Chris Rowan is a geologist specialising in the dark arts of paleomagnetism, and getting people to pay him to travel to exotic destinations for fieldwork. Having drilled up New Zealand during his PhD, and South Africa in his first post-doc, he now works at the University of Edinburgh.
Anne Jefferson has a love of all things water-related and blends hydrology, geomorphology, geology, and climate change in her work. She has a Ph.D. from Oregon State University and is now an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Devotees of Star Wars will remember those classic scenes in the Empire Strikes back where the Millennium Falcon, having cleverly jinked and dodged around its Imperial pursuers, makes to leave them in its dust trails by engaging the hyperdrive system. Levers are pulled, Han sarcastically quips, the engine note rises - and then, accompanied by a very unhealthy series of splutters, the Falcon remains resolutely stuck in normal space.
Right now I feel exactly like Han Solo did. My samples are all nicely cut and ready to be measured, lined up in the lab and ready to go. Sadly, when I try to run the measurement programme for our magnetometer, the computer thinks for a bit, then gives an annoyed beep and claims that the magnetometer does not exist - and I don't think that it's trying to instigate a deep philosophical argument about the nature of reality.
In the time-honoured style, I've tried the usual fixes: switching everything off and on again, and unplugging and replugging the cable linking the computer and magnetometer. The latter tactic actually worked briefly, before everything died again, which leads me to conclude that the cable is dodgy. Sadly, whatever I did the first time can't be replicated. Even more sadly, the cable in question is a 9-pin serial cable, and the rise of USB seems to have made these a rather scarce commodity, and the only one we could find in the department is the wrong gender at one end. I have a replacement on order, but as we're running on African time, who knows when it well arrive?
Lets just hope that my lack of data generation doesn't force me to hide from my boss in an asteroid field...
Comments
No friendly neighbourhood geek who's handy with a soldering iron?
(Or is it one of those infernal moulded-in-one-piece jobs?)
Posted by: Eamon Knight | August 8, 2007 12:26 PM
"Have soldering iron, will travel..."
That was the one thing I took from my brief tenure in the music industry, a talent for soldering fine wires.
Posted by: Kevin Z | August 9, 2007 1:14 AM
If I could find whatever it is that needs to be soldered, I'd do it myself. Not that this makes me a geek, or anything. Turning my equipment troubles into a Star Wars reference, however....
Posted by: Chris Rowan | August 9, 2007 8:03 AM
I've dealt with this old shit all my life (mainly because I am old shit!). When dealing with serial cables you *must* have a smart serial cable analyzer and general doo-dad. They are usually 30 bucks. I recently saved a big project with one of these.
Posted by: Harold Asmis | August 11, 2007 10:19 PM