Friday, April 20, 2007

Odds and ends

I continue to make excuses of being too snowed under with work to blog extensively at the moment, and this excuse holds for the time being. The projects are moving in the right direction, and there's plenty else going on besides. I'll be writing my talk 'Three paths from AdS to QCD' over the next week or so which I'll be presenting at a workshop in May.

I'll be working until late this evening before going to a concert by Elliott Sharp, at D22, which should be a lot of fun. If anyone picks up on this and enjoys experimental electronica/jazz then come along to see a classic, if not strictly classical, composer.

On an aside-aside, I have The Amon Tobin mix of the Chris Morris 'Bad Sex' track whirling around in my head, which is as intense as it is strange. Amon Tobin is one of my favourite artists and together with the tangential world view of Chris Morris, this is bound to produce something warped and fascinating. Again, if you like your music slightly rough and a little experimental then look out for this track.

Sonic Youth tickets have been booked for Monday which should also be superb and tomorrow the artWALK Beijing event starts at Dashanzi at 5.30.

A random cooking challenge for anyone interested in the new science of flavour pairings: Take a look at this molecular gastronomy blog to find out more.

Flip Tomato continues to give well written accounts of his journey into particle physics, this week discussing chirality, soon to be followed by a posting on orbifolds.

From a 2003 talk by Weinberg comes four golden lessons for theoretical physicists. This article deserves more discussion but, time, etc...the review at the bottom of the linked page is depressing (particularly in relation to points 3 and 4) and, in my opinion not a healthy way to go into theoretical physics. If you're going in with these sort of thoughts, you're probably not in the right game, IMHO.

If you're a fan of internet radio, for instance Pandora, then take a look at this petition which is attempting to stop the possible change in licensing fees which will cripple many of these sites.

Finally, a call for advice. My camera is on its last legs, which is a slightly better state than my ipod now finds itself. I'm seriously considering investing in a digital SLR and the Canon 400D (also known as the Digital Rebel XTi) seems my best bet. If anyone has any invaluable advice on this I'd appreciate the extra input, all reviews I've seen have been pretty good.

4 comments:

Luca said...

Hey Jon,
looking forward to read your comments on Sharp's concert. If you like his music, I'd strongly suggest his last CD 'Sharp plays Monk' (I think it's called 'Sharp? Monk? Sharp! Monk!' or something like that:) it's an amazing album!

Luca said...

Two comments on the same blog only minutes away from one another-- This is what happens when I comment while reading ...

Anyway about the camera. I'm not a big fan of Canon, and think Nikon lenses are far better than Canon. Also ergonomics and construction are better IMHO. On the same price range I'd suggest Nikon D80: it looks like a really nice camera.

Here http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond80/page21.asp a side-to-side comparison between the two.

If you don't own any Canon lenses, the decision is based on personal tastes and so the best would be to go to a shop and try both and see how they feel in your hand. (If you do have Canon lenses, well in this case there's no much of a choice.)

Unknown said...

Hi Luca, I'll be writing something about Sharp's concert when I get a moment.

I'd had a look at that comparison previously and had really been scared off the Nikon by the price tag. Though they're clearly in the same class, the Nikon comes in at about an extra $400 dollars, once you've bought similar accessories. You're not the first person who has told me I should consider the Nikon instead, so I will bear it in mind.

Many thanks for the advice,

J

Anonymous said...

Wow, the internet is the ultimate "pirate radio" setting. I sure would hate to see this get ruined :(
Matt