catdynamics | November 12, 2007minor scare on the Minor Planet Circulars the other day
an apparent new object, 2007 VN84 was tagged as a potential impactor, with an estimated closest approach of 12,000 km or less - two Earth diameters.
IAUC 20 issues an alert. - The relevant column is "Delta" - distance from Earth in AU
It was a false alarm.
See editorial notice from the MPC They blame the Satellite Situation Center on failing to provide timely orbital elements. ESA, to be fair, does provide a position update, including a where is it now web page
See also Planetary Society Blog
The apparent new Near Earth Asteroid was…
catdynamics | November 10, 2007I had a minor geek spree this week, not entirely sucessfully
Got a "personal certificate" (X.509 2048 bits) from Thawte - they give personal certs out for free, to sustain a pool of interested customers for their commerical business - quick google suggested they were trustworthy, if anyone knows they're not, let me know.
Anyway, piece of cake to install - use Firefox to signup and download a certificate. Back it up into a .p12 file, then have Mac Mail search for it and import it.
Voila, unbreakable encryption, unless someone has a robust multibit quantum computer, or unless thawte put a…
catdynamics | November 9, 2007the mystery of the "Syrian box" continues
as you know, Bob,
the Israelis bombed a big box in eastern Syria a few weeks ago (or, did they? - there's a bizarro story in the j-post source to al-Jazeera that the US did the bombing - don't believe it - but there may be more to the story, like maybe the Israeli planes had US special forces guidance or elint support, or they came from the east, staging out of Iraqi bases - since apparently Syrian AA cover is anisotropic... - that would explain the Syrian strange rant about Israeli aircraft circling over the Med west of Syria - they could have been…
catdynamics | November 9, 2007Snow?
Of course, it is friday.
So, we ask the Mighty iPod: will I ever be able to buy a ticket to orbit? Just for laughs?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Ofboðslega Frægur - Stuðmenn
The Crossing: Menuett F-Dur - Mozart
The Crown: Santa Claus if Coming to Town
The Root: Heart Like a Wheel - Billy Bragg
The Past: Hateful - Clash
The Future: Should I Stay or Should I Go - Clash
The Questioner: Memories Can't Wait - Talking Heads
The House: Spanish Bombs - Clash
The Inside: Killy City - Iggy Pop
The Outcome: Sumarið Er Tíminn - GCD
Wow. Mighty is the iPod.
The Covering is…
catdynamics | November 8, 2007Kaguya, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's lunar explorer, is taking pretty pictures
In HDTV
Have to confess I am missing something here, since the pixel count is underwhelming, but it has been a long time... and the pics are awful pretty.
Couldn't get the movie sequence to run on Safari, regrettably. I blame Bill Gates.
catdynamics | November 8, 2007there is an interesting side effect of the dollar's recent pronounced decline
a lot of countries, especially smaller, poorer countries, finance their public debt in dollar bonds - the loan is in dollars, and so is the repayment, but the funds to make the payment ultimately come out of local revenue
so, in driving down the US dollar, a lot of countries have an opportunity to write off a significant fraction of their public debt, eg by converting to euro bonds - if the central banks can pull it off, get refinancing, and if they time it right (incorrect timing just reinflates the debt in local…
catdynamics | November 8, 2007Georgia Governor announces back up drought plan
Er, dood, I was joking.
It doesn't work...
catdynamics | November 8, 2007Periodic Comet 17P/Holmes just brightened by 15 magnitudes overnight
That means it went from boringly dim, to being naked eye visible, and it is high in the northern sky, a nice target for binoculars or small telescope if you have cold clear skies and a view to the north.
The Space Fellowship has directions
wikipedia has the gory details and pretty pictures
catdynamics | November 8, 2007Keck/Lick team finds fifth planet in 55 Cancri
Press release
Pretty pictures and animations!
55 Cancri is one of the best studied extrasolar planet systems, it was known to have four planets, and now a fifth has emerged from the data - 45 Earth masses in near 1 AU orbit - in the habitable zone.
Be nice if it has a large moon...!
Meant to blog it, but Greg beat me to it, and has all the beautiful details wrapped up
catdynamics | November 7, 2007Rocketeers is the contemporary story of the flurry of activity in private space launch development and construction, centered primarily in the US southwest.
Rocketeers by Michael Belfiore
Smithsonian Books
ISBN: 978-0-06-114902-3
Belfiore is a freelance journalist who covered the private sector space launch developers, the epynomous rocketeers, during the short period of the last few years leading up to SpaceShipOne winning the first X-prize, and the immediate aftermath.
It is a fun read, half contemporaneous history, and half cheerleading; the focus is on Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites…
catdynamics | November 7, 20072,4,6,8
never too late!!
to up the beat!
I actually like Feist, but compared to the Tom Robinson Band it is a bit insipid
Oh, and must include this variation on another classic by TRB...
catdynamics | November 6, 2007With the end of the tropical storm season in sight, it is not looking good for the drought in the south-east US
Particularly since we have entered a la Nina and the winter forecast is for "warm and dry"
This is from the 1999 drought - this one is worse.
Atlanta, Georgia, now has about 75 days of reservoir water left, at which point they will need to pump "dead pool" water from below the intakes.
It is not clear if enough water can be pumped, nor how drinkable it will be - though it should be fine for watering golf courses.
If the region doesn't get a LOT of rain by the new year - sustained…
catdynamics | November 6, 2007Keith Olbermann made a comment on the night of the 5th of November
Apparently a DoJ lawyer conducted an experiment...
Apparently an acting assistant attorney general, Daniel Levin, decided to see what "waterboarding" was like as an interrogation technique.
He concluded it was indeed torture, wrote a memo to that effect, and was fired.
Keith is rather heated about the issue, and rightly so.
Unfortunately I fell asleep, but the intertubes have it
Crooks and Liars video archive and transcript
Nothing really to add to that.
Sometime we link because it is a good thing
catdynamics | November 5, 2007the US navy is all out this week
when listening to heated rhetoric from DC, it is interesting to keep half an eye on what is actually happening on the ground.
US doctrine calls for an ability to strike any where on the globe within 24 hours, a time they'd like to shorten to one hour (for non-nuclear strikes), but realistically for any sustained effort against a national power, the US need to move assets into place weeks or days before anything can happen.
It is also effectively US doctrine to attack first at night, and near or just after the new moon, because that maximises the advantages of…
catdynamics | November 5, 2007Congress has been holding possible contempt citations over some current and ex-White House officials, and a of people have been wondering if the House is going to let executive staff refuse to respond to subpoena issued by oversight committees
Such contempt is usually referred to the local US Attorney, who then refers it to a court and the process goes from there.
But through some extraordinarily creative lawyering, the Department of Justice has indicated they will refuse to enforce contempt citations, on the grounds that a DoJ official wrote an opinion for the White House that executive…
catdynamics | November 5, 2007new study shows students with involved parents do better but
they get lower grades on average.
Huh?
Well, it makes sense.
Basically, involved parents go to helicopter mode when the students are struggling, over-reaching or just need a nudge.
So there are three classes of students:
those which do well, independent of parent involvement
those which do better than they would, because the parents are involved
and, those which do badly and don't get parental assistance
these are not exclusive or exhaustive
National Survey of Student Engagement
Another interesting point is the report that students…
catdynamics | November 5, 2007 ...was the command line
As we know, Google is not-so-secretly building a distributed artificial intelligence, that will not doubt promptly transcend and take over the world, except possibly for those of us with inbuilt immunity.
I, personally, will welcome our new prescient disembodied overlords.
What can I say, Google still sends me (small) checks on random occasions. (More, please!)
The only residual uncertainty is when, and how, the Eschaton will imminence.
Now, the Yorkshire Ranter makes a good point: Google is really just a very large, distributed command line Unix interface to the Web…
catdynamics | November 2, 2007it is a gorgeous autumnal friday, the leaves are red as blood and the crisp sun shines through the early morning frost
so, we ask the Mighty iPod - we're all at sea - what should be our plan for the next six months or so?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Ashes to Ashes - Bowie
The Crossing: I Hate Nerys Hughes - Half Man Half Biscuit
The Crown: Drops of Jupiter - Train
The Root: Carnival of the Animals: Finale
The Past: I Shall Believe - Sheryl Crow
The Future: Little Deuce Coupe - Beach Boys
The Questioner: The Hen
The House: Two and Two - Jesus Jones
The Inside: Zap Pow…
catdynamics | November 1, 2007I was rudely reminded today that it is the season where all research stops
while 10-20% of the community engages in the autumn ritual that mixes the Chinese Fire Drill with Musical Chairs, except that the number of chairs removed per round is more like 1/3 to 2/3 of the initial, rather than just one at a time.
Except every few decades when a bunch of extra chairs is randomly added.
Which poses the essential question: which music is appropriate for Academic Musical Chairs?
This is my first cut, additional suggestions welcomed.
Art of the Possible - Evita
U Can't Touch This - MC Hammer…