catdynamics | September 2, 2011at long last it is friday and before we rest, we ask
How now? oh Mighty iPod One?
Woosh goes the randomizer.
Woosh.
The Covering: Time - Pink Floyd
The Crossing: Louie, Louie - Toot and the Mayalls
The Crown: Vísur Skógarmúsar Ömmu - Thorbjorn Egner
The Root: Dammit Janet - Rocky Horror Picture Show
The Past: I Am Not A Robot - Marina and the Diamonds
The Future: Career Opportunities - Clash
The Questioner: You Woke Up My Neighbourhood - Billy Bragg
The House: I Left My Heart in Papworth General - Half Man, Half Biscuit
The Inside: Fais Dodo, Colas - Sien Diels
The Outcome: After the Snow…
catdynamics | August 31, 2011The class I'm teaching right now is "writing intensive" - so the homework is biased towards short essays and written discourse.
One of my standard assignments is to have the students pick a NASA mission: a past mission, and a current mission, and a future mission, and write a summary of the mission plan and/or accomplishments.
So, what do I do now?
Ask them to pick a planned future mission that has now been cancelled and write what it might have done if flown?
catdynamics | August 30, 2011bunch of little things that I really ought to say more about,
but I'll be doing some paperwork instead
Cosmic Horizons - new astro blog from down under by one of the very best kick ass distinguished senior astrophysicists on the planet - and it is a good read
Did the Earth seed the Solar System with life, or vica versa - progress on quantifying panspermia conjectures within the Solar System
The HARPS search for Earth-like planets in the habitable zone: I -- Very low-mass planets around HD20794, HD85512 and HD192310
Planetary Construction Zones in Occultation: Eclipses by Circumsecondary and…
catdynamics | August 26, 2011A calm cool friday, as await the storm
So, oh Mighty iPod One: Irene - a fizzle or da bomb?
Woosh goes the randomizer.
Woosh.
The Covering: Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes - Paul Simon
The Crossing: The Price I Pay - Billy Bragg
The Crown: Mountains O'Things - Tracy Chapman
The Root: Dr Gradus ad Parnassum
The Past: The Captain - Biffy Clyro
The Future: Heart Like a Wheel - Billy Bragg
The Questioner: Questing, Not Coasting - Maximo Park
The House: Sumarkveðja
The Inside: Carol of the Bells/Deck the Halls
The Outcome: Paradise Lost (You're the Reason Why) - Half Man Half Biscuit
The…
catdynamics | August 25, 2011A new Pulsar Planet has been discovered, and it is a beaut.
In a paper published in Science, Matthew Bailes and collaborators announce the discovery of the third pulsar planet, and this one is a wonder.
Very nice video summary bu Matthew hisself
The first exoplanets discovered, were found around a pulsar: PSR B1257+12.
This is because planets are ubiquitous and pulsars allow precision measurements enabling planet detection.
That was almost 20 years ago, since then one other pulsar planet system has been discovered, PSR B1620-26, which was quite different from 1257+12.
Pulsar observations…
catdynamics | August 19, 2011stormy friday as portends gather and it is move-in day!
Yes, They Are Back.
So, we probe a puzzle dujour: the Definitely Not NASA ponderings on Scenarios for SETI Success - aka Alien Ecoterrorists Attack!!!.
So, oh mighty iPod One: any Thennanin out There Threatening to Thwart Us?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Serenade for the Doll
The Crossing: Some Days You Gotta Dance - Dixie Chicks
The Crown: Það er Jólasveinninn Minn
The Root: Not Ready to Make Nice - Dixie Chicks
The Past: Menuett F-Dur - Mozart
The Future: This War is Over - Melissa Etheridge
The Questioner:…
catdynamics | August 13, 2011This week, a WTF pair of plots were published on some economic data, namely US retail sales and consumer confidence.
I have a theory about that...
Here is the Consumer Confidence plot at Calculated Risk
and here is the Retail Sales chart also from CR
Note that consumer confidence, which is generally taken to be a coincident economic indicator, declines sharply, while retail sales increased.
Confidence and Sales conveniently combined (click to embiggen)
from zerohedge
So, clearly, this is because there were 5 weekends in the reporting period because costs per item on essentials are up…
catdynamics | August 12, 2011Ah, cool and crisp friday and we stroll over to the mighty iPod to divine
yes, it is the iPod iChing, where the mighty randomizer reveals the truth, of questions carefully posed, with just enough ambiguity, using the terrific Tarot layout taught to us by the Timelord himself, although sometimes, on a whim, we use a zodiac solution instead, just 'cause we sometimes feel like twelve - hey maybe one day I should try a Malazan House reading!
Do not let anyone tell you that this is just projection of over rationalizing monkey brains, evolved to look for patterns where there are none, in randomly…
catdynamics | August 12, 2011Not infrequently, I get asked what it is I do, anyway, as a scientisty sort of person.
I blogged it, of course, but that was a "typical day" - during term time and filled with paperwork and class prep and general rushing about.
This morning I woke up and found the Sb Overlords had frontpaged this quote:
"I think I need to go back and think about adaptive load balancing block solving of sparse, nasty almost diagonal matrices; that and whether kinetic energy turbulence really affects sound wave propagation (duh, of course it does, but how much...)?"
Huh?
Ah, Particle Physics snark...
So, how…
catdynamics | August 11, 2011Last year, Brad deLong did a most excellent dissection of the lecture, how it came to be, and why universities need to rethink the whole approach to learning concept before they get eaten by technology development providing even cheaper content delivery.
I've been meaning to editorialize on this for a while, and then Chad planning for start of classes prodded me into action, doubly so when Chad posted a link to jolly nice resource for active learning in physics at Learnification
Now, others have provided expositions on how to teach wellgreat...
So I guess it is up to me to risk the wrath of…
catdynamics | August 11, 2011Summary of results on Higgs particle on LHC workshop at KITP
I wasn't here for it, but last week John Conway presented theLHC Higgs Searches (slides, audio, video)
summary talk at the LHC11 workshop.
I had, of course, kept half an eye on the flurry of conference announcement on the preliminary LHC constraints on various wished for particles and sparticles, but it is particularly satisfying to see a good summary presentation.
Low mass joint Higgs constraints - more data needed (from Conway's talk, link above)
So, there is space in the parameter space, there are a few little gaps in the 200-…
catdynamics | August 11, 2011hangin' out at KITP sneaking into the LHC workshop talks,
sort of liveblog of the constraints on supersymmetry from preliminary LHC results.
today's seminar is Reece: on Assessing SUSY After 1 fb-1 (blackboard talk, but audio/video will be up on the website soon) on constraints on supersymmetry from current LHC data, good turnout, serious punditry in the audience
basically: should LHC have seen superpartners by now, or ought it to see it real soon now?
I like this - he kicks off with quoting physics blogs on why lack of susy detection is heading physics into a crisis, then he reassures us…
catdynamics | August 5, 2011Last month Dimitri Veras and collaborators wrote a nice, and very thorough paper on what happens to planets when their parent stars die...
"The Great Escape: How Exoplanets and Smaller Bodies Desert Dying Stars",
Dimitri Veras, Mark C. Wyatt, Alexander J. Mustill, Amy Bonsor, John J. Eldridge
(MNRAS, arXiv:1107.1239)
National Geographic News Story: How Planets Can Survive a Supernova
The paper revisits an old topic I am particularly fond of: what happens to the planets orbiting a star as the star leaves the main sequence, become a giant, and sheds its mass enroute to becoming a white dwarf…
catdynamics | July 28, 2011Jinx: NASA x-mission posters at a federal research center near you...
click to embiggen
catdynamics | July 26, 2011Sometimes correlation is causation:
"Laurie Leshin, deputy associate administrator of exploration systems for NASA, will join Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute as dean of the School of Science. " (RPI news)
Coincidentally:
"...Jon Morse, director of the Science Mission Directorate's Astrophysics Division and Laurie's husband, also will be leaving government to join RPI as the associate vice president for research." (spacref.com)
That leaves Astrophysics without a director, as the 2012 appropriations are coming up.
This would not be a fun time to step into the position, with the threat of…
catdynamics | July 22, 2011Large explosion in the center of Oslo, Norway.
Near government buildings and VG newspaper, at central square.
Multiple injuries. Early reports suggest it was a car bomb.
P3S: NRK now reporting at least 80 kids killed on the island.
Guy must have been a true psychopath to be able to shoot that many people in cold blood.
youtube footage of immediate aftermath
NRK video immediately after explosion
NRK report, in norwegian, with pictures
PS: reports now of at least 7 dead in the explosion many wounded, some seriously,
100+ "walking wounded"
View Larger Map
Concurrent shooting attack at a…
catdynamics | July 22, 2011Associate Theorer?
Theorer-in-Chief?
Ok. I'm just jealous of the Astronomist!
catdynamics | July 22, 2011steamy sultry friday, and the randomizer puts the Grandmaster on to remind me that it is iPod iChing time!
So, Mighty iPod One: the whole debt ceiling chatter - kabuki or crisis?
The Covering: The Message - Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five
The Crossing: Telegraph Road (Live Remix) - Dire Straits
The Crown: Black Coffee in Bed
The Root: I Shot the Sheriff - Bob Marley & The Wailers
The Past: Gridlock - The Pogues
The Future: Twydale's Lament - Half Man Half Biscuit
The Questioner: Dansi Dansi Dúkkan mín
The House: Il Pieut Bergere - Sien Diels
The Inside: Smells Like Teen…