Tweet Of The Town

Water-cooler talk on world affairs and share our excitement on

(1) Did you read that?
(2) Did you know that?
(3) Did you see that?

(4) You won't believe what is making waves on telly.
(5) You cannot miss this twitterati gong.
(6) You should quit what you are doing and check this out.

(7) No way!
(8) Incredible!
(9) That's gross!

10) Lastly, anything that embodies the psyche, spirit and eccentricity of the egians.

 

Egians,

I want to bring to your attention The Information Philosopher. I've been reading entries in that compendium in the past few days. The contributor starts with definition of information and branches off into information structure , information processors, thermodynamic equilibrium, philosophical and scientific paradoxes, entropy, matter, energy , conservation laws, Big Bang, Gödel, Laplace, Boltzman, Einstein, Quanta, Shannon, John von Neumann, Leo Szilard, Schrödinger, and the beast Quantum Mechanics.

The home page is massive that it took me 2 hours to read. I've never come across such an engaging rundown of scientific philosophy. I love the uncomplicated style of listing core concepts to an average audience that serves as a handy reference of various scientific disciplines and notations out there. The site is neatly organised.

In the about page, I came across the main contributor Bob Doyle.

Bob Doyle earned a Ph.D in Astrophysics from Harvard and is now an Associate in the Harvard Astronomy Department. He holds several patents and is the inventor of a number of computer games, including Parker Brothers Merlin (1978). Bob wrote the first desktop publishing program, MacPublisher, in 1984 for the then new Macintosh computer.
Bob spent much of his life building tools to "help communities communicate." He "puts the means of production in the hands of the people," not as Karl Marx imagined by nationalizing them, but by making them affordable, even free and "open source."

Furthermore, in his own words,

Information Philosophy (I-Phi) is a new philosophical method grounded in science, especially modern physics, biology, neuroscience, and the science of information. It offers novel solutions to classical problems in philosophy, notably freedom of the will, the objective foundation of values, and the problem of knowledge (epistemology).

Sharing my find here if anyone is interested.

 

Have you heard the Voyager Golden Records (in entirety)? Here's some cheerful news as kickstarter for nasa voyager recording

According to the article,

"Isn’t it funny?” recalled Timothy Ferris, a science writer who produced the original record. “It hasn’t been heard by any aliens yet, and it hasn’t hardly been heard by humans.”

The article also reprinted the letters exchanged between Carl Sagan and NASA when the former inquired if he and John Casani could procure a copy of Voyager recording as memento. Such appalling bureaucracy that the claim was rejected.

Coming to the reissue, it will not be on gold-plated copper disk but vinyl-recorded. Easy on the wallet!

 

Google (in Indian jurisdiction) can officially vote, drink and wed Twitter today
Why? Hurray! Google is eighteen today.

Amidst the confusion around the date (star birthday or registered birthday), Google has released its 18th birthday doodle.

 

They introduce themselves as "a small team of like minded people who want to make science look beautiful"
They not only make science look beautiful but irresistibly attractive with their animations.


Here is Kurzgesagt (which means "in a nutshell" in German)

One of my favourite videos from the web tutorials is

 

Elon Musk has grand plans. It looks accelerated on paper.

(1) Today — Falcon 9 is booster/rocket/launch vehicle; Dragon is spacecraft
(2) 2025 — Raptor is launch vehicle; ITS spacecraft (both combine to form Interplanetary Transport System)

If using current technology it takes nine months to reach Mars, I am just thinking what is that technology envisioned for these raptor engines to make it in 80 days (and eventually 30 days) by 2025. There are no big players apart from United Launch Alliance. There is no arms race. I don't know what the Chinese and Russians are upto this time. Last I heard they is such distrust between the nations over Long March and China Great Wall Industry Corporation.

Oh! And I hope the recent Falcon 9 explosion does not dampen any of these plans. I wish he succeeds.
I shall break the piggy bank in which KV is collecting funds for my education and buy a seat beside you.

Babe, let's shell out few more quid and grab the window seat even if it's on premium. Mars, here we come!