CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2013-05-17 11:34:44 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

If you enjoy literary games, then here's one for you. How many independent reasons can you count for Scott Aaronson to explode with anger when reading the following article? I've got to three, but I think there are probably more. (If you don't read Scott's blog then (i) you won't have any idea what I'm talking about and (ii) you should.)

2013-04-26 17:09:59 (10 comments, 0 reshares, 11 +1s)

Inspired by the architecture images of artists like +Tom McLaughlan, +Lauren Moss and +Klaus-Peter Kubik, I spent the most of a day walking around with a zoom lens in Shinjuku last time I visited Tokyo.
I tried to see the buildings as mere geometric objects and to extract from them some interesting combinations of lines, surfaces, light and shades in the
#ministract  style.

West Shinjuku is a fantastic place for this kind of photography - no matter which direction you point the camera, you will find tall, uniform structures just begging to be zoomed into. At some point I will try this in Copenhagen, but it might require some more creativity to find similar patterns here.

2013-04-23 11:00:17 (5 comments, 1 reshares, 7 +1s)

No, this picture isn't computer generated. It's a photo of New York-based graphic designer and artist Mike Doyle's latest piece, titled Contact 1, which employs over 200,000 Lego bricks and took him over 600 hours to build. More pics: http://blog.makezine.com/2013/04/22/200000-piece-lego-sci-fi-jaw-dropper/

2013-04-22 11:08:33 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Damn, I need to get out and do some timelapse videos again soon. It's been too long.

Not that I would have any chance of doing anything as grand as these New Zealand clips by +Bevan Percival, but there's just something very satisfying about spending a couple or several hours with the camera clicking away, hoping that the series of photos will not be interrupted by bad weather or someone stepping in front of the camera, and to see it all come together as a video afterwards on the computer.

2013-04-19 15:32:35 (18 comments, 2 reshares, 10 +1s)

Did you ever wonder how you should go about amplifying your kittens?
If so, look no further than our latest paper, out now on a publisher's website or an arXiv near you!

In the paper, primarily written by Amine Laghaout, we evaluate how large cats you can make by smashing a couple of odd kittens together on a semi-transparent mirror. If no feline substance appears on one side of the mirror (as confirmed by a wave detector), the two kittens will have coalesced into a single, bigger cat.
It turns out that the process works reasonably well for cats up to a size of about 1.5, and if you have more kittens to start with, you can repeat the process and obtain even larger cats.

That was just a short abstract of the paper. Did I forget to mention that everything takes place on laser beams?

Amplification of realistic Schrödinger-cat-state-like states by homodyne... more »

2013-04-17 13:42:30 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

My train gets pretty packed after #5 Yokohama.

2013-04-16 17:50:10 (5 comments, 2 reshares, 5 +1s)

A pair of LEGO 3x2 bricks from the 70's retain their clutch power until they've been joined and separated 37112 times!

A lot of maker-LEGO-science-nerdy goodness in here. 

► Roughly halfway through the test: http://youtu.be/TNj5kqwFNM0
► +Phillipe Cantin's blog post about his experiment: http://phillipecantin.blogspot.ca/2013/02/legos-magic-number-is-37112.html?m=1

via +Arduino and +Christiaan Klein Lebbink: http://arduino.cc/blog/2013/04/16/lego-stress-test-magic-number/

2013-04-15 21:38:14 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

Just backed this graphic novel Kickstarter project - and brought it across the funding goal. It's still on its first day.

It's basically a comic based on characters from Jonathan Coulton songs. I hardly know him or his work, but it seems he's quite an Internet phenomenon  - so I bet a bunch of you are fans of his?

I do know the drawing artist, Tak, who's a great guy and a fantastic artist.

Have a peep - it looks fun!

2013-04-14 13:53:07 (11 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

So, a follow-up on my rant yesterday about Canon region-locking their printers and ink:

After talking to Canon Japan customer support and getting the expected "ah, we're so sorry, but printers bought in country X can only be used with ink from X - that's how it is and there's nothing we can do about it and we cannot comment on any rumours you found on the internet that it's possible to change the printer's region code bla bla bla", we found that the least painful solution to get us back up printing and scanning would be to buy a new all-in-one printer.

So, we have spent around 150 € on useless ink and we will throw out a perfectly good top-of-the-range all-in-one-printer and replace it with an essentially similar machine. What a waste!! 
But this time it will be an Epson. They're most likely scamming their customers just as much as Canon withth... more »

2013-04-13 19:29:37 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 8 +1s)

Aarrggghhhh

So, apparently Canon region-locks their printers. Which I only found out after   buying first two sets of 6 ink cartridges from an unofficial brand, then - when the printer didn't accept them - spending 90 € on a similar Canon-branded set. Those were also not accepted - because a printer bought in Japan (or in North America) apparently is coded not to use ink bought in Europe. Why???

So now we have three useless sets of colour ink worth more than the price of a new printer. But we can't even buy a new printer for them since newer models apparently take different types of cartridges.
Grrr... damn you Canon! (although I bet they're no worse than all the other manufacturers ripping us off with ridiculously overpriced ink).

2013-04-11 05:20:38 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

Precision engineering!

2013-04-10 13:58:31 (6 comments, 1 reshares, 9 +1s)

Why do trains turn in corners? Nope, it's not the flanges on the wheels — and yes, up until this video with Richard Feynman I thought it was. The explanation is simpler and more ingenious.

2013-03-22 10:25:56 (6 comments, 1 reshares, 7 +1s)

A scathing (but entertaining) criticism of quantum optics experiments that teaches us nothing new.

The rant is highly area-specific (quantum information with optics), so for 99% of you it is irrelevant - but for the remaining 1%, my colleagues in the field, it is a timely wakeup-call: Are we really spending our effort and money in a good way by (sometimes) performing experiments for which the outcome is perfectly well known in advance?
While I love my field of research and believe that it will lead to important insight and technologies, I have often felt somewhat demotivated by the fact that our experiments are so well-controlled that it is often quite easy to calculate or simulate their results. Notwithstanding the technical prowess required to perform such experiments, are they then really necessary? Do they provide us any new knowledge?

I am not saying such futile experimental... more »

2013-03-13 05:52:16 (18 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)

Street photography: it's all about getting close [however you can]

There is this mantra among street photographers of 'get close'. I totally agree with them.....

...and here's my interpretation of that 'rule'.

The shot on the left was made with the 500mm Nikon you see on the right.

We did a little street shooting that afternoon and were later joined by a friend of mine who came out to model for us whilst we shot some street fashion.

Big thanks to Remi Farvaque for the lens, who was in Japan for the fashion workshop I ran in Kyushu. He stuck around for a few days afterwards, in Tokyo, and a bunch of us had some fun with his wonderful 500mm f/4 VR lens.

Some days you just gotta go big! :-)

Using this lens is like travelling in time.. you get to shoot people 5mins before they... more »

2013-03-11 16:41:28 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 8 +1s)

Two years ago today at 14:46, the Tohoku earthquake struck. In remembering that strange and terrible day, I looked up my tweets from then (sorry about the swearing, but I found it rather appropriate):

14:54 Shit, crazy-ass big earthquake...
14:55 afterquake!
14:58 gakuranman Still shaking in Tokyo? It's pretty much stopped here in Chubu
14:59@gakuranman Second aftershake now
15:10 My birthday today - is this supposed to mean good luck?
15:11 I hope everyone is safe - especially up in Miyagi! I fear bad things...
15:22 Fuck, huge tsunami!
15:23 Tsunami live on NHK: http://www.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/
15:30 TokyoCooney I've just counted the 3rd aftershock. My goldfish Kenji is taking this slot more casually than I am.
15:35@TokyoCooney I lost counts of afterquakes, but... more »

2013-03-05 09:42:28 (12 comments, 1 reshares, 10 +1s)

From Leopold the Able to Louis the Young
Wikipedia´s list of monarchs by nickname.

The 3 most common nicknames are the Wise, the Good and the Crowned. But there are also far weirder nicknames, here are some of the more outlandish:

Ivaylo The Cabbage
A former peasant who became Tsar of Bulgaria, his rule lasted a year.

Crazy Otto of Bavaria
King Otto spent his entire "reign" in a mental institution, having last appeared in public a decade before his coronation.

Władysław the Elbow-high
This King of Poland was simply short.

Ivan the Moneybag
Used the wealth of Moscow to buy surrounding lands, and extended lucrative loans to other principalities.

Duarte o Eloquente
Wrote books on counselorship and horse riding, as well as poetry.
htt... more »

2013-03-01 16:30:37 (6 comments, 1 reshares, 4 +1s)

LEGO is expensive, no doubt about that - but is it really more expensive now than it was in the good old days? Sometimes it seems like it.
This nice little study says no, though.

2013-02-18 18:06:13 (9 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)

I was away from Denmark from 2008 to 2011. During that period, Noma grew to fame - and with it came wave after wave of cooking trends/fads associated with its New Nordic paradigm, among fine restaurants as well as in private homes.
I could mostly follow it from afar, but it was very clear when I moved back home that in culinary terms it was a radically changed country.

2013-01-31 17:36:56 (7 comments, 2 reshares, 12 +1s)

If only π were 3, mapmakers would have an easy time portraying Earth on a flat surface. Instead, every mapping from a sphere to a plane requires some projection that preserves some aspects of the sphere while distorting others.  

There are many projections for mapmakers to choose from, but the most common is the Mercator projection, also known as "Boy Do We Love Greenland". Googler +Luke Mahe created a snappy Mercator puzzle at https://gmaps-samples.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/poly/puzzledrag.html which Research at Google spent an enjoyable ten minutes solving. All you have to do is move the countries around until they match, but since the Mercator projection distorts size based on latitude, it's not as easy as it seems... 

2013-01-31 12:36:27 (18 comments, 2 reshares, 15 +1s)

I've always been tinkering with Windows and installing loads of FOSS programs, and I often considered switching to Linux as my primary OS, but for some reason I've held back and only used it now and then. Until now - last week I needed to do a full reinstall of my work desktop, so I decided to set up Ubuntu while at it. And I haven't looked back since then... now I'm just trying to understand what took me so long!

Overall, working in Ubuntu is a much smoother experience than in Windows. And there are so many sweet little touches and functionalities. The latest I found was the totally transparent integration of FTP servers into the Nautilus file manager. I like CyberDuck for FTP'ing on Windows, but this is just so much more convenient.

Looking forward to discovering much more like this.

2013-01-31 06:39:56 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 6 +1s)

Good morning!
Here's a good evening from Wellington which is also a perfect beginning to a new, busy day.

Shot by +Mark Gee, via +PetaPixel http://goo.gl/8VZKu

2013-01-28 12:01:53 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 10 +1s)

In a famous letter to the king of Syracuse, Archimedes estimates the number of grains of sand you could fit in the universe. He gives 10^63 as an upper bound.  But first he shows that he can talk about much bigger numbers.  It's been called the first expository math paper!

The Greeks had a pretty bad system for naming numbers.  The largest number for which they had a name was a myriad, or ten thousand.  But Archimedes instantly goes up to a myriad myriads, or

10^8

He calls these numbers of the first order. 

He calls numbers from 10^8 to 10^16 numbers of the second order...

... and so on, until he gets to numbers of the myriad myriadth order, which go up to

P = (10^8)^(10^8)

Then he says numbers from 1 to P form the first period.  Numbers from P to P^2 form the second period...... more »

2013-01-21 17:38:06 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

User Experience: Less Interactivity  
I'm tempted to turn sharing and commenting off on this post so that you, dear reader, do not feel obligated to respond.

This is one of the most sensible things I've read lately. If only it weren't from the Onion, maybe social media and website designers would take it more seriously.

From the article. "Tired of being bombarded with constant requests to share content on social media, bestow ratings, leave comments, and generally 'join in on the discussion,' the nation’s Internet users demanded substantially less interactivity this week."

"Speaking with reporters, web users expressed a near unanimous desire to visit a website and simply look at it, for once, without having every aspect of the user interface tailored to a set of demographic information culled from their previous browsinghi... more »

2013-01-20 21:51:17 (12 comments, 2 reshares, 19 +1s)

Rigan woods

2013-01-19 20:42:47 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 10 +1s)

Last weekend I went to Riga to join my wife who was there for business training. We visited the rather impressive Riga Motormuzejs which houses a large collection of ordinary, luxury and sports cars as well as fire engines, lorries and other special vehicles from throughout the 20th century. One of the most interesting of the exhibited cars was this Auto-Union Type C/D, a German race car specially designed for mountain racing. Its 6 litre V16 engine would apparently allow for a top speed of up to 340 km/h - pretty amazing for a 1938 car!
According to Wikipedia, this is the only remaining exemplar of this particular model, with another four exemplars of different Auto-Union race car models remaining.

http://www.motormuzejs.lv/pub/index.php?lang=eng&id=247
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_Union_racing_car

2013-01-18 21:38:06 (4 comments, 2 reshares, 5 +1s)

http://emckiernan.wordpress.com/2013/01/18/a-great-exercise-in-science-communication/

2013-01-18 12:08:28 (1 comments, 2 reshares, 11 +1s)

I’ve seen the Gowers’s Weblog all over my stream lately, and I thought this was something getting attention only in my own filter-bubble-version of the Internet, but apparently not. The absurdity of our current situation struck me when I left academia many years ago and realized I could no longer get access to any articles, without using my contacts at the university, even though I had the most amazing tool for finding information on my desk at home. It was as if the articles I wanted to read were too hot and valuable for commoners. #openaccess  

2013-01-16 22:25:13 (5 comments, 1 reshares, 32 +1s)

Crisp

With -15° at night and only few clouds, the morning today was stunning. These twigs had received a healthy dose of ice crystal tufts.

2013-01-16 21:37:35 (8 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

I have just put up a short post about a new initiative -- a platform that is due to come online in April -- that will, if successful, make it easy to set up arXiv overlay journals. I think it stands out from other, similar-sounding initiatives because it seems to have serious institutional back-up and funding and is intended specifically for mathematicians (in the first instance at least). I'm keen for its existence to be as widely known as possible, so as to maximize its chances of becoming part of the publishing landscape for mathematicians. It may even double up as a post-publication review site, but many details are yet to be worked out. It is called the Episciences project.

The title of the post is a reference to my previous post, which is called "Why I've joined the bad guys."

2013-01-16 11:17:12 (6 comments, 3 reshares, 7 +1s)

Domino physics

2013-01-15 07:56:07 (0 comments, 3 reshares, 22 +1s)

Aaron Swartz via goo.gl/8Ia2G

2013-01-10 21:01:21 (12 comments, 1 reshares, 13 +1s)

I will be off tomorrow morning for an extended weekend in Riga, which I'm really looking forward to explore.

Just hoping it won't be too cold - we're going to see Aida at the National Opera (pictured), but I'm a bit worried about the dress code. I will wear my nicest jeans, shirt and sweater since it will be too cold to walk around in [whatever the dress you're supposed to wear at the opera is called] - hopefully that will be good enough :)

Until next week, dear Plussers - jūs redzēt uz tikšanos!
(any Latvian speakers who can tell me if this is correct?)

Photo from http://www.balticadventure.com/en/countries/latvia/what-to-see-5nfq.html

2013-01-10 16:44:45 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 4 +1s)

Ah, this is a great idea for my next funding application!

Piled Higher and Deeper ► http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1548

2013-01-08 23:27:04 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 5 +1s)

We've put together a supercut of the best moments from Qualcomm's keynote, so you can experience the madness one more time.

2013-01-08 17:54:37 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 8 +1s)

It's hard to find blogging time with the new term starting this week, but it's worth scrambling a little to address last week's paper on a "negative temperature" system of atoms. This is short on experimental details-- really, it's just an explanation of the meaning of "negative temperature"-- but there have been enough misleading headlines about this that it's important to clarify.

2013-01-07 09:27:58 (28 comments, 82 reshares, 117 +1s)

An elegant visualization of the quantum double slit experiment.

One among several other nice, short videos and texts on the exceptionally beautiful website
Quantum Made Simple ► http://www.toutestquantique.fr/# 
by Julien Bobroff from l'Université Paris Sud ► http://hebergement.u-psud.fr/bobroff/index_en.html

Found via the Dancing Physicist ► http://www.dancingphysicist.com/a-levitating-eiffel-tower/

#scienceeveryday  

2013-01-07 07:32:54 (2 comments, 2 reshares, 8 +1s)

Boom! Third generation of LEGO Mindstorms announced.

Techcrunch has video:
http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/06/lego-mindstorms-ev3-the-better-faster-stronger-generation-of-robotic-programming/

2013-01-06 21:58:35 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 13 +1s)

Black Menu v2.0
I'm happy to announce this update. Why not start 2013 with a new update? :)
This update includes a bunch of features you guys requested. 

The google+ page is totally redesigned, and now includes the google+ notifications screen, and you can create a post right inside black menu.
The Gmail page is also fully redesigned, now containing an almost full featured gmail inbox!
But there is more. You can now define which news sections should be displayed on the news page. You can even open black menu in a panel.

I would like to thanks everyone who helped me with this update, you can find them in the "thanks to" section of the about page. Thank you guys!

Developing black menu cost me a lot of time, If you want to support me, you can donate via paypal:more »

2013-01-05 21:03:30 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 0 +1s)

A pretty darn interesting typographic map by Martin Elmer, condensing each country's history into a single word. A lot of war in Europe, a lot of colonialism in Africa and the Americas.

via +FlowingData http://goo.gl/1B44Q

2013-01-05 15:04:37 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

Concentration and the Myth of Multitasking  
Of late my attention has been fractured. I find that I cannot do one thing without thinking of half a dozen others. I begin and am distracted. My mind meanders. My thoughts wander. I cannot settle. Unsettled I become more restless and so accomplish nothing.

The tools I use to work have become less of the solution and more of the problem because they constantly interrupt my work with their demanding notifications. Particularly and specifically the integration of Google+ into the rest of the Googleverse means that I can't check my mail or do a search or have a chat window open with my remote office without the constant distraction of the red notification box. Only Google Docs provides a haven.

In order to work, I'm forced to reclaim my desktop, to drop out of the cloud and put my feet on the firmer ground of my desktop... more »

2013-01-04 20:29:55 (16 comments, 3 reshares, 3 +1s)

You have to watch this amazing Lego machine http://vrge.co/137Kpip

2013-01-03 14:19:30 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 12 +1s)

The path of least resistance. I wanted to do an Arduino-based project, but ended up with this. Taken with Nikon D90 and Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 D. Processed in +digiKam #potd

#EuropeanPhotography  +European Photo 
+Janusz Brakoniecki +Jean-Louis LAURENCE +Manuella Betaille +Michael Muraz +Susanne Ramharter

2013-01-02 22:06:57 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

Likely of interest to quantum computing people who are following me: Ignacio Cirac and Peter Zoller just won the Wolf Prize.  Excellent choice.

2013-01-02 10:26:11 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Happy New Year!   Time for some fun!

When you roll a ball on another ball whose radius is exactly 3 times as big, amazing things happen.  The math turns out to be related to special relativity in a universe with 3 time dimensions and 4 space dimensions!  And points in this universe can be seen as 'split octonions'.  

Huh?   Well, the ordinary octonions are a number system with 7 square roots of -1.  They play an important - though neglected - role in string theory.   But the split octonions are a number system with 3 square roots of -1 and 4 square roots of +1.   It's weird and exciting that they show up in a fairly simple physics problem: a ball rolling on another ball.  So, I want to explain it as nicely as possible.  Today I'll start by setting the stage and getting you in the mood.  No math knowledge needed! 

Next time - wham! -I'll blast y... more »

2013-01-01 22:09:40 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Eric Idle rewrites Monty Python’s “Galaxy Song”   #scienceeveryday  

To celebrate the wonders of biology, and weirdness of life on Earth. Professor Brian Cox examines the story of life through physics in a major new series for BBC Two - Wonders of Life.

2013-01-01 19:15:22 (11 comments, 0 reshares, 13 +1s)

Dec 31, 2012 #creative366project  

That's that!

As the minifigs are enjoying their new year party, changing 2012 into 2013, I am signing off the +Creative 366 Project with the final, 366th entry.

Creating one image every day throughout 2012 has been a highly personally rewarding experience. I have given much more thought to my photography than I would otherwise have done, and I now have an album of 366 images - many of which I would never have considered taking - that I can look back at as gallery of 2012. I am not completely sure, but I think I have also become somewhat better at seeing, shooting and processing photographs and learned something about my own strengths and weaknesses.
However, it was also a huge challenge. Particularly in the last quarter of the year, I was often struggling with a serious lack of inspiration, and more often than not I endedu... more »

2012-12-31 13:37:01 (9 comments, 0 reshares, 11 +1s)

Apr 22, 2012 #creative366project  

The most remote spots

This map shows all villages, towns and cities of Denmark with more than 200 inhabitants. The red spots are sized according to each place's population, and behind each red spot is a blue disk of 10 km radius. As a result of this, one can see that there are seemingly only three locations in Denmark (apart from tiny islands) that are more than 10 kilometres from the nearest larger village: Anholt (the island in the middle of the sea), Helgenæs (the peninsula right in the middle of the map), and the Northern tip of Rømø, the South-western island. Two other very thinly populated areas are the Northern-most and Western-most tips of the country.

I started creating this map on April 22 and intended it to be my +Creative 366 Project entry for that day. I was inspired by an article in a daily newspaper, wherethe ... more »

2012-12-31 12:58:09 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Nov 16-18, 2012 #creative366project  

Hamburg

One more hole in my series of daily +Creative 366 Project images is now filled out. Here are three photos from Hamburg, that we visited in mid-November.
From the port, from the St. Michaelis church, and from Miniatur Wunderland.

2012-12-31 09:31:37 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Dec 30, 2012 #creative366project  

Time is running out

2012-12-30 21:34:34 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

Dec 29, 2012 #creative366project  

So many shades of brown

 - that's not exactly how they're meant to be, right?
I did my first ever home roasting of green coffee beans yesterday, incited by +TERRY TITSWORTH and +Jan Moren on this post: http://goo.gl/hDBEx
They came out very unevenly roasted, but it was a fun experience, and the coffee wasn't half bad - just a little on the tame side. In the next round I will try to shake the beans around some more.