catdynamics | April 8, 2009'cause y'know linkin' is good
emptywheel at firedoglake wants to boycott JP Morgan/Chase/WaMu
- interesting story, JPM is allegedly blocking Chrysler being eaten by Fiat because if Chrysler goes bankrupt JPM both gets something back on their loans, and probably triggers CDS on Chrysler bonds, and so profits
JPM also has the contract for unemployment benefit debit cards in Michigan - win-win, eh?
Unqualified Offerings provides guidance and direction for sciblingers
- maybe Chad will give me some of his excess
New Scientist has blogs at Short, Sharp Science - snazzy
Which physicist are you…
catdynamics | April 8, 2009The report by Prof. Elizabeth Warren heading the Congressional Oversight Panel for the TARP loans to large US banks is out.
Report is at cop.senate.gov (151 p. pdf)]
It makes interesting reading.
Section C has a discussion of European handling of the current crisis, with C.1 providing a succinct discussion of Iceland.
Section D is on the way forward.
Short version:
Transparency: swift action to ensure integrity
Assertiveness: willingness to take aggressive action ...
2) shutting down those banks that are irreparably insolvent
Accountability: willingess to hold management accountable and…
catdynamics | April 8, 2009final stretch and we contemplate big stellar clusters in small galaxies
in particular, if you plot the observed number of globular clusters as a function of galaxy magnitude you find the specific incidence, the number of globulars per unit light, is high for large ellipticals and small for Milky Way like spirals, but there is some evidence the specific incidence if also high for low luminosity dwarf galaxies
or is it...?
Fornax dSph from NS at Uppsala
Paul "finally I know how to pronounce his last name" Goudfrooji tutors us on globular clusters in late type dwarf galaxies
ADS link
Is the…
catdynamics | April 7, 2009a list of recent useful things
profound thought of the day: "it is hard to be sentimental on the 101 (N)"
TIPS tutorial from the Fed
Ethan @ Starts With a Bang - new scibling, cosmology oriented astroblog
Celestia @ shatters.net - free 3-D space visualization tool
one of these days I'll have to play and compare it with
Partiview - from Hayden/NCSA - which has served me well in the past
catdynamics | April 7, 2009last week of the globs workshop, so the pace is stepped up, with two talks this afternoon
Michele on dynamical evolution (video and podcast)
32k runs, parametric over initial conditions
evolved mass function, primordial binaries, tidal field, variable initial concentration, IMBH presence
Glenn on dynamical Schwarzschild modeling (video and podcast)
Schwarzschild orbit models
First intro to state of the art for fitting galaxy models
using Sauron integral field spectroscopy plus photometry
and get h3 and h4 of course (gaussian weighted skew and kurtosis for you heathens)
Nice models
then…
catdynamics | April 7, 2009back from a brief but complex zig zag across the Southland
and we are getting ready to wrap up the globs workshop
if only we could find someone to organise the final thursday dinner...
what all happened:
yesterday Tom did a recap of the 5th UC Irvine Center for Cosmology workshop: Intermediate-Mass Black Holes: from First Light to Galactic Nuclei which had a large number of very exciting and topical talks by top researchers.
Top researchers I tell you.
Before that there were talks on open clusters:
Jarrod - video and podcast and
Aaron - video and podcast
Today Douglas tutors us on N-…
catdynamics | April 6, 2009chair of TARP oversight calls for CEOs to be fired
Elizabeth Warren, chief watchdog of America's $700bn (£472bn) bank bailout plan, will this week call for the removal of top executives from Citigroup, AIG and other institutions that have received government funds..."
"The very notion that anyone would infuse money into a financially troubled entity without demanding changes in management is preposterous."
No shit.
It will be very telling how this will be handled when it comes out, and whether Obama uses it as lever to act radically, or a counterfoil to "play moderate" and demur.
h/t CR…
catdynamics | April 4, 2009Is kale actually, possibly, the healthiest food with least environmental impact for humans?
A wise friend conjectures this may possibly be so.
We must not ever find this out, the potential consequences are too awful to contemplate.
catdynamics | April 3, 2009was playing at the Soho,
just stone's throw from Arigato Sushi, dontcha know...
they're really quite good, if you like harmony driven funky reggae folk poppy rock...
Anyway, Goodland
got to get some youtube vids out there guys
they were opening for Mama's Cookin'
not bad, not my style though
catdynamics | April 2, 2009Bob!
We move on to open clusters, in the hope that we may actually understand those, since they are smaller and more tractable for simulations, right?
Right...
Open Clusters
"All you have to do is just go look..."
NGC 3293
Typical densities - few per cubic parsec
velocity dispersion ~ km/sec
core radius ~ 1 pc
tidal radius ~ 10-20 pc
half mass relaxation time ~ 100 Myrs - ages from zero to several Gyrs
metallicities - -0.4 < [Fe/H] < +0.3
But what about NGC 6791 - old massive and metal rich... globular or open?
click to embiggen
NGC 6791
ok, so what we really need is a sensible…
catdynamics | April 1, 2009Finally, robust rumours of a head of NASA candidate
about time, and I for one look forward to our new Cylon Overlords.
catdynamics | April 1, 2009a second year grad student doing his first observing run somewhere in Europe is reporting a naked eye supernova in the galactic plane in the Sagittarius constellation
twitter feeds from somewhere across the Atlantic say
"wow, it is really bright, and I know it can't be Venus"
01.04.09:
Early indications suggest the presence of Hα and OIII lines, and there are indications that the emission is highly variable.
One message suggested evidence for periodicity, or at least quasi-periodic oscillations, possibly indicating prompt formation of a slow pulsar.
There are clear anecdotal indications of…
catdynamics | March 31, 2009This beautiful tuesday morning, Dave tutors us on relaxation and cluster core collapse.
Then it is party at Alison's place.
But, first, we go through thermodynamics of self-gravitating internally relaxed systems, multiple equilibria and general dimensionless solutions.
Open Cluster M7 (from Utahskies.org)
Globular cluster M4 (from Utahskies.org)
Core collapsed? Or not?
Globular cluster M15 (from Utahskies.org - ok actually hubblesite, but they had a scaled copy and I was on a roll)
Definitely core collapse, we think.
Seriously - there are more core collapsed or post-core collapsed…
catdynamics | March 31, 2009Steven Simon from Oxford University gives the Director's Blackboard Talk:
"Interesting and Useful" (video and podcast)
catdynamics | March 30, 2009"He looks just like you"
"Thank you"
"Soooo cute!"
Huh?
Ok...
so:
my decades long struggle to transcend "cute" and reach some suitably manly adjective has failed,
or
cuteness is not transitive
must achieve zen
catdynamics | March 30, 2009I was at a local bank this week, depositing a check from a solvent institution but one known to have cash flow issues
it is a large west coast bank, relatively well known including for some recent financial games with the Feds.
This time, the nice lady at the counter asked me if I needed immediate access to the deposit?
Huh? Said I. Looking at the payeee - "I think the check will clear..."
Oh, it is not that, said she, it is just that some people need immediate access to their deposits, like same day, or tomorrow, and if you did we can expedite it.
Oh, that's nice, thought I, and said "no…
catdynamics | March 30, 2009In the "Little House on the Prairie" series, one of the later books describes the family's move to the Dakota's and the long winter they suffered through.
In The Long Winter, the prairie is hammered by a rapid series of intense blizzards, from October until April - about two per week, according to the book, though that may be some exaggeration.
My kids were shocked when I told them, after we read the book, that it was based on real life incidents, not pure fiction.
Looks like the long winter is back
From accuweather, monday 30th March 2009
Interesting.
It is tempting to note that 1879-1880…
catdynamics | March 30, 2009Questa confusione non mi piace!
Parli piu silenziosamente, per favore.
Seriamente, ho mal di testa.
Si, si, pero avete considerato i campi magnetici?
Fermate, per favore.
Personalmenta, credo che il cafe espresso e disgustoso!
The Clusters09 Guide to Defusing Italian Discussions in the Morning Session (pdf)
For some strange reasons, the above list of romanic pseudo-code appeared on a KITP blackboard a couple of weeks ago.
I think it appeared when we were discussing Y and multiple populations...
Fortuitously, the list was preserved for posterity, so that future generations may have productive…
catdynamics | March 30, 2009The dynamics workshop in back, refreshed and ready to rock with yet more people in place.
This morning Melvyn tutors us on planets.
In globular clusters.
Planets in globulars clusters?!
From the CfA wallpaper collection - very nice images btw
Well, yes, maybe.
Or, more generally planets in very dense stellar associations.
Dynamically planets tend to get stripped quickly if they are orbiting at more than a few AU in a typical cluster.
But, planets closer in can stick around for gigayears, and those tend to be the ones we can observe.
We looked...
we found something interesting elsewhere...…