Monthly Archives: May 2009

Invisibility physics: can charged particles self-oscillate?

Posted on May 31, 2009 by

Time to return to my long-delayed series of posts on the history of invisibility physics!  The first two posts were: Acceleration without radiation (1910), describing Ehrenfest’s arguments suggesting acceleration without radiation could be possible, Schott’s radiationless orbits (1933), describing G.A. … Continue reading →

Posted in Invisibility, Physics | 5 Comments

Valancourt takes a stand against Proposition 8!

Posted on May 29, 2009 by

Valancourt Books, once again justifying why they’re one of my favorite small publishers, issued a press release in support of gay marriage following the California Supreme Court’s  disappointing ruling upholding Prop. 8: To that end, from now until the end … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics | 1 Comment

“Sherlock Holmes” is a real film? Really?

Posted on May 27, 2009 by

I’ve known for a while that a new version of Sherlock Holmes, starring Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes and Jude Law as Watson, has been in the works.  Via The Little Professor, I finally got to see the trailer: WTF?  … Continue reading →

Posted in ... the Hell?, Entertainment | 11 Comments

Henry Kuttner’s Thunder Jim Wade

Posted on May 26, 2009 by

Any time I see a book with Henry Kuttner‘s name on it, I pay attention –  Kuttner was a masterful author who wrote some true classics of science fiction and fantasy, including one of my favorite stories of all time, … Continue reading →

Posted in Adventure fiction, Robert E. Howard | 2 Comments

The National Naval Aviation Museum and a cute optical illusion

Posted on May 25, 2009 by

Bleah!  I’m back from my trip to the Flora-bama area, but didn’t make any jumps — we were essentially weathered out Friday and Saturday, and by Sunday I’d had enough.  Most of my jump friends had already bailed, and though … Continue reading →

Posted in Optics, Travel | Leave a comment

Another short hiatus!

Posted on May 20, 2009 by

I hate to have to do this so soon after my honeymoon break, but I’ll likely be going silent for a few days over the Memorial Day weekend:  if the weather is good, I’ll be skydiving at the Florida/Alabama border … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal | Leave a comment

What does negative refraction LOOK like?

Posted on May 19, 2009 by

My friend Personal Demon recently forwarded me an article that deals with a rather cute idea: Photorealistic ray tracing aids understanding of metamaterials.  “Metamaterials” may be described roughly as materials with a man-made structure on the scale of nanometers which … Continue reading →

Posted in Optics | 6 Comments

Dollhouse survives to season 2!

Posted on May 16, 2009 by

Tonight the wife and I finally got around to watching the season finale of Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse, which we had DVR’ed while out on the honeymoon.  It was actually a quite nice episode, and introduced a few nice twists I … Continue reading →

Posted in Entertainment | 8 Comments

The Giant’s Shoulders #11 is up!

Posted on May 16, 2009 by

The eleventh edition of The Giant’s Shoulders is up at Curving Normality!  Many thanks to Rense for assembling it! The deadline for the next edition is June 15th, and it will be hosted at The Secret of Newton.

Posted in General science, Science news | 2 Comments

William Beckford’s Vathek

Posted on May 14, 2009 by

I’ve been working my way through a number of weird fiction tales that weird fiction writer and enthusiast H.P. Lovecraft was fond of.  Vathek, by William Beckford (1760-1844), is the type of story I find nearly irresistible: a proud, arrogant … Continue reading →

Posted in Horror, Lovecraft | 3 Comments