Tag Archives: science

Things I Learned this Week

Among the things I learned this week:
* Historically, New England Roast meant a light roasted coffee. (Courtesy: Coffee Review)

* Starting with World War I and then because of the revolution, scientific research journals didn’t reach Russia again until 1921. (Courtesy: Ron Cowen’s Gravity’s Century).

* Bitflipping due to extraterrestrial causes. (Courtesy: ZS)


Things I Learned this Week

Among the things I learned this week:
* UC Davis has a coffee center and engineering class (Courtesy: ZS). Grades are dependent on the quality of the cup of coffee students produce and the amount of energy used (pdf) to make that cup. Scoring the quality of the cup is done using this scale: “The coffee will be judged in a blind taste test by a panel of your peers on a scale of -10 to 55 (where -10 is the worst cup of coffee in the history of mankind, and 55 is nirvana in a cup.)”

* I’m capable of missing an entire season of Ft. Reno. (Courtesy: Personal experience)

* Blue Bottle is selling pre-ground coffee, and in a very software way. (Courtesy: Personal experience)

Scientastic!

The title is a reference to a museum in Brussels, where I recently visited. I failed in both visiting the museum and taking a photo of the museum’s numerous signs (although maybe ZS can come through for me on the latter).

In any event, during my trip I visited several art museums, some of which had significant collections of religious-related works. Many of these are beautiful and impressive, but I began thinking about how/why science seems to be so uninspiring and yields few works of art, or a creative movement dedicated to it.

While thinking about this, I came to feel foolish for not recognizing everything around us, all of which is a result of (some degree of) the scientific method. This includes planes, trains, and automobiles, as well as the materials, processes, and preservation of the religious artwork I saw during my trip (Note: The NGA also has an excellent collection of religious artwork).

At the same time, I felt that science deserved works that fit within the traditionally conceived framework of art. And, in Brussels, I found it: Atomium.