♪♫ caek's corner ♪♫

popular 3-D cinema is also god's design fwiw

no gbx U rule, when we're both doctors let's start a blog called hipster doctors

ppl already think i'm the hipster med student cause i ride a bike and played in a band once. so cool let's do it

btw i am working on my explanation of magnets for u

popularpoppage 3-D cinema is also god's design fwiw

― queen of the rapping scene (acoleuthic), Thursday, March 4, 2010 2:19 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

click here to see fresh young teens losing their anal virginity...in 3D

tbf that is the point at which we put human culture into a little box and fire it into a comet at ~high speed~

3D Porno wd be kind of self-defeating in its unsatisfyingness

"Hey! Just look at these awesome 3D boobies all up in your face" is more distracting than arousing really

i mean being caught wanking is one thing but wearing those goggles too i mean seriously now

btw LJ, is there an official definition of poppage that is more than just 'sex'

zits exploding in 3D is much, much grosser than 3D porn

'solving' the universe by making it destroy itself in sheer embarrassment.

http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2750/27501101.jpg

well that's as clear as mud then

need more physicists to cheerfully admit 'we can't know that right now, but thanks for asking', then carry on with studying actual data.

onion infographics like that aren't entirely physicists's fault, to be fair. there is codependent relationship between a certain kind of science and new scientist type publications.

basically www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=2773

~god is a hologram~

i have that tattooed on my back

only in *this* universe

btw caek i bet you feel the same way about this kind of science as many humanities profs feel abt buzzy crit theory papers

ha, i hope so.

although i don't see many scientists defending the bullshit, and i know where to look, whereas finding people working in the humanities willing to defend the airless heights is a lot easier : ( is that fair or is this confirmation bias?

popularising science kind of depends on pushing out a lot of fuzzy/dumbed down stuff, though?

if science was easy we'd all do it, imo. i was strongly advised by prof of theoretical physics in trinity to back off on an open day, as my expectations in the LC weren't A1 in both physics/maths. broek hart ;_;

popularising science kind of depends on pushing out a lot of fuzzy/dumbed down stuff, though?

― quiz show flat-track bully (darraghmac), Thursday, March 4, 2010 2:47 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

when done properly, it certainly involves making stuff more accessible, which is fine.

but a lot of popular writers have no interest in this. they choose stuff that is particularly difficult to explain in human language (field theory, quantum mechanics) because it sells and they don't have to work hard at making it comprehensible because no one can tell the difference.

or far worse, they are willfully obfuscatory about stuff like quantum mechanics of field theory or whatever because "gee whizz awesome" or "lol what will those crazy scientists think of next"

or they do things like that NS article, and write about stuff that is miles outside the mainstream of even theoretical physics, and simply be mentioning it they give the impression that it is credible or they are teaching the debate or something.

fwiw field theory and quantum mechanics have been touched upon at not a single point by my scijourn class - we're largely concentrating on stuff that can be explained lucidly while still telling the whole story

good. totally down with abraham cowley when it comes to science writing: abjure "the painted scenes and pageants of the brain".

which is not to say people should not try to explain QM or string theory or whatever. they should just not do a deliberately bad job of it in order to sell more copies. hawking started this.

abjure "the painted scenes and pageants of the brain".

this sounds like the kind of thing i'd totally fail to abjure, but i've been pretty good about hardtruthing it iirc - psychedelia is best saved for art, not news

although i don't see many scientists defending the bullshit, and i know where to look, whereas finding people working in the humanities willing to defend the airless heights is a lot easier : ( is that fair or is this confirmation bias?

― caek, Thursday, March 4, 2010 9:46 AM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

confirmation bias + a "only im allowed to make fun of my brother" mindset

i am fine with people making fun of the embarrassing bit of physics (although if the goal is to get rid of it i think the best policy is to ignore it). or are you talking about that mindset in the humanities?

in the humanities. cant speak for everyone but im really defensive when 'outsiders' or non-enthusiasts bag on stuff that i disagree with but hews close to stuff i dig.

yeah, it's easy to make fun of that stuff in a really phillistinic, ignorant way, which is something i should do less. e.g. my impression is that the guy who actually did the social text thing gets it and had good intentions, but the fallout of pointing and lolling (just waiting for the xkcd cartoon tbh) was (and still is) really ugly.

Dear caek,
hello you do not know me pleased to meet you.
I am watching Horizon on bbc2. It is about space & galaxies etc. Did you see this documentary? Did you approve? Was it full of your rivals?

I do not feel I am learning a lot really. They just keep introducing a new 'dark' thing then saying we don't understand it. We're on dark flow now (or darkflow? Wd be better).

Crank's on Itv4 in a bit tho, prob more my level.

i live in germany so i don't habitually watch uk telly except for antique's roadshow and university challenge.

i read the synopsis on iplayer. never heard of dark flow or "Sasha Kaslinsky, the scientist who discovered the phenomenon". he has no published papers as far as i can tell. hope you watched crank instead.

In fairness, I think it was this Nasa dude, Alexander "Sasha" Kashlinsky:

http://www.kashlinsky.info/anima/skash.nsf/home?OpenForm

duh, NASA.

some neat stuff in that show. inflation theory new to me. but it did follow what's beginnning to feel like a formulaic style for bbc big bang/quantum phsycis etc documentaries, where each theory is intercut with shots of scientists silently peering into the camera or off into the distance, with strange lighting and/or subtle effetcs used to illustrate just how to deep in thought these crazy characters are

Did anyone catch the programme about the universe (first episode focused on the sun) the last day? Was pretty good, looked great, could have done without the script and delivery of same by indie scientist dude.

Yeah, I saw Wonders of The Solar System and liked it. indie scientist Brian Cox is the "celeb" academic of my workplace and I've sometimes found his style a bit rich in previous stuff, but this time I warmed to him as the show progressed - the footage of the total eclipse and his humbled response to it was quite stirring stuff imo.

Saturnian ringshine ftw

and i've enjoyed that dude's presenting before, but i have a feeling his winsomeness might push it by the end of the series. especially when it seems the Sigur Ros track from the BBC ident is perpetually imminent.

yeha i will watch it this week again, don't get me wrong, but he just really grated on me. he's so...deep man, y'know?

and his teeth don't fit into his lips, which bothered me.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4043/4439443924_3d354c38bd_o.jpg

Okay, what's the backstory there? And why have they given him a suit?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/32/Ham_the_chimp.jpg/468px-Ham_the_chimp.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ham_the_Chimp

that helmet, yes

Ham was born July 1956 in Cameroon, captured by animal trappers and sent to Rare Bird Farm in Miami, Florida. He was purchased by the United States Air Force and brought to Holloman Air Force Base in 1959

One of the less likely biographies, that. But surely they could've come up with a better tribute than this:

It was decided that the AFIP would retain Ham's skeleton for further study, and his body was cleaned of soft tissue by lengthy placement in the Dermestid beetle colony at the Smithsonian