catdynamics | March 21, 2008Curious coincidences in the Obama passport scandal
The contractor involved in the poking into the "passport file" of presidential candidate Barack Obama has now been revealed to be Stanley Inc - they had a $160 million contract with the State Department to help with passport handling.
Files were accessed in Jan, Feb and March of '08. Most recently March 14th.
On March 18th, Stanley got a $570 million extension of their contract
Man, if only the State Department had known they were egregiously screwing up and some of their workers were violating privacy of prominent democrats, why then they…
catdynamics | March 21, 2008Sunny happy friday, and the hordes have descended upon us.
So, oh Mighty iPod... modulo the vagaries of the fickle humans, we ask: will they come?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Atmosphere - Joy Division
The Crossing: Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra: Flute, Piccolo (Presto) - Britten
The Crown: Overture: Magic Flute - Mozart
The Root: Sieben Variationen ueber das Lied Willem van Nassau - Mozart
The Past: Hey Mr Yesterday - Jimmy Cliff
The Future: My Perfect Cousin - Undertones
The Questioner: You'll Never Walk Alone - Kop Choir
The House: Carnival of the Animals:…
catdynamics | March 20, 2008I promised this to a colleague, after I made an unnecessarily cryptic reference to a potential solution to an academic issue that frequently comes up
I mean, how do you deal with some students?
catdynamics | March 20, 2008happy vernal equinox!
In celebration of the season, and the imminent full moon preceding next sunday...
A classic
Anyone know of a clip of the "goolies" sketch?
I require it for pedagogical purposes... can't find it on YouTube.
PS: never mind, indexed under "soccer", of course.
catdynamics | March 20, 2008NOAA provides a River Watch web site - it includes tentative estimates for future precipitation forecast in its estimates, so the long range forecast is uncertain
Right now, because of rains and melting snow, the Ohio and Missouri have bad localized flooding - as this water moves south, the lower Mississippi will rise, but the wave of water also disperses and buffers.
Right now, the lower Mississippi is looking at hitting flood stage, but if rain stays at the level forecast, New Orleans, for example, will not flood. This is in part because the upper Mississippi is not flooding - too cold up…
catdynamics | March 19, 2008Dark Matter is a movie.
It is about a brilliant young physics grad student, life at university, and the interaction between a student, his advisor and the academic hierarchy.
Should we be "concerned"?
The movie stars Meryl Streep, directed by Chen Shi-Zheng. It is based on an article written by
The trailer is interesting, it makes me want to see the movie. Even though I know the ending.
Trailer at ComingSoon.
It does not have a happy ending.
It also won the won the Sloan foundation science-in-film prize for best depiction of a scientist in a movie when it debuted at the 2007 Sundance Film…
catdynamics | March 19, 2008that Iran said, that Israel said, that Cheney said to Oman that the US might attack Iran...
unsourced, unsubstantiated, speculative
but do the Iranians believe it?
Press TV (Iran) also has an unscientific "quick poll" on that website
according to it, 2/3 of respondents think Fallon resigned from CENTCOM over issue of attack on Iran
game of perceptions, innit.
Cheney also said he believed Iran may have restarted its nuclear weapons development program.
He also went fishing in the Gulf on the sultan's boat.
I wonder if his personal intelligence estimate is a probability of more or less than 0.…
catdynamics | March 18, 2008Arthur C. Clarke, engineer, author and visionary has died.
He was good.
Another one gone.
catdynamics | March 17, 2008Science Education and Society has a blog meme: name five women scientists in your field, not at your institution
Too easy.
Vera Rubin
Sandy Faber
Anneila Sargent
Margaret Geller
Neta Bahcall
that is just picking one name from each of five institutions, I could name several more, senior and junior, at each of those institutions, and a lot more by working systematically through the major research universities and institutions, or just my friends and collaborators.
h/t Good Math, Bad Math
catdynamics | March 17, 2008Following the market?
Intrigued by the collapse of investment banks?
Huh! You wot?
The words of the month are:
Hoocoodanode?
and "privatize the profit, socialize the risk"
Blog finance nerds anticipation - look at the comments
Athenae's rant at First Draft is a thing of cathartic beauty
Steve at Information Processing has the quant perspective
catdynamics | March 15, 2008it is no longer friday, but we blame the weather, and cheerfully ask the mighty iPod one: will the bears come out to play on monday?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Mathematically Safe - Half Man Half Biscuit
The Crossing: Teenage Kicks - Undertones
The Crown: Melbourne Mambo - Mavericks
The Root: Hey Mr Yesterday - Jimmy Cliff
The Past:Star Light, Star Bright
The Future: Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six - Pogues
The Questioner: Breaking News - Half Man Half Biscuit
The House: M-6-ster - Half Man Half Biscuit
The Inside: The Sun and The Rain - Madness
The Outcome:…
catdynamics | March 13, 2008I've lost count, but there is a new Carnival of Space over at Missy's place
catdynamics | March 12, 2008apparently some people are stuck in a broken elevator at the top of the Green Bank Telescope
Up there.
For scale, the diameter of the telescope is almost precisely the length of a regulation football field.
And it moves.
Broken cable, possibly due to winds.
The elevator is apparently being cranked down manually.
Observations are suspended.
PS: apparently they got everybody down in 3 hours, faster than expected
operations are resuming, elevator still broken
catdynamics | March 11, 2008Admiral Fallon, head of US Central Command - ie Iraq and Afghanistan has resigned.
Why?
news just coming out.
PS: WaPo has some interesting statements by the people involved:
"...I don't believe there have ever been any differences about the objectives of our policy in the Central Command area of responsibility..."Fallon added
- hmm, so can we read this to mean there are difference about the means by which the objectives are to be achieved?
"Gates described as "ridiculous" any notion that Fallon's departure signals the United States is planning to go to war with Iran. And he said "there…
catdynamics | March 7, 2008we did it, astronomy has reached carrying capacity
how wrong I was.
I had confidently predicted that with the bright new instruments and refurbishment of old favourites promised, the cycle 17 proposals would hit 2000
as we neared the deadline the excitement was palpable and the comments flew,
as Julianne discovered, the proposal number was increasing exponentially as we neared the deadline, with speculation that we might finally do it.
We were headed for infinite number of proposals by t=t0
but, then we hit carrying capacity and flipped into logistic behaviour with the rate of increase of…
catdynamics | March 7, 2008climate catastrophe, turbidity and academic angst on campus
Did I mention it is the deadline for Hubble cycle 17 observing proposals today.
On these days, the ghost of Major Murphy haunts astronomy departments everywhere.
So.. recently the northeast region of the USA has seen a chain of storms rolling from the Pacific, dipping south to pick up some Gulf moisture, and then dump it somewhere between Michigan and Maine (and allegedly in some strange other country called Canada).
Earlier this week, the precipitation took the form of rain, copious sustained rain, with localised flooding.
The Penn…
catdynamics | March 7, 2008It is friday, but it is not snowing, here, yet.
So, we skip to the mighty iPod and we ask: modulo the vagaries of fickle panelists, how will our Hubble Proposals, cycle 17, fare?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Afmaælisvísur Bangsapabba - Thorbjorn Egner
The Crossing: Gartloney Rats - Pogues
The Crown: I Can't Dance - Genesis
The Root: Scene (Moderato) Nutcracker - Tchaikovsky
The Past: Always the Sun - Stranglers
The Future: White Trash Wedding - Dixie Chicks
The Questioner: Voice Inside My Head - Dixie Chicks
The House: Blóðið er Rautt - Utangarðsmenn
The Inside: Funky…