The Outsider's Inside View Post #008 - Hot and Bothered

Message boards : SETI@home Staff Blog : The Outsider's Inside View Post #008 - Hot and Bothered

Author	Message
KevinDouglasPhD Project scientist Send message Joined: 6 Feb 06 Posts: 107 Credit: 23,981 RAC: 0	Message 530412 - Posted: 12 Mar 2007, 17:14:22 UTC
	It's a beautiful day in the SETI@home neighbourhood. This afternoon is when I give my talk at the Radio Astronomy Lab seminar down on campus. I just finished putting the last few slides onto my wife's laptop (mine doesn't play mpegs in Powerpoint), so now I need to practice the hard part, what to say for each slide. I get a "free" lunch beforehand, so that will be nice. I just hope the laptop doesn't overheat. All the machines in my office seem uncharacteristically warm today. Maybe that's why I'm a bit grouchy. Tomorrow night there are two distinguished people speaking at Berkeley. One is Stephen Hawking, with whom I'm sure everyone is familiar. The other is Romeo Dallaire, a Canadian senator who was a Lt. General in the military and head of the UN peacekeeping forces in Rwanda during its genocide in 1993-4. It's been impossible to get tickets for either talk, but given the choice I'd opt for Dallaire without thinking about it. We have a new machine, named bruno, that I can't wait to start using for SETHI crunching. At the moment it can't seem to mount the disks on my workstation (laguna), where many of the files for beam shapes of individual spectra reside, so until that gets solved bruno is unavailable. Tomorrow Eric will try and put some new RAM into ewen again. Let's hope it works this time. There's no good segue into this next random thought, but Larry King was on The Colbert Report some nights ago, and I have a newfound respect for ol' Larry. He said something about how a good interviewer is one who sits back and doesn't interject his/her own opinion and lets the interviewee say their piece. Then he did an example of how NOT to do an interview, and I swear he was doing a perfect Glenn Beck impersonation. If you ever catch Beck's show on CNN Headline "News" try and count how many times he says "I" or "me" during a twenty second span. You could get hammered in the first two minutes of his show if you made a drinking game out of it. It's OK to be a bit vain on a blog (what's the point otherwise), but to make a radio/TV career about it? There, that felt good. Or as Beck would say, I said it and I feel better about myself because I said what I said.
	ID: 530412 ·

Dr. C.E.T.I. Send message Joined: 29 Feb 00 Posts: 15969 Credit: 626,061 RAC: 252	Message 530434 - Posted: 12 Mar 2007, 18:28:35 UTC - in response to Message 530412.
	It's a beautiful day in the SETI@home neighbourhood. This afternoon is when I give my talk at the Radio Astronomy Lab seminar down on campus. I just finished putting the last few slides onto my wife's laptop (mine doesn't play mpegs in Powerpoint), so now I need to practice the hard part, what to say for each slide. I get a "free" lunch beforehand, so that will be nice. I just hope the laptop doesn't overheat. All the machines in my office seem uncharacteristically warm today. Maybe that's why I'm a bit grouchy. Tomorrow night there are two distinguished people speaking at Berkeley. One is Stephen Hawking, with whom I'm sure everyone is familiar. The other is Romeo Dallaire, a Canadian senator who was a Lt. General in the military and head of the UN peacekeeping forces in Rwanda during its genocide in 1993-4. It's been impossible to get tickets for either talk, but given the choice I'd opt for Dallaire without thinking about it. We have a new machine, named bruno, that I can't wait to start using for SETHI crunching. At the moment it can't seem to mount the disks on my workstation (laguna), where many of the files for beam shapes of individual spectra reside, so until that gets solved bruno is unavailable. Tomorrow Eric will try and put some new RAM into ewen again. Let's hope it works this time. There's no good segue into this next random thought, but Larry King was on The Colbert Report some nights ago, and I have a newfound respect for ol' Larry. He said something about how a good interviewer is one who sits back and doesn't interject his/her own opinion and lets the interviewee say their piece. Then he did an example of how NOT to do an interview, and I swear he was doing a perfect Glenn Beck impersonation. If you ever catch Beck's show on CNN Headline "News" try and count how many times he says "I" or "me" during a twenty second span. You could get hammered in the first two minutes of his show if you made a drinking game out of it. It's OK to be a bit vain on a blog (what's the point otherwise), but to make a radio/TV career about it? There, that felt good. Or as Beck would say, I said it and I feel better about myself because I said what I said. Thanks For the Post Kevin - 'keep your chin up Sir' ;) Good News (Soon w/ BRUNO / EWEN . . .) > goin' ta see Stephen?
	ID: 530434 ·

Byron Leigh Hatch @ team Carl Sagan Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 5 Jul 99 Posts: 2340 Credit: 11,692,217 RAC: 364	Message 530440 - Posted: 12 Mar 2007, 18:42:34 UTC - in response to Message 530412.
	Hi Kevin , nice post , a very good read ! This afternoon is when I give my talk at the Radio Astronomy Lab seminar down on campus as a native son of Penticton , I have confidence , that you'll knock 'em dead !! because a lot of Great hockey players came out of Penticton :-) Kiven , one of my favorite ...... Carl Sagan .. quotes Carl Sagan Wrote ..... ''When __johannes Kepler__ found his long-cherished belief did not agree with the most precise observation, he accepted the uncomfortable fact. He preferred the hard truth to his dearest illusions , that is the heart of science" Best Wishes Byron
	ID: 530440 ·

PhonAcq Send message Joined: 14 Apr 01 Posts: 1620 Credit: 20,888,187 RAC: 4,779	Message 530464 - Posted: 12 Mar 2007, 20:54:06 UTC - in response to Message 530412.
	You are getting political. That's going to alienate a lot of volunteers. There is enough mixing of science with politics and we don't need more of that. It's a beautiful day in the SETI@home neighbourhood. This afternoon is when I give my talk at the Radio Astronomy Lab seminar down on campus. I just finished putting the last few slides onto my wife's laptop (mine doesn't play mpegs in Powerpoint), so now I need to practice the hard part, what to say for each slide. I get a "free" lunch beforehand, so that will be nice. I just hope the laptop doesn't overheat. All the machines in my office seem uncharacteristically warm today. Maybe that's why I'm a bit grouchy. Tomorrow night there are two distinguished people speaking at Berkeley. One is Stephen Hawking, with whom I'm sure everyone is familiar. The other is Romeo Dallaire, a Canadian senator who was a Lt. General in the military and head of the UN peacekeeping forces in Rwanda during its genocide in 1993-4. It's been impossible to get tickets for either talk, but given the choice I'd opt for Dallaire without thinking about it. We have a new machine, named bruno, that I can't wait to start using for SETHI crunching. At the moment it can't seem to mount the disks on my workstation (laguna), where many of the files for beam shapes of individual spectra reside, so until that gets solved bruno is unavailable. Tomorrow Eric will try and put some new RAM into ewen again. Let's hope it works this time. There's no good segue into this next random thought, but Larry King was on The Colbert Report some nights ago, and I have a newfound respect for ol' Larry. He said something about how a good interviewer is one who sits back and doesn't interject his/her own opinion and lets the interviewee say their piece. Then he did an example of how NOT to do an interview, and I swear he was doing a perfect Glenn Beck impersonation. If you ever catch Beck's show on CNN Headline "News" try and count how many times he says "I" or "me" during a twenty second span. You could get hammered in the first two minutes of his show if you made a drinking game out of it. It's OK to be a bit vain on a blog (what's the point otherwise), but to make a radio/TV career about it? There, that felt good. Or as Beck would say, I said it and I feel better about myself because I said what I said. ____________ May this Farce be with You
	ID: 530464 ·

kinhull Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 3 Oct 03 Posts: 1029 Credit: 636,475 RAC: 0	Message 530479 - Posted: 12 Mar 2007, 21:24:51 UTC - in response to Message 530464. Last modified: 12 Mar 2007, 21:44:38 UTC
	You are getting political. That's going to alienate a lot of volunteers. There is enough mixing of science with politics and we don't need more of that. As that old saying goes "You can Alienate some of the people some of the time, but you can't Alienate all of the people all of the time", or words to that effect. ____________ Join TeamACC Sometimes I think we are alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we are not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.
	ID: 530479 ·

KevinDouglasPhD Project scientist Send message Joined: 6 Feb 06 Posts: 107 Credit: 23,981 RAC: 0	Message 531102 - Posted: 14 Mar 2007, 3:20:33 UTC - in response to Message 530464.
	You are getting political. That's going to alienate a lot of volunteers. There is enough mixing of science with politics and we don't need more of that. I must disagree. Just because the person I was talking about has very conservative political views, I did not make reference to Glenn Beck's politics. I just remarked on his aggravating interview style and his arrogant self-centeredness. Another person who does this is Tyra Banks. I don't watch her show, but there's a show on the E! network called The Soup that I enjoy because it makes fun of celebrity self-importance. They showed a clip where Tyra's guest (an actress from the show Las Vegas) was talking about the rewarding feeling she gets from doing charity work, and Ms. Banks' inexplicable response to her was something to the effect of, "Well, that reminds me of the good feeling about myself that I felt when I did the cover shoot for People Magazine." If I had parlayed this story instead of the one about Beck, would you have accused me of getting "catty"? In more important news, I'm glad the Pittsburgh Penguins aren't going to move. I just finished watching their thrilling 5-4 shootout win over Buffalo. It'll be fun to watch the Pens for years. Looks like ewen's RAM upgrade was successful today, so it's good to have that taken care of. My seminar went well yesterday, so I'm glad to have that out of the way. Now I can concentrate on getting all this GALFA and SETHI data processed. Stephen Hawking is giving his talk down in Berkeley right now...
	ID: 531102 ·

Misfit Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 21 Jun 01 Posts: 21680 Credit: 2,443,662 RAC: 0	Message 531155 - Posted: 14 Mar 2007, 4:37:53 UTC - in response to Message 530464.
	You are getting political. That's going to alienate a lot of volunteers. The existence and popularity of the Political (and Religious) Thread series say otherwise. ____________
	ID: 531155 ·

Fuzzy Hollynoodles Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 3 Apr 99 Posts: 9659 Credit: 251,998 RAC: 0	Message 531228 - Posted: 14 Mar 2007, 15:39:20 UTC - in response to Message 531102. Last modified: 14 Mar 2007, 15:41:38 UTC
	... Stephen Hawking is giving his talk down in Berkeley right now... And why are you here to post then? I thought listening to Hawking would be a more interesting choice. :-) .oO(I know where I would be, if Hawking was giving a talk in a place near me. In the audience!) ____________ "I'm trying to maintain a shred of dignity in this world." - Me
	ID: 531228 ·

KevinDouglasPhD Project scientist Send message Joined: 6 Feb 06 Posts: 107 Credit: 23,981 RAC: 0	Message 531234 - Posted: 14 Mar 2007, 16:27:43 UTC - in response to Message 531228.
	... Stephen Hawking is giving his talk down in Berkeley right now... And why are you here to post then? I thought listening to Hawking would be a more interesting choice. :-) .oO(I know where I would be, if Hawking was giving a talk in a place near me. In the audience!) As I said previously, tickets for Hawking's lecture were sold out long ago. The other distinguished speaker on campus last night was Romeo Dallaire, though I might try to see his press conference later today (his talk was sold out last night too. I snoozed and lost). Anyway, the Hawking lecture will apparently be archived on UC Berkeley's website. Penticton hockey players...lots of great ones. Andy Moog of course, a native of Penticton, but also players like Ray Ferraro & Brett Hull (both on NHL on NBC) and Paul Kariya - he was one year behind me in high school (I'm a 1991 Pen-Hi grad). The observatory near Penticton is hosting a summer school this August. I attended the last summer school they put on, back in 1996. It would be fun to go back this time as a lecturer; maybe I should offer my services.
	ID: 531234 ·

Byron Leigh Hatch @ team Carl Sagan Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 5 Jul 99 Posts: 2340 Credit: 11,692,217 RAC: 364	Message 531252 - Posted: 14 Mar 2007, 17:22:26 UTC - in response to Message 531234. Last modified: 14 Mar 2007, 18:01:12 UTC
	The observatory near Penticton is hosting a summer school this August. I attended the last summer school they put on, back in 1996. It would be fun to go back this time as a lecturer; maybe I should offer my services. Kevin go for it ! Penticton has grown so much in the last few years , you ....... being a native son of , Penticton , I think you would enjoy seeing your old home town again :) *BTW , Kevin* one of the beta testers , over at ____SETI@home/AstroPulse Beta testing posted the following message: *HAPPY PI DAY -- March 14th (3.14) is PI day* March 14th (3.14) is Ï€ day, and all around the world mathematicians are celebrating this compelling and mysterious constant of Nature. Pi appears in equations describing the orbits of planets, the colors of auroras, the structure of DNA. It's everywhere. Mathematicians have been struggling to calculate Ï€ for thousands of years. Divide the circumference of a circle by its diameter; the ratio is Ï€. Sounds simple, but the devil is in the digits. While the value of Ï€ is finite (a smidgen more than 3), the decimal number is infinitely long: 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582097494459230781640628620899862803482534211706 the mathematicians today are running for their calculators :) Pawly thanks Pawly ! Cool :) I Love Mathematics , I got 70 % on my first year University math test :) but sadly , I failed English composition and Literature 40 % :( I couldn't write a thank you card to save my life LOL :( Byron I am very pleased to be allowed to participate in this very important scientific experiment .... SETI@home. friendly and respectful Byron
	ID: 531252 ·

Fuzzy Hollynoodles Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 3 Apr 99 Posts: 9659 Credit: 251,998 RAC: 0	Message 531289 - Posted: 14 Mar 2007, 19:35:06 UTC - in response to Message 531234.
	... Anyway, the Hawking lecture will apparently be archived on UC Berkeley's website. ... It will? Then I'll take a look at their website, maybe you'll post a link to it when it is there? As "a friend of Berkeley" (that's what they call me in their thank you letters to me for my donations (I'm not particularly friendly towards Berkeley, only to this project! ;-D )) I should be able to download what they put up? ____________ "I'm trying to maintain a shred of dignity in this world." - Me
	ID: 531289 ·

kinhull Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 3 Oct 03 Posts: 1029 Credit: 636,475 RAC: 0	Message 531388 - Posted: 14 Mar 2007, 23:16:34 UTC
	You can read up on Hawking at Berkeley here: UC Berkeley News Hopefully we should be able to access the webcast (when it's made available) here: Webcast Archive ____________ Join TeamACC Sometimes I think we are alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we are not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.
	ID: 531388 ·

Fuzzy Hollynoodles Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 3 Apr 99 Posts: 9659 Credit: 251,998 RAC: 0	Message 531397 - Posted: 14 Mar 2007, 23:34:28 UTC - in response to Message 531388.
	You can read up on Hawking at Berkeley here: UC Berkeley News Hopefully we should be able to access the webcast (when it's made available) here: Webcast Archive Thanks. I can see they already have made an introduction but no downloads yet. Can they only be seen/heard in RealPlayer? No podcasts to my iPod? ____________ "I'm trying to maintain a shred of dignity in this world." - Me
	ID: 531397 ·

kinhull Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 3 Oct 03 Posts: 1029 Credit: 636,475 RAC: 0	Message 532747 - Posted: 17 Mar 2007, 16:51:31 UTC Last modified: 17 Mar 2007, 16:58:27 UTC
	You can read up on Hawking at Berkeley here: UC Berkeley News The Webcast is now available here: Strictly Speaking: Stephen W. Hawking Text of the meeting available here: Origins of the universe: Stephen Hawking's J. Robert Oppenheimer Lecture ____________ Join TeamACC Sometimes I think we are alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we are not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.
	ID: 532747 ·

Message boards : SETI@home Staff Blog : The Outsider's Inside View Post #008 - Hot and Bothered