Hi all,
I’ve been busy– but I have noticed the site outages have not decreased. So, I:
- Upgraded the hosting plan. (I now pay $16/month instead of $8. Not a big deal, but I think it’s needed to permit the level of comments I get.)
- Removed a few plugins– including the popular editing features. (This may come back soon.)
The upgrade happened about 3 hours ago. Let me know if you have trouble posting. Otherwise– open thread.
What were the seven day average JAXA minimum bets? I’m pretty sure it reached minimum a few days ago.
Lucia,
Who would be in line to win the Patchy Wagering if he goes soon?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11395194
Andrew
I’ll have to check both those! 🙂
A belated comment to the physicist issue. I became a physicist because I don’t like to deal with complicated, difficult issues. Physics is simple and it suits simple-minded people. If you like complexity, you go into biology, medicine, climatology, whatever.
The trade-off is to not assume that you can venture into other fields and solve their problems, even though you know that you have the tools to solve any problem, just as long as it can be adequately reduced to a simple model. Adequate and simple are the operative words.
This comment is shocking in its humility and insight. I would only add that, contrary to the self-deprecating remark about simple-minded people, the simplicity of physics and other very exact sciences rewards those that can think very deeply, very exactly, and with tremendous concentration.
Being in one of the professions mentioned, I can say that while it is necessary to like complexity, it is also necessary to be accepting of the fact that whatever intelligence you have to bring to bear on a problem will often be totally frustrated by the ambiguity, uncertainty, and maddening incompleteness and untrustworthiness of the data — not even the data to solve the problem, but even to articulate the problem in the first place.
First-rate intelligences are often, I think, drawn to physics and other hard sciences because that is where their outstanding tool set finds its widest application. In medicine . . . I’m not even sure I’d describe the ideal doctor as intelligent. Cunning, that’s more what I strive for.
Disclaimer: Yes, I am killing time before I tee off later. But Robert mentioned cunning and whenever I hear the word ‘cunning’, I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes in all of literature. I hope you guys appreciate it as much as I always do.
“The rabbits became strange in many ways, different from other rabbits. They knew well enough what was happening. But even to themselves they pretended that all was well, for the food was good, they were protected, they had nothing to fear but the one fear; and that struck here and there, never enough at a time to drive them away. They forgot the ways of wild rabbits. They forgot El-ahrairah, for what use had they for tricks and cunning, living in the enemy’s warren and paying his price?”
Andrew
Lucia:
I think there is still a problem with “moderation queue” related to the update. I posted two messages on “Physicist” thread about 4 hours ago. They still do not show to public, only to my computer of origin, with remark:
“Thank you for your comment! It has been added to the moderation queue and will be published here if approved by the webmaster.”
Could you please check the queue?
Thanks.
Hi Al–
Your comments were hung up. Now that I upgraded the service, I’m monitoring. I think I’m still going to be in a situation where I sometimes have downtime, but not as much. I also just blocked an IP on “ThePlanet.com” which was connecting and sucking up 100* the memory of the next higher user. I’m also adjusting the robot.txt file.