catdynamics | June 3, 2011In the infrared of course...
It is friday!
Proposal season coming to a very temporary end.
So...
what is with the flap over building, like, actual new ginormous telescopes?
What say thee Oh Mighty iPod?
Can we learn to Build Them, and Operate Them at the same time,
while still having the $$$ to pay for like actual science and shit.
Woosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Walk This Way - Run DMC
The Crossing: Sexuality (London Remix) - Billy Bragg
The Crown: Search & Destroy -The Stooges
The Root: I Don't Want to Walk Around With You - Ramones
The Past: O Soave Fanciulla -…
catdynamics | June 1, 2011some interesting astro happening over the last few days
The Next 40 Years of Exoplanets workshop took place at MIT. Website has archive of meeting.
Some fireworks there, Nature blogs has a take on it
NASAwatch discusses contradictory rumours of layoffs at JWST contractor
Two things to take away from that: yes, the aerospace contractors must be doing contingency planning for RIFs because of the impending budget doom in the 2012 budget; and the NASA comments talk in terms of 2013...
JWST launch date is clearly slipping, main question is whether the rate can be less than a year-per-year or not…
catdynamics | June 1, 2011Remember the whole Rapture thing?
I just realized, wotsisface obviously worked in the Gregorian calendar,
and clearly that is all wrong!
See, back then they used the Julian calendar and the two calendars drift relative to each other, causing an offset between dates.
So, right now, to convert, just add 13 days, and voila, you're done!
Lets see, 21st May, plus 13, carry the 3, and...
uh-oh.
catdynamics | May 27, 2011bloomin' proposal week...
Ok, them's the vagaries, but it is friday and it is the end of another and much fraught bloomin' proposal week,
so we ask the Mighty iPod: how about them proposals?
Woosh goes the randomizer.
Woosh.
The Covering: Friday Mourning - Morrissey
The Crossing: Run Like Hell - Pink Floyd
The Crown: Spanish Bombs
The Root: Estampe - Jardins sus la pluie - Claudio Arrau
The Past: Scenes from Childhood: Foreign Lands and Peoples
The Future: Í Hlíðarendakoti - Fyrr var oft í koti kátt
The Questioner: Mouse II - Spilverk Þjóðanna
The House: Sealclubbing - Half Man Half…
catdynamics | May 24, 2011and it looks like it might be about over:
plume is about a tenth of its original size;
earthquake activity has tapered off to low levels;
no flash flood - between normal flood last year, and ice vapourized it doesn't look like there is any lake left to flash out the drainage channels under the ice;
no sign of lava flow
the initial eruption was an order of magnitude larger than Eyjafjallajökull was, with correspondingly larger ash volume;
the ash was coarser and didn't travel as much as last year, which means more of it dumped on local regions, natch;
still about 500 flight cancellations and…
catdynamics | May 23, 2011visir.is has some very impressive up close photos of the eruption
set of 38 photos from the glacier
video of the trip
catdynamics | May 21, 2011here we go again...
this is the map of earthquakes in the last 24 hours in Iceland,
kinda lit up there - nice illustration of the mid-atlantic ridge coming up from the south and south-west and bisecting the island
so that little cluster under Vatnajökull, that is Grímsvötn
Grímsvötn is a sub-glacial lake; also a significant extremophile site and of interest to astrobiology.
There is a volcano there, under the ice, and it is warm enough to continuously melt the ice, forming a lake; every few years the water pressure becomes high enough to break out from under the ice, giving us a jökulhlaup…
catdynamics | May 19, 2011Official word on Arecibo:
So, NSF met with Arecibo people today, I am told, and the new management consortium will be putting out an official press release real soon, was waiting for the internal communication to be done.
I was asked to put up the following (lightly edited):
"Please allow me to clear up a potential point of confusion. There
should be no doubt in anyone's mind that Arecibo will continue to
be a premier facility for astronomy.
NSF will formally announce the result of the Arecibo management
recompetition on Monday. The proposal led by SRI was formulated
by a team that included…
catdynamics | May 16, 2011yo peeps
I hear buzz about fateful decisions on NAIC/Arecibo from NSF.
But... can't confirm anything.
Who knows, and who will tell?
PS: thanks to our intrepid commenter and other confirming sources...
Cornell did lose their bid.
Arecibo is being taken over by
"SRI" which is a in consortium of USRA - Universities Space Research Association a venerable and DC institutional consortium, and the University of Puerto Rico.
What I hear so far sounds good, I think they will run Arecibo and do it well.
SRI appears not to have a web site yet,
but they the consortium have started to staff up. (see…
catdynamics | May 13, 2011So, reports are now out that one or more of the Fukushima Daiichi reactors really did meltdown, and TEPCO has come up with a great solution...
Told you so (well, ok so reactor 1 also slumped and breached the pressure vessel - hoocoodanode the water gauges were broken...?)
Good news is TEPCO now has a plan.
A brilliant plan.
They are going to tent the reactors!!!
Brilliant!
But, wait, this sounds familiar
This has been done before!
Christo and Jeanne-Claude!
This is so public spirited of TEPCO in these trying times.
Save the world in an aesthetically pleasing manner and sponsoring public…
catdynamics | May 12, 2011How do you move a private cannon across the USA in this day and age?
'cause in 2006, MIT students took the Fleming House cannon and moved it to MIT
This cannon
Well, apparently you wear overalls, and hitch it to a truck, or put it on a flatbed, and drive it,
presumably staying on the I-10 most of the way, so as to get maximum benefit from Texas laws on guns and campuses (hey, I wonder if Texas legislature knows that in Californa the students open carry artillery).
from
Thing is, it works,
the cannon, that is,
they fire it every year
(ok, blanks, house rivalry is not that intense).…
catdynamics | May 12, 2011Kepler team has another excellent visualization of their discoveries.
An orrery of the currently known multi-planet systems, as a youtube animation.
Dan Fabrycky put this up
h/t Marketing for Scientists
catdynamics | May 11, 2011Caltech strikes again!
The Legends of Caltech record many pranks, some of which were really quite excellent.
I am happy to report that the spirit of the Rose Bowl lives on!
At this rate they will have to do a Real Genius sequel!
TTardis Project 6: The Prank
Tardis Project 1: Explaining the Project
Tardis Project 2: The Official Prank Club
Tardis Project 3: Why We Love Doctor Who
Tardis Project 4: What is a Tardis
Tardis Project 5: On the Road
h/t io9
Tardis Project 7: Success
Tardis Project 8: Good Fan Fiction
Tardis Project 9: Liz and the Doctor
Tardis Project 10: Prank Club is Born…
catdynamics | May 7, 2011Keeps on Rolling - but where.
Is this the year Ole Miss decides to break loose?
Back in '08 I noted that conditions were lining up for a risk of the Mississippi breaking out of its path, but that it was a low probability scenario/
Well, 2011 is looking much worse and there is now low probability that the lower Mississippi will not break out of its historic path...
So, the issue is the Atchafalaya River, a distributary of the Mississippi, which is tangent to the Mississippi at Red River Landing.
The Mississippi would like to break out of its current channel and move west to a shorter path to…
catdynamics | May 6, 2011happy friday, and spring is here
I even got some science done...
so, Oh Mighty iPod, this whole Dark Matter is pretty cool, and very topical.
Is it, or isn't it? And you know of what I speak.
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Somebody Got Murdered - Clash
The Crossing: Oliver/s Army - Elvis Costello
The Crown: Islands - The XX
The Root: One More Dub - Clash
The Past: Agnes of Friðrik - Bubbi Morthens
The Future: Wie? Wie? Wie? - Mozart
The Questioner: Love Will Tears Us Apart - Joy Division
The House: The Warmest Room (Live) - Billy Bragg
The Inside: Peter and the Wolf (…
catdynamics | May 3, 2011Astonishing GeoEye imagery of bin Laden compound after the raid.
GeoEye took a clear 1m resolution image of Abbottabad the day after the raid, with a nice clear image, coincidentally, taken of the bin Laden compound
Click for high res image:
"Copyright © 2011 GeoEye - Satellite image courtesy of GeoEye."
here is the close-up of the compound from GeoEye's portal
The dark cross shape in the yard is the special forces helicopter lost in the raid and destroyed on the ground.
h/t GeoEye blog and NASAwatch
catdynamics | May 3, 2011The Space Telescope Science Institute is hosting the annual Spring Symposium May 2-5, and this year the topic is Dark Matter
Good lineup of speakers.
The whole week is webcast at https://webcast.stsci.edu/webcast/ including live talks and archives of previous talks.
For those who enjoy that sort of thing and didn't get the e-mail...
catdynamics | May 1, 2011IF reports that US assassinated Osama bin Laden are true,
then the big question is how this affects US relations with Pakistan.
Particularly if, as rumoured, ObL was well housed near Islamabad.
Abottabad near Khyber?
Now with bonus maps!
Now with actual correct bonus maps.
Details on Wiki: Death of Osama bin Laden
This is probably more important in the long run than Afghanistan, the Taliban,
or even the effect on US public morale.
Heavy firing near Pakistan Military Academy (thenews.com.pk)
"ABBOTTABAD: Three loud blasts were heard near the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) Kakul Road late…
catdynamics | April 30, 2011Time lapse movie of extensive aurora series over Iceland
Gorgeous.
AURORA ISLANDICA - a Northern Lights Timelapse from Agust Ingvarsson on Vimeo.
From pressan.is
Over many nights and multiple locations in and near Reykjavík.
catdynamics | April 29, 2011end of semester? already?
ooh, boy.
so, as you all know, change is in the air, starting with the release last week of the revised, corrected, definitely final NRC Rankings of PhD Programs...
and we did rather well, again.
But, we must ask, Oh Mighty iPod:
what will come of this research endeavour of ours in these late lamented times?
Woosh goes the randomizer.
Woosh.
The Covering: O Holy Night - Perry Como
The Crossing: Mirrorball - Peter Gabriel
The Crown: Inside Job - Pearl Jam
The Root: Brimful of Asha - Cornershop
The Past: I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got - Sinead O'Connor
The Future…