(Update: the spam filter does seem to be picky, so please do let us know if your comments don’t come through. Unless you’re a spammer, I mean.)
We were temporarily down, after apparently being hacked into. Currently trying to upgrade to fix things. Patience!
We’ve finally upgraded to the latest version of WordPress. This should mean, among other things, that we can retrieve comments that were mistakenly deleted by an overzealous spam filter. Let us know if anything seems to not work.
Cosmic Variance is a group blog by people who, coincidentally or not, all happen to be physicists and astrophysicists:
Our day (and night) jobs notwithstanding, the blog is about whatever we find interesting — science, to be sure, but also arts, politics, culture, technology, academia, and miscellaneous trivia. We have similar outlooks on many things, widely disparate opinions about others, and will do our best to keep the discourse reasonably elevated.
May 16th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
I see ya.
May 16th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
I was going to inquire if you needed contributions.
May 16th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Helper cat? Is this the beginning of the rebirth of Cosmic Variance as “Cosmic Variance Can Has Cheezburger”?
May 16th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
“Im in ur manifolds compactifying ur dimensionz.”
“M-theory Cat Can Has Background Independence.”
May 16th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
CUTE! (sorry, couldn’t help myself)
May 16th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Should we sponsor a contest for the best physics-themed lolcats?
May 16th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Tom, we’ve never asked for contributions, although maybe someday we will. Or perhaps some tiny ads along the sidebar? But really, the fame and adoration of our vast reading public is more than enough reward.
May 16th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
I shut down comments on my blog because I couldn’t deal with the spam. What are you using??
May 16th, 2007 at 4:52 pm
WordPress has a plugin called “Akismet” that seems to work. We used to use SpamKarma, but it ate up too many CPU cycles.
May 16th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
That’s a hilarious picture. I suppose everyone has seen today’s xkcd cartoon?
In Ur Reality
May 16th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
Cosmic Variance should participate in Project Honey Pot (it’s free of charge).
May 16th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
“Im in ur comitee denyin ur tenur.”
May 16th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
“Im in ur loopz renormalizin ur coupling constants”
May 16th, 2007 at 6:34 pm
“Im in ur landscape choosin ur parameturs.”
“I can has an inflaton.”
“Im in ur vacyoom eatin ur Higgs.”
May 16th, 2007 at 6:35 pm
For Scott Aaronson:
“Im in ur oracle solvin ur NP-compl33t problemz.”
May 16th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Science-Themed Lolcats…
All right, I’ve resisted long enough. Sean Carroll has now officially asked if Cosmic Variance should host a physics-themed lolcat contest. My answer:
You’re going to regret this.
I’ve already tossed out a few:
“Im in ur manifol…
May 16th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
i can has nobel prz?
May 17th, 2007 at 12:15 am
*LOL* You guys totally have to have an I Can Haz Cheezburger?! Theoretical Physics Edition post now!
May 17th, 2007 at 1:40 am
But, the real question is….has the cat revealed the location of THE RING yet? Enquiring minds want to know!
May 17th, 2007 at 1:59 am
Does this mean that if I wrote one of those comments that was deleted by your overzealous spam filter, that I should resend?
May 17th, 2007 at 3:58 am
Yep. It will continue to be possible that comments will be eaten; but now, if you let us know, we should be able to recover them.
May 17th, 2007 at 11:45 am
Im in ur carpetz leavng dark matter.
May 18th, 2007 at 8:05 am
Your overzealous spam filter picked up one comment of mine for the thread: Open Systems (this happened before). I embedded two links in those sentences, so maybe that was too much?
May 18th, 2007 at 10:29 am
Amara, I think I recovered it — just continue to let us know, hopefully we can train it to trust you.
May 18th, 2007 at 11:27 am
Iz in ur computer minin ur quotes
May 18th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
I try not to post about spam on my blogs. My rule is that i delete anything off topic. But when i’ve blogged about spam, well, it’s open season for spammers.
Blake seems to be trying to tickle your filter. But it’s too funny for real spam. I’d like a spam filter that recognizes humor. If it can do that, it would probably pass a Touring Test. If it could do that, it could probably decide if a comment was spam or not, and nearly always get it right. It could also probably write my articles for me. A real time saver.
May 18th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
Im in ur box being ur mixed state.
May 18th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
This is a test to see whether I’m considered a spammer.
May 18th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
It looks like your spam filter doesn’t allow consecutive posts.
May 27th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
[...] at Cosmic Variance, Blake Stacey offered some hilarious physics LOLcat slogans. My favourite, though, was Hank Fox’s: [...]