catdynamics | April 1, 2007my student just got deployed
Lt Joe finished Officer Command School and is off as a platoon commander in "Task Force Commando", of the 10th Infantry (Light) Division.
Got e-mail from him in Kuwait over the weekend, he should be in-country by now.
Don't know his posting yet, probably Baghdad or area north of there towards Ramadi.
Possibly in one of the new "surge" outhouses that are embedded in the neighbourhoods. Or not, we'll find out soon enough.
So... seriously, what can we send him that'd actually be useful.
Apart from a steady stream of review articles on black hole entropy, extremal…
catdynamics | April 1, 2007I think I finally figured what is going on with Iran and the hostages and the nuclear fuel and the aircraft carriers...
it is a very elaborate google bomb.
You wouldn't believe the number of hits Ahmadinejad has been getting (he needs to break the technorati top 1000 to really be in money I think, still a bit of a niche market - needs a bit of controversy to get over that last threshold)
Oh, and don't believe "Operation Bite"
I mean please! That just sucks. No, it bites.
The Pentagon can do way better than that, personally I'm holding out for "Operation Rising Sun"
Much more upbeat, kinda…
catdynamics | April 1, 2007I don't know which is more annoying - seeing blue & maize clad athletes carrying another enormous trophy away from Penn State on the plane (well, two, actually, apparently, for men and women's gymnasts); or the fact that it even crossed my mind to care what team won a sports competition...
There are real benefits to being at a university where you know sports don't matter at all, ever.
As for the guy who was disappointed when I sat next to him instead of one of the female gymnasts: he was wearing an OSU sweater, she was UoM - ain't gonna happen...
I was also reminded of why I never fly…
catdynamics | March 30, 2007So the USS Nimitz leaves San Diego on monday with its strike group, destination Arabian Sea
For those of us obsessively tracking these things, that is a bad sign - the Stennis and Eisenhower are already in the region, which makes three, the amateur minimum for a serious naval air campaign against Iran.
Nimitz would get there mid-April, if it scooted, or it could stop in every port...
Now, the official plan is that the Eisenhower will leave when the Nimitz gets there, maintaining two carriers in continuous presence. Which can not be sustained indefinitely, but is plausibe.
The Eisenhower did…
catdynamics | March 30, 2007In my field, mean success rates for grant proposals range from a surprisingly generous 30% or so for a rare few opportunities, to a more typical 6-10%
As the number of proposals submitted go to infinity, most all researchers must have near average success rate.
I was prodded by this in noting that I was on a fair number of Hubble proposals, and my hit rate was exactly the average.
In the limit of random funding, this is of course exactly what happens, the average researcher will have a long term success rate for funding which approaches the mean success rate as the number of proposals goes…
catdynamics | March 30, 2007STSCI just announced cycle 16 selections...
1/5 - can't grumble too much
oversubscription was in fact almost exactly 5:1
one other proposal was top quartile but didn't make the cut. Curses.
I like that one. Plus it'd have meant even more trips to Italy.
Both my theory proposals were bottom rated.
The Fools! Bwa ha ha!
But since I got one last year I can't really complain, too much.
"Cycle 16 will have a duration of approximately 15 months, beginning in July 2007.
For your information, 583 GO proposals requested over 17,000 orbits in Cycle 16,
compared to the 3100 orbits available. A total…
catdynamics | March 30, 2007Apparently an FDA press conference this morning gave some bad news on pet food.
See PetConnection.com
The contamination may include dry food and other types of pet food than that originally reported. Initial reports were that only "savoury cuts" style wet food was at risk.
Almost 10,000 deaths have been anecdotally reported.
Unless someone does an "excess mortality" survey for Dec-Apr for pets, the true number will never be known.
eg our cat died in early feb, she was old, and she had been chronically ill for several months, but we had switched her to high protein food just before christmas,…
catdynamics | March 30, 2007Oy vey, it is friday again.
On this season of passing over, we intrepidly approach the mighty iPod One, and ask humbly:
what about funding, oh Mighty Omnipotent iPod?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whooooooosh.
The Covering: Envy the Love - Various
The Crossing:Scholarship is The Enemy of Romance - Billy Bragg
The Crown: Sigurjón Digri - Stuðmenn
The Root: Heart of Glass - Blondie
The Past: Scenes From Childhood: Foreign Lands and People
The Future: Jeane - Billy Bragg
The Questioner: Love for Sale - Talking Heads
The House: Fandanguillo, Op 36
The Inside: I Hope You Want Me Too - Mavericks…
catdynamics | March 28, 2007USAir flight 1014 - New Orleans-Charlotte held on runway while man tested for smallpox
Update: He was the Director of the Navy Medical Service Corps? (kos diary)
That is weird.
Update: WBTV news story and in Reason Magazine
Admiral Brannman
Director of Naval Medical Center San Diego or he was until recently
Hm, they have an infectious disease clinic (duh, they're ginormous) doing antiviral research.
Naval Health Research Center is working on effects of smallpox vaccine on pregnancy...
Chimerix is working on a smallpox antiviral - they are based in North Carolina, their Chairman of the Board…
catdynamics | March 28, 2007Ouch.
Julianne treads where few dare...
Know what she means though...
Bwa, ha, ha!
catdynamics | March 28, 2007"...invisible clouds of something that seem to swaddle the galaxies, and to provide the scaffolding for the structure and evolution of the visible universe."
"It's about power, in a way."
NYT reports on the hot independent movie "Dark Matter".
Intrigue, back stabbing and murder.
Life is exciting as an astrophysicist.
Sadly, loosely based on real life...
It is a good read, recommended.
I expect the movie is worth seeing also.
catdynamics | March 28, 2007There is a lot of speculation in the non-US press and in blogs about an imminent US strike on Iran,
what with two US carriers in the Persian Gulf (and two Marine amphibious groups), the incident with the UK and the fact that Iran and Russia seem to have made up on the deal for enriched uranium (reactor grade) for the Busher reactor.Except for the bit where the Russians "rotated out" most of their staff for a pause...
I don't think so.
Not as an imminent threat - two carriers (Eisenhower and Stennis) aren't enough, they need three on the Gulf side, I'd think, and at least one in the Med,…
catdynamics | March 28, 2007The Incoherent Ponderer just submitted a paper to Science, and got an e-mail notifying him that he was listed as a co-author and asking him to do something if he did not accept this.
I had the same thing earlier this year, was a second author and immediately after submission got a verification e-mail from Science like that. It is not something I had encountered before, as recently as last year.
Interestingly, NASA's NSPIRES now also does this - it sends you a warning e-mail if someone listed you as a co-I on a proposal and gives you electronic access. Also something I don't recall from…
catdynamics | March 23, 2007wikisky?
Oh, Wiki Sky!
Cool. Not much there yet, and it is a bit buggy, but if you have, like real data, pile on and share.
(h/t Steve)
catdynamics | March 22, 2007Oops, friday again already.
So, we ask the omniscient iPod - got any good ideas?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: The Sky
The Crossing: A Rush and A Push and The Land is Ours - Smiths
The Crown: Taktu Til Við að Tvista - Stuðmenn
The Root: Suedehead - Morrissey
The Past: Hevi Metal Maður - Stuðmenn
The Future: Scenes from Childhood: An Important Event
The Questioner: The Big Country - Talking Heads
The House: You Woke Up My Neighbourhood - Billy Bragg
The Inside: Í grænni lautu - Ása Hlín
The Outcome: Vizka Einsteins - Utangarðsmenn
Wise is the iPod!
The Crown is "Go…
catdynamics | March 20, 2007As widely reported in the media, a number of cat and dog foods were recalled in the US after a common supplier decided there was a problem with their new wheat gluten supplier (a common additive).
10 animals (9 cats apparently) are known to have died, probably many more undiagnosed.
Cause of death is kidney failure - symptoms include large frequent urination, vomiting, lethargy and weight loss.
MenuFoods apparently switched suppliers (to a low bidder?) just before christmas '06, and food from early dec '06 to early '07 is liable.
Reports are that tests on animals with known contaminated…
catdynamics | March 20, 2007IF we grant the perception that researchers are being held back from doing some of the "really interesting research", then why do we do it, especially if people are aware of it as an issue?
Well, it is a problem that has many levels.
First of all, the committments I allude to are real: a lot of grants are contractual, and must the work as described must be carried out, or a good faith effort made to do so (or the recipient is unlikely to get any more grants). Some grants have flexibility, and a lot of grants officers are approachable for variances, but to invoke such things is both an…
catdynamics | March 20, 2007When, in the course of an academic career, should you work on your own ideas: you know, the stuff that deep down you think is really interesting, potentially breakthrough stuff.
Because, most scientists, most of the time, don't.
as Bee puts it:
every postdoc I know or have met and with whom I have discussed the question, agrees that the current system encourages working on established projects rather than investigating own ideas (which might possibly fail and/or not result in publications with well known top researchers on high-impact topics), and they agree that this is not optimal to…
catdynamics | March 20, 2007seen in the back of a not-so-expensive model from an expensive car maker: "How to make money from foreclosures"
heard at a a slightly non-random brunch spot, couple of tables to the left: "no, you need to go to fourth order in the modified Lagrangian..."
told over lunch: "I heard Apple is out to hire someone to start that as a project"
over coffee: "well google was excited until they were told the timescale, they think six months is a long time to plan ahead"