Andrew Jaffe: Leaves on the Line

I'm just the right age that Watergate was the formative political experience of my life: I don't really remember anything before it (except for a few hazy memories) and everything since has been tainted by it. Watergate, along with the debacle end of the Vietnam war (which I also remember, albeit mostly because they pre-empted Batman for the cease-fire ceremony), marked the true end of the 60s, although really those two events were their culmination. And, in some way, we have Mark Felt, just revealed by The Washington Post as Deep Throat, to thank for it. (Of course, hippy idealism gave way to the Me Decade, the Carter interregnum, and then the recently revalorized Reagan, not to mention Watergate reporter/hero Woodward sucking up to Bush II.)

Went to see the opening of Jem Finer's The Centre of the Universe in Oxford last night. Jem is the artist in residence in Oxford's Department of Astrophysics, and "The Centre of the Universe" is a homebrew radio telescope, built of telephone poles, scavenged wood and chicken-wire. Inspiration ranges from Babylonian ziggurats and Robert Smithson to his many discussions over the last 18 months with astrophysicists in Oxford and elsewhere. It works -- and it's beautiful.

We were entertained at the opening with excellent rock'n'roll from Big Eyed Beans from Venus including a self-penned rant on "Cosmology, Evolution and Kansas" from axeman Dan Hooper and drummer Lee Clewley.

I also got to talk about science and art with Ansuman Biswas, another artist who's flown on a magic carpet with Jem in the past, not to mention lots of other smart and cool projects. Ansuman, as well as astrophysicist, colleague and friend Pedro Ferreira, will be speaking in Oxford as part of the festivities surrounding The Centre of the Universe and O-Maps.

You can see Jem's own pictures here, and read about the trials of getting the telescope constructed elsewhere on his blog. And if you're in Oxford before June 17th, you can visit Jem while he operates the telescope -- and lives in its control center (aka a garden shed).

Some notes from my dinner with the bloggers and assorted hangers-on last night, hosted by Robert Scoble (who may think I've been stalking him at these gatherings, having shown up at one in New York last month) and Hugh MacLeod:

[Scoble, a cornfed American boy if ever there was one, notes tech differences between the US and UK, saying he's "seen no Macs since leaving the states". Actually, I've got one, as do many other astrophysicists -- we like the Unix back-end, combined with the fact that it "just works" in ways that Linux still, sadly, doesn't (broadband, wifi, MS office interoperability). Also, we think we're quite stylish, for scientists.]

Got to talk with Megan (a.k.a. Jane Galt), the brains behind Asymmetrical Information, chat with frequent dinner-attendees Barry and Rachel, and debate politics with Perry. Like Gia, I think I need to finally move to my own domain -- this one's a bit hard to pronounce (and has been subject to altogether too many outages of late). Lots of expat and visiting Americans, it seems. Apologies to the others I met -- and the dozens I didn't get to meet. Along the way, I seem to have promised to lead the bloggers through a powerpoint presentation on cosmology at some future event, in order to explain once and for all this picture, which is my mobile phone's wallpaper.

Apologies that I may have been a bit surly with Lloyd, who was recording the event for digital posterity.

Alas, despite promises of "pretty authentic" Mexican food, the fajita-ish slop, although plentiful, was bland -- Central and South American food is one of few cuisines that London seems yet to master. But it was nice to find a plentiful selection of US micro-brews like Anchor Steam alongside the Mexican stalwarts Dos Equis and Modelo.

Photos here (I'm the one in the loud shirt...).

In her comment on this post, Gia asks

I've got a domain name all ready to go, but I'm not sure my server at the University of Manc is the right place to host it... What is the deal at Imperial regarding 'personal' things on their servers...? At what point could your blog become an issue?

I don't do illegal things with my blog... but I aften enjoy a spot of Christian-bating... Which surely must be a required practice in any physics department... :)

As I briefly mentioned before, I've decided (like Gia) to license my words under the Creative Commons, (and I don't think I'm doing anything illegal, either, but I've happily baited some of the, um, crackpot voices in the so-called culture, with no real response). We do have a standard disclaimer, but I suppose I'd rather have more direct control of -- and responsibility for -- what I say.

So, on that note: can anyone recommend a good hosting solution? A good company for domain name registration?

A quick warning that the server on which this blog lives will be down from Friday evening through Monday morning (UK time). Have a nice weekend!

Here's a sort-of advertisement from Jem Finer to give you the opportunity to support his Longplayer project (and possibly win a trip to Brisbane). Vote early and often!

Update: I placed my bet on 3 hours, 7 minutes and 12 seconds...

And here are some movies and photos from Jem of his Centre of the Universe.

p.s. If you're reading this, you already know, but the server is back up...

Nancy Ellman's review of A Changed Man by Francine Prose opens with this charming summation of American culture:

American sentimentality may once have seemed endearing, but now we know it's just another instrument of evil. Every aspect of American culture has begun to stink of the grave. The pizzas and hamburgers: this is how world tyrants fuel themselves. The cars, the drugs, the music, the TV: this is how they distract themselves from their crimes. But how can they still think they're right about anything? Their children are deep-fried, drug-soaked numbskulls, the adults hapless lemmings in their SUVs, heading straight into the back-end of the American dream. Where is the guilt -- and where the apology?

I'm an American, and I certainly count myself among the lefty, progressive types, so I regularly find fault with, well, pretty much everything that our government does. And as an American I'm perhaps lacking an ear for extreme examples of British irony. But I'm pretty sure that she means this. This humorless, pessimistic view of the US ignores art and culture, ignores millions working hard every day to improve the lives of those around them and, yes, ignores the rare occasion of a former neo-Nazi actually changing for the better (the plot of Prose's book).

And "their crimes" -- by extension, my crimes? I had hoped we got rid of the notion of collective guilt along with those Nazis.

Please, tell me this really is a joke.

I've noticed a scary trend in the spam I've been receiving in the comments and trackbacks of this blog: they've started using plausible non-spam domains (businesses, organizations -- I'm not going to do their work for them by mentioning the names here) for obvious spam content (poker, drugs). This makes it hard to tell if I should blacklist the domains. Have they illegally taken over some machines? Cybersquatting? What if the organization ever gets the name back -- they'll be blacklisted everywhere. I guess I can't afford to be charitable -- into the reject pile they go.

The Village Voice has an article about academic blogs. And BlogScholar is attempting to organize the joyous but chaotic noise we make (but I'll wait to see how serious it is before I sign up).

Meanwhile, after a discussion of various models for academic publishing over on CosmoCoffee, moderator Antony Lewis has set up a possible portal for an Open Journal of Astrophysics and Cosmology. There are plenty of possible hitches, but allowing free (as in beer and as in freedom) access to research is an experiment we need to do.

Google now has satellite maps of the UK! (But the level of detail seems to depend on where you are.)

Here's where I work. The strange round thing just above is the Royal Albert Hall.