Yup just like the title says. I'm going to try and take a picture of each of the beers I drink on my trip. Not for any particular reason, just cause it seems a neat framing device. Feel free to follow my descent into alcohol fueled debauchery at:

http://www.unspeakablearms.com/home/brenden-s-great-beer-adventure

Spelling likely will not be checked nor will quality be aimed at or maintained. But, there will be pictures of beer.

Coming to the northwest this spring it's Slouch!

A mad scientist loose in the land of fine tea, unholy donuts, and many of my homies.

I will be in Seattle, from the 10th to the 14th
In Portland from the 14th till the 19th
And in Vancouver from the 19th to the 23rd
finally flying out of Seattle on the 24th.

Come on come all... well maybe not that but do let me know where I should be boozing in the land of ports.

Merry Christmas, Yummy yule, Slammin Saturnalia, Holy Tentacle Day... etc.

I've mentioned graphene before, it's single atom thick carbon. While it's not quite ready for primetime in the computer industry, it is a fantastic tool for seeing all sorts of entertaining phenomenon. For example, electrons moving in graphene act as if they have no mass. They move like photons! Graphene is also a material in which really odd quantum effects can be seen in room temperature systems. For example, the interger and fractional quantum hall effect have both been seen at room temperature in graphene. Which is awesome, where else are you going to see transmission in fractions of an electron at room temperature, ok I at least think it is god be-damned awesome.

The nifty thing is a lot of serious science is starting to get put onto youtube as a way of both promoting one's self, one's group, and one's technique as well as a way for far flung collaborators to show each other what they are doing now. So, I'm including in this post a link for making your own 1 atom thick graphene at home. Some of the equipment is tricky to get a hold of but some of it is surprisingly pedestrian as you will see.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rphiCdR68TE

Ps: Groups that make this stuff all have favorite brands of scotch tape. I wonder if 3M would be willing to sponsor a group that uses their tape and gives them thank you's in their papers. Perhaps with free tape for the life of the sponsored PI. That's like 40 or 50 dollars of pure value.

Yes, that's it a message of celebration for one of our creepiest and most artificial holidays.

Oddly though the holiday itself is kinda awesome even if the history of it is odd.

Hell on Wheels, a documentary about the formation of the current incarnation of roller derby is on netflix and I recommend it. No matter if you could care less about roller derby this is an amazing documentary. Because, the guy filming it was at every meeting taking footage and has documented in painful detail about how clubs can fuck it all up. Never have I seen so clearly a record of a small club growing fast and going wrong. All the drama that so many of us have seen in the cam, SCA, RPGA, etc is filmed here. Watching it I spent so much of it sickly fascinated wincing in advance as I watched the people on the screen make the same mistakes I've seen so many times and made a few times myself.

One of the things that I really wondered about after watching this is: has there been much research in how clubs work? I know there are understood ways to run a business but what about a LARP? It seems like there are problems that always come up and social dynamics that always occur. Have these been studied academically?

TED lectures are awesome! If I were more diligent I'd swear off TV till I'd seen them all. Also, lecture from Ted are awesome, when you start a lecture series let me know. But, this lecture is about types of tribes and the way they are described and sorted is really useful.

http://www.ted.com/talks/david_logan_on_tribal_leadership.html

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24193/#comments

Enterprising technical types now can use your wi-fi to spy on where you are in your house. Well not quite, but I'm sure that if we'd seen this back in the day we'd have used it in game. I miss my old Sabbat pack.

I really enjoy the arXiv blog, the blog that covers things in the pre-print archive for physics journals. Yes, we have an archive of things that have yet to be printed. Yes, we use a time machine for that. No, you can not borrow our time machine. The last time we loaned it out someone got drunk in it and then killed Hitler. Actually, every time we loan it out that happens. So, no more borrowing of the time machine. I apologize in advance.

Now on the the meaty things. Recently in arXiv this was posted:

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24124/#comments

As with anything amusing and controversy provoking the more extravegant claims are likely crap.
Let me sum thing up for people who didn't read the link. The kinds of errors people make around conjunctive and dysjunctive probabilities maps better onto the kind of treatment of probability used in quantum mechanics than in classical mechanics. The differences between these two is subtle and in general not significant as it comes to the kind of formalism used in the math with the quantum kind being a little looser in some ways than the classical kind. Also, it's useful to note that this is merely the same kind of math not a direct analog between say quantum and classical physics. And yet, it is neat to think that some of our fuck ups in reasoning suggest that something non-classical is happening in how we think. Though really that way lies SF, sciences current way of placing a label that says "here be dragons" on a weird and unlikely side road of thought.

http://eternal-earthbound-pets.com/

Posted for the amusement and edification of everyone on my flist. Also I'm thinking of starting a Florida franchise.