So it goes...

Well, that's how long a year-a-half is. What did I miss? The E8 genome was mapped with the fanfare of a press conference, the string wars continued, N=8 supergravity may be ultraviolet finite (also see the argument via string theory properties) if a no triangle hypothesis holds, funding was decimated/bleak/downsized, unparticles were cool, low dimension supergravity was maximally gauged here, here and here, the multiple M2 brane revolution began, an exceptionally simple theory of everything was the most popular paper on the arxiv, BeckerBeckerSchwarz appeared, Fields medallists blogged en masse (Tao, Connes, Borcherds), Mike Duff discussed string theory with Lee Smolin, Sidney Coleman gave lectures from the past, Stephen Hawking's acquired his own universe, the birth of string theory was chronicled, John Schwarz also shared his memories of early days, Murray Gell-Mann was videoed talking about beauty in physics, a Feynman video biography surfaced... and so on, and so on without end. Nothing stops while you're away.

Julius Wess, John A. Wheeler, Sidney Coleman, Jurgen Ehlers have all sadly passed away.

The fantasy author Robert Jordan died and won't complete his Wheel of Time epic and Kurt Vonnegut left his own world-line. So it goes...

So that's a year-and-a-half.