Steinn Sigurðsson
Professor of Astrophysics at Pennsylvania State University. Science Editor at Astrophysical Journal. Icelandic. Herder of Cats.
catdynamics
Posts by this author
November 12, 2007
minor 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…
November 10, 2007
I 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…
November 9, 2007
the 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…
November 9, 2007
Snow?
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…
November 8, 2007
Kaguya, 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…
November 8, 2007
there 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…
November 8, 2007
Georgia Governor announces back up drought plan
Er, dood, I was joking.
It doesn't work...
November 8, 2007
Periodic 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…
November 8, 2007
Keck/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…
November 7, 2007
Rocketeers 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…
November 7, 2007
2,4,6,8
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...
November 6, 2007
With 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…
November 6, 2007
Keith 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…
November 5, 2007
the 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-…
November 5, 2007
Congress 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…
November 5, 2007
new 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…
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…
November 2, 2007
it 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…
November 1, 2007
I 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…
October 31, 2007
Destiny's Child:
Me, in a suit, on television...
The Daily Show, in Dec 2002,
back when they used to do real fake news instead of serious commentary and analysis
The camera does add about ten million solar masses...
I lost my copy of the press video (this is taken from a rather fun NASA Space…
October 31, 2007
seasonal pretty pictures
NGC 1999
The two below are artist concepts, worth clicking through.
Pumpkin Nebula
Lost Souls Nebula
October 30, 2007
article claims the new US Army "Counterinsurgency Manual" is substantially plagiarised
There is an interesting article by David Price in "Counterpunch" which suggests that large sections of the new US Army Counterinsurgency Field Manual (FM 3-24), co-authored by Gen. Petraeus, is substantially…
October 29, 2007
li'l news items of note:
a local paper is reporting two east coast carrier wings are exercising night time landings for imminent deployments - that'd have to be the USS Truman and the USS Washington? or possibly USS Eisenhower??
I don't know where two of them would be going. One yes, the other…
October 29, 2007
seasonal snippets for our seniors
your calendar shows more hours in committee than class this week
the papers need to be graded before the next assignment is due
oh, we charged a different overhead on that grant, a higher one
4070 unread e-mails
...including yours
not including the 1600 from…
October 29, 2007
for just the third time this season I caught the end of a Penn State football team on television, and they lost, again
it is almost as if I were jinxing them
good thing we don't believe in jinxes
one of the eternal complaints of the fans is that Penn State play calling is not imaginative enough -…
October 26, 2007
The flap over Rowling's revelation about the Dumbledore backstory has really revitalised literary criticism
and, in particular, deconstruction.
I mean, after all, what does the author bring to the discussion?
It is not like Rowling has some special role of privileged position in our…
October 26, 2007
It is a rainy, autumnal friday, and many things are in mind.
So, oh Mighty iPod One. What lies in store for us in the next year?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Slippery People - Talking Heads
The Crossing: Something About Alligators - Twin Sisters
The Crown: Christmas in Heaven…
October 25, 2007
LOLcat Bible: official translation wiki
Say no more.
h/t kos
a start
From Not A BlogTM
With CafePress T-shirts an'all.
October 25, 2007
From Chad, statements typed into Google which return this blog as the top hit
Skyr Food for Fighting
So You Want to Be an Astrophysicist
WMAP for dummies
King of Tambora
Bird 'flu for theorists
ok, three of these are for ye olde blogge on catdynamics.blogspot.com, but that's just 'cause I haven'…