catdynamics | March 6, 2008If you're a cosmologist, you need to rewrite your proposal. Now.
Well, 13,730 million if you have confidence in ground based data... looking through Apache Point apparently puts 40 million years on the universe.
Ok, WMAP-5 release is out, just in time for pedants on panels to quibble about everybody's cosmology related Hubble proposals using dated information.
Hence, clearly, they must be rejected in favour of observations of the local universe which are not sensitive to these parameters...
There is a stack of new, overlong, papers, which I suppose we must all eventually read and then pick…
catdynamics | March 6, 2008Hubble proposal deadline tomorrow, lest you forget.
How many proposals do you think we will get?
I think I know. You wanna bet?
The Hubble Space Telescope is a fine telescope.
Currently it has very limited capabilities due to instrument failures, but it is, hopefully, getting one more servicing mission - during which a new Wide Field Camera (3) will be installed - with a moderately wide field, well sampled broadband performance (UV to near-IR - an interesting compromise).
The Cosmic Origins Spectrograph - a fixed single aperture medium resolution blue spectrograph.
In addition there are plans…
catdynamics | March 5, 2008Press rumour that Bush may fire Admiral Fallon, head of Central Command
specifically the rumour is that Adm Fallon may be relieved of command by this summer, 9-12 months before normal rotation would be considered, and that this is because of Fallon's "no war with Iran on my watch" stance
White House Press officer refused to deny the rumour
h/t dibgy
Very bad, IF true.
Depends on who the replacement is, but it'd provide a window for the administraton's "take out Iran" faction to push for an attack on Iran before the end of this Presidency, possibly as early as autumn.
Any such attack would…
catdynamics | March 4, 2008UK astro staggers back to life...
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game
STFC announces UK participation in Gemini is back on - from astrophycisist2b
Apparently someone in admistradialand can still do arithmetic and figured out that the cost penalty of walking away from Gemini was about the same as staying in, on the relevant cost cutting time scale.
New plan is to recover costs by selling UK time...ok.
To…
catdynamics | March 3, 2008GLAST has shipped
The Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope is NASA's next big mission.
The telescope has passed review and has been shipped to Florida where pieces of a Delta-II launcher are being assembled, for, er, launch, May 16th sometime later this year.
GLAST, if successfully launched and operational, will do some very interesting high energy astrophysics, including a large area telescope and a high energy burst monitor
NASA has announced an open competition to name GLAST, after a successful launch, I hope. Wouldn't want to jinx it, not that I'm superstitious or anything. Deadline…
catdynamics | March 3, 2008must.not.blog
HST proposal deadline on friday... argh.
Hey, how did my mailbox get to have over 5000 messages in it?
Again.
catdynamics | March 1, 2008curious case in Las Vegas with a middle aged man in a coma and ricin found in an extended stay hotel room
lots of new stories and blog posts on this, but very little information
some blogs are claiming an ID for the man hospitalized, and reports say guns and a "anarchist type" book was found, with a bookmark at the ricin recipe page
interesting question is which book:
the standard is "The Poisoner's Handbook" by Hutchkinson
which is a favourite of certain non-progressive fringe elements
- it is available on amazon, natch
a more obscure source would be a crude survivalist handbook which I…
catdynamics | February 29, 2008It is friday, yet it is not snowing, yet.
So, we skip to the Mighty iPod and ask, most sincerely: Oh, Mighty iPod One, is it the case that the high redshift IMF was significantly influenced by CMB flooring and chemothermoinstabilities, as indicated by our poor and feeble efforts?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Sumarkveðja - trad.
The Crossing: What Color Are You Wearing? - trad.
The Crown: Red Angel Dragnet - Clash
The Root: Redemption Song - Bob Marley and the Wailers
The Past: How Many Ducks? - trad.
The Future: Mo - Alpha Blondy
The Questioner: Teenage Kicks -…
catdynamics | February 25, 2008a physicist, an engineer and a lawyer were chatting at a social event, when the Big Question came up
Peter Parker vs Luke Skywalker - who would win?
this is a tricky one, even if I tend to subscribe to the theory that spidey is a major underachiever who rarely lives up to his full potential, as if Luke ever does either...
Clearly webbing vs lightsabre is no contest - give that one to Luke
on the other hand, spidersense vs the Force, I would go with spidersense
now superhuman strength is a winner, but spidey is a loner whereas Luke has all the Jedi supposedly backing him up...
so I give it to…
catdynamics | February 25, 2008remind me, don't the redshirts always die first?
Comedian Lee Camp will never be invited back on Fox television... - click through and wait till the end for the "galactic love"
but I expect he feels it was worth it.
Especially since they promptly prove his point so elegantly.
Especially since he was picked up by Comedy Central.
h/t kos
catdynamics | February 25, 2008Where are the faculty bloggers? asks RPM over at evolgen
Er, mostly hiding pseudonymously from rampaging department chairs and deans...
but Chad takes up the discussion, standing up for the physicists bloggers, and borrowing a couple of astronomers for the good cause
hey, thought I, this is interesting, maybe there is a link with the two cultures - the focused vs the dabblers in academia>?!
I know!
(I think)
Obviously it is us Dabblers who blog, since the Focused Faculty are totally monomanic, in the Lab learning more and more about less and less, as they say.
Clearly the Focused don't…
catdynamics | February 22, 2008The Female Science Professor turns over the rocks and brings the real clash of cultures into the bright light of reason...
are you blinkered and missing the big picture, or a jack-of-all-trades (but master of none)
I know what I am...
Seriously.
The question of whether to focus narrowly on a single topic, possibly becoming The Expert in it; or, to dabble in a range of sub-topics, possibly related, is a major divisor in many academic fields.
Narrow focus definitely enhances short to medium term productivity and can enhance tenure prospects, since a typical question posed is whether the…
catdynamics | February 22, 2008It is snowy friday, again! Yay!
So we skip to the Mighty iPod and ask: do you answer?
Woosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Mamma Aumingja Mamma - trad.
The Crossing: No Woman No Cry (live) - Bob Marley
The Crown: It's A Shame - Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five
The Root: How Soon is Now - Smiths
The Past: Golden Brown - Stranglers
The Future: Lust for Life - Bad Livers
The Questioner: One of My Turns - Pink Floyd
The House: Place Your Hand - Melissa Etheridge
The Inside: My Oklahome Home - Bruce Springsteen
The Outcome: All Around the World Or The Myth of Fingerprints -…
catdynamics | February 21, 2008we really just spend all our time cleaning up paperwork and shutting down youthful extravaganzas
I don't see how you get through 20 lightswitch flips per day though
no way you are first author on that many switch flips
catdynamics | February 20, 2008US Navy is claiming successful shootdown of USA 193
Hey, totality of the Lunar eclipse!
Pretty...
CNN just reported that the USS Erie - and Aegis class cruiser - successfully intercepted and destroyed the USA 193 intelligence satellite with a modified SM-3 missile.
Hm. Show offs.
USA 193 was launched about 15 months ago, got to orbit but then lost attitude control and started a rapid decay.
Presumably a) thruster control was lost, and b) satellite went into gravity gradient mode.
It is allegedly a synthetic aperture radar sat, although there are rumblings that it is curiously underweight, so…
catdynamics | February 20, 2008ok, this is weird... in beer prices, cost of living in Boston and State College is comparable
The current median (asking) price for houses in State College is about 60% of that in Boston right now.
But, Yuengling beer six-pack in PA is about 25% cheaper than Sam Adams, typically.
So the median house price in State College is about 42,000 Yuengling six packs, compared to about 48,000 six packs of Sam Adams for a house in Boston.
That is weird.
Hm, rather worryingly, I get Santa Cruz median house price to be closer to 72,000 six packs of Anchor Steam (since Lighthouse seems to be out of…
catdynamics | February 20, 2008Two curious pieces of news: one the change of gift card redemption patterns at big box retailers, the other in the CPI.
Market research show people redeeming christmas gift cards later and for necessities not trinkets - the article is light on data but interesting anecdotally and consistent with local anecdoted
In the meantime the shadowstats website has some interesting inflation and money-supply data
Even the official Consumer Price Index is rising at above 4.3% - the site claims that weighted by pre-1980 baskets, the old style CPI is rising at over 12%.
Certainly price inflation of…
catdynamics | February 20, 2008Amazon has a new electronic bookreader out - the Kindle - it now includes a select blog feed, I gather
I have never seen a Kindle - I expect something like it will eventually find its way into my possession and be utilised for light reading and archiving for travel - I don't know that the technology is there yet. Issues are: weight, contrast and resolution - you need 300+ dpi, contrast of probably > 100:1 and a large lightweight screen to make it worthwhile.
But, in the meantime, apparently the Kindle has an optional autoblog feed by topic, of select blogs. As I discovered while Kibo'ing.…
catdynamics | February 20, 2008PSU Collegian article on Valerie Plame's visit to PSU;
also CDT local news item;
of course blogs got it first...