Today, I will be visiting the James Clerk Maxwell Foundation in Edinburgh. The foundation occupies the Edinburgh house on India street in which Maxwell was born in 1831. The foundation’s objectives are: To provide in the birthplace an attractive and stimulating environment for the mathematicians, scientists and engineers from all […]
Personal
30 posts
Five years ago this week, tornadoes swept through the Huntsville, Alabama area. Today, I look back on the disaster by reposting my May 30, 2011 account of how my family, business, and community fared: “ÆtherCzar is Back, Reporting on the North Alabama Tornadoes.” I have updated the post to remove […]
The schedule for ATLOSCon 2016 is now available. Held May 26-30, 2016 in Atlanta, GA, ATLOSCon draws attendees from all over the country to share their passions and ideas with others interested in the ideas and philosophy of Ayn Rand. ATLOSCon consists of classes featuring interactive talks across a huge […]
My new book, The Biographies of John Charles Fremont, is now available in a Kindle edition from Amazon for $2.99 or free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers. Rarely has a character appeared on the American scene of greater color and controversy than John Charles Fremont. Fremont’s name is sometimes spelled in […]
The 2014 Atlanta Objectivist Society Conference (ATLOSCon) is coming up over Memorial Day weekend. The annual event brings together over sixty attendees for an action-packed program of lectures, workshops, and activities. The fun kicks off the evening of Thursday May 22, and concludes Monday May 26. I’ll be presenting a talk […]
The Czarina and I are finally moving on up. The bungalow that was merely “snug” when we only had one set of twin girl babies has become a raucous and cramped madhouse now that the eight-year-old girls have been joined by their four-year-old brothers. We scrutinized our finances, consulted with […]
I bought one of these Velocity Micro T301 7” Cruz Tablets and I think it’s a great value at $60. Seriously under-powered for high performance Android apps, it’s still perfect as a book reader, web browser, e-mail reader, or even for listening to music (through headphones, not the wimpy speakers) or […]
Enter “baby bowl” into your favorite search engine. For the last couple of years, the top link has usually been The Baby Dipper Bowl. Why is this Mom-invented product the buzz of the blogosphere? Because Baby Dipper is simply a better baby bowl. And now, for this weekend only, you […]
Saturday July 9 marks the centennial of John Archibald Wheeler’s birth. Wheeler pioneered the theory of nuclear fission along with Niels Bohr. He contributed to the Manhattan Project during the Second World War. Afterward, he led a revival of general relativity theory including coining such memorable terms as “wormholes” and […]
The most difficult part of a regular blog is staying in the rhythm of frequent posting. Coping with a natural disaster doesn’t make it easy. The historic tornado outbreak of April 27 sliced through Northern Alabama, leaving trails of devastation in its wake. The scale of the outbreak was difficult […]
The Czarina needs four lines translated into French for her packaging. Whoever can first assist will get their choice of Baby Dipper infant/toddler feeding products. Leave your translation in the comments, and I’ll get back to you with the shipping address for : Curved non-slip handle. For use with the […]
Answer: more quickly than it used to if USPTO Patent Commissioner, Robert Stoll, has his way. Patently O reports on a new USPTO initiative to drive toward an average of ten months to an initial office action after an inventor files a patent. To that end, the Patent Office has […]
Wired reports on the fascinating story of Mohan Srivastava, a geological statistician who found statistical anomalies that enabled him to win at scratch lottery games. The story reminded me of an incident in the 1988 Fall Semester at Purdue University when the Society of Physics Students cracked the Burger King […]
If you are new to ÆtherCzar, you may be wondering about the Amazon ad for the funky looking baby bowl in the right side bar. With the holiday season around the corner, it’s a good time to revisit the ideal gift for babies, toddlers, or new parents – the Baby […]
When I first heard about “Blinky Bugs,” I thought they’d make a perfect craft project for my twin girls’ sixth birthday party. Then I took a closer look at the complexity and delicacy of the assembly and realized it was beyond the skill level I could expect of my girls […]
The Czarina and I are on vacation this week with our two girls – her folks are looking after the boys while we’re gone. New Orleans is really quite kid friendly. I’ll do a post or two when we get back.
Radioactive decay rates are generally thought to be invariant constants of nature. Some minor temperature dependent effects have been observed, but even those remain elusive. Now however, researchers at Purdue and elsewhere argue that they have detected solar influences on radioactive decay rates. They claim the decay rates of certain […]
A number of web sites promote their ability to analyze the gender, personality, and background of blog authors. I thought I’d try them out and see what they had to say about ÆtherCzar. URL AI says aetherczar.com is probably written by a male somewhere between 66-100 years old. The writing […]
The Czarina and I worked hard to select appropriate names for our children, and with both twin boys and twin girls, we had a lot of practice. Our name selection followed a few simple rules: Avoid highly popular names. Pick a top ten name and you pretty much guarantee your […]
Last week, Wil Wheaton tweeted about a great post at “Roll 3d6 Six Times for Stats” from a father introducing his ten-year-old daughter to Atari Adventure. “What a great idea,” I thought. “My favorite Atari game! And I have two five year old daughters – five plus five equals ten.” […]
Some good news from my one-time home town of Pocatello, Idaho. The Princess Theater, “birthplace” of Judy Garland in the 1954 movie, “A Star is Born,” has been renovated and restored.
A couple of weeks ago, a team from Q-Track Corporation traveled to Cave Mountain Cave, south of Huntsville, AL (near Guntersville Dam), to conduct underground radio frequency propagation testing. The results of the testing will be presented elsewhere – this post will describe Cave Mountain Cave. The Huntsville Grotto of […]
Note: Blogging will be a bit light this week because I’m on travel. If time permits, I’ll provide some details. The Washington Post featured AetherCzar’s hometown – Huntsville, AL – in their travel section last week. The U.S. Space and Rocket Center, home of “Space Camp,” has tended to eclipse […]
Clara is a special needs five-year-old girl. Although she has learned to feed herself with a fork, her fine-motor-control difficulties have made spoon-feeding elusive. Until now. The ergonomic design of the Baby Dipper bowl and feeding set have helped this little girl learn to feed herself. Here’s what her Mom […]