public perception of astronomers

Public Perception of Astronomers

While the article has some.... almost-interesting points, I don't agree with the thesis or the suggested methods. I don't really have a problem with the stereotype of astronomers being the old, white, socially inept guy - because for the most part that's a fair assessment. We're scientists, and at least for me and my peers, that's directly correlated with not fitting in to some social circles.

I agree that we should become better communicators in general, but it's silly to think that embracing new technologies (i.e. social networking tools) is going to change the public image of astronomers at all. Personally I hope to see a backlash against social networking and blogs sometime in the next 5 years, but who knows.... after all, I'm writing a blog post.

some comics

http://ableandbaker.net/index.php?comic=198
http://ableandbaker.net/index.php?comic=222
http://ableandbaker.net/index.php?comic=357
http://ableandbaker.net/index.php?comic=396
http://ableandbaker.net/index.php?comic=471
545 "Put on your snuggle trunks and jump in the cuddle pool."
http://ableandbaker.net/index.php?comic=905
http://ableandbaker.net/index.php?comic=922

Comedic timing has been fixed using quicksilver's command line execution abilities.

Also been playing with dashboard... Safari's new dashboard feature is pretty cool, but also incompetent.  It refreshes every time you reload the dashboard, which is inefficient and makes saving settings impossible.  Also, the gmail compose feature fails miserably.  So, dashboard must die again.

Quicksilver and Awesome

Set up f17-19 today to play amusing sounds. Also, recalled that I use ScreenSaverEngine to lock my screen with a shortcut key.

Quicksilver triggers are the way to do it. Mac is stupid w/o quicksilver.

Python 64 bit!

I got python 64 bit to compile, but it required a number of tricky steps.

First, this guy has the instructions I followed:
captnswing

However, it didn't work entirely as advertised. I ran the configure as advertised:

./configure --enable-framework=/Library/Frameworks \
--enable-universalsdk=/ \
MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.5 \
--with-universal-archs=all \
--with-readline-dir=/usr/local


then the make install, but /usr/local/bin/python pointed to the wrong place, so I replaced the symbolic link in my python path with the correct one:

sudo rm /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/bin/python
sudo ln -s /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/bin/python-64 /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/bin/python


Now python is 64 bit:

eta ~$ python -c "import sys; print sys.maxint"
9223372036854775807


I haven't checked whether it works yet though...

Update: Had to reinstall with gnu readline installed. Also have to install PyQt4 and might have to recompile numpy...

numpy won't compile with python 2.6.2:
C compiler: gcc -arch i386 -arch ppc -arch ppc64 -arch x86_64 -isysroot / -fno-strict-aliasing -fno-common -dynamic -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -O3 -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes

compile options: '-Inumpy/core/include -Ibuild/src.macosx-10.5-universal-2.6/numpy/core/include/numpy -Inumpy/core/src -Inumpy/core/include -I/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/include/python2.6 -c'
gcc: build/src.macosx-10.5-universal-2.6/numpy/core/src/_sortmodule.c
In file included from numpy/core/include/numpy/ndarrayobject.h:26,
from numpy/core/include/numpy/noprefix.h:7,
from numpy/core/src/_sortmodule.c.src:29:
numpy/core/include/numpy/npy_endian.h:33:10: error: #error Unknown CPU: can not set endianness
lipo: can't figure out the architecture type of: /var/folders/ni/ni+DtdqFGMeSMH13AvkNkU+++TI/-Tmp-//cceaWIvZ.out
In file included from numpy/core/include/numpy/ndarrayobject.h:26,
from numpy/core/include/numpy/noprefix.h:7,
from numpy/core/src/_sortmodule.c.src:29:
numpy/core/include/numpy/npy_endian.h:33:10: error: #error Unknown CPU: can not set endianness
lipo: can't figure out the architecture type of: /var/folders/ni/ni+DtdqFGMeSMH13AvkNkU+++TI/-Tmp-//cceaWIvZ.out
error: Command "gcc -arch i386 -arch ppc -arch ppc64 -arch x86_64 -isysroot / -fno-strict-aliasing -fno-common -dynamic -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -O3 -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -Inumpy/core/include -Ibuild/src.macosx-10.5-universal-2.6/numpy/core/include/numpy -Inumpy/core/src -Inumpy/core/include -I/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/include/python2.6 -c build/src.macosx-10.5-universal-2.6/numpy/core/src/_sortmodule.c -o build/temp.macosx-10.5-universal-2.6/build/src.macosx-10.5-universal-2.6/numpy/core/src/_sortmodule.o" failed with exit status 1


That sucks.

Hosting on my mac

I'm hosting my website off my mac; it should be accessible to the outside world now: eta.colorado.edu.

A few things went into this....

1. Don't install the fink version. The two versions clash and depending on how you access your computer you could end up looking at entirely different directories (e.g. localhost and eta.colorado.edu referred to different sites for a while)
   
2. The configuration file is /private/etc/apache2/httpd.conf
   
3. I needed to change DirectoryIndex to index.htm (from index.html)
   
4. uncommmented "LoadModule php5_module libexec/apache2/libphp5.so"
   
5. had to allow override so that .htaccess files would work.
   

Mac stuff cont'd

Trying to get Apache server to run, and it's just a pain.

I frequently forget how to update the locate database because it's different on macs. Marcos' Mac Singularity has the instructions .

In short:
sudo /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb

Google has failed me

So, either no one on the internet has successfully installed 64-bit python on a mac (which I find nothing short of impossible) or google has totally failed. None of the hits for any combination of 64 bit, python, mac, etc. has shown a useful result. Wow.

Caffeine

Caffeine consumption stopped around mid-October. I think it was when I got back from observing so October 20 give or take. Re-started consumption mid-March. Date is hard to say... I think it was Sunday before Spring Break, but hard to say because I still took it easy until ~last week.

Conclusions? I'm probably more tired in the mornings with caffeine than without. Also, probably perform better @ ulty when I'm not addicted. However.... not really conclusive. Just addictive.

weekend

What did I do this weekend?
-upgraded PyRAF from 1.6.1 to 1.7
-switched matplotlib backends from TkAgg to Qt4
-put up a new article on molecularclouds


So... totally unproductive, but only in an awesome way?

I tried to switch PyRAF from X11 to Aqua a la Ticket 86 on the PyRAF trac site, but it failed with a can't-load error.

Also, updated readcol documentation so that it makes sense. Sam has used it, Robbie might.

April 1st, 2009

No April fools' day would be complete without scientists' contributions:

http://arxiv.org/abs/0903.5308
http://arxiv.org/abs/0903.5321
http://arxiv.org/abs/0903.5377

although it's not obvious whether .5308 is actually intended to be humorous

Astronomy gets some recognition

First off, this guy does some amazing work, like measuring the galactic rotation curve. He got recognized by the Colbert Report. Sweet.

My works featured...

Curiously, one of my wikimedia commons images has been included in this article: http://www.scienceinschool.org/2008/issue10/tamaradavis, though the image has little to do with the subject in question. Noodle (can't remember her real name... that's sad on my part) is in the picture. Neat!

This might not be something to be proud of:
http://www.denverptc.org/denver.html

GC was featured in:
http://www.strudel.org.uk/blog/astro/000855.shtml

ps2pdf keep resolution, crop to bounding box

ps2pdf -dEPSCrop -dAutoRotatePages=/None -dAutoFilterColorImages=false -dColorImageFilter=/FlateEncode -dUseFlateCompression=true l007_displaycrop.ps
ref: this post

Making a postscript plot of a gigantic fits image


map = readfits('MOSAIC.fits',hdr)

crpix1 = sxpar(hdr,'CRPIX1')
crpix2 = sxpar(hdr,'CRPIX2')
crval1 = sxpar(hdr,'CRVAL1')
crval2 = sxpar(hdr,'CRVAL2')
cd1_1 = sxpar(hdr,'CD1_1')
cd2_2 = sxpar(hdr,'CD2_2')

x = lindgen(n_e(map[*,0]))
y = lindgen(n_e(map[0,*]))
l = (x-crpix1)*cd1_1+crval1-360
b = (y-crpix2)*cd2_2+crval2

imdisp,map,/axis,xrange=[max(l),min(l)],yrange=[min(b),max(b)],range=[-1,8]


This code makes use of imdisp.pro.

MOSAIC data reduction

MOSAIC reduction is very difficult.
http://www.noao.edu/noao/noaodeep/ReductionOpt/frames.html has the official instructions.

Important things:
Have the latest version of MSCRED and MSCDB installed. Both will give cryptic errors or "cannot open file" errors (because the files don't exist) otherwise.



mscred
setinstrument kpno CCDMosaThin1
msccmatch obj09*.fits coords="!mscgetcat $I $C" search=60 rsearch=1 nfit=30 accept=yes interactive=no fit=no


Site visits, comps

Amusing - visits to my site increased steadily leading up to Jan 9, then crashed precipitously.

LaTeX: replace double quotes with tex quotes

People often make the mistake of putting " in place of `` in LaTeX documents. To repair this, the only easy solution is something like:
s/\(\s\)"/\1``/g
in VIM or sed.

I've seen alternate solutions posted but they're all too complicated. One recommendation was to switch to XeTeX, which sounds like overkill, and others all stated that a complicated perl script is required. The latter is technically true, but why isn't such a thing readily available?

Any other ideas?

Skim: a PDF reader that allows annotations

from Sam: http://skim-app.sourceforge.net/

neat

skill set

is it a marketable skill that I can bring down almost any computer system I'm given access to entirely unintentionally?