Cara nak vote:

1) Register sebagai voters sini - http://socialmediaweek.com.my/awards/signup.php

2) Kemudian, masuk page ini - http://socialmediaweek.com.my/awards/category.php?id=41 dan klik butang vote warna hijau tu.

3) Vote for SJ here: http://socialmediaweek.com.my/awards/category.php?id=15

thank you.

Class will start Feb 2012. I have registered.

(hat tip: Mark Lee — thanks, keep the links coming!)

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HOW to BECOME a GOOD THEORETICAL PHYSICIST

by Gerard ‘t Hooft

Quote:

This is a web site (still under construction) for young students – and anyone else – who are (like me) thrilled by the challenges posed by real science, and who are – like me – determined to use their brains to discover new things about the physical world that we are living in. In short, it is for all those who decided to study theoretical physics, in their own time.

…

It should be possible, these days, to collect all knowledge you need from the internet. Problem then is, there is so much junk on the internet. Is it possible to weed out those very rare pages that may really be of use? I know exactly what should be taught to the beginning student. The names and topics of the absolutely necessary lecture courses are easy to list, and this is what I have done below. It is my intention to search on the web where the really useful papers and books are, preferably downloadable as well. This way, the costs of becoming a theoretical physicist should not exceed much the price of a computer with internet connection, a printer, and lots of paper and pens.

…

I can tell you of my own experiences. I had the extreme luck of having excellent teachers around me. That helps one from running astray. It helped me all the way to earn a Nobel Prize. But I didn’t have internet. I am going to try to be your teacher. It is a formidable task. I am asking students, colleagues, teachers to help me improve this site. It is presently set up only for those who wish to become theoretical physicists, not just ordinary ones, but the very best, those who are fully determined to earn their own Nobel Prize. If you are more modest than that, well, finish those lousy schools first and follow the regular routes provided by educators and specialized -gogues who are so damn carefully chewing all those tiny portions before feeding them to you. This is a site for ambitious people. I am sure that anyone can do this, if one is gifted with a certain amount of intelligence, interest and determination.

…

Theoretical Physics is like a sky scraper. It has solid foundations in elementary mathematics and notions of classical (pre-20th century) physics. Don’t think that pre-20th century physics is “irrelevant” since now we have so much more. In those days, the solid foundations were laid of the knowledge that we enjoy now. Don’t try to construct your sky scraper without first reconstructing these foundations yourself. The first few floors of our skyscraper consist of advanced mathematical formalisms that turn the Classical Physics theories into beauties of their own. They are needed if you want to go higher than that. So, next come many of the other subjects listed below. Finally, if you are mad enough that you want to solve those tremendously perplexing problems of reconciling gravitational physics with the quantum world, you end up studying general relativity, superstring theory, M-theory, Calabi-Yau compactification and so on. That’s presently the top of the sky scraper.

Learn programming in seven weeks. We’ll teach you enough about computer science that you can build a web search engine like Google or Yahoo!

(hat tip: Irsal Mashhor)

___________________

http://www.ck12.org/flexbook/

CK-12 Foundation is a non-profit organization with a mission to reduce the cost of textbook materials for the K-12 market both in the U.S. and worldwide. Using an open-content, web-based collaborative model termed the “FlexBook,” CK-12 intends to pioneer the generation and distribution of high quality educational content that will serve both as core text as well as provide an adaptive environment for learning through the FlexBook Platform.

(hat tip: Mark Lee)

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/behind-the-scenes-a-new-angle-on-history/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man

Quote:

“On June 4, 2009, in connection with the 20th anniversary of the protests, Associated Press reporter Terril Jones revealed a photo he took showing the Tank Man from ground level, a different angle than all of the other known photos of the Tank Man. Jones has written that he was not aware of what he had captured until a month later when printing his photos.”

1. Labuan city is very small. All the important buildings are within walking distance of each other.

2. I walked round the city earlier today. On the way back to hotel, I got lost. I asked two people for direction. They gave me the direction (in Malay) but I don’t understand what they were saying… hehehe…

I have wrestled with an alligator
I done tussled with a whale
I done handcuffed lightning
thrown thunder in jail
That’s bad

Only last week I murdered a rock
injured a stone
hospitalised a brick
I’m so mean I make medicine sick

(Happy 70th birthday, muhammad ali)

More:

Abstract:

We review new findings and new theoretical developments in the field of intelligence. New findings include the following: (a) Heritability of IQ varies significantly by social class. (b) Almost no genetic polymorphisms have been discovered that are consistently associated with variation in IQ in the normal range. (c) Much has been learned about the biological underpinnings of intelligence. (d) “Crystallized” and “fluid” IQ are quite different aspects of
intelligence at both the behavioral and biological levels. (e) The importance of the environment for IQ is established by the 12-point to 18-point increase in IQ when children are adopted from working-class to middle-class homes. (f) Even when improvements in IQ produced by the most effective early childhood interventions fail to persist, there can be very marked effects on academic achievement and life outcomes. (g) In most developed countries studied, gains on IQ tests have continued, and they are beginning in the developing world. (h) Sex differences in aspects of intelligence are due partly to identifiable biological factors and partly to socialization factors. (i) The IQ gap between Blacks and Whites has been reduced by 0.33 SD in recent years. We report theorizing concerning (a) the relationship between working memory and intelligence, (b) the apparent contradiction between strong heritability effects on IQ and strong secular effects on IQ, (c) whether a general intelligence factor could arise from initially largely independent cognitive skills, (d) the relation between self-regulation and cognitive skills, and (e) the effects of stress on
intelligence.

(hat tip: Mark Lee. Do visit his blog at http://ddcolrs.wordpress.com/ for other interesting articles.)

ZZ Top:

From left: Dusty Hill, Billy Gibbons and Frank Beard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZZ_Top