Divisible Electrons. Democritus Would Not Be Pleased.

Sam Harrelson on July 31, 2009

In a one-dimensional (1D) system of interacting electrons, excitations of spin and charge travel at different speeds, according to the theory of a Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid (TLL) at low energies. However, the clear observation of this spin-charge separation is an ongoing challenge experimentally. We have fabricated an electrostatically gated 1D system in which we observe spin-charge separation and also the predicted power-law suppression of tunneling into the 1D system. The spin-charge separation persists even beyond the low-energy regime where the TLL approximation should hold. TLL effects should therefore also be important in similar, but shorter, electrostatically gated wires, where interaction effects are being studied extensively worldwide.

via sciencemag.org

Fascinating.

Basically, this study cooled down a string of electrons (tunneling) to near absolute zero (0 K or very very cold), packed the electrons extremely close together and observed the results.

What happened?

The electrons broke down into two (new) particles, holons and spinons.

So what?

When our children are adults, they’ll be working with quantum computers and looking back on this type of research like we look back on the computer science of the 50’s. Plus, this is incredible science.

AffiliateHack: My New Marketing Blog

Sam Harrelson on July 31, 2009

AffiliateHack is a blog about affiliate marketing written by Sam Harrelson. Sam is a longtime veteran of the affiliate marketing industry and previous winner of the Best Blogger award at Affiliate Summit and publisher of ReveNews and CostPerNews. Now Sam brings his unique perspective on affiliate marketing back to blogging form with AffiliateHack.

via affiliatehack.com

I miss blogging about the fascinating world of affiliate marketing. Now that I’m no longer an active affiliate marketer, I thought it would be a good time to dust off my blogging skills and give it another go.

There will be some overlap of what I do here and there, but this is a much more personal space (hence the silly .me address) and AffiliateHack is a much more public space.

We’ll see how it goes.

Great Use of Backpack with Pages for Each Day.

Sam Harrelson on July 30, 2009

work: wed

“I have a page set up for each day of the workweek, and I evenly distribute the action tasks for all of my marketing tactics throughout the week.

On a given day, I simply click on that day’s page and get to work on the tasks, which are within a handy checklist (see image above along the left).

Each Monday, I un-check all the lists on every page, which helps me to stay accountable to my plans and goals for my business. I can clearly see what got done and what did not get done over the previous week. After un-checking the items, I’m ready to begin another week.”

via productblog.37signals.com

I love this implementation of workflow in Backpack.

Personally, I’m using Backpack in the GTD style (main INBOX for dumping everything then sub-folders pertaining to specific contexts or actions that need to be taken).

However, it would be very cool to do a blend of my GTD style with the daily pages style and incorporate individual classes (since I’ll be teaching 4-5 individual classes).

Clearly, I love todo lists more than actually acting upon them 🙂

Why Hasn’t Someone Made a FriendFeed Client for GMail like TwitterGadget?

Sam Harrelson on July 30, 2009

I love TwitterGadget as a fully functioning Twitter client within GMail. Back in the "good old" days of Twitter, we had IM integration so these sorts of tools weren't needed if GMail was a major part of your workflow.  However, Twitter took that functionality (and Track) away from users in May '08, so we've been scrambling around to find the most efficient apps ever since.

While I think Seesmic Web has a great deal of potential, I'm still a fan of TwitterGadget plus TwitterSpy (which allows for semi-Track functionality based on the API… which is much slower than the original Track implementation).  So, I've got a contstant flow of tracked items (my alma mater, favorite sports, business terms, ideas I'm interested in pursuing, my name, etc) on my GMail IM. 

I've also got FriendFeed set up to deliver the same type of information flow through its fabulous IM integration (and email alerts as you can see in the label above).

But why hasn't someone developed a GMail gadget for FriendFeed along the same lines as TwitterGadget??

That would be killer and allow me to direct my Twitter, blogging (through Posterous), Facebook and FriendFeed accounts mostly through GMail.

Seriously, if you're a big GMail and Twitter user, give TwitterGadget (and TwitterSpy) a try.  And if you're a developer, get on the ball and deliver my FriendFeedGadget for GMail.  Thanks.

Great Review of @Posterous

Sam Harrelson on July 30, 2009

Years of building and maintaining my WordPress blog have resulted in my learning a lot about WordPress and getting a lot of grease under my fingernails. Weeks of using Posterous has resulted in a media-rich blog with several posts per week. Tell me which service is more powerful.

via suntimes.com

I started using Posterous primarily as a photo-blog back in September of ’08.

However, it’s transitioned into my full time personal blog as I’ve changed up the samharrelson.com domain into a static landing (pointer) page.

Posterous solves so many problems for me.

Thanks to Andy Ihnatko for the great review affirming my love and thanks to the Posterous team for a fantastic product that has renewed my love of posting.

IB Principles and Auto-Stitch

Sam Harrelson on July 30, 2009

Clearly, I’m in love with the Auto-Stitch iPhone app.

 But here’s some progress on one of the white boards in my classroom with pics of scientists who represent the 10 International Baccalaureate ideals…

Sent from my iPhone

GMail vs Backpack

Sam Harrelson on July 29, 2009

Now that I’ve decided on Backpack over Evernote as my hub of workflow (see post below), I’m in love with the Journal feature. As a teacher, it’s going to be a fantastic “private Twitter” that will allow me to record, sort and even subscribe (via the RSS feed and Google Reader) to my insights and daily documentations.

 I’m just thinking out loud here, but since I need to record most things on my mobile device (iPhone), would it be more efficient to use the Satchel app and iBasecamp mobile Safari hack orjust use GMail with pre-set labels acting as Basecamp pages and the Journal feature?

 Hmmm… Will have to do some testing…

 Sent from my iPhone