catdynamics | June 18, 2008NASA is really getting into the blog thing...
GLAST blog is up and running, with mission performance updates and near future action items etc.
Steve Ritz himself is running it.
GLAST seem to be doing fine, some minor glitches shaken out, I'm sure they gave the people involved a nice adrenaline rush, but in retrospect, from the outside, after they've been solved, they sound like the normal sort of glitches most missions go through that are sorted out by the rather good mission people...
GAST has done some pointing observations and is now in survey mode - calibration is starting and the…
catdynamics | June 17, 2008why is there always One that hatesdoesn't click with you...
The Female Science Professor got her student evaluations...
As she notes, there is always one student who really does not like the class, the professor, the material, the method, anything...
Always.
One.
At least one...
Now, she has some interesting conjecture about her particular One, which I am sorry to say could not possibly explain my One(s).
Our student evaluations score us on a strange numerical scale - high score is good.
Personally I just think that there is always one student who inverts the scale and things a "1" is good…
catdynamics | June 13, 2008
"So, you get through grad school. You do research that gets lot of citations. You get tenure...
...then Larry King wraps it up: "Tomorrow, we'll talk about psychic kids." "
'cause y'know linking is an intrinsically good thing to do, sometimes.
catdynamics | June 13, 2008Hot and sultry friday.
We ask the iPod: will GLAST really detect cold dark matter annihilation radiation from centers of nearby galaxies?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: My Flying Saucer - Billy Bragg
The Crossing: Revenge - Spoon
The Crown: Real Wild Child - Iggy Pop
The Root: When Love Comes To Town - U2
The Past: King James Version - Billy Bragg
The Future: Baggy Trousers - Madness
The Questioner: Firebird: Introduction
The House: E Lucevan Le Stelle - Three Tenors
The Inside: Iris - Goo Goo Dolls
The Outcome: Hersham Boys - Sham 69
"And the Stars Were Shining..."
The…
catdynamics | June 12, 2008About a week ago, George Will, in a column, asserted incorrectly that Cuba was letting NorwayChina drill for oil in Gulf waters.
The meme was promptly picked up and eventually asserted by the US vice President.
Where did this come from?
The rumours predates Will's column.
It surfaces in several blogs, unsourced, on sunday June 1st.
Before that, in late May, it appears in a bunch of low key speeches by republican congressmen and is echoed in editorials and letters in local papers around the US.
Now Cuba is leasing blocks for exploratory drilling, eventually, the Brazilians are interested; and…
catdynamics | June 12, 2008A few weeks ago I noted that the spring had the potential for some worrying flooding in the Mississippi basin
Still there.
As a quick glance at the Weather Channel reveals, the upper Mississippi basin is facing historic flooding right now.
Or the USGS waterwatch.
Now, last I checked, the eastern Rockies snowpack was heavy and melting, so there is water coming from the west into the basin, not just north.
The Ohio is not flooding the way it was, but rivers west of the eastern continental divide are flowing at a healthy clip, mainly due to residual rain from the line of storms that is flooding…
catdynamics | June 9, 2008In case you missed it, NASA announced selection of the six SMEX concept studies that will be downselected to two launch missions in 2012-2015.
And the winners are...
CPEX: Coronal Physics Explorer - NRL
Solar coronography - looking at flares and mass ejections
GEMS: Gravity and Extreme Magnetism SMEX - GSFC
X-ray telescope looking at "highly magnetized matter" flowing into supermassive black holes.
Bonus points for a self-referential two level acronym.
IRIS: Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph - LockMart
Dynamics of the Solar chromosphere and interface.
JANUS:Joint Astrophysics Nascent…
catdynamics | June 7, 2008New Sigur Rós album coming out, they they do a free concert with Björk in Reykjaví at the end of June.
In the meantime video and free download of Gobbledigook - first song on the album - here - signin required.
Album pre-order also available online.
They seem to be on form.
Astonishing video - good cinematography. Not for the prudish though.
It amuses me endlessly how many people listen without understanding the lyrics...
Remind me of my youth.
catdynamics | June 6, 2008Sunny, glorious friday, as we head home.
So, we skip to the Great iPod and ask: what is in store for us in the near future, oh Great iPod One?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Chilling of the Evening - Arlo Guthrie
The Crossing: Billy Bragg podcast #1- Prehistory to the end of Riff Raff
The Crown: Joyeux Anniveraire - Henri Des
The Root: Mexico - Morrissey
The Past: On Passing Lilac Urine - Half Man Half Biscuit
The Future: Inoculated City - Clash
The Questioner:Il Lamento di Federico - Three Tenors
The House: Christmas in Dixie - Alabama
The Inside: Krummi svaf í…
catdynamics | June 6, 2008I've spent the last couple of weeks at the Aspen Center for Physics.
As always, it has been productive and a pleasure, but I noticed one big change as I was puttering around town.
Real Easte Sales down 38%!
The Aspen housing market is outrageously high, and prices go up double digit percentages almost every year.
But, this year I noticed a lot of "for sale" signs wandering around, in neighbourhoods where in past years houses just did not stay on the market long enough for signs to go up.
Now, the caveat is that it is a small market, so there are large Poisson fluctuations in sales. But, for…
catdynamics | June 6, 2008Cordesman of the CSIS has a presentation on potential Middle East nuclear conflicts
From the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Nov 2007, where Anthony Cordesman is a fellow.
Iran, Isreal and Nuclear War
- 77 page pdf version of a ppt presentation.
Some interesting graphics - eg satellite imagery of the Arak heavy water reactor, which the Iranians claim they are now making fuel elements for - sucker is dug in deep.
Some of the stuff is scare figures - eg hypothetical 1 MegaTon Iranian strike on Riyadh. No likely that Iran will have a thermonuclear device in the time frame…
catdynamics | June 6, 2008Three times smitten by my spear he pressed the dust
The Phoenix lander
has picked up some stuff, and, yup, it is red...,
and we have microscopic images of Martian dust.
30-150 micron dust on the optical microscope - dust kicked up by the lander, probably.
The scoop picked up some white stuff - probably salts they think - hope not all the hard shiny stuff they've seen in the trenches and under the lander is salt deposits.
Getting there.
catdynamics | June 5, 2008John McCain's website is puzzling:
The "Decision Center" shows a four tab banner:
Decision Center General Election Obama & Iraq Golf Gear
It really is a link to on-line sales of "McCain Golf Gear"
It is still there, eight hours after TPM noted it.
Strangely the John McCain Store, linked to from the top bar, does not appear to have the Golf Gear.
Even more interestingly, the style set at the top of McCain's web site is Skins/Black and Skins/Black2.
subliminal.
Source code for the Barack Obama web site is much cleaner, very nicely structured.
h/t deLong
Since I'm there: McCain has…
catdynamics | June 5, 2008Battery anomaly on GLAST launcher, launch now no earlier than 11 June.
Instantaneous slip rate is > day-per-day
Current launch window is good for another 8 weeks or so though.
This too shall pass.
catdynamics | June 5, 2008Senate Select Intelligence Committee has released its second report on 9/11 and Iraq related issues.
Better late than never.
Senator Whitehouse is pissed off - he is a pretty good orator also
Another link, because linking is an inherent good.
Here is a source for the text files
h/t emptywheel
and here
catdynamics | June 4, 2008I am currently in one of my favourite physics hostels...
Aspen Center for Physics
My office is just behind the trees, kinda diagonally through on the other side of the building.
I'm here for a "gravitational radiation astronomy" workshop, which is being run in parallel with a "complexity" workshop.
Interesting crowd.
Been a very productive time, lots of interesting talks - strictly "Aspen rules" - blackboard talks or informal "alcove sessions" - expert level, on open issues and work in progress. Talks have been running for three hours, typically with 2-3 speakers in tandem.
This is the…
catdynamics | June 3, 2008"In the beginning...
...was the command line!"
Now, there is Goosh!
The unofficial google shell.
All the power of google with the cuddly familiarity of the csh interface.
Sweet.
h/t y-ranter
Oh, yeah, and it works.