Mysterious Symmetry between Destruction and Growth asked “How on earth does blowing stuff up violently constrain unrelated growth mechanisms? This is the mystery.”

Upon launch, there will be 32 picosatellites, all desperately trying to beam their messages to Earth. FCC frequency coordination and requirements are the next hurdle to solve for Project Calliope.

Calliope is an amateur mission so we play by amateur radio rules. Calliope is armed with a half-watt Radiometrix transmitter. I already have an FCC-issued amateur HAM radio technican-class license, but that is just the first step.

In the autism world, feel-good stories really don't come along all that long often, and heartwarming stories about severely impaired individuals all of a sudden speaking out in perfect English through the use of dedicated facilitators are uplifting stories. We want to believe that miracles happen, that geniuses exist inside nonverbal severely disabled people, just waiting for the chance to shine through the noble efforts of a selfless facilitator. 

Fisherfolk can be tremendous founts of information about marine animals. They know where to find different species, what sort of baits they like best, what sizes to expect, and how all these things change with the seasons. Smart marine biologists spend a lot of time talking with fishers and learning from them.

That said, fishers can sometimes draw rather curious conclusions from what they observe. Here's an excerpt from a recent article by well-known angler and fishing writer Charley Soares:

Some days I wonder if we were set up from the get-go to expect less, to hope for less, to dream of less. My son's prognosis was grim and bitter to the heart when he was a tender five. And yet here he is at 21 continually amazing us with the strides he makes.

The public perception of autism continues to be one of grim stereotypes. Certainly there is a sizable minority edging to the halfway mark of moderately to severely disabled autistic individuals; this appears to be what the general public pictures when they hear the word autism. Just as certain is that my three children aren't there; they aren't severely disabled, not now, but once upon a time, my son was much more severely impacted so that many standardized tests placed him in the first percentile.

I have recently dusted off an algorithm I had invented eight years ago, one I dubbed "Hyperball algorithm". It might come handy for predicting the b-tagging rate in CMS events with jets, for an analysis I am thinking of doing. Since saying more would violate a dozen rules so let's leave it at that, and let me instead describe the old idea... Just for fun.

Predictions for the Higgs at the Tevatron

Nares Ice Bridge Breakup

The ice bridge in Nares Strait at the Kane Basin outlet to Baffin Bay has begun to break up.

There was a plug of consolidated ice solidly wedged across the channel.  Consolidated ice is very strong in compression, but weak in tension, as I have noted in other articles, such as Bridges That Build Themselves.  From that article:

“Auntie”, better known as the BBC, has just treated us to a two-parter, Everything and Nothing, by Jim Al-Khalili.  He thoroughly knows his history of science, rather than treating it as an add-on, and delivers the significance of what he says without spoiling it through philosophy and vain deceit” [1].

The blurb says:

Why should technology not go on and accelerate like it has before? Why should humanoids not get ever brighter; why should democracy not grow until true communism emerges? Techno-progressives emanate an air of renegade radicalism. They like to accuse critics of not thinking things through sufficiently and stopping at the point best befit to rationalize beliefs.

Yet both, the critics and many proponents of technological enhancement alike agree on where to stop asking: a racist ‘we (I, humans, our planet) must survive and conquer’ plus lip-service toward a pseudo-democratic doctrine so comfortably ‘coincidentally’ at the helm as we speak. As bad as that may be regarding other issues, it turns into Jules Verne stories when discussing future.

Scientists are often portrayed as serious yet quirky, but many hide a prankish interior.  Here's a butcher's dozen of famous pranks by -- or at-- scientists.

The best lecture never heard.