Steinn Sigurðsson
Professor of Astrophysics at Pennsylvania State University. Science Editor at Astrophysical Journal. Icelandic. Herder of Cats.
catdynamics
Posts by this author
September 29, 2008
the financial crisis spreads to Iceland
the financial markets are in turmoil outside the US also
mortgage companies, investment banks and insurance groups are collapsing in the UK, Belgium and Germany as well as the US, with the trouble likely to spread further
now one of Iceland's major investment…
September 28, 2008
the US can not afford to start another war, it does not have the forces or the finance
so... clearly it is time to contemplate stupidest possible scenarios...
A lot of interesting little things have happened in the world.
Russia is moving fleet units to Venezuela, Syria and Somalia. Venezuela…
September 28, 2008
Falcon 1 makes orbit.
SpaceX light launcher has finally made orbit on fourth try.
Good one.
Press info here
165 kg dummy payload this time...
September 27, 2008
There will be a strange and wonderful gathering at the Apple Soho, NYC store at 7 pm on wednesday night...
It is The Jonas Brothers!!!
No, wait! That was Last Month.
Damn.
They rock. (Or so I'm told...)
But, it gets even better!
This wednesday, Oct 1st, at
the Apple store in Soho, New York…
September 26, 2008
tra la la la tra la la la
tra la la la tra la la la
we're making the world safe for capitalism
tra la la la
September 26, 2008
google "CfA"
1. Chartered Finanical Analyst Institute Home
2. Chartered Finanical Analyst (Program)
3. Cat Fanciers' Association
4. Cat Fanciers' Association (Breeds)
5. Center for Astrophysics
at least it beats out the Consumer Federation of America and the California Faculty Association
September 26, 2008
soggy cool friday, and a new beginning at hand
so, we slosh to the Mighty iPod, and ask: that Super Earth we conjecture to be in transit, is it wet or dry?
Woosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: I Wanna Be Lover - Elvis Costello
The Crossing: Police & Thieves - Clash
The Crown:…
September 26, 2008
he was one of those big boys
who went to high school
and came back as well rounded mystical men
The Seattle Times reports: that though vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin claimed in her ABC television interview with Gibson that she had never met with the leader of another nation.
She has in…
September 26, 2008
in case you missed it, Jon totally nailed the situation on the Daily Show last night
'cause y'know linking is an intrinsic good
September 24, 2008
after hitting a minimum between solar cycles and a zero sunspot count for a brief period, Cycle 24 appears to have started
From Soho
Soho magnetogram - 24 Sep 2008
Nice big spot on upper right
Here is emission image
compare with 4 days ago...
Here is the current magnetogram movie - it is…
September 23, 2008
with all the turmoil, it is good to think about how houses are bought in the US
Now
We'll do a first order estimate, it scales linearly with changes in income and is an adequate approximation to understand how things work. Now.
Unless you have a lot of cash, you need to get a loan to buy a house.…
September 22, 2008
MacArthur Fellows to be announced Sep 23rd
Looks like Rocky Mountain News accidentally broke the embargo...
Andrea Ghez and Adam Riess get a MacArthur.
Wow!
h/t Quantum Pontiff
September 22, 2008
Incoherent Ponderer points out the real serious consequences of the financial crisis
You thought the old professors would finally retire and make way for y'all young whippersnappers?
Not without some retirement assets...
wot? you did all move into TIPS last year, right?
September 22, 2008
we need to make the political personal
Hank Paulson, US Secretary for the Treasury, wants a "clean" bill to bailout the investment banks.
$700 billion, he disposes, no review or oversight.
Now, there is an argument that the bailout will lead to a probable profit for the taxpayer in the long run.…
September 22, 2008
Its nice and quick and clean and gets things done
Away with excess enemy
But no less value to property
September 22, 2008
Fury at Lehman bonus
Here is an bit of financial news from the UK that might have been overlooked...
Fury at Lehman $2.5 billion bonus
When Lehman went bankrupt, the company had a market value of about $3 billion.
In a move foreshadowing subsequent events, the company had paid half the year end…
September 21, 2008
More critique and backlash on the proposed financial bailout:
Krugman in NYT monday
Tanta at Calculated Risk forwards a Congressional communique - it is worth the read.
I like the suggestion that bankers should have to write nice begging letters explaining their stupidity for each bond they sell to…
September 20, 2008
The proposed text of the law to bail out financial institutions is extraordinary to say the lease - the biggest blank check in world history is being written and given to a single person to share with his friends. Without review or recourse.
NYTimes source of proposed text
This is for $700 billion…
September 18, 2008
Hot and humid friday as we seek clear crisp coolness.
So we skip to the mighty iPod and ask: will we get us some decent near infra red imaging from space again in the near future?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Tom the Peeper - Act 1.1
The Crossing: Kings of the Wild Frontier…
September 18, 2008
National Science Foundation has announced this years awards for the Physics Frontier Centers
The full list is here
The '08 winners, some of which are renewals are:
Center for Magnetic Self-Organization - Wisconsin
Center for Physics of Living Cells - Illinois
Joint Institute for Nuclear…
September 18, 2008
Is this how some people felt about the LHC being turned on?
Three month treasury bills are being sold at negative interest rate this morning.
Krugman, professionally, is fascinated
I am also terrified.
At least with the LHC I knew, professionally, that the doomsday scenarios were impossible.…
September 17, 2008
There is a certain morbid fascination in watching the financial storm unwind
Calculated Risk remains one of the best econ blogs, but the volume on it now is so large that it is impossible to read or even more than glance at.
Krugman's Conscience of a Liberal is more concise and always interesting.…
September 17, 2008
Collection of before and after comparison pictures of local areas near Galveston Bay
Mostly areal and recent satellite photos, done by locals to try to estimate what happened to their houses and their neighbours and favourite locales, far as I can tell.
The devastation in some places is astonishing…
September 17, 2008
The refrigerator on the infrared camera on Hubble is broken and the camera is shut down, for now.
Better hope servicing mission 4 goes off on the revised schedule and is successful.
Currently functioning instruments on Hubble are just the old Wide Field Camera (2), which has one bad chip, and the…
September 16, 2008
i am transiting a large city in the south of the us and in the recent past had two surreal conversations take place around me
one involved a couple of people I am reasonably certain are prominent college football players, boasting to their buds about looking up this other guy (over a girl I gather…
September 16, 2008
Mary Voytek takes over Astrobiology Senior Scientist position at NASA HQ - she's a USGS microbiologist. Extremeophile looks like.
John Rummel has moved to East Carolina as Head CoachDirector of Institute for Coastal Science and Policy.
Is this why the CAN-5 selection is delayed?
Is this Change We…