Category Archives: work

Tales from the Industry XXXIII: Sometimes I Say No

By | | , , ,
11 Comments

…But then I feel bad about it at times, especially when there are good people involved. I was contacted on Thursday by a producer I know (I’ve worked with her before) about contributing to a TV show on a certain topic. They wanted to shoot this week. I was to talk in very specific terms about one issue, but it would be then fit into a larger topic that the whole episode is about, and the big theme of the whole series. It turned out that I also had worked with the filmmaker (writer-director) for the episode as well, on various things for the series The Universe on the History Channel that, as you know, I contribute to a lot. (See here.)

So all seemed fine. My concerns about the topic and how my contribution might be edited began to fall away, since these are good people… I spoke on the phone about some of the ideas I could bring up, and how I might try to frame things, and maybe we’d talk again about days of the week to set up the shoot, and so forth. But I asked if I could see other examples of episodes from the series, just to make sure that I was ok with it all.

It turned out that they could show me them since they were online. I looked at them […] Click to continue reading this post →

Experimental Excitement!

By | | , , ,
11 Comments

alice_frist_run_dataWell, this week is a big week, in some ways. The Large Hadron Collider has gone into a new phase! For a while, the experiment has turned aside from the task of searching for the origin of mass (the Higgs Particle, or whatever it is that mediates the generation of the masses of elementary particles – see earlier posts, and features like this, etc) and is turning to heavy ion collisions. Rather than studying processes in which only a few particles at a time are interacting at super-duper-uber-high energies, the experiment will instead collide together the nuclei of lead atoms, so that you get lots of particles colliding together and creating a messy “soup” of high energy stuff all together. The goal is to understand the constituent nuclear particles (quarks and gluons) working collectively at high temperature (and low to moderate density), instead of focusing on issues concerning individual fundamental particles. Today (starting late yesterday, actually) is an exciting day because it marks the first step on the journey to probe deeper into this physics. The ALICE experiment has started looking at these collisions. See top right for some screen-shots of the mess of particle tracks that are left after the soup flies apart. The trick is to analyze all these tracks from millions of such collisions to work out the properties of the soup.

As you perhaps know from reading this blog, while of course I’m interested in the behaviour of fundamental particles and the origin of mass, and so on and so forth, I’m very interested in this nuclear issue too. Some of the most interesting work that […] Click to continue reading this post →

Passing Star People

By | | , , , , , , ,
1 Comment

John Williams in RehearsalYou might not know the name Maurice Murphy, but I am certain that you are likely to know – and maybe even be very familiar with – his work. His is the principal trumpet playing the lead themes in very many films with music by John Williams. I have for a long time been very impressed with how so many of those themes trip so easily off the tongue (physical or mental) and seem to fit together so well (just hum the Star Wars theme, and then follow it by the Superman theme, then the Indiana Jones theme, and so on). A lot of this is due to the fact that Williams (like most good composers) is a master at recycling and modifying, creating a cluster of much loved (deservedly) themes that accompany some of our favourite movie-going memories, but I now think that the other reason is that you’re hearing them all played by the same voice! That voice is the playing of Maurice Murphy, the truly wonderful trumpeter who Williams would specifically request to play the lead on recordings of his film music. Murphy died recently, and you can dig a bit more about him and explore what I’ve been telling you further by going to the London Symphony Orchestra’s site devoted to him […] Click to continue reading this post →

Practice

By | | , , ,
2 Comments

During idle moments, when nobody is looking, we professors of the Dark Arts are known to practice various techniques. Just for fun, and to stay sharp, you understand. This was during the wait for the USC Presidential inauguration march to begin a couple of weeks ago. (See posts here and here.) As you can see, Nick Warner (right) and I (middle) are engaged in trying different approaches to a remote influence technique as Krzysztof Pilch (left) looks on at the results, somewhat amused. (Click for slightly larger view.)

inauguration_antics

All in good fun.

-cvj Click to continue reading this post →

Midterm Matters

By | | , , ,
Comments Off on Midterm Matters

The midterm elections are being held across the USA today, and I am sitting on the sofa at home having a late dinner after giving the second midterm to my large physics class, but the title of this post refers to midterm feelings of mine that have to do with being in the middle of the semester. I realized the other day that I’ve been feeling like all of a sudden I was hugely busy with lots of things, feeling rather drained of energy on some days, and generally feeling pulled apart by doing too many things, helping out on too many tasks, and writing reports and letters and so forth. Then I checked the blog from around this time last year and discovered that in fact I was having the same sorts of feelings last year at around the same time. So I think there is maybe something about the Fall semester that means that by the middle of it one is (or at least feels) enmeshed in a near-quagmire. Perhaps. Anyway, part of my response to all that was to be quiet the last few days and take it easy on the running around. So that meant I did not go off to the West Hollywood Halloween Carnaval*, nor did I do a bunch of other things going on over the weekend. Instead, I worked quietly at home on the Project and made some pleasing progress, with only the odd trip out now and again, mostly centered around shopping for groceries, fresh fruit and vegetables from the farmer’s market, and so on. Good Times.

The Project. Yes, I keep mentioning it but not talking about it and again I […] Click to continue reading this post →

What are We Doing?

By | | , , , ,
2 Comments

This is a really excellent talk* about how we educate, why we do so, and what has changed about what’s needed in education and society and why we may not have changed our methods enough to keep up with those needs. It is by Sir Ken Robinson, and was given at the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) earlier this year. I love the way it is produced – using an animation/whiteboard-writing overlay for the visual concepts – partly because I had an idea of doing a series of short films with a filmmaker friend some years back that would do a similar thing (I had chalkboards)… but in a much less beautifully accomplished way than this! More examples are here. But, enjoy the talk… it is a superbly framed discussion, including many of the frustrations I’ve found myself expressing (sometimes here) about the system of which I am part! Thoughts welcome.
[…] Click to continue reading this post →

SCIBA Awards 2010

By | | , ,
Comments Off on SCIBA Awards 2010

lemon cake coverDuring my blurry cold-ridden awakening this morning, I heard some good news on NPR.

You’ll recall me talking about my friend and fellow USC professor Aimee Bender’s excellent new book, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake earlier in the Summer, including baking chocolate covered lemon cupcakes in honour of it.

Well, the book has won the SCIBA award for fiction. It was announced on Saturday, and it seems I get to announce it […] Click to continue reading this post →

Department of Special Circumstances

By | | , ,
8 Comments

I’ve been quite ill today. Second bad cold in three weeks. This tells me that I am severely overdoing it, stressing myself out with too many tasks, jobs, errands, and so forth. Need to slow down. Well, today I canceled my office hour and decided to try to rest at home to recover. I wrote my lecture for the class at 3:30pm and ordered the demo equipment I needed. It was going to be a perfect class, in which I would make up the approximated half an hour of lag I feel I’ve been in the last week in terms of the material I’m scheduled to cover in order to be at the same place as the similar class taught by my colleague Doug. Unusually, I decided to drive to work, so that I could get in and out fast and go home and continue recuperating after (as I am supposed to be now, but inexplicably I am… blogging…) and it was all timed nicely. In – perfect lecture, catching up on everything – out. And then to bed.

Of course, that meant that something had to go wrong. This time it was quite spectacular. As I reached USC, going along Exposition Blvd. to find street parking, within minutes of class starting, something did happen. There was something blocking traffic in my lane and I saw that an Infiniti SUV had just stopped in the lane, and so cars were going around it in a noisy huff. annoyed at the driver for delaying them. I pulled around it too, and saw that there was a woman slumped over to one side! So of course I stopped my car, put on the hazards and ran back to see what the matter was. The woman had fainted, it seemed, and as I approached she seemed to stir out of her haze somewhat, so I asked her if she was ok. She said no. So I said I would call the emergency services. Did she want me to? Yes. Shall I use your phone? Ok. At this point I started fiddling with her phone only to realize that I had no idea how to make a phone call on an iphone, and so I ran back to my car and got my phone and called. I’d never called 911 before!

I was passed on to a paramedic who ran through some questions after I described the circumstances and our location. He wanted me to ask her various things (age, […] Click to continue reading this post →

Another Friday, Another President

By | | ,
4 Comments

inauguration_3The picture on the right is a shot from us all merging into an orderly line (not there yet) to emerge from the gate and march to the inauguration of President Max Nikias last Friday. See my previous post for more pictures. (Still looking for video of the highlight for me – the performance of the string quartet that day. Let me know if you find some.)

This Friday, near the very same spot where the Inauguration was, USC will be hosting another President. The one from Washington DC, i.e., USA President, not USC President. President Obama is speaking here at a big student-organized rally.

I’ll be staying away from the Obamamania going on at campus today. Yes, it would […] Click to continue reading this post →

Start the Week

By | | , , , , ,
6 Comments

“A loose cat in Colorado must wear what?”

(I thought about this for a while, and could only come up with bawdy humorous answers…)

“A tail light.”

(huh?)

[Post written yesterday.] Yes, I am on the bus to work (above was from the on board entertainment system that sometimes asks quiz questions) and it is the start to another week. Another very full one, it is shaping up to be too. I find these days that if I am not careful I tend to measure a week’s potential a mostly in terms of how much time I will have to work on the Project. Like my research, it is not something that is served best by being chipped away at, catching a few minutes here and the between things, but involves a fair amount of immersion. (Having said that, I am getting better at finding tasks that I can allocate to chipping-away time, and I have even found certain things for it that I can do on the bus… A lot of this will become clearer later, I promise.)

inauguration_2There was certainly a lot going on last week, as I mentioned, and I did not even tell you the half of it. Things like going to see Ira Glass talk about his radio show, essentially doing it in the style of the show, and of course about four hours on Friday spent in costume with hundreds of my faculty colleagues marching in a parade and listening to long (but mostly good) speeches from various Vice-chancellors, Chancellors, Trustees, the Mayor of Los Angeles, and of course, the man of the hour(s), our new President Max Nikias, who we were, er, installing. (When people use that term, and they do here a lot, I always think of plugging in a new electrical appliance, or a new piece of software… I suppose the latter is closer to what we are doing than the former.)

This week sees a lot coming up too, the main thing probably being the first of the Nobel Lunches, scheduled for Thursday. I’ve been very pleased with these events – I […] Click to continue reading this post →

Multiple Updates

By | | , , , , , ,
1 Comment

(Waiting for the kettle to boil…)

It has been a rather hectic week for me here in the city of Angels. It is difficult to pull it all together in my mind and recall all the contributing elements, but they have been varied and more or less interesting and useful activities, ranging from various committees, teaching issues, research issues, event planning, event attending, and of course, the Project.

(Kettle’s boiled. Water poured on tea. Assam/Ceylon blend…)

gerardo_hacer_dogami_1I want to work for a bit before going to bed, although I’ll knock off early (midnight) because I’ve got to get up very early in the morning to get prettied up a bit, walk to catch the bus to campus, and get there by 8:15am or so. This is so I can get to my office and put on a cap, hood and gown and play dress-up (remember last time?) with hundreds of colleagues and so forth. The event? The inauguration of our new University President.

I’ve just returned from a long afternoon and evening in which I appeared in two of the classes of my colleague KC Cole (the science writer) talking about the issue of science, and how I do various aspects of communicating it to the public through various means (writing, film, tv, radio; factual, in fiction/drama, through blogging, in speaking engagements), and the broad issue of writing and journalism in that area. Two groups of extremely engaged and bright students in a row, separated by a quick […] Click to continue reading this post →

Soft Lights

By | | , , ,
Comments Off on Soft Lights

p-1600-641-b0c2b19c-c025-46ff-bc2f-11db94b9158e.jpegIt has been a quiet week here on the blog, and there are many reasons for this. They are mostly all to do with me having a very busy week at work and at play. Work has seen a great deal on the usual fronts of teaching, research, and service, and I’ve also made some progress on The Project. Play has been good, varied, valuable and constructive.

Right now, I’m popping off to bed to get some sleep before getting up to go over to UCLA for the second day of the Southern California Strings Seminar. Today, day one, was excellent.

I will be giving you an update on various aspects of all those above things shortly, but right now I will leave you with a moody photo of some strings of lights at the Edison, that bar downtown I sometimes mention here. I had an excellent evening down there on Thursday night.

-cvj
Click to continue reading this post →

Southern California Strings Seminar

By | | , , ,
2 Comments

scss_studentsOh! I almost forgot to remind local readers that the next Southern California Strings Seminar is happening this week. Friday and Saturday. It will be at UCLA, and there’s a great line up of speakers. As I’ve said here before, graduate students are especially encouraged to come…

…since special effort is made to make sure that each talk begins with a pedagogical portion to help non-experts in that subfield navigate and see the motivation.

The speakers and talks are:[…] Click to continue reading this post →

A Dream Come True!

By | | , , , ,
10 Comments

Wow! There’s a major piece of news that was announced today that basically exactly fits with a dream I have every year. Furthermore, I have been taking part in some meetings with all the University’s Deans, the President, and other key officials, about major aspects of USC’s future endeavours, and when the issue of strengthening the role of USC in the life of Los Angeles came up, I intended to mention my dream, but we ran out of time yesterday so I decided I’d mention it at today’s lunch meeting instead. So today at lunch I was about to be called on to make the point about local roles, and I’d decided to give the specific examples I had in mind. I was going to suggest that we seek for things analogous to UCLA Live, and to the LA Times Festival of Books, as things we can do to open our doors to the city (even more than we do) and become well known to more people near and far as a regular contributor to the intellectual life of the city (I mean beyond the huge number of people who come to us for an education, and the many public events that we already host and/or sponsor). But I was not called on because the President, Max Nikias, looked at his watch and said he had an announcement to make since it was just past the embargo time that was put on the story.

What was his announcement? The LA Times Festival of Books is going to move to USC starting next year! (See also here.) We’ll be enlarging it, and bringing back the awards ceremony to the way it was, etc.

You’ve maybe read my many posts here about the LA Times Festival of Books, and […] Click to continue reading this post →

Gell-Mann Joins Us!

By | | , ,
6 Comments

Some exciting news today! We’ve had Murray Gell-Mann join the USC faculty! See an article about it here. As you may know, he is the inventor/discoverer of quarks, the particles that make up, among other things, the protons and neutrons that make up the nuclei of every atom in your body.

Speaking of bodies, he’ll actually be focusing on medical issues, as far as I understand it:
[…] Click to continue reading this post →