Okay, so I’ve been trying to wean myself off of IDL in favor of python. Sometimes after you tell yourself you’re not going to develop in a language again you find an awesome new tool…
Writing
Spring Cleaning (travel mind edition)
This year my travel has been fairly hectic. While it’s rather on par (or below) for a scientist, this means that it’s above and beyond the pale for a “normal” person.
Reducing Infinites, redux
It’s been a little over a year since the last time I really tried to purge extraneous content from my daily data ingest. Just wanted to give a status update.
Water, water, everywhere?
Water in the shadows, from a new source This paper is making the rounds today and describes new observations of the Ceres asteroid/dwarf planet (take your pick) located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The Dawn Mission has been orbiting Ceres (the second of two asteroids the mission is visiting) for the last year, staring down at… Continue reading Water, water, everywhere?
CYGNSS is away
3, 2, 1…drop… I’ve got a serious soft spot for people who spend all of their time and energy building an amazing scientific instrument, then have to stick it on top of a rocket, put it underneath a plane, and then drop the damn thing out of the sky. Here, it’s the Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite… Continue reading CYGNSS is away
Commuter Bookclub – Failure is Not an Option (Gene Kranz)
I spend a lot of time in the car. For people like me there are a couple of things that keep us sane. Good books are one of them. Welcome to The Commuter Bookclub! This week we’re getting a history of the U.S. Space Program through the Apollo days from Failure is Not an Option by Gene… Continue reading Commuter Bookclub – Failure is Not an Option (Gene Kranz)
Commuter Bookclub – The Nerdist Way (Chris Hardwick)
I spend a lot of time in the car. For people like me there are a couple of things that keep us sane. Good books are one of them. Welcome to The Commuter Bookclub! This week, let’s talk about The Nerdist Way by Chris Hardwick. Come for the Nerdist revolution, stay for the self-help book… Continue reading Commuter Bookclub – The Nerdist Way (Chris Hardwick)
The Astropy Problem
This came across my “professional” social feeds today (meaning the Facebook groups frequented by people who are astronomers and/or scientists). The paper itself is something that one might expect to actually show up as an opinion piece in Nature or Science, though I doubt it will. It’s a little too biographical for those places. The… Continue reading The Astropy Problem
Commuter Bookclub – Grave Peril (Jim Butcher)
I spend a lot of time in the car. For people like me there are a couple of things that keep us sane. Good books are one of them. This week, let’s talk about The Dresden Files: Gravel Peril by Jim Butcher. A wizard in Chicago, you say? Tell me more…
The Great Cousin’s Chart
Putting this here, because it comes up about once a trip back to the East Coast (where I’ve got tons of cousins and my son has tons of of first cousin’s once removed).