fermentation

ideas + beer. Same process. They catalyze each other.

Danger Zone

The Danger Zone: Where the Buffalo Roam.

Merging postscripts

This is essential and really difficult to find answers to, but this guy gave it:
http://ludo.qix.it/archive/2005/08/merge-postscript-files.html

The keywords I would have liked to see:
"merge postscripts into multi-page document"
or "combine postscript multiple page"

e.g.
gs -sDEVICE=pswrite -sOutputFile=output.ps -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH file1.ps file2.ps file3.ps

or

gs -sDEVICE=pswrite -sOutputFile=05358spectra.ps -dNOPAUSE -dEPSFitPage -dBATCH `ls 05358_*.eps`

(the added option is to make sure the .eps isn't cropped)


NSF eligibility

Am I eligible for the NSF GRFP? Sam says yes, I thought no, but re-reading.... umm... isn't this yes?

Applicants must have completed no more than twelve (12) months of full-time graduate
study or its equivalent as of August 31, 2008. Full time graduate study is as defined by the
universities attended.

No more than 12 months means 12 months is OK?

What was I thinking!?

Back to site editing

I'm editing class web pages, php, cgi, etc. again. I don't think I ever really understood how to do this, but I'd like to know how to use PHP to fold text. That would be sweet.

I found it by googling this time.

This is really the right way to do things:
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=42214

Of course, it's pretty disappointing that it doesn't work with the non-classic template for blogger.

Extracting figures from papers

I want to automatically extract figures from papers, but of course most papers come in .pdf, not .ps form...

This site has a great tool for extracting figures from .ps papers:
http://www-hermes.desy.de/notes/extras/postscript.html

If anyone can tell me how to do the same thing for .pdfs (automatically extract figures from pdfs) I'd appreciate it.

Update 12/13/08: One solution is listed at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=884002: use pdfimages, part of the xpdf package.

Movie Review: Dark Knight

Definitely the best movie in the past... 3 years? IMAX didn't add much to the experience though.

A little bit more: most people I've talked to about it (ummm... 2 grad students and 1 blog?) thought the movie was overhyped and didn't live up to the hype. I liked it a lot, and I never saw a single preview. Lesson? Don't see previews.

Blogroll

Since you're now subscribing (I'm assuming, at the moment and for the next... say... year, Kyle's the only one who will see this), here's a list of other blogs to check out:
http://sketchbrewing.blogspot.com/
http://thedrog.blogspot.com/

I'd send you to some other ones too, but they're not complete. I have vague ambitions to write a genuine science blog for the international year of astronomy and public outreach.... but I don't really know if that will go anywhere.

Movie Review: Hancock

Saw Hancock on Tuesday. Basically, as hinted at by friends, didn't live up to expectations. The funny quit early, and they tried to insert some 'dark superhero movie' into it in the second half. From the ads, and the presence of Jason Bateman & his character, this was inappropriate. Not a great movie, stick to the Dark Knight.

More beer tastes

Stone Vertical Epic 8: described as an overhopped Belgian, and I think they hit the mark exactly. It was pleasant and drinkable, with a strong hop flavor but weak hop bitterness. 8.6% ABV

Fort Collins brewery double chocolate stout: a reasonable dessert beer. Not nearly as dry as Stone's Oatmeal Chocolate, but not as sweet as Young's double chocolate. Chocolate undertones stayed undertones, which is not what I expect from a double chocolate stout. 8.1% ABV

Avery / Liquor Mart 40th anniversary: Just a hoppy ale, nothing special. Had a stronger hop aftertaste than most, not up to Avery's standard. No ABV label.

Steamworks Kolsch: Very light kolsch. I think it may have had a crisp flavor to it, but it was the last in line and unremarkable enough that my comments on it are untrustworthy. 4.86% ABV.

Also, talked to Bobby again, he recommends St Bernard as a good Belgian. That's on the list.

Applescripting out that VIM error

I have a frequent problem where my VIM window is too large for my macbook screen but it fits on my external monitor, so when I unplug the external the VIM file bar gets stuck behind the Mac OS menu bar. It's a huge pain to fix this normally, but I wrote/stole an applescript to fix the problem:

try
    tell application "Vim"
        activate
    end tell
    tell application "System Events"
        tell process "Vim"
            set size of the first window to {1000, 200}
            set position of the first window to {50, 50}
        end tell
    end tell
end try

Defining a Molecular Cloud

I'm going to try to answer a few questions [this post is in-progress and will be updated]:

1. Why are molecular clouds called molecular clouds?



2. What distinguishes a molecular cloud from similar objects (e.g. cores, clumps, HII regions)?



3. What do molecular clouds look like?


4. How do astronomers look at molecular clouds?


5. Why are astronomers look at molecular clouds (why are they interesting)?


6. What do molecular clouds have to do with star formation and planet formation?


7. How are molecular clouds involved in galactic evolution?

1. Molecular clouds are regions in space with densities high enough and temperatures low enough that molecules can form. The most common molecule is Hydrogen (H₂), simply because hydrogen is the most common atom. The next most common is Carbon Monoxide, CO, that is ~10⁴ times less common. It is the easiest to observe, though, because H₂ can only emit light and energy in 'forbidden' transitions that don't happen very often.

2. Size, temperature, and composition all distinguish molecular clouds from other nebulae.

An H II region is very hot - in it, hydrogen atoms are ionized by radiation from a nearby O-type star. In regions hot enough to ionize hydrogen, all molecules are destroyed unless they have already collected into larger dust particles.

A core is a much denser bunch of gas than a molecular cloud. Cores are dense enough that their outsides shield their insides from the radiation of the rest of the universe and their insides cool to very low temperatures. At low temperatures, the pressure supporting the cloud against collapse is lower, and stars can form via gravitational collapse.

I don't really know what clumps are... they're supposed to be something intermediate between cores and clouds, but I don't know what their distinguishing features are.

3. It depends on what wavelength you're looking in. In the optical, where our eyes can see, they look dark - they're seen because they absorb light from behind them. In the infrared, the hot ones glow, but the cold ones are still invisible. If you go all the way to the millimeter, all molecular clouds glow, no matter how cold, but in order to see them there has to be a lot of material. I'll add some pictures here later.

4. Lots of ways. Optical telescopes aren't the best choice, though. With near-infrared images, we can detect molecular clouds by counting stars and noticing when there aren't as many in some regions. This technique is called "NICE" and works because there are so many stars in the sky and dust in molecular clouds includes some, but not all, of their light. In the far infrared, we can see hot dust glowing, but this is very difficult because our atmosphere is opaque in the infrared - it's like trying to look through a brick wall. We need telescopes in space to be able to see anything at these wavelengths. In the millimeter, there are some 'holes' in the atmospheric absorption, sort of like color filters, that we can see through to detect the coldest emission.

Molecular Clouds

I'm starting a blog on Molecular Clouds partly for the International Year of Astronomy. Ideally, I'd like to present a tour of the W3/4/5 region, but at the moment that's more of a research blog than a public blog. This is partly in response to Pamela Gay's request for astronomy blog feeds.

I've generally spent more time maintaining my personal web page than my blog pages. The most interesting are:

W5

P Cygni

Some pictures

but feel free to browse around.

Review: Fruition restaurant

I ate at Fruition restaurant last night with the family. They serve haute cuisine. I had the beef coulotte. It was pretty tasty, but overall a bit too creamy for my taste. The wine had a hint of cherry flavor to it. The dinner was pretty good, but overall a little disappointing for the price. The French press coffee was a bit much as I would have preferred a small cup of cappuccino. I wouldn't object to going back when they switch to a new seasonal menu, but I'm not going out of my way.

AG
I died in a google accident

Photos featured in an article

My photos, article by Jeff Marlow:

http://www.atmagazine.co.uk/content/view/853/94/

Movie Review: The Namesake

The Namesake was pretty damned boring. The rich white girl might have been flaky and a touch rich-bitchy, but she was attractive, she loved him, and she did nothing wrong except perhaps out of ignorance. Coming of age stories like this one are dumb and take away my respect for ultraconservative, traditional cultures.

The one thing I can really say for the movie, though, is that it had awesome music. Federico Aubele's Postales showed up at one point, and there was another techno/ambient style song I couldn't pin down.