To start 2009 with a tidy desk, I wish to put some order in the posts about particle physics I wrote in 2008. By collecting a few links here, I save from oblivion the most meaningful of them -or at least I make them just a bit more accessible. In due time, I will update the “physics made easy&...

One of the many good things of being on vacation is that I find the time for light reading. No, not novels - those take too much time! I mean books that, in a way or another, have something to do with my job, but have nonetheless rested on a waiting list for months. One such book, which accompanied ...

The Tevatron experiments CDF and D0 have been producing more and more precise measurements of the top quark mass in the last few years, in an impressive display of technique, inventiveness, and completeness. The top quark mass, one of the fundamental parameters of the Standard Model, is now known wi...

"Quark Strikes Back" reads the dramatic headline on the cover of  MacUser magazine (6 June 2008) It says: "We didn't expect to feel like this, XPress 8 seems like a product that will get people excited about DTP once more." A few years ago the canteen at Quark HQ in Denver had one dish on its menu ...

Did you remember to read last week’s interview with Shoemoney? This season’s last interview is with Fake Steve Jobs. Most people know Steve Jobs (creator of the iPhone), but not everybody read Steve Job’s secret blog/diary. Some say it’s not written by Steve Jobs himself, but...

Last night's menu in my household: Chorizo scramble, Japanese beer and Korean short films. It's these combinations that I live for. Employing a mixture of Dosbox and sheer ingenuity, I managed last night to install and play Origin's System Shock, arguably one of the finest PC games ever, on my moder...

I made more progress on this puzzle than on any Polymath I've attempted so far, which isn't saying much. 1A. The Rake's Progress. Somehow this opera escaped me when I studied Stravinsky in college.10A. Brandt, as in Willy Brandt11A. Pegmatites. I looked high and low for various kinds of igneous rock...