I’ve made a short video teaser for my upcoming talk at the IPY2012 conference in Montreal. Check it out! [It took me all day to find the right combination of tools to produce this simple video in Linux! First I tried making it as a presentation in OpenOffice Impress, exporting that as a swf video […]

What is the Plejalejence? I’ve been thinking about it recently and I would guess that very few students even understand the words they are made to say every morning, much less believe them. I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands: one nation, […]

Dear Eric: Thank you for contacting me regarding the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act, HR 6845. I appreciate the time you took to write. This legislation would prevent the Federal Government from requiring the transfer of intellectual property rights from researchers expressly in cases where there are non-federal financial or other contributions made toward […]

Apparently I am the last person on earth to have become acquainted with the … Airplane on the … Treadmill problem, which is often stated thus: "Imagine a plane is sitting on a massive conveyor belt, as wide and as long as a runway. The conveyer belt is designed to exactly match the speed of […]