A web site about physics and other things
vttoth — June 29th, 2009
I was watching the noon local newscast and learned that the Wakefield steam train, a popular tourist attraction nearby, is back in service, after it has been shut down in the middle of its track Saturday due to an electrical fault in its engine that could not be repaired right away.
Wait a minute. Steam train? Electric fault?
Categories: Technology, Transportation | No Comments
vttoth — June 27th, 2009
I recently read a review of Weinberg’s wonderful new book, Cosmology, a 2009 sequel of sorts to his 1972 classic, Gravitation and Cosmology. The reviewer mentioned two other books, that of Mukhanov and that of Dodelson, as books worth having. Mukhanov’s Physical Foundations of Cosmology was already on my bookshelf (and, like the reviewer, I also consider it worth having) but not Dodelson’s book… so I decided to buy it.
I was not disappointed: it is an excellent cosmology book. In particular, it offers a very thorough introduction to the quantitative aspects of physical cosmology.
However… although the book was published only six years ago, it feels surprisingly dated. Through no fault of the author, to be clear: it’s just that cosmology has made tremendous progress in a few short years. I can think of two things in particular: results from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), first released in 2005, providing precision maps of the cosmic microwave background, allowing accurate detection of the so-called acoustic peaks; and ever improving large scale galaxy surveys, notably the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), providing spectra for many hundreds of thousands of galaxies, yielding 3D density maps of the deep cosmos that can be used to test models of structure formation.
The results speak for themselves. For instance, Dodelson’s book gives 12.6 ± 1.1 billion years as the age of the Universe… in contrast, the latest WMAP result is 13.73 ± 0.12 billion years, a tenfold improvement in the accuracy of the estimate. I guess it’s not an enviable task to write a book for a field that is changing as rapidly as Modern Cosmology… which also happens to be the title of Dodelson’s book.
Categories: Physics | No Comments
vttoth — June 25th, 2009
A few days ago, I upgraded to Skype 4.
I use Skype for overseas telephone calls a lot. I also call a few people occasionally using Skype-to-Skype. And, every once in a while, I use it to chat with people.
I have heard bad things about Skype 4 so I was not in a hurry to upgrade. But when, the other day, the software notified me that a major upgrade is available, I decided to give it a try.
Wish I didn’t.
The installation completed successfully, and Skype worked fine, but… well, it’s best if I just quote a few sentences from Skype’s own Web site where the new version was announced:
I share these sentiments. This morning, I gave up and downgraded to the 3.8 version. Which is working fine, as always.
Categories: Computers, Programming | No Comments
vttoth — June 24th, 2009
I found this gem of a sentence on the Web site of the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran here in Ottawa:
“The Islamic Republic of Iran will register acts of all these states whose records are filled with support for terrorism, pro-colonialist policies for colonizing the oppressed nations, support for the despotic regimes, arming some with weapons of mass destruction and support for anarchy in all parts of the world as disdainful behavior and stipulates that they can not cast doubt on the excellent democratic election held recently in the Islamic Republic of Iran by no means advising them to change their miscalculated approach vis-à-vis the developments having taken place in Iran because designers of the chess game are closely monitoring their behavior and calculating them in the future relations.”
This sentence reminds me of Soviet-era propaganda leaflets. I wonder if the Islamic Republic of Iran has hired propagandists from the former Soviet Union who were left unemployed after 1991.
Anyhow, what exactly are they saying here? Something is wrong with this sentence. They say that,
The Islamic Republic of Iran
- will register, as disdainful behavior,
- acts of all these states whose records are filled with
- support for terrorism,
- pro-colonialist policies for colonizing the oppressed nations,
- support for the despotic regimes, arming some with weapons of mass destruction and
- support for anarchy in all parts of the world
and
- stipulates that they can not cast doubt on the excellent democratic election held recently in the Islamic Republic of Iran
by no means advising them to change their miscalculated approach vis-à-vis the developments having taken place in Iran
because
designers of the chess game are closely monitoring their behavior and calculating them in the future relations.
Hmmm… they seem to be telling us that despite all the bad things they say about our disdainful behavior, they are NOT advising us to change our miscalculated approach. The reason for this surprising advice has to do with the designers of the game of chess. Okay, I know that chess may have arrived in Europe from India by way of Persia, but what do the long dead inventors of one of the world’s most popular games have to do with the reelection of Ahmedinejad?
Maybe they are trying to confuse us intentionally, in order to deflect our attention away from a study that suggests that the election was seriously rigged. They really shouldn’t bother. This study says that the election was likely rigged because the final two digits of provincial results show unlikely statistics. But unlikely is not the same as impossible, and unless they can quantify how much more likely this outcome is in a rigged election, the study means nothing; after all, 1-2-3-4-5-6 is as likely to win in a random 6/49 lottery draw as any other number combination, and if they pick these numbers next week, it does not prove fraud by the lottery corporation. For that claim, one would also have to quantify the increased likelihood that a fraudulent draw is more likely to produce the 1-2-3-4-5-6 result when compared to a truly random draw.
Categories: Mathematics, Politics | No Comments
vttoth — June 23rd, 2009
I’ve been using Skype since last year. Initially, I resisted, but then there were to strong reasons to use it: one, regular phone line quality has been steadily going down the drain as long distance companies increasingly began to use VoIP, and two, I was doing a bit of traveling, and Skype is a heck of a lot cheaper than hotel phones.
I’ve had Skype version 3 installed, and by and large, I was happy. I’ve been using Skype a lot to call Europe, for instance, and it worked most of the time at least as reliably as the good old phone company.
However, lately I had some call quality problems and Skype’s advice was to upgrade. So, when the other day, the software informed me that a new version is available to install, I accepted it. The new version installed just fine, and it is working fine… I can’t really tell if it actually delivers improved sound quality, but I have no reason to doubt Skype.
What the new version doesn’t deliver is an improved user interface. Simply put, the version 4 UI is not pretty. “Compact Mode” is not really compact anymore, you just get multiple windows. In regular mode, the Skype window is just huge. And, it’s ugly. For manual dial, it has an unpleasant looking, overly large dial pad. For other modes, the interface is equally unappealing, with large unused areas.
What were these people thinking? Seriously, it feels like I went back 5-10 years in time in terms of UI quality. If Skype 3 was like Windows XP, Skype 4 is more like Windows 95. I’m seriously contemplating uninstalling Skype and reinstalling version 3. I’m just not sure if it’s worth the hassle.
Categories: Computers | No Comments
vttoth — June 20th, 2009
Earlier this year, Michael Ignatieff replaced Stephane Dion as the head of the Liberal Party. This was supposed to change things: no more wimpy compromises, finally a charismatic (some even said scary) leader at the head of the official opposition who’ll surely fire Harper’s bumbling government soon.
Well, he didn’t. Ignatieff looks a great deal less scary today. And I can’t say that I agree with him. An all time record of a deficit, the incompetence of the minister handling the Chalk River affair, and a proposed crime bill that would seriously compromise our Internet privacy are just some of the issues that I have with Harper’s government and why I’d like to see him go.
The silver lining to this cloud is that we continue to enjoy the benefits of a minority government, which is far less likely to do harm than a government commanding a majority.
Categories: Canada, Politics | No Comments
vttoth — June 20th, 2009
I was never much of a believer in negative cop stereotypes nor do I believe that the “powers that be” are conspiring to get you. But today’s revelation that the RCMP agents who tasered Robert Dziekanski to death last year were in fact flat our lying to the official inquiry is enough to make even the staunchest opponent of conspiracy theories blink. The word “outrageous” doesn’t even come close to describing it.
Categories: Canada, Politics | No Comments
vttoth — June 19th, 2009
Republicans in the US are criticizing Obama for his hands-off approach concerning the events in Iran.
So here is my question: what, exactly, do Republicans want?
Do they want to help Iran? Because in that case, the best thing to do is to shut up. Twenty years ago another Republican, the elder President Bush, explained in an interview why he did not go to gloat and “dance on the top of the Berlin Wall”: because if anything, it would have just encouraged the ruling elites of the East Bloc to crack down instead of facilitating a largely peaceful transition to democracy. The same is true today: loud protests by Obama about election fraud and crackdowns in Iran would only help the ruling elite.
Do Republicans not realize this? I doubt that they are that dumb. But then, I have to conclude that they are just turning this, along with everything else, into a partisan issue. They couldn’t care less as to what happens in Teheran, so long as they can bash Obama.
Hmmm, there’s an even worse alternative. Perhaps they actually want the ruling elite in Teheran to stay in power. How else could they continue to demonize Iran, and Islam in general?
Categories: Politics | No Comments
vttoth — June 16th, 2009
I am reading a very interesting document: the results of an “uncensored survey”, conducted by Terror Free Tomorrow: The Center for Public Opinion in the days leading up to Iran’s elections.
If I interpret their chart on page 8 of the PDF report correctly, 78% of the respondents they interviewed indicated an intent to vote. The number of eligible voters being 100%, 34% expressed support for Ahmedinejad, 14% for Moussavi, 3% for the other two candidates, while 27% were still undecided. If I divide up the undecided equally between Ahmedinejad and Moussavi, I get 61% vs. 35% of the total number of votes cast, with 78% participation.
The actual, official result was 85% participation, with 62.63% voting for Ahmedinejad and 33.75% for Moussavi; the difference is statistically insignificant.
It would be the ultimate irony if Iran’s theocratic regime was brought down by accusations of widespread electoral fraud yet no actual fraud had taken place.
Categories: Politics | No Comments
vttoth — June 16th, 2009
David Letterman finally apologized for the joke he made last week about Sarah Palin and her daughter, a joke that was clearly in bad taste.
When I first heard about Sarah Palin, just after it was announced that she would be the running mate of John McCain in 2008, I remember the disbelief that I felt. Whatever temporary insanity possessed the inhabitants of Alaska when they elected her (or is it just that we live in an era of political populism, be it the case of the once small town mayor now popular governor of Alaska or, say, the once Teheran mayor now popular president of Iran?) my immediate reaction when I saw governor Palin and her family on television was to wonder if I might have accidentally set on my remote and switched to The Jerry Springer Show without noticing. Everything about governor Palin: her mannerisms (including how she manages to include wannabe beauty queen phrases like “the great state of Alaska” into every second sentence she utters), her family life, the names she gave to her children… about the only thing missing from the picture was a fight on stage, to be broken up by security.
Now I don’t wish to fall into the same trap as Letterman… family members, especially underage family members of a politician are not fair game, not even for late night comics. Yet, if the Palin family accurately reflects “conservative family values”, then perhaps it is appropriate to question the validity of those values, and possible to do so without insulting unwitting members of the Palin family. On the other hand, if the Palin family does not accurately reflect conservative family values, then perhaps it is right to accuse conservatives of hypocrisy, again without ad hominem insults.
Categories: Politics | No Comments
