Physicists Aim to Classify All Possible Phases of Matter | Quanta Magazine

Bookmarked Physicists Aim to Classify All Possible Phases of Matter by Natalie WolchoverNatalie Wolchover (Quanta Magazine)
A complete classification could lead to a wealth of new materials and technologies. But some exotic phases continue to resist understanding.

🔖 [1801.06022] Reconstruction Codes for DNA Sequences with Uniform Tandem-Duplication Errors | arXiv

Bookmarked Reconstruction Codes for DNA Sequences with Uniform Tandem-Duplication Errors by Yonatan Yehezkeally and Moshe Schwartz (arxiv.org)
DNA as a data storage medium has several advantages, including far greater data density compared to electronic media. We propose that schemes for data storage in the DNA of living organisms may benefit from studying the reconstruction problem, which is applicable whenever multiple reads of noisy data are available. This strategy is uniquely suited to the medium, which inherently replicates stored data in multiple distinct ways, caused by mutations. We consider noise introduced solely by uniform tandem-duplication, and utilize the relation to constant-weight integer codes in the Manhattan metric. By bounding the intersection of the cross-polytope with hyperplanes, we prove the existence of reconstruction codes with greater capacity than known error-correcting codes, which we can determine analytically for any set of parameters.

🔖 Pods Framework

Bookmarked Pods Framework (Pods Framework)
The Pods Framework is an open-source, GPLv2+ licensed PHP project released on October 8th, 2008. The goal was to create an interface and PHP codebase to easily create, extend, and manage content types within WordPress. While the normal WordPress content architecture is limited to the built-in tables, a primary feature of Pods allows you to base content types off of their own custom tables designed around each content types’ needs. The Pods Framework allows an ordinary user or developer to easily create and extend custom post types, content types, taxonomies, users, media, or comments — helping you keep your content organized and speed up the development of your project. Pods starts as a blank slate, as most frameworks do. The control is put into the hands of the developer to mould it into what is needed, without the fluff. Much of Pods’ functionality is coupled with a UI for easy administration, however, there are large portions of the codebase that can be optionally used for advanced implementations or specific project needs. You control everything while Pods Framework does the behind-the-scenes heavy lifting.

Bret Victor, beast of burden

Bookmarked Bret Victor, beast of burden by Bret Victor (worrydream.com)
Bret Victor has been provided by the management for your protection.
This is awesome looking website. The transitions between pages are quite lovely and not the same as everything else out there.

I love what happens when you click on the tagline under the site name multiple times. Then keep on clicking… be careful though.

Why More Linear Algebra? by David Austin

Bookmarked Why More Linear Algebra? by David Austin (More Linear Algebra)
The main purpose of this blog is to share updates about the open-access, open-source textbook Understanding Linear Algebra. Though work is continuing on this project, the HTML version of the text is now freely available, the forthcoming PDF version will also be free, and low-cost print options will be provided. The PreTeXt source code will be posted on GitHub as well.
h/t Robert Talbert

🔖 Nonlinear Dynamics 1 & 2: Geometry of Chaos by Predrag Cvitanovic

Bookmarked Nonlinear Dynamics 1 & 2: Geometry of Chaos by Predrag CvitanovicPredrag Cvitanovic (Georgia Institute of Technology)
The theory developed here (that you will not find in any other course :) has much in common with (and complements) statistical mechanics and field theory courses; partition functions and transfer operators are applied to computation of observables and spectra of chaotic systems. Nonlinear dynamics 1: Geometry of chaos (see syllabus) Topology of flows - how to enumerate orbits, Smale horseshoes Dynamics, quantitative - periodic orbits, local stability Role of symmetries in dynamics Nonlinear dynamics 2: Chaos rules (see syllabus) Transfer operators - statistical distributions in dynamics Spectroscopy of chaotic systems Dynamical zeta functions Dynamical theory of turbulence The course, which covers the same material and the same exercises as the Georgia Tech course PHYS 7224, is in part an advanced seminar in nonlinear dynamics, aimed at PhD students, postdoctoral fellows and advanced undergraduates in physics, mathematics, chemistry and engineering.
An interesting looking online course that appears to be on a white-labeled Coursera platform.

I’ve come across Predrag Cvitanovic’s work on Group Theory and Lie Groups before, so this portends some interesting work. I’ll have to see if I can carve out some time to sample some of it.

🔖 Indivisible.blue: WordPress hosting for the #resistance

Bookmarked Indivisible.blue: WordPress hosting for the #resistance (Indivisible Network)
The Quick Pitch ✓ You want to #resist the reckless, corrupt, and destructive agenda of the Trump Administration and the GOP Congress. ✓ You found or heard about the Indivisible Guide and the groundswell movement it’s igniting, and you’ve started to organize with like-minded citizens in you...
This is certainly an interesting use of WordPress

The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, 15th Anniversary Edition: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread by Peter Reinhart

Bookmarked The Bread Baker's Apprentice, 15th Anniversary Edition: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread: Peter Reinhart: 9781607748656: Amazon.com: Books by Peter ReinhartPeter Reinhart (Tenspeed Press)
Co-founder of the legendary Brother Juniper’s Bakery, author of ten landmark bread books, and distinguished instructor at the world’s largest culinary academy, Peter Reinhart has been a leader in America’s artisanal bread movement for more than thirty years. Never one to be content with yesterday’s baking triumph, however, Peter continues to refine his recipes and techniques in his never-ending quest for extraordinary bread. In this new edition of the award-winning and best-selling The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, Peter shares bread breakthroughs arising from his study in France’s famed boulangeries and the always-enlightening time spent in the culinary college kitchen with his students. Peer over Peter’s shoulder as he learns from Paris’s most esteemed bakers, like Lionel Poilâne and Phillippe Gosselin, whose pain à l’ancienne has revolutionized the art of baguette making. Then stand alongside his students in the kitchen as Peter teaches the classic twelve stages of building bread, his clear instructions accompanied by more than 100 step-by-step photographs. You’ll put newfound knowledge into practice with fifty master formulas for such classic breads as rustic ciabatta, hearty pain de campagne, old-school New York bagels, and the book’s Holy Grail—Peter’s version of the famed pain à l’ancienne, as well as three all-new formulas. En route, Peter distills hard science, advanced techniques, and food history into a remarkably accessible and engaging resource that is as rich and multitextured as the loaves you’ll turn out. In this revised edition, he adds metrics and temperature conversion charts, incorporates comprehensive baker’s percentages into the recipes, and updates methods throughout. This is original food writing at its most captivating, teaching at its most inspired and inspiring—and the rewards are some of the best breads under the sun.

Energy and Civilization: A History by Vaclav Smil

Bookmarked Energy and Civilization: A History by Vaclav SmilVaclav Smil (MIT Press)
Energy is the only universal currency; it is necessary for getting anything done. The conversion of energy on Earth ranges from terra-forming forces of plate tectonics to cumulative erosive effects of raindrops. Life on Earth depends on the photosynthetic conversion of solar energy into plant biomass. Humans have come to rely on many more energy flows -- ranging from fossil fuels to photovoltaic generation of electricity -- for their civilized existence. In this monumental history, Vaclav Smil provides a comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel--driven civilization. Humans are the only species that can systematically harness energies outside their bodies, using the power of their intellect and an enormous variety of artifacts -- from the simplest tools to internal combustion engines and nuclear reactors. The epochal transition to fossil fuels affected everything: agriculture, industry, transportation, weapons, communication, economics, urbanization, quality of life, politics, and the environment. Smil describes humanity's energy eras in panoramic and interdisciplinary fashion, offering readers a magisterial overview. This book is an extensively updated and expanded version of Smil's Energy in World History (1994). Smil has incorporated an enormous amount of new material, reflecting the dramatic developments in energy studies over the last two decades and his own research over that time.
h/t Bill Gates

 

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein

Bookmarked The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (Liveright)
In this groundbreaking history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein, a leading authority on housing policy, explodes the myth that America’s cities came to be racially divided through de facto segregation―that is, through individual prejudices, income differences, or the actions of private institutions like banks and real estate agencies. Rather, The Color of Law incontrovertibly makes clear that it was de jure segregation―the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal governments―that actually promoted the discriminatory patterns that continue to this day. Through extraordinary revelations and extensive research that Ta-Nehisi Coates has lauded as "brilliant" (The Atlantic), Rothstein comes to chronicle nothing less than an untold story that begins in the 1920s, showing how this process of de jure segregation began with explicit racial zoning, as millions of African Americans moved in a great historical migration from the south to the north. As Jane Jacobs established in her classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities, it was the deeply flawed urban planning of the 1950s that created many of the impoverished neighborhoods we know. Now, Rothstein expands our understanding of this history, showing how government policies led to the creation of officially segregated public housing and the demolition of previously integrated neighborhoods. While urban areas rapidly deteriorated, the great American suburbanization of the post–World War II years was spurred on by federal subsidies for builders on the condition that no homes be sold to African Americans. Finally, Rothstein shows how police and prosecutors brutally upheld these standards by supporting violent resistance to black families in white neighborhoods. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 prohibited future discrimination but did nothing to reverse residential patterns that had become deeply embedded. Yet recent outbursts of violence in cities like Baltimore, Ferguson, and Minneapolis show us precisely how the legacy of these earlier eras contributes to persistent racial unrest. “The American landscape will never look the same to readers of this important book” (Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund), as Rothstein’s invaluable examination shows that only by relearning this history can we finally pave the way for the nation to remedy its unconstitutional past.
h/t Bill Gates

Alpha Release of Linkback Module for Drupal 8 with Webmention Support [8.x-1.0-alpha1]

Bookmarked Alpha Release of Linkback Module for Drupal 8 with Webmention Support [8.x-1.0-alpha1] by Dan FeidtDan Feidt (Drupal.org)
We are proud to bring you the first alpha release of Linkback, an interesting suite of modules which can help integrate your website with the wider internet. Linkback provides the backend functionality to save both outgoing and incoming pings and webmentions involving remote sites.
Drupal 8, now (along with platforms like WithKnown, Perch, WordPress, Craft, Kirby, ProcessWire, Elgg, and Django) has Webmention support. Congratulations to Dan Feidt (aka HongPong) and everyone involved!

This means that more websites can communicate directly with each other on the open and decentralized web. (Wouldn’t you like to “@mention” someone from your own website to theirs?) It’s a rapidly growing reality on the internet.​​​​​

MATH X 451.43 Introduction to Algebraic Geometry: The Sequel | UCLA Extension

Bookmarked MATH X 451.43 Introduction to Algebraic Geometry: The Sequel (UCLA Extension)
Algebraic geometry is the study, using algebraic tools, of geometric objects defined as the solution sets to systems of polynomial equations in several variables. This course is the second in a two-quarter introductory sequence that develops the basic theory of this classical mathematical field. Whereas the fall-quarter course focused more on the subject’s algebraic underpinnings, this quarter will concentrate on geometric interpretations and applications. Topics to be discussed include Bézout’s Theorem, rational varieties, cubic curves and surfaces (including the remarkable 27-line theorem), and the connection between varieties and manifolds. The theoretical discussion will be supported by a large number of examples and exercises. The course should appeal to those with an interest in gaining a deeper understanding of the mathematical interplay among algebra, geometry, and topology.
Alright math nerds, it’s that time again! Be sure to register for Mike Miller’s excellent follow-on course for Algebraic Geometry.

Don’t forget to use the coupon code EARLY to save 10% with an early registration–time is limited!

🔖 Quantum Information: What Is It All About? by Robert B. Griffiths | Entropy

Bookmarked Quantum Information: What Is It All About? by Robert B. Griffiths (MDPI (Entropy))
This paper answers Bell’s question: What does quantum information refer to? It is about quantum properties represented by subspaces of the quantum Hilbert space, or their projectors, to which standard (Kolmogorov) probabilities can be assigned by using a projective decomposition of the identity (PDI or framework) as a quantum sample space. The single framework rule of consistent histories prevents paradoxes or contradictions. When only one framework is employed, classical (Shannon) information theory can be imported unchanged into the quantum domain. A particular case is the macroscopic world of classical physics whose quantum description needs only a single quasiclassical framework. Nontrivial issues unique to quantum information, those with no classical analog, arise when aspects of two or more incompatible frameworks are compared.
Entropy 201719(12), 645; doi:10.3390/e19120645

This article belongs to the Special Issue Quantum Information and Foundations

View Full-Text | Download PDF [211 KB, uploaded 29 November 2017]

🔖 The Story of Your Life: Using WordPress as Your Memory Warehouse

Bookmarked The Story of Your Life: Using WordPress as Your Memory Warehouse by Brianna Privett (WordCamp US 2017)
The Personal Web of the 1990s/early 2000s was the first wave of online diarists and bloggers who use the web as a platform to chronicle and share their our daily lives. WordPress came out of this movement, and is now in its second decade. 2017 marks 20 years that I’ve been using the web to create and archive memories, and 12 years that I’ve been doing it with WordPress. I’ve learned a few things about creating a real and permanent record of a lifetime on the ephemeral digital landscape, and together we’ll discuss how to use WordPress to create your own home on the web. We’ll cover topics such as how to maintain your (and your family’s) privacy, using WordPress to build a keepsake repository your friends and family can contribute to, and how to ensure that these digital spaces are available as a legacy for lifetimes to come.
I can’t wait until WordPress.TV (presumably) posts this up in a few weeks. This sounds a lot like Brianna’s talking about a web-enabled commonplace book, a topic which intrigues me greatly and the purpose for which I’m most often using my own site.

In looking briefly at her personal site, I don’t see lots of evidence of her use of the idea, so I’m guessing that she’s either keeping it privately on her back end, password protected, or on another site altogether like I do for some of my content. Her talk mentions this, so I’m excited to see how she executes on it.

I’m also curious, after having recently remotely attended the Dodging the Memory Hole 2017 conference, how she’s archiving and backing it up for future generations, particularly if she’s keeping large chunks privately.

I’m keeping my eyes open to see if she posts slides from her presentation.

Update December 10, 2017:

Here are links to the slides (Google Docs version).

The video has also been posted today on WordPress.tv:
Brianna Privett: The Story of Your Life: Using WordPress as Your Memory Warehouse

Modernist Bread Crumbs

Followed Modernist BreadCrumbs (Heritage Radio Network)
Modernist Cuisine founder Nathan Myhrvold and head chef Francisco Migoya join Michael Harlan Turkell on Modernist BreadCrumbs, a special series taking a new look at one of the oldest staples of the human diet: bread. Each episode explores bread from a different angle; from its surprising and often complicated past, to the grains, tools, and microbes we use to make it, and the science behind every loaf. The show looks at the discoveries and techniques from Modernist Bread, as well as interviews with the scientists and bakers who are shaping the future of bread.
Subscribing to/following this. Looks interesting. Jeremy Cherfas may appreciate both it and the entire network itself if he hasn’t heard of them before.

Can’t wait to start listening to episodes.