Steinn Sigurðsson
Professor of Astrophysics at Pennsylvania State University. Science Editor at Astrophysical Journal. Icelandic. Herder of Cats.
catdynamics
Posts by this author
October 10, 2008
Julianne at CV has the latest news
To cut a long story short, they think they know what the problem is and they're going ahead with the switch to the spare "side B" electronics.
Fine Guidance Sensor astrometry programs are contuing, and I hear that NICMOS will be warmed up and they think it will…
October 9, 2008
someone is coming to Iceland and bringing dollars!
Yoko Ono is giving the Peace Prize to the Nation
$50,000 - that's pasta for another week!
In other news:
I overlooked the obvious, there's hoarding of tampons
and, I still haven't figured out if Bills of Attainder are actually constitutional in…
October 9, 2008
so the Astrophysical Journal, Letters has gone online/print-on-demand
and I kinda miss it, though I don't think I've actually picked up a printed copy for years
the one thing us old fogeys keep reminiscing about, is how the old paper journals were nice for browsing.
We'd wonder down to the library…
October 8, 2008
Kaupþing, largest and last of the Icelandic commercial banks goes under
Landsbanki went under earlier this week - classic depositor run on its UK subsidiary, Icesave.
The problem came because the UK has a cap on depositor insurance, and Icesave depositors with over 50,000 pounds stood to lose their…
October 8, 2008
Adler Planetarium is getting a new projector.
They are not amused that the appropriation they got to upgrade their good ol' Zeiss Mark VI projector is being used as political bait
Adler is a very nice planetarium, really, I visited them during "Pale Blue Dot III", and they deserve a Universarium…
October 7, 2008
[world: /$] root% fsck -f
are you sure? y
checking
6,034,932,778 files, 5,843,314,092 used, 1,253,913,456 free (67 frags, 173 blocks, 54.6% fragmentation)
bad blocks fsck not able to repair
filesystem is NOT clean
BAD SUPER BLOCK: MAGIC NUMBER WRONG
/ ***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****
volume…
October 7, 2008
The people who told us
That two and two is ten
Are now trying to tell us
That two and two is five
We're trying to spend our way out of trouble
You keep buying these things but you don't need them
But as long as you're comfortable it feels like freedom
October 6, 2008
Small asteroid hits Earth.
As predicted.
Asteroid 2008 TC3 was just discovered and found to have 99.8% probability of hitting the Earth, most likely above Sudan, this morning. As reported widely on the news.
Here is a nifty pre-impact track image of TC3 and another one
Spaceweather.com reports,…
October 5, 2008
So how did the li'lest economy get frozen first?
So Iceland's economy is facing an interesting shock, first banks failing and now foreign currency reserves running out.
How they got there is interesting, and also a pointer to how they'll get out.
(this is my perspective, from the outside, I am not…
October 3, 2008
head of major supermarket in Iceland encourages people to hoard food and to stop buying foreign products
no currency for food imports
this is a cultural catastrophe, no more cheerios for breakfast, the kids will have to eat skyr
CEO of Bonus, a major Icelandic grocery market says their foreign…
October 3, 2008
we are in for some interesting times
I don't know how many people saw the Bank Limits Fund Access by Colleges article in the NY Times thursday
this is the sort of thing happening more frequently and triggering problems.
In this case a bank limited withdrawals on a fund invested in short term…
October 3, 2008
Linking is a public good y'know
hos has a cathartic rant about the bailout
The TED spread is 3.86 this afternoon - that is after the bailout passed.
If you know what the TED spread is you should now be tasting vomit in your throat.
LIBOR is also spiking, natch.
The US usually quotes the "U3" index…
October 3, 2008
The US financial crisis is causing an implosion in Iceland, which is forcing a cascade into the European financial system.
Serious talk of a bank holiday and food hoarding has been heard.
Head of largest oil company says oil imports may cease because of lack of US dollars.
Last week one of Iceland…
October 3, 2008
drizzly dreary friday
and we drag ourselves to the Great iPod, and we ask: will we ever see from Hubble again?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Það Vantar Spútur - Olga Guðrún
The Crossing: Jingle Bell Rock - Bobby Helms
The Crown: Lifetime Piling Up - Talking Heads
The Root:…
October 2, 2008
The NASA Astrobiology Institute has announced the selection of the new Centers chosen in response to the 5th Co-operative Agreement Notice.
Ten centers were funded, joining the 4 pre-existing centers from CAN-4.
Here is the announcement
The new centers are:
University of Hawaii
Arizona State…
October 2, 2008
Last week we had an inaugural meeting for our new "Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds".
There were some interesting talks and new planets aplenty
Mayor was there and presented some preliminary results, and hinted at upcoming, but as yet unpublished results.
Current radial velocity…
October 1, 2008
The Apple Pro-Sessions Science Blogging panel is done, and jolly good fun it was too.
Good crowd, very good questions and decent banter - interesting to meet the various sciblings, including the ringers in the crowd.
The last question, and I paraphrase, was interesting:
"What one thing should the…
October 1, 2008
graphically explained
PhD Comics illustrate
h/t Chad
it is a good point actually, read the depression era literature - after the few rich who got their trust funds out, the tenured academics rode out the depression relatively well
in fact my entire neighbourhood is mostly depression era houses,…
October 1, 2008
don't forget ScienceBloggers go wild in the Big Apple tonight at 7pm
somewhere in Soho
be there or be somewhere else
September 30, 2008
why are grades at US higher educational institutions confidential?
a piece of paperwork, that I foresee will cause endless trouble, recently crossed my desk
without violating any confidences, the gist of it was that student grades were classified at the super-double-duper level and must never be…
September 29, 2008
The Dangeral Professor is back
and more dangeral than ever.
h/t Sean
ok, that is good news
September 29, 2008
Total failure of Control Unit/Science Data Formatter - side A on saturday,
no data being downlinked.
Attempt to switch to untested side B soon, which could restore functionality.
Also considering emergency repair as part of SM4, SM-4 is delayed.
The failure is in an electronics module.
The failure…
September 29, 2008
Futures
made of
virtual insanity
Now always
seem to
be governed by this love we have
For useless
twisting
of our new technology
Virtual Insanity...
September 29, 2008
Please.
The Federal Reserve, this morning, sent out a press release.
Watching the financial crisis unfold must be like what it would have been like if the LHC had been turned on, and promptly made a small stable black hole that fell out and started eating the Earth.
Predicted in some theories,…
September 29, 2008
Peter Coles do be blogging now
Moshe has become co-blogger at Shores of the Dirac Sea
h/t Cosmic Variance
September 29, 2008
The Observable Universe: XKCD
Wow.
From XKCD - the smartest web comic around