A Recovering Physicist

I stumbled across a very cool effect caused by CSS and the ability of a browser (in this case, Firefox) to do text layout in realtime. The original link was http://valleywag.com/tech/numa-numa/ but it has come & gone out of 404-land for a while now. I have attempted, with mixed success, to reproduce in the continuation of the post the weird behavior as I first saw it.    ‣ more...

Here's a service I developed and delivered at the First Parish Church of Groton, Unitarian Universalist, on 2006-08-20 (link opens in a new window). It is based on the book The View From the Center of the Universe by Joel Primack and Nancy Abrams.

Note [2009-12-10]: see added information at the bottom.

Claim: a retired Methodist minister wrote the piece circulating in the blogosphere under the title “The 23rd Qualm,” which begins:

  Bush is my shepherd; I dwell in want. 
  He maketh logs to be cut down in national forests. 
  He leadeth trucks into the still wilderness. 
  He restoreth my fears. 
  He leadeth me down paths of international disgrace
    for his ego’s sake.
 ...

Status: false.

On March 26, 2004, the New Hampshire Gazette ran the earliest version I have found that ridiculed George W. Bush. It was a letter to the editor by liberal activist Brad Carr. The Gazette commented that the rant had been around since the Hoover years.    ‣ more...

Sometime during my early formative years I decided that the Newtonian view of space & time must be the correct one — not realizing until years later that this view had been obsolete among practicing physicists for nearly half a century.    ‣ more…