The World's Fair

What is a transmon qubit?

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:57:53 -0500

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Somebody recently tweeted the term "transmon qubit" to the Science Scout twitter account, and (for the life of me) I cannot wrap my head around what it is exactly (other than a piece of delicious sounding science jargon).

As far as I can make out, it has something to do with a bit unit in the computation sciences context, which happens to quantum properties. i.e. Not just binary, but more a binary plus this "both, at the same time" option.

Anyway, if anyone can shed some light (a la Bill Nye style) on this term then it would be greatly appreciated.

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Gladwell Calls Out Insipid Digital Utopian

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:00:00 -0500

I realized of late that I am more a fan of Malcolm Galdwell's reviews than his articles. It's possible I've even poked fun of Gladwellian articles in the past ("I Dream in Malcolm Gladwell"). But oh boy did I enjoy his recent review of Chris Anderson's Free: The Future of a Radical Price. Anderson, the editor of Wired, puts forth an economic argument about the digital age -- all information wants to be free; all info in the digital age shall thus be free -- based on an impoverished concept of technology. In "Priced to Sell," Gladwell handily calls him out for it.

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John Stuart Mill on Digitized On-Line Collections

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:15:00 -0500

Among other things, John Stuart Mill wrote about deliberation in a democratic society. It's the philosophy that a strong democracy is one whose members are actively involved in the functioning of that government. This, as opposed to a passive, distanced, and unreflective citizenry. Engagement and participation into the activity of the society offer benefits in at least two directions: in one way, they make for a stronger democratic society as a whole by demanding connections between the everyday life of the citizens and the everyday operations of the government; this is an advantage that benefits the community, an advantage for "the society." In another direction, deliberation has advantages for the individual. By virtue of that participation, by being involved and active, the individual grows in her or his own right. We become better people, more attentive to those around us, more aware of our own individual identity amidst others. The tendency towards deliberation requires work from the citizenry, it requires labor and effort from the individual. The promise of that deliberation - of taking your time to figure out a problem, to work through a situation, to become part of the process of resolution - is just that, a processual, not static, sense of democracy. It makes us better people and it builds a better society. So says Mill, though in much more profound and compelling language when he says it.

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World's Fairs (Landscape and Modernity: Series 8)

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 08:00:00 -0500

The photographer Jade Doskow is capturing and creating images of the once-grand spectacles called World's Fairs. Her photographs do triple duty: they track down those old sites, in cities across the world (from Brussels to Seville, from New York to Spokane, from Paris to Philadelphia); they call back to the technological grandeur such exhibitions sought to promote; and they put those now-decaying sites into a contemporary landscape, setting up questions about past and present and hoped-for futures and the role of technological throughout.

Caption from TMN: "'The Columbian Exposition,' Site of Manufacture Liberal Arts Building, Grand Peristyle, and Agriculture Building, View 2"

I feel like we have to showcase this set, given it's name and theme. Plus, I like it, the set of images below. A couple of the prior Landscape and Modernity sets were but links to galleries at The Morning News (like the West and trees). So too this one.

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The Pigness of the Pig: Chipotle and Joel Salatin

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:00:00 -0500

Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm is about a half hour from Charlottesville, give or take. His local prominence preceded the Omnivore's Dilemma bump of '06 and continues on after. Jane Black, the food writer for the Washington Post, wrote last year about the Chipotle franchise's decision to use Salatin's pigs as the sole source for their Charlottesville store's carnitas. I use her story in a few of my classes as an entry into the larger topic of local food, infrastructure, distribution, and land use.

Nightline ran a story last night about the Chipotle-Salatin partnership. I don't know how to embed the video in this post, so I'll give the link instead: Chipotle Seeks New Model for Quality Fast Food.

One thing they emphasize in the story, or have Salatin emphasizing, is the animal welfare and moral obligation aspect -- that happier pigs are better pigs. They live better, we live better, and the food is better. At the same time, the conditions in which they live are less caustic, so it's not just the pig's welfare and the "pigness of the pig" at stake, but the way we use land and produce and manage pollution from it (as with, by contrast, CAFOs). I'm guessing the new and widely discussed Food, Inc. film has more info on just such a topic.

Plus, don't forget the provocative Our Daily Bread.

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Happy Bloomsday

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:00:00 -0500

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead on this day back in 1904. I'm many hours late noting it.

One favorite passage among many quoted below. Try to commit it to memory.

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Science Scouts Redux!

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 08:54:26 -0500

Just a quick heads up to let you know that the Science Scout website has been completely revamped. It's now capable of accepting comments (anecdotes) of why you feel particularly inclined to deserve certain badges.

As well, there are a few these new badges for you to peruse through:

And the start of an attempt to organize according to locale (separate Facebook group sites for individual cities - starting with Vancouver, New York, and London).

But here's the best bit of news...

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Making the perfect music mix: Song #5 has personal significance

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 08:18:32 -0500

Sorry this has been a bit delayed (for those following anyway).

Song 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

1. Waterfall - James
2. Wake Up - Arcade Fire
3. Never Had Nobody Like You - M Ward
4. No one is to blame - Emile Millar
5. Tournament of Hearts - The Weakerthans

O.K. this song by the Weakerthans is personal because I happened to have used it for my annual family video. Plus, it rocks!

Anyway, I make this family video every year which is essentially pieced together from short home movie clips, but it's cool now, because we actually have about 8 of them or so in total, which when strung together make a nice little 30 minutes of viewing.

Boy, do my kids ever grow up fast.

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An Open Letter to the Human Resources Department of the Superfriends (Wednesday's Reading)

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:18:59 -0500

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(Originally from here)

Dear Mr. Superman, Mr. Batman, Ms. Wonder Woman, and other esteemed do-gooders,

Although I have been waiting patiently for a few years in the hope that an advertisement would appear, I feel for the sake of my career that now is a good time to approach you. In essence, I am wondering whether you are, or will be, accepting any new members into your fine organization. More specifically, I am inquiring as to whether you need the services of a geneticist, since that is my particular field of expertise.

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Garbage, Waste, Consumption (Landscape and Modernity, Series 7)

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:00:00 -0500

A slow June at the Fair (see here for an explanation), but I'm popping in to share what constitutes a different sort of landscape image(s) below. Here's the first:

The Citarum River in Indonesia.

Here we have landscapes of garbage, scenes of environments overwhelmed with waste, with excess, with disposed and disposable items. The images are jarring to me, especially when defined as landscapes -- that these are visions of the terrain in which we live. Nobody would confuse these for wilderness pictures. In this case, the human contrivance is too obvious to warrant comment, though In prior entries into this Landscape and Modernity series the cases were more ambiguous.

I wrote in the last post in this series (about industrialized, workplace landscapes [6]) that I hope the images can be viewed as part of a larger question about the representation of nature and the environment (be it built by humans or not). I wonder how the current set fits that same appeal.

Because...at the same time, some of the coloring below is surprisingly striking. In a longer discourse, this post would press on the tensions inside the question 'what is beauty?' and then wonder about how we choose to highlight and laud certain images of our world while dismissing others. I don't say that because I applaud or rush to view rivers of garbage, but because I'm looking at these and being forced to think more about what counts as an acceptable landscape portrait.

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In London UK from June 21 to June 24th. Anyone game for a drink?

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 02:35:06 -0500

So, I'll soon be in London to attend the British Science Association's Science Communication Conference, as well as check in with some folks on possible sabbatical stints, and I'm wondering if there's anyone around who would be into having a beer.

This could even be in the guise of a Science Scout kind of thing, so maybe check into this Facebook page and leave a note if you're interested.

I'm always happy to talk science and education, especially if art comes into the mix as well. If you'd like to see the sort of stuff I'm involved with, you can check out my facility's website, or maybe check out this little article on the crazy things I do.

Anyway, here's to hoping the sound of crickets isn't too deafening!

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Beasts made from collages of one dollar bills.

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 10:33:01 -0500

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Crustaceans are a very large group of arthropods, comprising almost 52,000 described species, and are usually treated as a subphylum. They include various familiar animals, such as crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill and barnacles (from wiki). - - -

This collage art by Mark Wagner is pretty wild. As well, there's a great interview you can read at The Morning News.

I was making a lot of collage and artists books using Camel Cigarette packages. To a large extent it was the familiarity of the pack for people that made the work effective. That led me to the familiarity of the dollar bill. I started small with the bills. Bending strips of the bills became white noise so I started doing color separation. I like old, dirty crumpled bills, but I only use newer ones so the contrast between light and dark is more pronounced. Though I mostly use ones, I did cut up a $100 bill once because I needed Franklin's portrait. I've been working with currency now for eight years and I'm still discovering new ways to approach the material. It takes a lot of patience. When I first started making portraits I thought, "Oh, this is it." But then I saw a show of tapestries at The Met and realized I should go bigger.

Anyway, I've collected the ones he done on organisms in particular. He seems to like crustaceans in particular.

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Story about evolution and the bible is pretty funny, and maybe a touch risque?

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:43:21 -0500

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In botany, a pome (after the Latin name for fruit: pomum) is a type of fruit produced by flowering plants in the subfamily Maloideae of the family Rosaceae.(from wiki) - - -

Today at the Science Creative Quarterly we have this great story written by Matt McKenna.

For those of you unfamiliar with the SCQ, it's sort of a science web publication whose most mentioned comparison is the McSweeney's website (not a bad thing to be compared to, and to be honest, I quite like the site having the label, "McSweeney's for Sciencegeeks.")

Anyway, the SCQ has actually been on a bit of a pseudo hiatus this last year, since I'm sort of the head editor and was especially busy these past 9 or so months. So, it's always a treat for me when we have some new material to present - like the piece today.

It's curious, because since the SCQ also caters to the school community, I was initially a little hesitant in publishing today's piece. Still, admittedly, today's story is the sort of stuff I'd like to see more of, so do send on your work if you have any (SCQ's submissions guide can be viewed here).

In any event, I'll reprint Matt's piece for you here to enjoy (the rest below the fold):

- - -

GENESIS OF EVOLUTION

Adam and Eve, naked and not smart, sat somewhere in the Garden of Eden.

A snake slithered afoot. It said, "Tss, come gorge yourselves upon the forbidden fruit and escape from your self-incarceration in the prison of ignorance."

Adam and Eve looked at each other, shrugged, and started having sex.

The snake shook its head and took a pair of quick bites from Adam's and Eve's ass cheeks.

"Yow!" they yelled.

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Assorted Rays, Ranked According to Coolness (Wednesday's reading)

Wed, 27 May 2009 09:59:37 -0500

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(From MonkeyBicycle)

6. Ray Romano Is it just me or is this guy too funny? I mean, that thing he does with his TV mom and wife just cracks me up. Plus, he once made $50 million bucks in one season, which is totally cool, and is in no way the reason for putting him on this list. Too bad about the TV kid twins, though - I mean, what's up with their foreheads being so massive? It doesn't look natural.

5.
Cosmic Rays
These are the rays that gave the Fantastic Four their powers. But even cooler - in astrophysics, they are basically high-energy outer space particles that make their way to the Earth. How awesome is that! It's like they're all around all the time. Plus, I did some reading on them and found out that the most energetic recorded was 10^20 eV! I don't even know what an eV is, but its got to be pretty cool. Also, 10^20 is one big number - that's a one with 20 zeros behind it. Once in my car, I even tried counting to it, but only made it to 214. I think I could have made it all the way but True by Spandau Ballet came on the radio and I hate that song.

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Buckminsterfullerene: the song - it's dreamy.

Fri, 22 May 2009 09:42:15 -0500

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Thanks so much for all the great feedback with the Mitochondria song, and as promised, I picked a request from the comments for my next attempt at song writing. Specifically, this one:

That's right - we're talking about the Buckminsterfullerene!

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