catdynamics | August 3, 2007bloomin' hot friday
we ask the iPod - what will become of the three doctors?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division
The Crossing: Geek Stink Breath - Green Day
The Crown: Si, fui soldato - Pavarotti
The Root: Jarg Armani - Half Man, Half Biscuit
The Past: Hey, Coal Miner - Larry Long
The Future: Íslenskir Karlmenn - Stuðmenn
The Questioner: Adagio - Mozart
The House: Revolution Rock - Clash
The Inside: Sassafras Roots - Green Day
The Outcome: If I Fall You're Going Down With Me - Dixie Chick
Bloomin' heck.
Sorry I asked...
Tale of hard…
catdynamics | August 2, 2007Not to be confused with either the corgies, or Icelandic Roast Beagles with schmear and lax
The Beagle Project is building a replica of HMS Beagle and going to retrace its celebrated voyage, with added science bonus, to commemorate Darwin's imminent 200th birthday.
The project's web pages are currently squatting here but insist they will be moving to their new home real soon now.
It is a great idea, and should attract some good publicity, be also interesting to see what new science they do; be interesting to duplicate Craig Venter's recent yacht trip sampling oceanic micro-biodiversity, as…
catdynamics | August 1, 2007Congratulations, Dr Micic
"Gravitational radiation from the growth of supermassive black holes"
catdynamics | August 1, 2007that was a rough committee meeting...
those climates scientists sure don't take criticism lightly...
never argue about money with a physicist
shouldn't blog snarky things about NASA...
now you know how Colbert broke his wrist...
er, I mean, you should have seen that other guy tree.
it is firewood, now, I'm telling you
Interestingly, Mac photobooth is better than a mirror for putting bandages on oneself
catdynamics | July 30, 2007NASAwatch reports more top level moves at NASA
time to start managing the crisis that keep popping up
Karl Rove staffer becomes NASA White House liasion
I wonder if she has strong opinions on the Big Bang vs Steady State "controversy"?
Came to White House from Arkansas RNC
UPDATE: she apparently graduated from Wake Forest in '04, which means she should be about 25 years old, three years out of college.
And she is the White House liasion for NASA at the Administrator level, with her work experience being that she spent a couple of years in Karl Rove's office working on the DoJ.
Associate…
catdynamics | July 30, 2007Domestik Goddess shows us a SIGGart Eco Style contest winner
I like it. Elegant, subtle, concise.
h/t powers of four
catdynamics | July 30, 2007Receiving "Back in the DHSS/Trumpton Riots" CD in the mail, finally replacing my very beat up cassette copy...
Half Man, Half Biscuit are one of the most underappreciated UK bands around, and they've been around for a long time.
'course they can be a bit obscure sometimes for the uninitiated...
HMHB wiki
Car crime's low, gun crime's lower,
the town hall band CD, it's a grower,
you never hear of folk getting knocked on the bonce,
although there was a drive by shouting once,
but there's a brass band everywhere,
and I don't drive so I don't care,
and as a nightingale sang in Berkeley square,…
catdynamics | July 28, 2007didn't check my e-mail for 24 hours, weekend, very light on "real e-mail"
so I got good statistics on the spam
we're losing
I have four levels of spam filtering: the university does virus and porn trapping, the department has an adaptive filter, my mailbox has a filter, and my local mailer has an adaptive filter;
for a while I had negligible spam getting through and would check the main mailbox spambox to see if any real mail had accidentally fallen in - could quickly flick through a few hundred collected spam mails looking for the real things
now, a lot of my mailing list stuff is piped…
catdynamics | July 27, 2007Congratulations Dr Smith!
The Transition from the First Stars to the Second Stars in the Early Universe
catdynamics | July 27, 2007Frazzled friday, and we ask the iPod, quickly: so, iPod dood, what will come out of this afternoon's proceedings?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: The Midnight Special - Creedence Clearwater Revival
The Crossing: Donna Non Vivi Mai - Pavarotti
The Crown: I Allegro (Eine Kleine Nachtmusic) - Mozart
The Root: Prumpufólkið - Dr Gunni
The Past: Cowboy Take Me Away - Dixie Chicks
The Future: Used Cars - Ani DiFranco
The Questioner: Running Wild - Roxy Music
The House: In The End - Green Day
The Inside: Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before - Smiths
The Outcome:…
catdynamics | July 26, 2007Geoff Andersen is a USAF Academy physicist and he has written a book on the Telescope
The Telescope
by Geoff Andersen
Princeton University Press 2007
ISBN-13: 978-0-691-12979-2
It is an interesting little book, as promised it only has one equation, and it is a useful one, with the rest of the semi-technical material relegated to appendices.
As such, the book is aimed at general audiences, and would be well suited to an interested amateur, enthusiastic teenager or university educated layperson wanting to learn some basics about optical telescopes.
The book focuses on optical telescopes,…
catdynamics | July 26, 2007news reports of an explosion killing two people at the Scaled Composites (makers of
"http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/index.htm">SpaceShipOne) facility at the spaceport in Mojave, near Edwards AFB Ca.
Sounds like a fuel tank rupture, four people injured.
SF Chronicle report - they say it was a NOX explosion.
No info yet on who, everyone echoing the same AP story.
Rich (yes he is a relation) Pournelle from Xcor say they are not affected.
Rand at transterrestrial has running updates
Hope they recover from this.
catdynamics | July 25, 2007There was a fire in Spokane
No big deal in and of itself, except that there was also a fire at a Saudi oil terminal;
local insurgents blew up Mexican oil and gas pipelines - correctly, to maximise damage and repair period; a contactor pierced a major oil pipeline in Vancouver, and there was a steam plant fire in a UK refinery.
Oh, and of course an Iraq pipeline was blown up.
Now, with GoogleNews it is easier to hear of such incidents, and because news aggregation was harder in the past there is a perception of more rare events occuring, both because reporting is more thorough and because we (…
catdynamics | July 25, 2007Three PhD defences, and a comps exam in 12 days.
Ouch.
And I'm chair of all the vivas, and the comps is in meteo...
Some sort of subliminal overcompensation, I guess.
catdynamics | July 25, 2007President threatens veto of NASA appropriations: too much science
dontcha know...
From NASAwatch:
the House appropriations bill on NASA included extra funding for Science and Aeronautics, and restrictions on spending on Exploration and, more importantly, Exploration Development, including new firewalls between Science and ED.
"...the Administration does not endorse funding in excess of the request for Aeronautics, Education, and Science, where increases for near-term support would create unsustainable outyear funding requirements"
NASA is not just "burning every spare piece of firewood",…