Something about the look in her eye, the tilt of her head, and the willful set of the mouth.

You know, I think I may use her as a character in The Project. She’d kick a few doors down, and not take any nonsense, don’t you think? (Scientist, or non-scientist? Must decide later.)

Watch her being built from blank page to finish by clicking:
[…] Click to continue reading this post →

Bed Post

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I’ve a big meeting in the morning at 9:00am and have not the slightest bit of sleepiness in me at all, and it is 11:30pm. This may have something to do with me making a pot of coffee at about 9:00pm after deciding that it was way too early to go to sleep and I should do some work. I’ve done some, and now im in bed. Let’s see if a little blogging off the cuff about some internal stuff helps…

Well, sort of internal. Pretty sure you would not want full-on internal stuff. Even I don’t know what’s in there all the way down…

….hmmm, and now it is 13 minutes after midnight. The intervening time was spent prepping a draft of what I expect will be the next post, involving generating a video and uploading it to YouTube and so forth. Do have a look.

One of the more interesting things from today was getting excited about a paper I was asked to referee. It turned out that I really liked it a lot. I’d somehow missed it in the regular scheme of things, and so this time around I get to say that refereeing was really useful for me. I cannot tell you which paper it s, unfortunatley. It was actually about something that I’d planned to try to do myself, before I got distracted by another set of projects and never returned to the issue… So it was nice, a bit of the way through, to suddenly realize what was going on and sit up and take note. I’ve a few minor comments to the authors to encourage a bit of clarity in the presentation, but other than that my report will be “nicely done, chaps”. It has all served the purpose of reminding me to get back to some of those projects I had in mind three years ago. (Three years already! Geez…)

Was chatting with a bunch of different sorts of physicists today. It was enjoyable.[…] Click to continue reading this post →

Heads Up

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The last day or two I’ve paused from various things due to various other things intervening and competing for time. For work toward the project in the in-betweens, I’ve decided to do a bit of study (really, re-study and move things forward a bit) of head construction… mostly working on two key things: (1) Variety of types and (2) more solidity and, er, sculptedness…. This will help with improved production and character design and so forth later on, for The Project.

All while still keeping speed at a good clip. At the right is a quick study I did toward the end of the day today. It is rough, and I am focusing on overall structure, so forgive the crudity. I’d been working entirely with pencil earlier in the day, so this was a change of medium, and a change of pace, that is often useful for getting nice flow. The medium? I used the app Brushes on the iPad. So there’s the one thin stroke of black, using a stylus. I’d done a rough framework of blue underneath first, for layout and bulk.

Just for fun, I’ve included something else you might find interesting. I have […] Click to continue reading this post →

Orange on the Table

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One day a few days ago I decided to make a quick meal from some things I’d find in the garden: Two orange food items were available – some crookneck squash and a few small orange tomatoes. Excellent.

How did the meal take shape? Quickly, simply, and tastily.

I chopped an onion, diced the squashes, crushed a few cloves of garlic, and chopped a red tomato into small pieces too (the three tiny orange cherry toms were not enough). I also finely chopped a small piece of ginger. I heated a tablespoon or two of olive oil in my large deep (high-sided) frying pan (another All-Clad treasure), and […] Click to continue reading this post →

Tales from the Industry XXXVII – Firestarter

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Well, Wednesday was unexpectedly exhausting, but quite a day. I intended to do a step by step report as I went along, but in the end we were too busy for me to do that, so instead I’ll give you a summary from memory. My instructions were to meet at 5:00am (yes, I know, 5:00am!) in the Temecula area with the film crew and a senior representative from the fire department. This meant leaving the night before and staying in a hotel nearby, so that I only had to get up at 4:30am instead of the two hours or more I’d have needed to otherwise. The meet went well (even with the slight confusion over two strip malls on opposite sides of the street both with a Starbucks, the meeting point…) and we set off in two vehicles into the brush.

Our goal was a particular area where we were going to take part in a key operation of the forestry and fire department (and related services the names of which I’ve forgotten) – a controlled or “prescribed” burn. The burn will act as a rather excellent analogue of a much larger issue of scientific interest, the main subject of the episode. I’ll let you actually watch the episode to learn more, so that I don’t spill the beans.

I say take part since we were not only going to film it (in 3D), but I would be – in my role as a sort of host of this segment – interviewing the Battalion Chief (Julie Hutchinson) about the burn, and then helping burn some of it myself! It’s certainly not every day one gets to help burn 100 acres – safely and legally!

It was a huge amount of fun, right from the morning briefing (6:00am), the borrowing of odd bits of safety equipment from various members of the crew so that our crew, and yours truly, were safely kitted out, to being instructed on camera by one of the fire chiefs how to use the drip torch (there’s one on the left) to set little pools of fire in the brush the required distance apart to get the required burn rate…

[…] Click to continue reading this post →

Reaching Out…

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So I’ve been involved in two or three shoots so far (I forget which) for the new series. It has been good, overall, since I’ve been pleased to help out with explanations of various physics ideas here and there where I can. I’ll be winding down on all this soon since (a) I must get back to working on other things, and (b) I will be going away from the area for a chunk of time, so there’s a bit of juggling going on, I think, to find some space and time to include some more contributions from me for various episodes. I think I’ll end up being in three of them, if I recall correctly, and have had to turn down shoots on various others for a variety of reasons. Most of the reasons are to do with scheduling, but at least one was simply because I figured I’d be the wrong (or at least, very certainly not the most right) guy for the job. There’s a move […] Click to continue reading this post →