There is a talk coming up on Monday featuring one of the world’s leading thinkers about the mathematical structure of data. I highly encourage checking this out, as the talk should be aimed at a general audience (though with some serious math sprinkled in). The Shape of Data Gunnar Carlsson, Department of Mathematics, Stanford UniversityContinue reading “The Shape of Data”
Category Archives: Lagniappe
Pale Blue Dot
Yesterday, the Cassini spacecraft turned its camera back to earth in an attempt to capture an image of Earth through Saturn’s vast rings. The shot is a tribute to Voyager 1’s famous photograph of Earth as a “pale blue dot” set against a vast and empty sky. Of course, the term “pale blue dot” was coined byContinue reading “Pale Blue Dot”
Project Loon
Seriously. Sometimes Google just makes me smile. “Google to use balloons to provide free Internet access to remote or poor areas“
And now for something completely different …
Today I began my one month foray into Academic Advising. Rather than picking up a summer teaching course, I decided to step out of the academic cocoon that is the math department to see what else is going on around the university. It turns out there’s quite a bit. UF’s Preview program has been recognized asContinue reading “And now for something completely different …”
Nolapalooza, 2013
Last night at Chelsea’s Cafe in Baton Rouge, the Barefoot Pedals Foundation hosted our second annual celebration of the life and legacy of a dear friend, Jeff Nola. As before, the feature event was a fantastic show by Questionable at Best, a band that Jeff formerly played with featuring fellow Barefoot Pedals board member BenContinue reading “Nolapalooza, 2013”
Here is today
I’m always a sucker for websites that try to express the relative scales of things. Today’s feature: “Here is today.”
238,900 miles … for now
NPR’s Radiolab came in with a wonderful birthday present this week. This week’s podcast is a brilliant reading of one of my favorite short stories: The Distance of the Moon by Italo Calvino. If you’ve got a 30+ minute drive coming up, I highly recommend you download it here and take a listen! Yes, theContinue reading “238,900 miles … for now”
Of coffee rings and ballistic deposition
A friend mine shared a gorgeous video show how coffee rings form at a microscopic level. Apparently he found the video through a impressive blog called Empirical Zeal that’s maintained by a Physics grad student. The blog post, entitled “The Universal laws behind growth patterns, or what Tetris can teach us about coffee stains,” doesContinue reading “Of coffee rings and ballistic deposition”
In celebration of pi
If you happen to be in a bar and you need to quickly calculate , head over to a dartboard. Draw a square that perfectly encloses the dartboard. (The length of its sides should be equal to the dartboard’s diameter.) Start throwing darts randomly at the square. If you manage to distribute the darts uniformlyContinue reading “In celebration of pi”
Stardust
Maybe it’s the recent flyby (and impact) that has space on people’s minds, but here are a couple of worthy links, but the sentiments one of my personal inspirations, Carl Sagan, seem to be popping up all over. This morning for example, I read over at Brainpickings that there is a kids’ book out thatContinue reading “Stardust”
Scott A McKinley 