It's an S1 x S1 World

I'm flying to Boston next week. This would make tickets cheaper . . . unless oil prices went up . . . and depending on whether there was still gravity . . .

Dangers of Open Source

Luckily only programmers are susceptible. It's like that virus in Snow Crash, or the way only camp counselors and church youth groups can be seduced by "The Song That Never Ends."

Things I've Learned About Quantum Mechanics

Happy Thanksgiving weekend! In honor of the pilgrims I give you . . . something arcane about quantum mechanics.

First panel's my favorite. Second panel I'm still not happy with - I rewrote it a couple times and it's still awkward (I know - quantum physics, penis joke, it should practically write itself! just wait until special relativity...)

Grey Goo

Poetry before bed. Apologies to Robert Frost.

More Greenwashing

This comic is a lie.

As my housemate Sean points out (see image to right), my physical intuition is all wrong. If you stopped the Earth spinning and gave all it's angular momentum instantaneously to the moon, it would only impart about 1/2 the energy needed to eject the moon from Earth orbit.

This does mean that the danger from lengthening Earth days is far more severe than I first suspected. An extra hour a day is relaxing, an extra thousand hours a day . . . bad scene.

Take home assignment. If we were determined to eject the moon, we could run tidal pumps instead of generators, causing the Earth eventually to spin backwards, and the moon to attain escape velocity. We'd have to spin the Earth pretty fast though. The assigned question is - would it be fast enough to fling hapless Polynesian islanders into the sky via centrifugal force? (This is NOT as straightforward a question as it sounds. Remember that it's momentum not energy that's being conserved here...)

I Am Become Shiva, Destroyer of Microwaves

Mornings are rough.

Please Do Not Reanimate

This is not a comic. This is an assignment. My friends have failed me, so I present it to the broader world.

If you are a first year med student, and you put the following important safety notice above the scrap tissue bin in your anatomy class, and send me a photograph of the deed, I will be delighted and will reward you by mail with something nice. Potentially even alcoholic. (In the unlikely event lots of people do this, I only promise to send something to the first one.)

Suggested Problem Set Techniques

Every panel of this comic really happened.

Painful Realizations

Several panels of this comic really happened.

When I drew this on the house whiteboard, a friend of mine asked if I was redrawing an XKCD comic. A little flattering . . . someday I do hope to bear Randall Munroe's love child . . . but I was really hoping for more of an "oh! how creative! and beautifully drawn too!" Next time. Definitely.

The Tentacled Menace

I've had dreams of bio-engineering flying jellyfish for years. I don't know that the comic adequately captures my vision . . . Picture a pastoral scene by the sea. Jellyfish the size of school buses silently rise from the dark ocean water and sweep inland. Several of them contract their bodies briefly, increasing their density and allowing them to descend long enough to pick up whole cows before rising again and rejoining the swarm. Perhaps a city glimmers in the distance, its inhabitants totally unprepared for the ancient behemoths that approach. Some secretive and marginally manic music plays in the background (Middlesex Times by Michael Andrews - from the Donnie Darko soundtrack - sounds about right). Ahh. It will be glorious.

First post!!