too little, too late...

are quantum errors incorrigible?

2012-02-01T13:58:00.001-08:00

If you want to read an argument why (large scale) quantum computers will never work you should click here.
As you would expect, counter arguments are made in the comments, followed by counter counter arguments.

---

The previous blog post mentioned nuclear isomers. Following the Wikipedia link one encounters after a few steps the idea of a Hafnium bomb. Somebody I know worked on a related experiment several years ago (but I should add that I have no idea what exactly they did and what they found).

isomers

2012-01-31T05:02:00.000-08:00

You may have noticed that I have not posted much recently. One reason being that I have several interesting books lined up to read. Currently, I am halfway through Abraham Pais' biography of Niels Bohr. This is my favorite quote so far:
"The first thing Bohr said to me was that it would only be profitable to work with him if I understood that he was a dilettante. ... He explained how he had to approach every new question from a starting point of total ignorance. ... I thought of his remarks some years later, when I sat at his side during a colloquium in Princeton. The subject was nuclear isomers. As the speaker went on, Bohr got more and more restless and kept whispering to me that it was all wrong. Finally, he could contain himself no longer and wanted to raise an objection. But after having half-raised himself, he sat down again, looked at me with unhappy bewilderment, and asked, 'What is an isomer?'"

freestailo

2012-01-08T06:02:00.000-08:00

better healthy and rich than sick and poor

2012-01-04T03:58:00.000-08:00

I just read about the statistical analysis of happiness in the US. It shows some amazing results:

"The results are interesting. The biggest personal factor in determining happiness is health. Healthy people are about 20 per cent happier than average while unhealthy people are about 8.25 per cent more unhappy."

"In general, however, people with higher incomes are happier, with the people in the highest income bracket about 3.5 per cent happier than average."

"one of the analysis' more curious findings: that having children reduce happiness. On average, each child reduces happiness by about 0.24 per cent."

Who would have thought?

this was 2011

2011-12-31T00:48:00.000-08:00

The S&P 500 stock index closed the year at 1257.6, which is exactly (!) where it closed the previous year. This may be a bit disappointing for some, but overall it reflects the quiet year that 2011 was for the financial markets.
The Euro/USD FX rate closed the year at 1.2952, exactly unchanged from early January, reflecting of course the calm and stable development of the Euro zone.
The same stability was also seen in the price of crude oil, in large part due to the stability of the Middle East.

However, a very positive development was seen in US bond markets, with the interest rate e.g. on 10-year treasuries falling from 3.3% to 1.8% during the year; The markets expressing confidence in the wise leadership of US politicians and strong faith in the current government.

All in all 2011 was an uneventful and almost boring year for the financial markets, reflecting the stability of the world economy and the wisdom of its leaders; We can only hope that this will continue in 2012...

books

2011-12-26T01:53:00.000-08:00

Apparently I was nice and consequently Santa brought me lots of books...

Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can't Explain the Modern World.
or: Why did the Industrial Revolution really happen?

Gray Hat Python: Python Programming for Hackers and Reverse Engineers
or: More toys for a middle aged man convinced that there is nothing Python cannot do 8-)

The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World.
or: David Deutsch about life in the multiverse (and how to write enthusiastically about the many worlds interpretation without ever mentioning the open questions and the debate about it).

And several Austrian crime and mystery novels (*) which I will probably read first 8-)

(*) It seems that there is currently a trend towards insane detectives, so one never knows if the evidence they find is real or imagined. I assume this is a reflection of the times we live in ...

The Dear Leader meets the Real Dear Leader

2011-12-18T23:37:00.000-08:00

No longer looking at things...

2011 was a bad year for some of the really bad guys;
That (*) was the only really good thing about it.

(*) and the neutrinos!

animals behaving badly...

2011-12-11T04:40:00.001-08:00

...is one of the better blogs I'm currently reading.
It comes with interesting posts and a gift idea for desperate Xmas shoppers (I am talking about the book).

Franz K. and the ECB

2011-12-09T04:11:00.000-08:00

In a comment to the previous post I mentioned the EU analyst Franz K.
You may know him as an influential advisor of the airline industry, but I thought it might be helpful to post links to his reports about the Euro crisis:

Before the Law: examines the role of the ECB (hint: doorkeeper is Euro speak for the ECB).

The Trial: A guide for investors to EU financial regulation.

The Castle: A short description of Brussels for Dummies.

in ? we trust

2011-12-07T00:10:00.000-08:00

The value of a dollar is no longer backed up by a gold standard, but if you look at your dollar note you will at least find some reassuring words there: it tells you that this Federal Reserve Note is "legal tender" and it tells you that "In God We Trust" with the signature of the Treasury Secretary.

If I take a close look at a Euro note, there is no such thing. All I can find is a serial number and a copyright notice; The one I am looking at actually says "© ECB 2002" (I am not kidding.) What happens to my Euros when the copyright expires?

In my phantasy I imagine many EU committee meetings where the topic was discussed what to print on those Euro notes. Of course France rejected "In God We Trust" as too American and an insult to the proud heritage of the French Revolution. But Italy could not agree to "In God We Do Not Trust" for fear of insulting the pope and the German compromise "In ? We Trust" was vetoed by the ECB.
Furthermore, they did not want to print that Euro notes are "legal tender", because such a commitment would have required agreement of all 17 EU parliaments. So they left this one out also. Indeed they could not agree on anything.
And of course no official could be convinced to provide his or her signature.

Perhaps this should have been an early warning sign.

opening chord

2011-12-03T08:05:00.000-08:00

The mystery of the famous opening chord of A Hard Day's Night was finally solved with some input from George and help from a mathematician. But it seems that even the Beatles did not always get it right...

true evil or if you don't have enough money you are at the mercy of other people

2011-11-30T01:37:00.000-08:00

This is certainly not the best of all possible worlds.
Notice that this evil 3-person model universe shall become an even more evil 2-person model universe once Lazarus dies (his corpse will almost certainly be digested by the machine of the evil artist). (*)
We can only assume that Dives will go after Alice next...(o)

But what does the turkey have to say about all this? Can we really ignore her utility function? (x)

(*) So we know that at least the 3-person model universe was not the worst of all possible worlds (because the horrors of the 2-person world to follow are even worse).

(o) As if this were not enough, keep in mind that in the multiverse of all possible worlds this model will be realized many times (and perhaps an infinite number of times!).

(x) Do we know if the turkey perhaps prefers to be part of an art project rather than just another meal?

nothing matters when we're dancing

2011-11-29T10:34:00.000-08:00

EU, markets, politics and all that in one clip

2011-11-23T11:35:00.000-08:00

how many errors can you spot

2011-11-18T08:23:00.001-08:00

in this description?

"Apple Computers is a famous example: it was founded by (mostly Republican) computer engineers who broke from IBM in Silicon Valley in the 1980s, forming little democratic circles of twenty to forty people with their laptops in each other's garages."
David Graeber

stranded in Austria

2011-11-17T05:18:00.000-08:00

"The plane, returning from Amritsar in India to Birmingham and carrying around 180 passengers, had already been delayed by several days.
But when it stopped in Vienna to re-fuel, passengers were stunned when they were told they had to hand over around £20,000 to fund the final leg of the trip."

The next time you face some problems with your airline keep in mind that it could be much worse 8-)

Europe may be winning this

2011-11-14T23:57:00.000-08:00

at least according to the definition of Winston Churchill: Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.
Or in other words, life is all about kicking the can down the road one more time.
We know this is not the end; It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
And I am pretty sure that there will be more blood, sweat and tears... (x)

While Europe will try to muddle through over coming months and years, attention will probably shift back to the US and its struggles. During election season this should be especially entertaining... (*)

(x) I just read that 'Angela Merkel is warning that Europe is facing the toughest hour since World War 2'. So she is already on board with the Churchill rhetoric.

(*) It has been said that politics is showbiz with ugly (but wealthy) people. After recent events this line should perhaps be modified to 'ugly and stupid'.

American Nietzsche

2011-11-13T23:33:00.000-08:00

".. Nietzsche took aim at nearly all the foundations of modern American life: Christian morality, the Enlightenment faith in reason, and the idea of human equality. Despite that, for more than a century Nietzsche has been a hugely popular — and surprisingly influential — figure in American thought and culture."

A book I ought to read.

via Cosma

mixed emotions

2011-11-13T09:57:00.000-08:00

This coming and going, is driving me nuts...

I hear ya and of course the markets are confusing,

but you're not the only one with mixed emotions,
you're not the only ship adrift on this ocean...

... and there is always some good news, even about Italy and all that.

the dog

2011-11-05T13:01:00.000-07:00

link

love and debt

2011-11-04T01:21:00.000-07:00

CIP read the book of a great thinker and arrived at this important conclusion:
"Debts are not sacred, human relationships are."
Very true!

But I suspect there might be some practical problems on implementing this wisdom. Let's say somebody with too much debt (perhaps a sub-prime mortgage or a student loan) tries to explain to her bank that this debt is not as important as her human relationships; I am not sure this would necessarily reduce her monthly payments.

But maybe it works the other way around. There could be (new?) banking regulation so that from now on banks are required to point out to their customers the importance of human relations before the new mortgage or that car loan are made.
Actually, where I live this is already standard practice and if you want a loan the bank is very interested in all your human relationships and wants those related to you to also sign the contract.

ps: The title of this post is of course a play on 'Love and Death', a movie which also has a lot of wisdom to offer.

intelligent design?

2011-10-31T12:45:00.000-07:00

I assume you are familiar with the phenomenon of having a song stuck in your head and the DJ in your brain repeating it over and over. Usually it is not a complete song, just a few notes.
Right now I'm humming e.g. this song in repeat mode after watching the movie Reality Bites in a bout of nostalgia. And it is extra evil because the tune is not even easy to whistle.

It is pretty obvious to me that evolution cannot explain this. What would be the benefit of this? Did the Neanderthals kept repeating 'tempted by the fruit of another' while hunting dinosaurs? I don't think so.

Instead it seems to me that the grand designer has planted these little record & replay devices into our brains following some scheme to make a fortune from copyrighted songs. (But then some fair use activists intervened and here we are with these short tunes in endless loops.)

Of course, the main reason I wrote this post was to get rid of this particular song, but I'm afraid it did not really help yet...

I bought a toothbrush, some toothpaste, a flannel for my face
pajamas, a hairbrush, new shoes and a case
I said to my reflection, 'let's get out of this place'

I bought a toothbrush, some toothpaste, a flannel for my face
pajamas, a hairbrush, new shoes and a case
I said to my reflection, 'let's get out of this place'

I bought a toothbrush, some toothpaste, a flannel for my face
pajamas, a hairbrush, new shoes and a case
I said to my reflection, 'let's get out of this place'

I bought a toothbrush, some toothpaste, a flannel for my face
pajamas, a hairbrush, new shoes and a case
I said to my reflection, 'let's get out of this place'

I bought a toothbrush, some toothpaste, a flannel for my face
pajamas, a hairbrush, new shoes and a case
I said to my reflection, 'let's get out of this place'

I bought a toothbrush, some toothpaste, a flannel for my face
pajamas, a hairbrush, new shoes and a case
I said to my reflection, 'let's get out of this place'

I bought a toothbrush, some toothpaste, a flannel for my face
pajamas, a hairbrush, new shoes and a case
I said to my reflection, 'let's get out of this place'

I bought a toothbrush, some toothpaste, a flannel for my face
pajamas, a hairbrush, new shoes and a case
I said to my reflection, 'let's get out of this place'

.
.
.

what I want to know

2011-10-27T02:17:00.000-07:00

What will ISDA decide about that involuntary 'voluntary haircut'? (If you ever had to sign an ISDA agreement then you know that this is as close to 'lawyers paradise' as one can get.) (1)

Did the girls and boys of OWS fall asleep or a they busy preparing their tents for winter? (Or did they finally realize that this sort of protest should be staged in early summer for obvious reasons?) (2)

How do the Marxist econophysicists enter know-how (aka software) in their input-output matrices? (Or could we make the simplifying assumption that all software is open source and free [including the Coca Cola formula]?) (3)

Is Ben still long gold and short US dollar? (Is he going to tell us next week that if the EU can create 1T€ then he can do at least 2T$ ?) (4)

added later:

(1) This one is answered: A 50% haircut is not a credit event... ROTFLMAO ...

(2) Just busy with restructuring the kitchen it seems...
... and in other news a police man and a cat.

(3) A Marxist econophysicist might think that Coca Cola = water + sugar + minerals. I think this misses the point and imho C.C. is the sophisticated response to a complicated mixture of needs and desires and the tensor calculus to describe that has not been invented yet.

(4) Somewhat less likely with GDP growth at 2.5%.

discoveries

2011-10-24T03:31:00.000-07:00

CIP discovered over the weekend what blogs are all about.

W. G. Unruh discovered how peculiar a slinky behaves in free fall.

Condensed matter physicists are discovering the beauty of string theory (*).

(*) But notice this section: "...some of the testable predictions from string theory look a tad bizarre from the condensed-matter viewpoint. For example, the calculations suggest that when some crystalline materials are cooled towards absolute zero, they will end up in one of many lowest-energy ground states. But that violates the third law of thermodynamics, which insists that these materials should have just one ground state..."
So it seems that some basic properties do not come out quite right yet.

the solution to the current economic crisis

2011-10-21T01:06:00.001-07:00

While EU politicians try to get some laughs from their audience and great thinkers try to outlaw recessions in the US once and for all, I have already found the solution to the current economic problems.
And it has many advantages:
i) It is a truly global solution.
ii) It is a private sector solution.
iii) No additional government spending programs are needed.
iv) Most important: no additional debt.
v) It only requires a small tweak to SEC regulation of IPOs.

So here is my proposal: With the upcoming IPO of Zuckerberg Inc., every user of facebook shall receive a 10% share of the company.

And we will live happily ever after ...

added later: I just read that Dexia borrowed its own money to raise capital. Obviously, these wizards could handle the IPO as described above...

Euridiots

2011-10-20T13:13:00.000-07:00

The European clown show continues with the latest proposal to solve the debt crisis once and for all: Just outlaw credit ratings. Pure genius!
I have only one question; Does this mean I am no longer allowed to use the internet (because I could obtain illegal credit ratings that way from outside the EU safe zone)?

added: Unconfirmed rumors indicate that the EU council wants to hire Baghdad Bob aka Comical Ali as new spokesman.

Bernstein's proposal

2011-10-19T11:45:00.001-07:00

Richard Bernstein suggests to turn America into a giant enterprise zone. An interesting proposal but as he writes it would require both political parties to give up on their own stale ideas and for America to wake up and truly start competing in the global economy.
So I guess it has little chance to be tried any time soon...

why not?

2011-10-19T07:59:00.000-07:00

"...that we are no longer able to accomplish feats we once could do clashes with the prevailing narrative that we march forever forward.
Not only can’t we get to the Moon at present, but the U.S. no longer has a space shuttle program—originally envisioned to make space travel as routine as air travel. And for that matter, I no longer have the option to purchase a ticket to fly trans-Atlantic at supersonic speeds on the Concorde."
Do the Math: Why not Space?

We may be stuck on this planet for quite a while...

in search of Mubarak

2011-10-17T00:52:00.000-07:00

The Arab spring has reached Wall St. and also London, Paris, Frankfurt, Vienna (about hundred people showed up!) etc.
A truly global movement with broad support.

But an important figure is still missing: Mubarak.
Nobody wants to be him and everybody wants to be on the side of the 99%:
As expected, president Obama sympathizes with the protest, as does Ben Bernanke and of course the billionaires Buffett and Soros; Even Chuck Schumer and Vikram Pundit expressed their sympathies.
None of them is Mubarak.

I assume most of the young protesters are already used to the sad fact that they cannot shock their parents with outrageous stunts. Color your hair pink and mommy will praise your creativity, smoke drugs and daddy will tell you where to buy them cheaper, talk about eliminating all debt and Ben Bernanke will tell you that he is already working on it.

Until yesterday.
Finally he showed up, the one adult who is not afraid to speak the truth.
Joachim Gauck, former candidate for president of Germany, explained why the 'occupy protests' are really silly.

Most readers may not know him (and not know enough German to read what he said [see comments for some translation] ), but I thought it was worth mentioning that not everybody on this planet has lost his mind.

a dangerous method

2011-10-12T06:26:00.001-07:00

I mentioned the book previously, now Emanuel Derman has seen the movie.
And I still cannot make up my mind about Freud, psychoanalysis and all that. Did he discover something non-trivial and important, or did he just fool himself and a lot of other people?

hug somebody

2011-10-10T23:41:00.000-07:00

"The nearby robotic hand that Tim Hemmes was controlling with his mind touched his girlfriend Katie Schaffer's outstretched hand. [..]
'This is something big, but I'm not done yet,' he said. 'I want to hug my daughter.'"

Researchers at Univ. of Pittsburgh were able to link the brain of a man with quadriplegia to a robotic hand.

dirty book

2011-10-10T02:27:00.000-07:00

I just received my copy of The Nature of Computation (check out the reviewers!).
It will take some time to read the 900+ pages and so far I can only say that the cover design is a bit weird, making the book look old and dirty...

occupy Wall Street

2011-10-09T01:29:00.000-07:00

"Why have so few, in the history of our moralistic society, spoken out against the exploitation of idiots? Someday, a great gathering of the unintelligent will take place, and by their sheer numbers and the intensity of their resentment they - we - will sweep the institutions of finance away like so much dust on the glossy cover of an annual report."
Dumb Money, April 2000

I have only one question. Will the riot dog show up on Wall St. too?

politics

2011-10-08T05:26:00.000-07:00

What is so important that I need to write yet another blog post?
Well, obviously politics.
There used to be a blog with a tagline claiming that its political views were based on Jay Leno monologues. Obviously an old-timer, because today political opinions are no longer based on tv shows but instead the interwebs: HuffPo and Drudge, Instapundit and Krugman, CIP and Lumo.
Of course all those different opinions can be quite confusing, which brings me to the reason I wrote this blog post: A recent survey shows that American voters are worried about botching the next election. Again.

I bet they will and I am afraid it will only get worse in the age of facebook and twitter.
But when the Titanic finally sinks the llamas will be there...

the Tristan Tzara school of economics

2011-09-14T00:36:00.001-07:00

It is not always easy to understand EU politics and economics; A good example is the European Financial Stabilization Fund (EFSF), which shall provide bailout funds for countries like Greece, Portugal, Ireland and is financed by the remaining other EU countries. The interest on loans it makes are of course below market rates, somewhere around 4.5%.
Unfortunately, many important EU countries have to borrow at higher rates (Spain and Italy are currently able to borrow only at rates above 5%). Only Germany and France (barely) are able to get money below 4.5%.

In other words, if the EFSF would work as intended (and Greece, Portugal, Ireland pay back the money) the stronger countries (Germany, France) would make a modest profit and the weaker countries (Italy, Spain) would see a loss. So if all works well the EFSF transfers funds from the weak to the stronger EU countries, while rescuing the very weak.

At this point you might already suspect that the EFSF was conceived at the Cabaret Voltaire. But you have not seen the whole show yet. Currently, there is a debate about increasing the size of the EFSF. It is very interesting that Italy and Spain are actually in favor of such an expansion while Germany is against it. Quite strange and the only rational explanation is of course that nobody expects the EFSF to work as intended.

Indeed it is very unlikely that e.g. Greece will ever be able to properly service the EFSF loans and markets are pricing a 98% probability of default.
However, Angela Merkel explained recently in an interview that Greece actually cannot default now, because the EU has no rules for such an event.

And this concludes act three of the cabaret performance.
In the words of Tristan Tzara: "I beg my interpreters to treat this play as a great tragedy, but to treat the authors, who are no geniuses, without any respect."

added later: The major market indices opened optimistic today but turned around quickly and are trading in negative territory as I type this. The reason for this turnaround is a vote in the Austrian parliament (my home country) which indicates that there is not enough support for further EFSF funds from Austria (*).
Let me tell you something: If global markets depend on the Austrian parliament then it means that we are all doomed.

(*) It was later clarified that the vote means that the decision is postponed until October and the decision is not final yet. Markets recovered afterwards; Quite amazing.

Irving Fisher

2011-09-12T11:10:00.001-07:00

Today professor K. reminds us of his famous colleague, the esteemed professor Irving Fisher. We read that already in 1907 he understood the true nature of inflation and, even more important, deflation. "Hugely relevant to this day".
The esteemed professor is of course most famous for his pronouncement in 1929 that "the stock market has reached what seems like a permanent high plateau". Just a few days before the crash. In the subsequent debacle he lost most of his own personal wealth.
But he is certainly not forgotten. I have several books mentioning him as an overconfident economist who made the big mistake of making concrete predictions about the economy in public.

It seems to me that most modern economists have learned a lot from his example.

non-existent objects

2011-09-12T02:08:00.000-07:00

According to one definition Nothing is a knife without blade if we take away the handle.
But philosophers know that non-existent objects are not that easy to deal with.

"to be able to truly claim of an object that it doesn't exist, it seems that one has to presuppose that it exists, for doesn't a thing have to exist if we are to make a true claim about it?"

I would call this the paradox of non-existent objects and have used it previously, while discussing (the existence of) the 'invisible pink unicorn'. If the ipu is invisible then how can anybody make a true statement about it, except the true believer who knows it all through 'direct revelation'?
One might think that Occam's razor would help, but I am afraid it fails in this case. While atheists can claim that they make one less assumption and still explain the visible world, the believers will point out that atheists explain less than what truly exists, because they do not know about the ipu.

If one replaces the ipu with qualia we have yet another famous debate reduced to the paradox; The main difference would be that many more believe in the direct revelation of 'qualia' than there are true followers of the ipu.

And I wonder if the philosophical debate about the true nature of time also belongs here. Almost everybody is convinced that the Now somehow exists. But a physicist does not know about it and modern physics only describes the eternity of space-time or the eternity of the 'wavefunction of the universe'.

If you don't follow my point let me remind you that according to one definition Now is eternity without the future if we take away the past.

what is wrong with our children professors these days?

2011-09-08T06:03:00.001-07:00

"... a professor of kinesiology at Cal State San Bernardino, is on the run from the law after a raid on his Highland home ... The cops suspect the 43-year-old of leading the local chapter of the Devils Diciples Outlaw motorcycle gang, while running a successful meth operation on the side."
link

Belgium

2011-09-05T23:20:00.000-07:00

Belgium does not have a government for the last 15 months. So in all the economic turmoil the country is unable to make any major changes: no stimulus packages, no austerity, no quantitative easing (they could not do that anyways due to the ECB), no changes to financial regulations, no new taxes on 'the rich' and no tax cuts ...
So how did they do?
Well, among OECD countries they have currently the highest GDP growth rate with +0.7% compared to the average of about +0.1%.

just another stupid (stupid!) puzzle

2011-08-29T11:44:00.000-07:00

9088 = 6
2712 = 0
3189 = 3
9999 = 4
5855 = 2
5756 = 1
7868 = 5

5281 = ?

spoiler alert: the solution is in the comments.

Ormie wants a cookie

2011-08-28T15:09:00.000-07:00

it's plain to see

2011-08-26T23:54:00.000-07:00

Freud, Keynes and Jackson Hole

2011-08-25T23:11:00.000-07:00

A strong indication that (current) economics is not science is the existence of different schools which bitterly fight with each other: Freshwater and saltwater, Austrians and Keynes, neo-classical and heterodox, libertarians and Marxists ... (*)
This reminds me of the different schools of psychoanalysis: Freudian, Jungian, Adlerian etc.

Once you follow e.g. the Freudian school everything is quite obvious. There are subconscious fears and repressed thoughts and only a proper talking cure can overcome the resistance. If the symptoms fail to go away then it can only mean that the analysis has to go deeper and take more time.
Of course Freud proudly presented the results of his successes in famous case studies (for some reason he never told us in the same detail about his failures).

Once you follow Keynes it is equally obvious what needs to be done. There is an output gap, a certain lack of demand due to the paradox of thrift. Only proper stimulus programs can close that output gap and should these measures fail to cure the symptoms then it is obvious that even more stimulus is needed.
Of course the Keynesians can easily demonstrate the success of their prescriptions by properly interpreting the available economic evidence.

Only one warning to those on the couch. The bill can become quite large over the years.
In the case of Japan their debt ratio is now the highest of all countries and after twenty years of cure the symptoms still refuse to go away. I guess they just need to do even more stimulus and quantitative easing.

Today doctor Ben will give a long awaited speech in Jackson Hole about the next steps in his ongoing cure of the US economy. Of course I have no advice to give except this old saying: If you find yourself in Jackson hole - stop digging.

-----

(*) Perhaps one day I should create my own Voodoo economics theory.
e.g. I think lowering the Fed rate below 1 - 2% is counterproductive, because it encourages investment in short term carry trade schemes rather than investment in the real economy and helps certain investment banks but nobody else.
I would make a similar argument against quantitative easing. Of course sometimes (2008) you want to help those evildoers but at other times (2011) it is counterproductive. Another revolutionary thought: The same measure is sometimes helpful and sometimes not.
e.g. I think a weak dollar policy can prolong unemployment, because it discourages investment in the US.

Now let me add the reverse Krugman gambit to it and my career as an economics blogger should be unstoppable 8-)

the fake Krugman

2011-08-24T08:02:00.000-07:00

I too fell for the fake Krugman and linked to his Google+ page in a previous, already deleted, post.
I thought Google+ avoids this kind of fakery by being invitation-only? So who invited the fake professor?

This episode is most embarrassing imho for those numerous followers who defended the nonsensical remarks of the impersonator in their comments, thinking of course that his Keynesian wisdom shall not be doubted, even if it sounds a bit strange.
But fortunately the fake Google+ page no longer exists and all those comments are gone with it too.

In the future, if somebody talks e.g. about a space alien hoax to fix the economy or something of similar absurdity then you should assume that this is yet another impersonator.

shake shake shake

2011-08-23T11:58:00.000-07:00

If you are from the East Coast I hope of course that all is well after the shaking ...

so what do we know?

2011-08-20T04:35:00.000-07:00

We know that ...
... we will know more about the Higgs on Monday (*).
... there is a reason the balloon is sad.
... the history of pop music needs to be re-written.
... we still don't know which EU bank needed that 500M$ loan from the ECB.
... the Aliens could take over the Earth (does NASA read this blog?).

But one question remains: Who's gonna save my soul now?

(*) update on Monday: nothing new really, if anything the hints got weaker.

P vs NP

2011-08-18T00:44:00.000-07:00

~~Dave Bacon~~ Steve F. informs us of a new (but not really surprising imho) result that markets are efficient if and only if P=NP.
But recently Scott A. answered difficult questions so efficiently that there can be no longer any doubt that P=NP. So all is well.
Meanwhile European markets are computing an answer to the most difficult question "What happens if we replace the Euro with the Swiss Franc?"

will the real slim shady please stand up

2011-08-16T01:55:00.000-07:00

So what have we learned?
We learned (see comments to previous two posts) that CIP is EM (and LM knew this since 2004) and we also know that EM really is KEC...

In the words of an ancient philosopher:
I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.
See how they run like pig from a gun, see how they fly.
I'm crying.

By the way, the walrus was Paul.

purpose

2011-08-15T00:22:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend I was contemplating what to do with this blog.
On the one hand, do I really want to write 'mostly not about llamas' while the world is falling apart around me?
On the other hand, I certainly do not want to seriously write about politics, economics and (heaven help) financial markets.
But my attempts to make fun of the absurdity (*) (e.g. during my brief twitter existence) have mostly failed as well.

Just one day later I know what the purpose is of this blog: Discuss whether CIP really is KEC (see comments to the previous post) ...

-----

(*) If there is still doubt that e.g. European politicians follow closely the economic school of Tristan Tzara consider this: Over the weekend Mr. Roesler, head of FDP the liberal, free market party, and coalition partner to Angela Merkel, gave an interview and he indicated how happy he was that France, Italy and others followed the German lead and introduced short sell bans. He mentioned the rebound of German markets on Friday as a success and suggested that he will make it a G-7 priority that other countries introduce this regulation.
Except that Germany actually did not lead or follow and did not introduce a short sell ban like France and Italy on Friday, perhaps because financial market experts, just like in UK and US, are of the opinion that such a ban introduces only further uncertainty but does not help in any way. But I am glad the non-existing ban worked so well in German markets...

good advice ...

2011-08-14T08:11:00.000-07:00

... to fellow practitioners and traders for the coming week and the rest of the year.

via Peter Glaser

the gathering storm

2011-08-04T23:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I watched Trichet's press conference and let's just say he did not calm the markets. In related news Spain's treasury "found" additional cash and cancelled its bond auctions - but for some strange reasons this did not restore confidence either.
It really got ugly when Steiner failed to hold the Dow 12k line as ordered; It seems that now all hope rests on Ben's Wunderwaffe the V-3.

links

2011-08-01T04:23:00.000-07:00

That debt ceiling deal - less than meets the eye and perhaps you want to check how it affects discretionary spending...

A study of people taking online IQ tests compares the scores with the browser used; On average, Internet Explorer users fared the worst ...

It seems that people are really catching on to Curb your Enthusiasm, while I have to say that season 8 is a bit disappointing so far (when will Larry finally go to New York?)

A review of the fluid-gravity correspondence, earlier lectures about it are here.

the past

2011-07-30T10:26:00.000-07:00

I read this abstract (the link was provided here) and I stumble over this sentence: "...it also bypasses the problem of disastrous retrodictions, that is, the fact the standard equilibrium measures yield high probability of the system being in equilibrium in the recent past, even when we know otherwise."

How do we know otherwise?

This is the one question which puzzles me the most when thinking about statistical mechanics, the arrow of time and all that.
I guess I should read the whole thing.

raising the debt ceiling no longer necessary

2011-07-29T08:39:00.000-07:00

"..it turns out that under federal law, there's a limit to how much paper money we can have in circulation at any time.
However, there's no limit to the amount of coinage we can make. There are rules that limit what we can do with gold, silver, copper, and other metals. However, 31 U.S.C. Section 5112(k) says that we can print platinum coins in any denomination at our discretion [..]
So we told the Mint to make a couple of trillion dollar platinum coins. Then, if the President gives the order, the Mint deposits the two coins in its account at the Federal Reserve. The coins are legal tender. We direct the Federal Reserve to move this money into the Treasury's accounts, and we are up around two trillion dollars."

Obama's top secret plan revealed on a blog (where else).

ps: With all we have seen recently, one cannot rule out that this actually is the plan ...

Amy

2011-07-23T11:14:00.001-07:00

The Party

2011-07-22T12:43:00.000-07:00

watch part 2

stupid puzzle

2011-07-21T00:42:00.000-07:00

What mathematical symbol can you place between the numbers 3 and 6 to get a number bigger than 3 but smaller than 6 ?

spoiler alert: the answer is in the comments

what i am currently reading

2011-07-20T00:23:00.000-07:00

Kurt Binder: Monte Carlo Simulation in Statistical Physics
The maestro of phase transitions wrote an introduction on how to do Monte Carlo simulations.

John Kerr: A Most Dangerous Method
I did not know that Jung did quite a bit of empirical research of the unconscious, using e.g. association experiments (including statistics, although the book does not go into details about that).

Christian v. Ditfurth: Mann ohne Makel
A German murder mystery, with a historian as the 'detective'. Not a bad plot, but one problem imho is the simple fact that the Nazi history is too far in the past by now for this story to be really plausible. So the main villain is a former Gestapo man who must be in his mid-90s - but he seems to be in good health, killing several people and managing to escape the police in a car chase...

the wait has ended

2011-07-15T02:29:00.000-07:00

About twenty years ago, when Windows was an unstable 16-bit DOS application, I installed Linux for the first time (from a stack of floppy discs known as TAMU release). I was not completely sure if this was the best choice, because I had read that GNU Hurd was right around the corner - probably the best OS ever conceived and perhaps it was better to wait until it became available.
.
.
I just read that "GNU Hurd is now expected to be released ... towards the end of 2012 or beginning of 2013". But it seems that a CD set is already available for download - I guess for the early adopters.

the sieve

2011-07-13T01:58:00.000-07:00

Fellow Austrian Niko Alm was finally granted, after three years in court (including a psychological examination 8-), the right to wear a pasta sieve for his driver's license picture. He is probably the only European proudly displaying his Pastafari religion in an official EU document.
(The whole thing started as a protest when muslim women were granted an exception for wearing head scarves in such pictures.)

what do you think?

2011-07-11T23:48:00.001-07:00

the original

Is everything falling apart, or is there some reason for hope?
Please post a comment (especially) if you see some reason for optimism!

knots

2011-07-08T10:27:00.000-07:00

Peter Woit read a book which suggests some parallels between the 'vortex theory' of the late 19th century and string theory. There is actually an interesting facet to this story: According to Wikipedia, Lord Kelvin's vortex theory motivated Peter Guthrie Tait to create the first systematic tables of knots and thus the birth of knot theory.
Quite a bit later, Ed Witten made important contributions to knot theory and found a new description of the Jones polynomial; He is of course the grandmaster of string theory.

quasi-random observations

2011-07-06T05:48:00.000-07:00

In Portugal, yoghurt of different flavors is always white (at least for the brand they had at our hotel); E.g. the strawberry yoghurt tastes like strawberry and the taste is pretty much like everywhere else, but the yoghurt is white; A strange experience for somebody who is used to strawberry yoghurt being red.

They built a lot of new infrastructure since the last time I visited Porto/Portugal more than ten years ago; New highways, a new metro system, new buildings and a new airport. The airport was quite empty by the way, so perhaps they built it too big. I hear they have a debt problem in Portugal now...

At this airport I saw really weird fog on the day I left. It was about 1/2 meter above the ground and looked like a Hollywood effect in an old horror movie. Perhaps a meteorologist (CIP?) can explain to me how this kind of fog actually happens.

Changing planes in Madrid we were delayed for about 15 minutes due to a problem with a door. Not the door of the plane, but a door on the way to the tunnel to the plane. It took a lot of frantic phone calls but finally the issue was resolved by getting a guy who would hold the door open for us passengers during the boarding process 8-)

trivial stuff

2011-06-26T11:26:00.000-07:00

The triviality of the Higgs scalar is pretty well established and known for quite a while: non-perturbative quantization (on a lattice) shows that the self-interaction of the Higgs field vanishes if the cutoff is removed. This is one reason some people (including me) are skeptical of the (original) Higgs mechanism and it motivated several alternative explanations.
Recently in this paper it is claimed that triviality can be used to derive the mass of the Higgs as 750GeV, but it really uses the result(s) of a lattice calculation with finite cutoff (compared to the usual perturbation results).
I admit that I do not understand the logic of it, so instead let me link to this result, already published in 1993 by Urs Heller, which uses triviality to establish an upper bound for the Higgs mass of about 770GeV (using his upper upper bound). His argument makes much more sense to me.

via arxiv blog

-----

I just saw Source Code and it is not a bad movie imho; Groundhog Day meets The Matrix. A little bit too much quantum immortality near the end and of course one shall not ask questions about the 'parabolic equations'.

facebook

2011-06-26T03:20:00.000-07:00

Finally I concluded that facebook was not made for me. Actually, I knew this all along, but yesterday I finally gave up and deleted all content from my page and de-friended everybody (which was not difficult because I never had too many friends 8-)
Here is the funny thing, most will not even notice my de-friending and I understand this as just another example how weird the facebook user interfaces are. As far as I am concerned, usenet was a much better social network.
Recently, a very smart investor has pointed out (in a CNBC interview) that facebook is to the internet what Windows was to the personal computer. I think there is some truth to that and it explains quite a bit; I never liked Windows, but apparently it was what the majority of people wanted from a computer, and I never liked facebook, but apparently this is how many people want to handle the internet.
Facebook invites you to tell your 'friends' who you are, what you do and think and how you feel - and I am sure ad agencies and the FBI must love it. Of course, the lines between ads and content, pay and free are blurred and the user interface does not help in any way (after all facebook the company is preparing its IPO).
I don't want to be a part of that and my sympathies are increasingly with the idea that true freedom of speech requires anonymity. I think I'll dive into the darknet for a bit (*)

(*) Solipsists do have a right to privacy!

questions

2011-06-23T06:52:00.000-07:00

Does a Solipsist have a right to privacy?
Is there a way to falsify my favorite Alien theory? And if not, what does this tell us about Aliens? (*)
What are the probabilities in this urn model?

(*) added later: Obviously, the Alien theory cannot be falsified; If somebody makes an argument why the theory is not true it only shows that the Aliens have already affected his/her brain. So does this mean that Aliens cannot invade Earth, or that scientific investigation of Aliens invading Earth is not possible, or that the scientific method fails whenever we are dealing with intelligent beings? Or does it just mean that Popper is overrated?

a new kind of aircraft

2011-06-22T05:44:00.000-07:00

"Austrian research company IAT21 has presented a new type of aircraft at the Paris Air Show ... (which) uses four, mechanically-linked, contra-rotating cylindrical turbines, each running at the same 2200 rpm, for its propulsion.
The key to the extreme maneuverability is the facility to alter the angle of the blades (using servos) to vector the forces, meaning that the thrust can be delivered in your choice of 360 degrees around any of the three axes. Hence (it) can launch vertically, hover perfectly still and move in any direction, and that's just the start of the story."
the D-Dalus

crooks and thieves

2011-06-13T23:23:00.000-07:00

In my previous blog post I predicted that bitcoins will be coined mostly by crooks and thieves, i.e. those who control botnets. This is indeed already happening. But it is worse than that, because the botnets are fighting against the mining pools using DDoS attacks.
This is quickly developing into the wild west of cyberspace and as a small miner I can hear the bullets flying (i.e. the noise from the cooling fan of my graphics card indicates if the server of the mining pool I am using is going down 8-) It will be interesting to see how bitcoins and the dream of an anarchistic libertarian cyber-paradise will develop over time...

personal freedom

2011-06-12T23:49:00.000-07:00

A retired professor thanks taxpayers for his cushy life. His colleagues are not amused.

"Another perquisite of the job was a remarkable degree of personal freedom. Some professors came to class unshaven, wearing T-shirts and jeans. One of the deans scolded the faculty for looking like urban guerrillas. He was ridiculed as an authoritarian prig."

via Andrew Gelman

Denver Airport

2011-06-10T06:41:00.000-07:00

You probably know that many conspiracy theories spread on the interwebs. But did you know that Denver Airport is at the center of them all?
I don't think it is necessary to point out that they spread all those conspiracy theories on purpose to hide the real truth.

mad money

2011-06-08T02:17:00.000-07:00

bitcoins are ...

... a good opportunity to learn something about OpenCL.

... one way to learn about Merkle trees.

... an interesting exercise for economists and an even more interesting question for tax accountants (*).

... accepted if you want to buy Alpaca socks. Alpacas are related to llamas but are considerably smaller.

... an interesting way to smell the excitement of 1999 again.

bitcoins are not ...

... a good system for micro-payments. It turns out that bitcoin transactions can take hours, but one can reduce this waiting time if one is willing to pay a fee (0.01BTC is recommended) which is currently the equivalent of 16 US cents.

... a great way to mine virtual cyber-gold. The mining of bitcoins is not profitable if you have to pay for hardware and electricity.

... legal tender. Good luck trying to enforce your rights (what rights in which country?) if a transaction goes wrong and good luck if you try to explain to a judge what exactly your damages are.

I conclude that somebody will (try to) invent a better mousetrap.

(*) The conversion from bitcoins to e.g. US$ would be an income event and if one cannot deduct the costs from it, e.g. a previous conversion from US $ to bitcoins, it could become quickly a major headache e.g. for people trading btc on exchanges. (You want to be taxed on your profits not on your revenue!). Good luck explaining all this to your taxman 8-)

I am now in the bitcoin mining business

2011-06-06T06:07:00.001-07:00

Just trying to make some coins in the latest gold rush in cyberspace. It is not that easy, I can tell you that, mining the BTC needs lots of GPU (not CPU) power and I had to upgrade my graphics drivers and install some fancy python scripts. But if I'm lucky I will find some coins in about a month (year?, decade?), if I keep my mine humming and running.

my BTC mine

update: It turns out that in 24h I make approx. 0.01 BTC, which tells you that my graphics card is pretty old. (With a new model I could make up to 1 BTC per day at the current rate.)
Even at current exchange rates ( 1BTC = 16$) it is obvious that mining is profitable only if somebody else is paying the hardware and the electricity bill. So it could make sense for kids with high-end gaming PCs (i.e. good graphics cards) with the parents paying the bills or people (ab)using the company PC and it would also make sense for those who control botnets.
I predict that bitcoins will be the first currency mostly coined by crooks and thieves.

lock stitch

2011-06-05T01:02:00.000-07:00

"We came to the conclusion that civilization was nothing more than an effective sewage system."
The Rutles, All You Need is Cash

I think it is a bit more than that, but Nasty and Chastity make a good point, because it comes down to a few really important inventions.
One of them is the lock stitch, a neat topological trick, which makes efficient sewing machines possible and thus cheap clothing for everybody.
Walter Hunt invented it, along with several other important innovations.

keeping the distance

2011-06-01T04:28:00.001-07:00

My distance to Lubos, Jacques and the Pontiff is 6; Sabine is one step closer with 5. I am not connected to Peter Woit.
But I am truly honored that I am only four handshakes/publications away from Richard and only six from Albert and Werner.

ps: My Erdős number is also 6, but it should be 4 (i.e. less than the median of 5 and the mean of 4.65) if the tool would know about an unpublished preprint with Des Johnston; This would also bring my 'Hawking number' to 4.

added later: as dino has demonstrated in the comments, my Erdős number is actually 3.

via backreaction

planking

2011-05-30T23:37:00.000-07:00

"Australia's prime minister today urged the nation to cool off its hottest fad - planking - in the wake of a fatal plunge from a seventh-story balcony."
This is of course just one more piece of empirical evidence for my Alien theory.

brain in a vat

2011-05-28T04:04:00.001-07:00

Did you ever worry that maybe you are just a brain in a vat?
Well, recently scientists at Pittsburgh University announced that they were actually growing a brain in a dish, complete with memories. They did not say if the brain used Descartes' famous 'cogito ergo sum' argument...

very confusing

2011-05-27T02:34:00.000-07:00

as a kid I liked one but not the other (guess which), now it turns out they are the same?

the original 8-)

Friedrich again (last time, I promise)

2011-05-26T05:40:00.000-07:00

"Could Bart [Simpson] in some way be an exemplar of the Nietzschean (reverse) ideal? Alas, the answer is clearly no.
First - and many people make this mistake - even though Nietzsche condemns "slave morality," calling it world-slandering and life-denying, he is not at all advocating master morality. The masters were violent, unthinking brutes. Nietzsche is not holding them up as an ideal [..]
No, Nietzsche's ideal is more the artist, the self-overcoming, self-creating individual, who forges new values, who makes an artwork out of his life. And I think we'd be hard-pressed to describe Bart in this way."
Thus Spake Bart: On Nietzsche and Virtues of Being Bad

ps: Ricky Gervais about the Friedrich vs. Adolf issue (warning: politically very incorrect).

no way out?

2011-05-23T12:09:00.000-07:00

Sean explains to us why there is no life after death and I am very relieved. It is actually my worst nightmare that this little life should continue forever, on and on, over and over with no way out.
But wait a second, does this mean Sean does not believe in the many worlds interpretation and quantum immortality? I always thought the multiverse is big enough to contain a quantum computer powerful enough to simulate all possible human brain configurations, over and over again ...
Eternal recurrence - where did I read about this?

they

2011-05-22T04:54:00.000-07:00

It seems that they are about to take over control of everything.
Of course, this webpage is most likely the fantasy of a bored sixteen year old kid. But this is exactly the problem: It is becoming more and more difficult to distinguish the kid from the terminator, the nutjob from the serious politician, the Fed Chairman from Mr. Goldfinger and the crank from the deep thinking physicist...
We are quickly moving beyond good and evil and if you find this interesting you should consider to join at Friedrich's omega place 8-)

Alice and the physicist

2011-05-20T01:50:00.000-07:00

But I don’t want to go among mad people ...
Oh, you can’t help that ... We’re all mad here ...

ps: Did I predict this three years ago? "... the multiple universes of the string landscape and the many worlds could perhaps be a perfect match."

added later: My contrarian instincts tell me that I should carefully read the Bousso & Susskind paper after both Peter Woit and Lubos Motl rejected it outright with flimsy arguments; After reading less than 25% of the 46 pages I can already see that it is indeed a very interesting paper.
It probably helps to read this paper first.

Eisbär

2011-05-19T05:29:00.000-07:00

the original

Dresden Dolls

you can help

2011-05-17T08:48:00.000-07:00

Wikipedia really does have a list of numbers and the page begins with "This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it".
via xkcd

Nobel

2011-05-16T05:23:00.000-07:00

What exactly are the three naked men on the backside of a Nobel prize medal doing?

added later: It turns out that the medal for scientists shows two women, the three men are for politicians and others who bring peace (or hope and change).

deep thinking Germans

2011-05-12T00:53:00.000-07:00

CIP is reading Nietzsche and you can too and for free.

I myself consider Friedrich to be the last philosopher, being the first to fully understand and articulate that the old project of philosophy, the "longing for the truth", had failed because there is no truth. Without God the world has no meaning and makes no sense and we need to figure out how to live with that...
He dreamed about a super-human who would be strong enough to handle the agony of existence and became the forerunner of all those who struggled with the same question, from Freud to Sartre.

I predict (based on his parameter setting) that CIP will not really appreciate his book(s) and suggest to him those other two German buddies. 8-)

the one parameter

2011-05-10T10:44:00.000-07:00

You might think that human behavior and opinions are really complicated, but actually in many cases it is surprisingly simple. It seems there is only one parameter which determines almost everything. In the US it directly determines if you are Republican, Democrat or somewhere in between, in Europe it simply determines where you are one the left-right spectrum.

Almost everything else follows from it: From Keynesian economics to global warming, from Ayn Rand's books to evolution, from healthcare reform to gay rights, from tax cuts to the war on terror. Tell me your parameter setting and I can make a good guess what your opinion is about all those topics.
Quite amazing that the grand unified theory of everything requires only one parameter...

added later: One would think that sympathy for central planning and the great intelligent designer are found on the same side of the parameter setting. But indeed socialism and creationism are usually found on opposite sides of the spectrum.
Also, notice that there can be anomalies. E.g. Ben B. is a Republican but tries to be the Keynesian central planner.

press conference

2011-04-27T01:52:00.000-07:00

Today Ben Bernanke will host, for the first time in history, a press conference right after the FOMC meeting.
But we already know that Ben is long gold and silver and short the US dollar and nobody expects any big surprises.

Therefore I decided to arrange a much more interesting Q&A, also for the first time in history, right here and now on this blog.
The golden llama will answer your questions, if you ask them in the comments to this post.

update: It seems that the golden llama picked the wrong day for its Q&A, with The Google rejecting comments randomly. Let's hope there will be no technical glitch when Ben explains the benefits of QE3 ...

still

2011-04-25T23:46:00.001-07:00

This blog is still

This important message brought to you with llama font,
with special thanks to B.L.

Beethoven and the serial killer

2011-04-25T00:40:00.001-07:00

I think it is fair to say that most people do not listen to classical music - except when they go to the movies.
Recently I notice also an increase of classical symphonies in tv murder mysteries. A few days ago Wagner was playing when the desperate wife finally finished off her husband with poison and yesterday Beethoven accompanied the serial killer. You might think it should have been the other way around but Beethoven actually goes rather well with knife attacks ...

white

2011-04-21T10:14:00.000-07:00

I read Sean's latest piece about reductionism and as usual I am not exactly sure what he is trying to say. Does he really mean I have to believe the many worlds interpretation in order to believe reductionism?
So I decided to read Cosma's notebook about reductionism instead and found this statement: "If someone asks me, "why is chalk white?" I can give a nice reductionist explanation ..."

Really? I wonder where 'white' is coming from. We have to suspect that it is somehow generated in the brain, but I have never seen a nice reductionist explanation how the brain cells do it. Can one derive 'white' from the standard model? Or do we need string theory to explain it?

Santa Claus

2011-04-20T00:27:00.000-07:00

CIP is an advanced Aspergerologist and we learn e.g. that NASA is a "sheltered workshop for autistics". He is also analyzing fictional characters and is "firmly convinced that essentially all of Rand's hero characters are autistic or Aspie".

I always suspected that Santa Claus and his elves are afflicted with Asperger's. Notice the very narrow interest, the lack of social skills and the awkward and odd behavior.

But it all makes sense now, because we know that NASA engineers, physicists and scientists in general are basically just recreating their childhood dreams of Santa and his elves - a typical case of wish fulfillment.
Some scientists hide at the North Pole, others at the South Pole, supposedly for their research, just like their hero. Others work in secret laboratories, like the asexual elves, to bring gifts, presents and discoveries to mankind; The NASA engineers assemble the great sled in their workshop to fly through the sky and into space.

It is no coincidence that the physicist who resembles Santa the most is also the most famous. But when physicists tried to build the SSC as their realization of a Super Santa Claus laboratory they failed.
Some were so disappointed and depressed that they decided to work for the Grinch on Wall St. to steal Christmas from everybody else too...

Ayn Rand

2011-04-18T05:03:00.000-07:00

I never read her books, even when Alan G. was still The Maestro. But I did browse a bit a while ago at a Barnes&Noble.
It seems that she achieved some fame with a book about architecture, but her great master piece is about a railway company and the struggle of its executives with labor unions and government bureaucrats.
Unsurprisingly, she is mostly unknown in Europe; But she seems to be quite popular in the US. I can only explain it with the strange obsession with high speed trains.

PS: Is it really true that Bertram Scudder is the author behind many popular blogs?

Asperger's

2011-04-18T03:24:00.001-07:00

It seems that ADD was quite popular for a while, but recently Asperger's is gaining ground (*).
This kid asks an important (but perhaps offensive to some) question: "I want a fashionable mental illness! Should I go for Asperger's ...?"

I think the popularity of Asperger's is to some extent due to the success of Google and facebook; Indeed mom and dad in Silicon Valley are more frequently diagnosing their kids nowadays.
Others prefer to diagnose historical figures e.g. Newton and Einstein. While I think some scrutiny of the closet homosexual and law-and-order fanatic Newton is appropriate, I really recommend to leave our holy man alone.
As for Mozart, if you try to 'explain' his genius then you are actually leaving the company of decent men and women imho...

(*) In the spirit of full disclosure I should mention that my wife and kids 'diagnosed' me as an obvious example of Asperger's. But was there really anything odd about that boy who bought and read the MTW telephone book about Gravitation at the age of sixteen?

experiments

2011-04-17T10:56:00.001-07:00

First experiment: Look in a mirror. Now, without moving your head, look around a bit, at your hair, your eyebrows etc.
Can you see your eyes move?

Second experiment: Drop a hammer and a feather and watch what exactly happens, then win the famous golden llama award...

quiet predators

2011-04-08T01:02:00.000-07:00

Adrian Kent is known for his arguments against many worlds interpretations.
Now he found an explanation of the Fermi paradox. I would call it the 'many quiet predators' interpretation.
Not a pleasant thought unless you are a real misanthrope ...

added later: Recently, he wrote about Hugh Everett and noted "He was not the first or last ... to abandon pure science for a materially comfortable career of questionable social value."
Indeed ...

too little, too late

2011-04-04T01:54:00.000-07:00

It is just another day in the blogosphere and people do the kind of stuff they always do.
Peter wonders about the Bogdanov equation.
Cosma contemplates God, Satan and our sins.
Lubos describes convincing evidence for global warming.
CIP tells us that he likes ABBA.
The Aeolist has two crackpots discussing the eternal, pure region.
And this blog just changed its title. Again.

But I think this time readers of this blog should have a voice also and so I set up a page where you can cast your vote. Do you like the new title too little, too late? Please, let me know!

---------

update: Unfortunately, and quite unexpected, most readers voted No and consequently this blog has to return to its previous title. The llamas won ...

April 2nd

2011-04-02T04:43:00.000-07:00

I think we can all agree that the blogosphere is especially on April Fool's day (*).
Unfortunately, this blog did not contribute anything to the global celebration of practical jokes. All it has to offer is the usual blog post one day later.
Perhaps 'too little, too late' would be a better title for ...

(*) The 3D version of xkcd was pretty good imho (as was last year's unix kcd).

PS: If you want to know how to do these selection boxes you should check out the select html tag.

oldies

2011-03-25T01:55:00.000-07:00

In 1966 the Beatles performed several concerts in Japan. Only one year later construction began of the Fukushima-1 reactor. I think this gives one an idea how old this stuff is.

but what can a poor boy do?

2011-03-23T02:10:00.000-07:00

Abstruse Goose

known and unknown

2011-03-20T03:35:00.000-07:00

We know the Col. al-Gaddafi, former buddy of Silvio Berlusconi, trying to hold on to his umbrella using fighter jets and tanks.
We know president Sarkozy, the defender of democracy, who supported freedom by selling arms and nuclear technology to Libya only a few years ago.
We know David Cameron and meanwhile everybody knows president Obama, spreading hope and change everywhere with his teleprompter.

But who are the rebels?
We only know that the peaceful Libyan demonstrators like to chat about their RPGs and anti-aircraft guns on facebook, twitter and other dating sites.
But do they prefer Apple or Microsoft?
BP or Lukoil?

I guess we shall find out soon enough.