Partially Attended

an irregularly updated blog by Ian Mulvany

14 Jul 2008

The fruitcakes have a talking form

14 Jul 2008

The Laboratory Website and Video Awards

Attila Csordas sent along links about these awards, looks nice, http://www.the-scientist.com/lawva/ and a blog link about them: http://pimm.wordpress.com/2007/10/09/the-laboratory-website-and-video-awards-by-the-scientist tags: science ... (more)

14 Jul 2008

Tips for switching from Windows to Mac

I've written up the short answers to some questions that you might have if this is the first time to use a mac, read through this and if you followthe suggestions you should have the hang to the system pretty quickly. If it turns out you don't like it, then at least you will have made an informeddecision! -- Where is the right mouse button? This is the biggest obvious first difference. ... (more)

14 Jul 2008

Today at lunch duplicators and instantiators

I work at a pretty innovative place and the discussions that we have atlunch time are pretty mind bending. The last time I can recall having somany interesting discussions over lunch and breaks was way back when I wasin my first undergraduate degree, but the topics of conversation that tendto come up at my current place of employment are really worth trying torecord. Today we started off having a couple of split conversation, Euan describingchatting to Martha at Sci-Foo and Euan and I talking about Euler, as you do. ... (more)

14 Jul 2008

Weddings make you fat

I just got back from a wedding and bier festival thing in Munich. I've been tracking my weight on and off for the past year and a half with the ultimate goal of getting back to my climbing fit weight of about 80kgs. From the graph below you can see the spike that was caused by the extertions at the wedding! (OK, in the vox rendering you can't really see the spike on the right hand side of the graph, but if you are bothered then click through and you'll see the original graph. ... (more)

14 Jul 2008

weekend grill

I visited my girlfriend in Germany this weekend, and her father wascelebrating his 60th birthday. A friend of his arranged a full wild boarfrom the German forests. The spit it and slow cooked it for 7 hours, ittasted amazing. I can quite see why Asterix and friends got so excited aboutthis. 13102007410.jpg 13102007409.jpg ... (more)

14 Jul 2008

Why do all of the science fiction authors have all of the really good ideas already?

My friend Gavin has been increasingly interested in the singularity, wherebythe quiddity of humanness is uploaded into a computer, to reside there. Ithink the definition of the singularity has something to do reaching themoment where the boundary between a human individual entity and thetechnology that surrounds them becomes transparent, or disappearsaltogether. It struck me this weekend that if you can upload an intelligence , a person,a being, a soul, into a peice of technology, then you would probably beliving at a moment when technology was advanced enough to be able to build abody from the amino acid's up. ... (more)

29 Jun 2006

Volvox

“Volvox”:img:img:http://www.mulvany.net/photo/blogPics/volvox The very first thing to die on it’s own, without the intervention of an outside agent, was an organism called Volvox. The first life that we know of whose cells perish from old age, rather than misfortune. Before humble Volvox all other living things would go on forever, the immortal bacteria, the barely describable virus. Volvox introduced death by natural causes to the world, and all living things that came after that were as complex, or more so, followed suit, and found programmed within them some pace maker, set to expire after they had done their duty on the earth. ... (more)

26 Jun 2006

Economics and The New World Order,

Economics and The New World Order, I had a rather detailed and engaging conversation on Friday night with a couple of good friends of mine about Economics, and it's explanatory power. My friend Brain holds that economics explains everything, except perhaps for the laws of physics. Now I am also tempted to buy into his arguments, he is quite a persuasive fellow, however I intrinsically feel some caution in doing so, and I have been trying to figure out why. ... (more)

26 Jun 2006

Economics and The New World Order,

Economics and The New World Order, I had a rather detailed and engaging conversation on Friday night with a couple of good friends of mine about Economics, and it's explanatory power. My friend Brain holds that economics explains everything, except perhaps for the laws of physics. Now I am also tempted to buy into his arguments, he is quite a persuasive fellow, however I intrinsically feel some caution in doing so, and I have been trying to figure out why. ... (more)