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What’s hot around February 10, 2009

Posted by dorigo in astronomy, Blogroll, cosmology, internet, italian blogs, mathematics, news, physics, science.
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For lack of interesting topics to blog about, I refer you to a short list of bloggers who have produced readable material in the last few days:

  • The always witty Resonaances has produced an informative post on Quirks.
  • My friend David Orban describes the recently-instituted singularity University
  • Stefan explains other types of singularities, those you can find in your kitchen!
  • Dmitry has an outstanding post out today about the physics of turbulence, with four mini-pieces on the Reynolds number, viscosity, universality and intermittency. Worth a visit, if even just for the pics!
  • Marco discusses the long winter of LHC. Sorry, in italian.
  • Peter discusses the same issue in English.
  • Marni points out a direct explanation of the Pioneer anomaly with the difference between atomic clock time and astronomical time. Or, if you will, a change of the speed of light with time!

Selected holiday links December 27, 2008

Posted by dorigo in astronomy, Blogroll, chess, cosmology, internet, italian blogs, news, physics, politics, science.
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Being too lazy to generate content while relaxing after a day on the ski slopes in Padola, I am offering you a few selected links that are worth a visit. Not all about physics, and not all recent -that’s what you get from a very erratic web surfer.

  • Tim Krabbé, the dutch novelist and chessplayer, has a very interesting piece on the very peculiar chess problem stipulation called the worst possible move. It now appears that, while the game of chess is virtually unexhaustible -at least for us humans-, we now have an answer to what is the worst possible move you can make in a chess game. Or, at least, we get very close to the best of the worst, with Sampsa Lahtonen’s 1.Qxc4+, a move by white that forces black to administer mate in one, when all the other 52 possible moves by white would have mated black.
  • David Orban, my futurologist friend, spoke at the italian parliament on December 12th on internet and new technologies and their use. He offers a report (which includes two video clips), but it is currently only in the italian version of his blog. You can easily translate the text using the web’s http://translate.google.com powerful tools, while for the video… hehm. Maybe in the web 3.0.
  • Michael Schmitt, a professor at Northwestern University and a colleague in CMS and CDF, is back in blogging mood, hopefully to stay. He has started back with momentum with a few very interesting posts, the last of which is about Dark Matter as a Quantum Liquid. Welcome back Michael!
  • The always excellent Resonaances has yet another post on the Pamela/Atic anomalies out, and this one can’t be missed any more than could the previous ones. Highly recommended.

Good stuff around August 15, 2008

Posted by dorigo in Blogroll, computers, cosmology, games, humor, internet, news, physics, science.
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Here are a few links that you might be interested to follow. They lead to posts in blogs I read and you should too:

  • Louise has news of the appearance of a new puzzling “ghost” green galaxy.
  • Marco explains the disappearing of a ghost propagator instead.
  • Jester unexplains the unhiggs in an undeniably understandable, yet unserious way.
  • Alex challenges you to pilot a submarine -and to find a windows bug while you’re at it.
  • Bee explains the equivalence principle and why general relativity is sexy.
  • Roberto offers some astounding pictures of the most astounding thing ever built.

Alphabetical order in the blogroll July 11, 2008

Posted by dorigo in Blogroll, internet, personal.
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Just a short note to mention that I have decided to switch from a random to an alphabetically ordered list in the column of links to relevant other blogs -those I read and those I advise users of my site to give a peek at now and then (the two categories only partly intersect).

The reason is simple: despite the wide offer of blog feeds, collections, and other means by which one may get updated on what is being written in a collection of sites one wants to keep an eye on, I have never brought myself to using those tools. Maybe because I am fundamentally lazy -an old dog who wouldn’t learn a new trick- or maybe because I still enjoy going after information rather than having it showered on me on a regular basis.

Now, my blogroll column currently contains about fifty entries, and it grows sporadically -that is, whenever I have enough stamina to adjourn it. I have the habit of using that list to access the blogs, rather than my “blogs” folder in the preferites tab of my web browser (Mozilla), and a random list often causes me to scroll up and down in search for the link I need. That is stupid, and it has become a sufficient reason for abandoning my original idea of a “democratic” randomly compiled list which changes every time one accesses the main page of my blog.

So, I am sorry for Zerocold, or even worse for those links that get buried in the middle and never get a chance of a spot in the sunlight atop the list, but I am switching to an alphabetically ordered list today. There is an added bonus in the process: by making it easier for me to access the blogs I am linking, I make it easier for you too, in the hope that you, too, will use this blog as a default entry point for your visits to other sites. Or am I really the only one who still doesn’t uses blog feeds ?

UPDATE: Shoot! I just found out why I had been unable to change the order earlier on, when I gave it a try: as the WordPress FAQ explains, the theme I am using does not allow one to change the order of links!

Now I’m stuck to having to decide for a change of theme (which I really want to avoid), a frustrating retreat, or a bold advance into the new territory of a privately managed blog. If you know me, you’re likely to imagine what I will do.

Recent additions to the blogroll July 9, 2008

Posted by dorigo in Blogroll, internet, personal, physics.
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Today I have important business to attend so I only point you to three recent additions to my blogroll column, which call for your attention, if you so please.

  • The Gauge Connection, by Marco Frasca. Marco is a theoretical physicist and he works on perturbative QCD. He just started writing about physics, to a level suitable for undergraduates and above. I hope he will lower the bar a little, with the aim of discussing complicated theory constructions as one could do in a bar. That would be some achievement! In any case, his blog is worth visiting.
  • Dialogos of Eide, by Plato. This is a blog devoted to science in general, with attention to cosmology, quantum gravity, and experimental developments. Also worth visiting, although if you have a slow internet connection you might find yourself cursing at the heavy images.
  • Se me lo dicevi prima, by Marco Schwarz. This is a blog in italian but hey, not all visitors here are anglophones anyways. Marco writes about a bit of everything, and I like his style.