I found this on the IBM jobs web page. Fairly standard job offer, apart from a slight oddity in the second paragraph.
I’m going to assume that this doesn’t mean what I think it means. Does this have some other sort of meaning in the computer industry, or in government contracting?
To all those of you who may not see me in the next two weeks: Yes, I’m still alive. We’ve just got a major workshop going on where I work (with a few dozen scientists from around the world showing up) and so I’m going to be spending almost all of my time in the lab for the next week and a half or so. I am not avoiding you.
And I will try to make it to Buffy night tonight nonetheless.
Totals for the day:
43 applications.
31 to the United States
3 to Canada
3 to Israel
6 to various places in Europe
Tomorrow: The post office.
So I just gave a talk to my research group about my latest paper, and they seemed to like it. For a group as hard-to-please (and quick to pounce) as this one, that’s no minor thing.
Woohoo! I get decent recommendation letters when hunting for postdocs!
Well, that’s it… my paper is finally up on the web, available to the public, now with its very own preprint number, hep-th/0210175. It’s funny, it didn’t feel like it was really sent out until now… there’s just something about seeing my name on the daily papers list that just amplifies the reality.
OK, now to go submit it to a journal…
Updated: And it’s off… submitted to Physical Review D. Plus got to talk on the phone with my father, which is always good.
Wow.
After way too many months of work, I just sent my latest paper up to the archive. (Not accessible to the public yet; it’ll be available starting Sunday night)
The basic result:
In string theory (type IIA string theory, to be precise) there exist certain higher-dimensional objects called D-branes, whose important dynamical property is that strings (the basic objects of the theory) can end on them. (Normally strings are little closed loops; there can also be open loops if the ends are on these D-branes. Closed strings behave like gravitons, open strings behave like photons and gluons and other force particles, and their endpoints on the D-brane behave like matter particles such as electrons and quarks) In type IIA string theory, these exist in even-dimensional variants: There are point particles (D0-branes, 0-dimensional) membranes (2-d) and so on up to 8-dimensional branes.
It’s been known for some time that certain collections of D0-branes can form a membrane: because of their interactions (imagine strings stretched from one D0-brane to another) they develop a tension, and fluctuate like a single membrane. This membrane is known to be the same as the D2-brane. (So you can think of a D2-brane as a bound state of a bunch of D0-branes)
My research was examining the most general configuration that can show up as a bound state of (infinitely many) D0-branes. The answer turns out to be that all of the ordinary branes (Dp-branes for p even) can be thought of as bound states of D0-branes. In addition to these, there seem to exist “exotic” branes which don’t fall into this usual category: Strings can end on them (like ordinary D-branes) but they have more complicated dynamics, their shapes being described by noncommutative geometry. (Which is kinda hard to explain – think of the points of space “fuzzing out” into patches in an irreducible way)
And, after something like 9 months on this, it’s finally ready to go. Submission to a journal (Phys. Rev. D) for peer review the moment it’s up on the web…
Yipee!
Well, on the subject of weekend postmortems… I can’t quite feel the boundary between yesterday and today, but that’s mostly because I just did another 6-hours-in-the-lab stint. The last one of the year! Yipee!
(Random discovery: The easiest way to adjust an old-fashioned spectrometer is to hyperventilate yourself, put your hands so that they grab the tube but cover your eyes so that you can’t see anything but the lens, and hold your breath for a few minutes while you move parts around by very gently tapping on the sides of the damned thing.
I think that a strict Freudian could find some interesting interpretation of that, apart from acute frustration at this machinery)
This has just been an incredibly busy weekend. Friday was the Gangrel outing to the woods, organized by darklingrose. No role-playing whatsoever materialized, but I’m kinda glad about that — there was something just wonderful about both running around in the woods and having to do so in a somewhat covert manner, sprinting from shadow to shadow and keeping low to the ground. It would have been spoiled by having to be in some character, especially one who wouldn’t have enjoyed it nearly as much as I did.
(Confession: I’m basically some sort of woodland creature.)
The weekend itself: My first con. Yes, I’ve officially been devirginized. And I had quite a good time, which is probably closely correlated to not having any particular expectations for what was to happen. (Well, also aided by the fact that there were a lot of people there that I wanted to see, and none that I wanted to avoid — though there was one person I briefly mistook for an ex) High points: time spent of several sorts with jrpseudonym and tyrsalvia, and roaming conversations (at separate times) with Hans and merovingian. The lecture on the Templars was also particularly good.
Monday: The Experimental Baklava(TM), and the BBQ at Autumn’s. Conclusions on these:
(Pause in the writing: There was just a noise outside my window like a cat being grabbed away by a large bird. I have no idea what that was. It sounds like an omen of something, although its interpretation I leave to others)
Autumn’s party: Good stuff. Small gatherings are best, and the conversation was much more interesting than it can ever be at a larger affair. Even though, as some others have mentioned, toilet humor was still a significant part thereof. Felt revived rather than wiped out afterwards, which is not my normal response to a party.
The Experimental Baklava(TM): Needs work, but I think I now know enough that the next one will be better. That will be a very long time from now, though, because I can still smell boiling honey if I close my eyes.
Yonatan Zunger’s Blog 