astronomy

Work and Space

Posted on by grahams

I had been working on a custom feature addition to FlexSnap at work for the past few weeks which was keeping me off of my main project, and also off of working on the new MacBook work bought..   It came in in the middle of a project and it would have taken too long for me to switch to a different machine running a different OS.  But now that I’m “back in the saddle” I’ve moved everything to the Mac and can (hopefully) be full-time Mac at work now.

Tonight I’m heading with Howard over to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics for open observatory night..  It’s not exactly astronomy weather, but we’ll at least catch the lecture…

Just a Wee Bit More of My Life Wasted….

Posted on by grahams

That goddamned Astro Lab is going to kill me someday. First, our professor wanted to do a Parallax lab, so we walked across campus so we could see the horizon of the city, except when we got over there, she informed us that she hadn’t thought to consider visibility, and since it is very foggy out, that lab was a scrub. So we walked all the way back to the lab.

Then, she decides that the lab she is going to have us do is the longest lab of the quarter, even though we have already lost 30 minutes (out of 110) dicking off on our field trip. So we start working on it, and we ask the TA Katie (who is way-cool) a question, which she answered improperly. We went on, collecting data for a good 20 minutes until our prof told us we were wrong. Katie went and helped us catch up because she felt bad, and we only lost about 10 minutes there, not so bad.

So, we continue to collect data from this stupid simulation software. Now, even though this software is a simulation, using data tables internally, if you are taking 5 integrations of 100 seconds each, it actually takes 500 seconds. Now I don’t mind real experiments taking time, but a freakin’ simulation? sigh…

So we collect all this data, and the professor questions one of our results, and upon verification, we were correct. She proceeded to question our results (1 out of 7 was incorrect, and that was gathered by another team). I was really pissed, and I let her know it. She asked us to recheck a result (for the 3rd time now), and I just told her no.

We had to do up a few graphs and stuff to finish off the lab, and we ended up walking out of the lab about 5 minutes late (or 9:55). In reality, the lab wouldn’t have taken more than an hour if she was a wee bit more prepared.

Hmmm

Posted on by grahams

“Burning Down the House” is on the radio, and like, it sounds strange. My Roommate, Jon Parise and I were trying to figure out what was wrong with it. At first, it sounded like it was running about 10% faster than it should be, but then Jon pointed out that while the vocals were weird, the song was musically right. So we agreed that it is probably a different vocal effect on the radio edit.

The planetarium was fun last night, and afterwards we got to climb the 60 stairs to the observatory atop the Science Center. Unfortunately, the center is VERY close to the (spoiled) heart of Rochester, so there was alot of light pollution, which sucked.

After the planetarium, we came back to the dorms and watched my new Pulp Fiction DVD. It is the canadian version of the DVD, which has a deleted scenes reel that the US version lacks. Via mail-order, they were the same price, so it was a no-brainer.

Recently CSH voted to ask 3 professors to become advisors, and they all accepted. 2 of them, along with one of our existing advisors, are coming up on floor for dinner and a house meeting…. Should be groovy.