A restaurant in China, anticipating the Olympic influx of Anglophone visitors, ran its name through a computer translator and put up a large sign with the results:
Not your first choice for dinner
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Author Archives: gmcdavid
Robots
A fascinating video, but you might not want to watch it just before bedtime.
Via The Bad Astronomer, who commented:
….it’s definitely quadrupedal and incredibly life-like in its reaction to such things as a broad kick, a hill, and a slippery surface.
And that buzzing noise! If they want to terrorize a small town, they should paste fly wings on it and let it loose. Pitchforks and torches would follow quickly.
Family on the ‘Net again
Right Angle turns, by one of my father’s old students.
Via Máire.
Beannachtaí na Lúnasa daoibh!
(Lugnasadh/August blessings to you!)
The Personalities of Physics
From Physical Theories as Women:
Newtonian gravity is your high-school girlfriend. As your first encounter with physics, she’s amazing. You will never forget Newtonian gravity, even if you’re not in touch very much anymore.
[….]
2. Special relativity is the girl you meet at the dorm party while you’re dating electrodynamics. You make out. It’s not really cheating because it’s not like you call her back. But you have a sneaking suspicion she knows electrodynamics and told her everything.
[…]
8. String theory is off in her own little world. She is either profound or insane. If you start dating, you never see your friends anymore. It’s just string theory, 24/7.
However, Physical Theories as Men is more elaborate, funnier and geekier:
0. Newtonian gravity is that guy you had a crush on in high school…. To paraphrase Whistler, the helpful demon from Buffy (Season 2): “Newtonian gravity is like dating a nun. You’re never gonna get the good stuff.” You suspect he may have been gay.
[….]
2. Special Relativity …. length contraction has clearly taken its toll.
[….]
7. String Theory is the sensitive, complex emo guy with an impossibly brilliant mind and lots of emotional problems. …. He constantly complains that nobody understands him, and he’s right….
[….]
Anything else would be a medical breakthrough!
Liquid Medicine?
Silver Lining
Back at apheresis
I made another platelet donation at the Minneapolis Red Cross today, for the first time since May. They went back to the vein I have used for 35 years of blood donations (almost exactly–I first donated at Stanford in the summer of 1973) and were able to complete the procedure. In fact, I was able to donate two units. There was some trouble with the needle at the beginning and the end, but it was mostly painless and I managed to nap for an hour in the middle of it.
From Hilbert Space to Dilbert Space, and beyond 