Virginia G. McDavid
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Author Archives: gmcdavid
The Hipster Effect
The Mathematical Reason All Hipsters Look the Same
Citing The hipster effect: When anticonformists all look the same
When hipsters are too slow in detecting the trends, they will keep making the same choices and therefore remain correlated as time goes by, while their trend evolves in time as a periodic function.
Forty years ago today
…two different research groups announced the discovery of the same new particle and redefined how physicists view the universe.
Nobel Vintage
Fundamental Physics Prize Co-Winner Sells No Wine Before Its Time
Brian Schmidt is the world’s only vintner with a Nobel Prize in physics, specializing in pinot noir because the climate and soil (or terroir) is especially well suited for that varietal. He and is wife own a four-star winery called Maipenrai (Thai for “It’s all right”) in Sutton, New South Wales, near Canberra.
Stoics: Myth and Reality
Clothes Dryer
"You got a tumble dryer? That's nice. My dryer is powered by NUCLEAR FUSION." pic.twitter.com/HLHU2hlrgm
— Katie Mack (@AstroKatie) November 8, 2014
Virginia Glenn McDavid. 1926-2014
Rest in peace, Mom.
Monday Night Irish Class, November 3, 2014
Irish Class, November 3, 2014
Rang Gaeilge, 3 lá Mí na Samhna 2014
October 27 was an all-class session. I had to pretend I was a wise elder.
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Fadas: áéíóúÁÉÍÓÚ
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CRÚBA NA CINNIÚNA
le Áine Uí Fhoghlú
Caibidil 1: Eachtra san Oíche
Fascism and capital punishment
Mussolini’s Secret Weapon: Castor Oil is an interesting sidelight on history. It includes something in particular for modern Americans to think about:
In the years from the March of Rome, 1922 to Italy’s foolish entry into WW2 10 June 1940 sixty five men were executed in Fascist Italy (there were also a dozen or so extra legal killings). In modern Texas (with a population over half the size of 1930s Italy) twenty to thirty individuals are executed a year.
From Hilbert Space to Dilbert Space, and beyond 