catdynamics | December 11, 2007The big NASA individual PI grants are being announced in time for the holiday shopping season...
Most of NASA's university PI based research and analysis is awarded through the ROSES annual omnibus Request for Proposals - the RfP typically comes out just after the State of the Union speech, with first deadline usually 90 days later, and a main "proposal season" in early summer, though some programs straggle through to the beginning of the following calendar year.
The Requests for Proposals for individual lines are often heavily amended, postponed or cancelled as the actual budget takes…
catdynamics | December 11, 2007The CoRoT team had a meeting, I wasn't there, but...
No press release, right now, someone must have confused "meeting" with "announcement". There are news, but I am firmly told that they are not announcing a terrestrial planet discovery or any such.
Be interesting to see what they have after the first look, any announcements at this point will be limited by the need to do ground based followup for confirmation.
The most interesting objects will be those showing clear periodic low amplitude variation with transit like profiles and no apparent velocity variation (since the first cut is to…
catdynamics | December 10, 2007Now do you believe in elves?
Santa Claus in Orion.
Got a long way to go still.
From ESA, XMM, via Spitzer
catdynamics | December 8, 2007Big F.U. from the Science and Technology Facilities Council to the astronomical community.
The UK STFC is expected to formally announce its final response to the 7% effective cut in its programs (after inflation and "Full Economic Costs") on Dec 11th.
(Hm, the UK is putting in its version of Full Cost Accounting - I am so sorry...)
The Royal Astronomical Societ and the Institute of Physics are fighting a rearguard action on the cuts, the most immediate being withdrawal from Gemini. Last week the RAS and IoP announced they would have a joint community meeting on the cuts on Dec 13th.
Today a…
catdynamics | December 8, 2007A couple of weeks ago my Mac desktop keyboard met a sad demise at the hand of a klutz filled with a large hot, milky coffee
My Better Half, and a quick commenter, independently suggested I try a legendary remedy they had heard about, namely washing the keyboard in the dishwasher (figures bloomin' Boing Boing had already tried it - as I just found out).
So I did.
The keyboard is a white and beige medium quality Mac desktop keyboard, USB plug, transparent case, about three years old I think (can't remember if it is original or if I passed that to a postdoc and confiscated a newer keyboard).
It…
catdynamics | December 7, 2007Cool snowy friday, and we ask the Mighty iPod: what has CoRoT wrought?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Follie! - Verdi
The Crossing: Make You Feel Better - Red Hot Chili Peppers
The Crown: Sexuality (London Remix) - Billy Bragg
The Root: Flamingo Baby - Violent Femmes
The Past: I Don't Need This Pressure Ron - Billy Bragg
The Future: Angel, Angel, Down We Go Together - Morrissey
The Questioner: Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra Variation XII - Benjamin Britten
The House:Twydale's Lament - Half Man, Half Biscuit
The Inside: Kirkjuhvoll
The Outcome: I Melt With You -…
catdynamics | December 6, 2007more random thoughts on iran
Nuclear Mangos has a summary of the summaries on Iran and the NIE
So, it appears that the White House doesn't know when it knew about Iran.
It also appears that the key intelligence leading the US to conclude the Iranians do not actually have such a program was a combination of a major defection in the last year, and UK signals intelligence confirming his story.
So... presumably, if all this is kosher, and the paranoid wing in Israel is despairing that the whole thing is a setup and the US has been spoofed, but then Iran knew exactly when the US knew that there…
catdynamics | December 6, 2007Chad wants seasonal songs that don't suck, he already knows about the Pogues.
I keep tellin' ya:
The definitive short song selection of Icelandic carols - youtube is blocking embedded links on this one - click through if you want to see what we had to grow up with.
Hey, if my kids have to march in circles pretending to hold a walking stick, so should yours...
Dubba, dubba, dum-dum.
I'm tellin' ya.
Ok, it is hard to beat...
"Pabbi Komdu Heim..." might match it for pathos but not for grit.
catdynamics | December 5, 2007Moore money for Thirty Metre Telescope
The Moore Foundation just donated $200 million to Caltech and UC jointly to build the Thirty Metre Telescope - a successor to the Keck telescopes.
That is a lot.
Apparently with matches the total in the bank is now $300 million or so, so construction will presumably commence.
492 individually controlled 1.45m mirrors. Nice.
Adaptive optics. Six lasers for guide stars.
Good spatial resolution. Huge light bucket.
catdynamics | December 5, 2007"what's this dip over here?
Will the referee buy it?"
So this is what prolonged oxygen deprivation does to you?
Brilliant.
h/t Kayhan
catdynamics | December 4, 2007Harmony and understanding
Sympathy and trust abounding
No more falsehoods or derisions
Golden living dreams of visions
Mystic crystal revalation
And the mind's true liberation
Confused about Iran?
Doc Foland at Nuclear Mangos explains it all.
FWIW, I broadly concur with him.
The published NIE is if anything more dovish than I'd think. In fact it is hard to reconcile the Iranian public posture on enrichment with it the NIE in its entirety, and Iran is clearly moving closer to "breakout" capability - where they don't have a nuclear weapons program, but could put one together real fast, if…
catdynamics | December 3, 2007Coming soon.
For the unintiated, CoRoT is a French small space telescope, optimised for high precision relative photometry of bright stars observed in the optical.
Originally conceived as an astroseismology mission, to study the oscillations and variability of solar like stars in the neighbourhood, it was rescoped before launch to be optimised for detecting planetary transits.
It has been up for almost a year, made a token discovery announcement after the first short run, and recently completed its first "long stare", 150 days of observing a single patch of the sky, continuously.
It is…
catdynamics | December 3, 2007it would appear that meetings are now being cancelled at a rate asymptotically approaching the rate at which they are being called...
31st Carnival of Space is Out of the Cradle
catdynamics | November 30, 2007It lives...
Philosophia Naturalis #15 is up on Sorting Out Science.
Volunteers needed for #16 before christmas...
catdynamics | November 30, 2007bring me some paperwork!
Lest I become in danger of committing science.
catdynamics | November 30, 2007Crisp and clear friday, and we approach the iPod with Intent and ask:
so, iPod dude, will we really get bucketloads of snow this weekend?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Mi-Aout - Henri Des
The Crossing: Le vent dans la plaine - Claudio Arrau
The Crown: Stir It Up - Bob Marley and the Wailers
The Root: Gaudeamus - Stuttgart Men's Choir
The Past: Lilli og Marteinn Læðast - Thorborn Egner
The Future: Sixpence Only - Spilverk Þjóðanna
The Questioner: Warning Sign - Talking Heads
The House: Intro (Excerpt) - Alpha Blondy
The Inside: Drops of Jupiter - Train
The Outcome: I Can…
catdynamics | November 28, 2007The Angry Physicist is really irate
He read Jacques' recent Musings on things Exceptionally Simple and was not amused.
Can I please first note that Lisi's infamous title is a PUN!
It is a joke, folks, and it is funny.
See, E8... it is an exceptional Lie group, and it is simple... argh. Never mind.
Now I might have let this slide, but even Chad is getting perturbed by all the negative vibes, so may I please remind people of some history.
Once upon a time: there were some bold imaginative young theorists, somewhat fresh out of grad school.
There was a newish theory around, that boldly proposed…
catdynamics | November 26, 2007Pittsburgh 3 Miami 0
24 yard field coal with 20 seconds to go in 4th quarter.
Ugh.
catdynamics | November 26, 2007ships are sailing and oil is flowing and nukes are being fueled
weird little snips of news piled over the last week:
the US navy is still heavily out - the USS Truman has joined the Enterprise in the Gulf, where they should overlap for a few weeks if the Enterprise does a normal length tour. Though Navy is saying the Enterprise is wrapping up and going home for christmas.
Bunch of helicarriers and landing ships still out there also, although a couple are now headed home.
The paranoiacs at Debka.com keep insisting that the USS Nimitz is in the Gulf, but she just returned to San Diego a few…
catdynamics | November 26, 2007UK announced it is withdrawing from Gemini
The Gemini twin telescopes, one in the "north" on Hawaii, and one south in Chile, are one of the few major (8-10m) optical/near-infrared telescope facilities.
The telescopes are a joint US (NSF national), UK, Canada, Chile, Australia, Argentina and Brazil effort, and are a major project, with multi-million dollar operating costs, hundreds of million dollar capital costs, and tens of million of dollars in instrumentation existing and under development.
From wainscoat.com
Earlier this month, the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council, the heir…