Behead the pope! September 19, 2006
Posted by dorigo in Blogroll, internet, italian blogs, language, news, politics.1 comment so far
The rage of the muslim world, apparently caused by pope Joseph Ratzinger’s speech of last week, but more precisely due to the commentary of those words made by influential spiritual heads in the islamic world, is spreading worldwide.
Despite Ratzinger’s attempts at pacifications, with his explanation that his words were quotations and not his own thought, the reaction has been violent and more sudden than that over the cartoons insulting Mohammed appeared on a Danish newspaper a while ago. A catholic nun has been shot dead in Somalia the other day, and two churches were attacked with incendiary devices.
Hamza Boccolini, from AdnKronos international, found in islamic sites in the web a series of cartoons whose subject is pope Ratzinger. None of them is exactly adulatory, but one in particular is striking.
In it, the pope is camouflaged as Dracula, and arabic writing surrounding him can be allegedly translated as: “pig slave of the cross”, “he worships a monkey nailed on the cross, hateful evil”, “lapidated Satan”, ”blood-sucking vampire”, “Behead him”.
The cartoon can be seen in an italian site: http://213.215.144.81/public_html/articolo_index_26605.html . You will pardon me if I do not broadcast it here - nothing against cartoons, but I prefer to avoid violating the copyright law of some islamic fundamentalists…
New PDG September 19, 2006
Posted by dorigo in books, internet, news, physics, science.3 comments
Yesterday the 2006 Review of Particle Properties arrived. It is a rather thick book, 1250+ pages in A4 format. Rather impressive, but it proves even more impressive as you browse it.
The amount of data stored in those 1250 pages is indeed quite large, but it is nothing compared to the amount of intellectual effort that went into producing the measurements the book describes. Any given page of the Review contains hundreds of citations to journal papers - where the results quoted in the Review were first published.
Along with sheer data from experimental measurements, the book features several review articles that describe the status of our understanding of particle physics in each of its subfields of research. And there are a total of 250 pages devoted to discussing in detail accessory information about the experimental and theoretical tools of the particle physicist, from a description of the standard model of electroweak interactions to a review of particle detectors, to probability and statistics, to interaction of charged particles with matter. Very dense descriptions - not always a pleasure to read - but quite informative.
The best thing about the book: it is free! You just ask for a copy and you’ll get it… Check it out at http://pdg.lbl.gov . No, you do not need to be a particle physicist to get one… You want one ? You’ll get one. It is the concept of a free distribution of knowledge.
And I just noticed my CDF colleague Wei-Ming Yao is the first author of the whole shebang. Congratulations, Wei-Ming!
