Thane Plambeck

Meet The Beables

In particular we will exclude the notion of 'observable' in favour of that of 'beable.' The beables of the theory are those elements which might correspond to reality, to things which exist. Their existence does not depend on 'observation.' Indeeed observation and observers must made out of beables.

I use the term 'beable' rather than some more committed term like 'being' or 'beer' to recall the essentially tentative nature of any physical theory. Such a theory is at best a candidate for the description of nature. Terms like 'being', 'beer', 'existent', etc., would seem to me lacking in humility. In fact 'beable' is short for 'maybe-able'.

—John S. Bell, "Beables for quantum field theory," in Speakable and unspeakable in quantum mechanics.

Dead Leaf Roundabout

London plane trees, Cowper Street & Nevada, Palo Alto, CA.

What is the slashdot amnesia phenomenon?

What is the slashdot amnesia phenomenon? (via yak).

Thoughts on a new laptop

1) 802.11 isn't that useful at home if you don't have a TV (why else move the laptop)?

2) These unassuming and brief instructions for installing "LaTeX, Emacs, etc for your PC" kick ass. (Thanks, graham!)

3) Tech support for the HP Bluetooth Deskjet 995c has been outsourced to India, where they answer the phone cheerfully, thank you for your patience, but still can't solve your problem.

4) Putty is my new Telnet/SSH client. But of course I never use telnet. Nor should you. Once Anil screamed "STOP!" at me just as I was about to use it.

5) I'd forgotted M-x latex-mode. Nice to meet him again. It's been a few years.

6) Thumbnails of most of my ever-burgeoning collection of digital photos and scanned images seem to be available here, at Google. Why then do I struggle to archive them myself? Somehow this question reminded me of the book of Job. I had a Bible handy and found this at the end of Chapter 5, just as more JPGs and MOVs were being whisked off to some appropriate archive:

You shall know that your tent is safe, and you shall inspect your fold and miss nothing. You shall know also that your descendants shall be many, and your offspring as the grass of the earth. You shall come to your grave in ripe old age, as a shock of grain comes up to the threshing floor in its season. Lo, this we have searched out; it is true. Hear, and know it for your good.

Hanalei Paparazzi

We just got back from a weeklong vacation to Hawaii (Kauai).

Returning from a hike on the Na Pali coast, we stopped in Hanalei for a snack. I was deeply engrossed in taking incredibly boring photographs of a Hawaiian Shave Ice stand when suddenly Ann urgently whispered—"Hey, that's Joey from Friends.'' [Matt Leblanc]. Gloria immediately confirmed it, but I wasn't so sure (couldn't really look past his loud red sunglasses). So I sidled up to the burger joint he was standing outside of, aiming to take a nice paparazzi. But of course he noticed me and the camera (I was standing right next to him), and I couldn't muster the courage to shoot a point-blank shot. So I let them go.

But then, as I was driving out of the parking lot, I had a perfect opportunity to roll down the window and capture my prey. Unfortunately it's not quite in focus. (Or was it this?)

From the Poker Weekend

Ivor's Adventure (PDF) at Indian Rock and on our hike to Chilnualna Falls.

I'm actually getting quite competent at saying and spelling "Chilnualna." It's not an easy word to internalize, somehow.

Tamaki Kawakubo

Tamaki Kawakubo. (Google search)

I saw her play the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor at the "Blue Hair" San Francisco Symphony matinee this afternoon.

[actually—yesterday afternoon. It's late]

Mahalia Jackson

In the Upper Room (first on the third CD of "How I got Over")

At the Guardian

"Can you spell with speed, accuracy and under pressure?" This is a question to which we wanted answers. We urged Professor Vivian Cook, professor of applied linguistics at the University of Newcastle and author of Accomodating Brocolli in the Cemetary or Why Can't Anybody Spell?, to supply us with 10 of the most orthographically problematic words in the English language. We then rang likely people to find out if they could spell all of them correctly. Sadly, a high proportion of them either did not reply or got someone to ring and say they were very busy - far, far too busy in fact, to take the test. Or maybe just scared...

[link]

[Also: Spellbound]

The hidden arrow

From an interview with the graphic designer who came up with the FedEx logo:

The power of the hidden arrow is simply that it is a "hidden bonus." It is a positive-reverse optical kind of thing: either you see it or you don't. Importantly, not "getting the punch line" by not seeing the arrow, does not reduce the impact of the logo's essential communication. The power of the logo and the FedEx marketing supporting the logo is strong enough to convey clearly FedEx brand positioning. On the other hand, if you do see the arrow, or someone points it out to you, you won't forget it. I can't tell you how many people have told me how much fun they have asking others "if they can spot 'something' in the logo." To have filled in the arrow, or to somehow make it more "visible" would have been like Henny Youngman saying "Please take my wife" instead of "Take my wife. Please." Punch lines that need to be explained are neither funny nor memorable.

the shortwave numbers mystery

the shortwave numbers mystery (thanks, Ivor!)

Also: this creepy archive of mysterious shortwave broadcasts, with banner reading

Have you ever listened to your short wave radio and heard a strange voice repeating numbers or letters ?? You may have stumbled across something they call a NUMBERS STATION

2000 BC

Neolithic carved stone polyhedra

From today's NYT crossword

Returns from Venus, say (7): VOLLEYS

I'm not sure why the "say" needs to be there. I like the clue better without it.

A suspicious NYT correction

This is from the 16 Nov 2004 New York Times:

A picture caption on Saturday with a film review about "Veer-Zaara" misidentified the actress shown. She is Preity Zinta, not Veer Zaara.

This has got to be a secret message to spies behind the lines, picking up their instructions in the newspaper. Or something like that.

But I can't figure out what it means.

I've tried saying this out loud:

"veer zaara, it's preity zinta."

hmmm...

Dresden Dolls

Driving home from Physics class, I just heard this on the radio.

Hmmm, that sounds a lot like the Three Penny Opera, I thought. What's that doing on the radio? I'm looking for U2!

So—got to have it.

I'm probably the last one to become aware of this group, I'm sure, amongst cool people (not that I count myself amongst them, of course).

Flowbee

Flowbee Vacuum Haircut System (thanks, Marc!)

From Learning Curves

Calculus students have fewer bizarre personal crises.

The Incredibles vs The Fantastic Four

Featuring

Mr Incredible vs Mr Fantastic

Violet vs the Invisible Woman

With special pre-fight card

Dash vs The Thing

Frozone vs The Human Torch

G4G rotating dragon

A G4G folding dragon from Binary Arts that appears to watch you by rotating its head [3.15 Mb mpeg video, 30 seconds] as you move around it with one eye closed.

Also:

Second image revealing the trick.

Template for folding your own dragon.

Chilnualna Falls

Colin Dixon, Ivor Barber, and Toby Ferguson at the top of Chilnualna Falls, near Wawona, Yosemite National Park.