Physics in its essence is real (or is it?)

Again this ain't the new hotness blog. You've been hip to the Large Hadron Rap for ages now. Aw, f'real, you ain't? You must take your day job too seriously or something. Peep this:

As Common put it down, Hip-Hop in its Essence is Real, and in my personal variation, Hip Hop in its Essence is Regional. Well, if you ever needed outlandish proof of that look no further than this particular H.E.R., Kate McAlpine. What could be realler than a particle physicist rapping about particle physics? OK, technically she's a writer for CERN, not a scientist, but they'd best give her any kind props she wants now. The video is phenomenally well done, and I like her flow, which is clearly influenced by early Golden Age of Hip-Hop (i.e. late 80s). Kinda Red Head Kingpin stylee.

Just as importantly, it may seem that particle physicists spend a lot of time fiddling on the margins of meaninglessness, but their work is very important (and as I've had to convince wifey, there are plenty of practical applications once we engineers get a hold of their work), and I'm encouraged to the extent that Kate's opus seems to be stirring more interest in the science, and not just in the science fiction possibility that the LHC will trigger judgment day. Big up, Kate! After all, as Old Dirty Bastard would say: Hadrons is for the children!

IOUNote redesign

I'm probably just slow to notice, but I do like the redesign of IOUnote, my friends' social Web site for tracking loans, favors and such between friends and family. In such a delicate area, a lot of lightness is important without losing usefulness, and I always figured that was a balance they'd nail. After all, they're both light spirits with a handy touch. And they lead like totally awesome mountain hikes.

Multi-process! Yes! (re: Google Chrome, BTW)

Public service announcement: OK this is not a meme replication space. I don't have time to be anyone's one-stop shop for anything. If, for example you haven't heard of Google Chrome, the new (today-like) open-source Web browser, this is not the place to learn about it. Believe me, mad peeps got it covered. Google works.

So, I got as far as checking out the Google Chrome advocacy comic (dammit, I hate over-achieving marketing departments), and I paused hard when I got to this panel:

Multi-process, not multi-threading? Oh yes yes yes I will YES! Threads suck. They such badly. It's about time someone led the insta-kit C.S. masses away from the edge of the spool of perdition, and dammit, if it has to be Google, so be it.

So now I'm even more up for trying Chrome than I was. I hope Google doesn't make me a punk as it sucks up my last CPU cycle, but hey, they do make a good comic. (On the real, I bet it will be good stuff, and I hope my boys at Mozilla are paying close attention) (Hey, but what about that "Mozilla chrome" technology?  Hmm.  Well, I bet Mozilla won't be looking the suga daddy Google gift horse in the mouth any time soon).