I Was A Landscape In Your Dream

What kind of comedy is this all of the danger you’ve discovered
What kind of comedy is this how can you say now you’re frightened
You labeled me in forty tries and in case you didn’t realize
I was a landscape in your dream and all my mountains were on fire

What kind of labyrynth is this that we’re constructing through talking
What kind of labyrynth is this that sends you laughing without smiling
Age brings a sad little surprise and in case you didn’t realize
While you were calculating tears my head expired

~ Of Montreal ~

Thanks for that. This band is playing in SF next week. Maybe I'll
go check them out. I'm only familiar with one of their albums.

Check out this lovely image of interstellar hydrogen:

It's not SETHI data; it's from another Arecibo-based project called
GALFA. I'll write a bit more about that in next week's new post.

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I Was A Landscape In Your Dream

What kind of comedy is this all of the danger you’ve discovered
What kind of comedy is this how can you say now you’re frightened
You labeled me in forty tries and in case you didn’t realize
I was a landscape in your dream and all my mountains were on fire

What kind of labyrynth is this that we’re constructing through talking
What kind of labyrynth is this that sends you laughing without smiling
Age brings a sad little surprise and in case you didn’t realize
While you were calculating tears my head expired

~ Of Montreal ~

Thanks for that. This band is playing in SF next week. Maybe I'll
go check them out. I'm only familiar with one of their albums.

You are quite Welcome . . . see Of Montreal's Site

Check out this lovely image of interstellar hydrogen:

It's not SETHI data; it's from another Arecibo-based project called
GALFA. I'll write a bit more about that in next week's new post.

That's an Understatement - 'lovely image' - it's quite Astounding to say the

least - can't wait for your input regarding the aforementioned . . .

Respectfully, richard

I Was A Landscape In Your Dream

What kind of comedy is this all of the danger you’ve discovered
What kind of comedy is this how can you say now you’re frightened
You labeled me in forty tries and in case you didn’t realize
I was a landscape in your dream and all my mountains were on fire

What kind of labyrynth is this that we’re constructing through talking
What kind of labyrynth is this that sends you laughing without smiling
Age brings a sad little surprise and in case you didn’t realize
While you were calculating tears my head expired

~ Of Montreal ~

Thanks for that. This band is playing in SF next week. Maybe I'll
go check them out. I'm only familiar with one of their albums.

Check out this lovely image of interstellar hydrogen:

It's not SETHI data; it's from another Arecibo-based project called
GALFA. I'll write a bit more about that in next week's new post.

Kevin, You're the answer to an infoholics dream!
Also I've not heard "Gentle Giant" mentioned in years! KUDOS for Brains and Good taste! BUT, NO PINK?

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I Desire Peace and Justice, Jim Scott (Mod-Ret.)

Back from the dentist with the new, permanent, cap. The rest of my teeth are pointing and laughing, but I assume the new one will be accepted as a brother before too long. I'll take a few minutes before getting back to work to explain the history of names. We tend not to repeat names, so once a machine goes, the name will probably go with it.

When I started here people named machines after the research group leaders. Stu Boywer and Supria Chakrabarti had "stew" and "soup" repsectively. The rest of us had terminals. Then came "rocket," a 4MB, 16 Mhz diskless 68020, named so because that's what we worked on at the time.

The came a big NASA mission, EUVE. At that point things divided up into multiple camps. There were the big servers which were usually named with acronyms, SOC1 (science operations center) and SDAF1 (super duper aerodynamic frog maybe? I dunno.) Then we got a optical disk jukebox, so it seemed obvious that "elvis" would run that. Around this time the SETI group got a machine named "serendip"

Personal workstations were usually named after towns on the california coast. "pacifica," "bodega," "bolinas," "monterrey," and "laguna" all come to mind. When we ran out of those we moved on to single malt scotch varieties "highland," "lowland," "islay," "skye," "speyside," etc.

Then I worked on the Far Ultraviolet Coronal Rocket and got a machine named "mofo" for obvious reasons. (Don't explain them unless you want to be moderated.)

Following that, a trend for naming machines after famous scientists and writers developed, some fictional, starting with "albert" and continuing through "isaac," "asimov," "drake," "jill," "dyson," "clarke," "sagan," "ellie," "jocelyn," "herschel," "hawking," "jansky," "hertz," "galileo," "castelli," and "ewen."

There was a brief stint of Simpsons characters, "marge," "homer," "lisa," "maggie," "bart," "skinner," "syzlak," "milhouse" mixed in with Scooby-do's "shaggy" and "scooby"

Then there's the "K-rack" that when it was full contained "kosh," "kang," "kodos," "koloth," "kryten," and "klaatu"

There was talk of a "G-rack" which gave birth to "gowron"

Now we're onto Star Wars, although Matt named his new desktop machine "wahweap" which could start a trend toward naming machines after marinas on Lake Powell.

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@SETIEric@qoto.org (Mastodon)

Kevin, You're the answer to an infoholics dream!
Also I've not heard "Gentle Giant" mentioned in years! KUDOS for Brains and Good taste! BUT, NO PINK?

Not on the mp3 player, no. Plenty of it at home, though. The Floyd
are one of those bands I hardly listen to anymore, despite having so
many good albums. I've just heard them all so many times - same with
Yes, old Genesis (Hackett-era), King Crimson, etc. There are just so
many lesser-known bands that play challenging, complex rock music that
I'd rather discover. Finding out that
Matt & Jeff & Court have similar musical tastes to me was yet another
unexpected delight when I started working here. Maybe Dave too...not
sure though.

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Re: host names. Eric pretty much spelled out most of it below, but there were a couple of Mac's we had early on called "jobs" and "wozniak" as well as a PC called "gates." That PC disappeared and, oddly enough, the name was indeed reused on a Sun Ultra 10 (ha ha). I'm also an old Amiga-head, so we named a few machines after Commodore types like "miner" and "peddle" but those machines ended up not getting used very much (how ironic). "Wahweap" refers to an impossible-to-get-to section of southern Utah where I found these.

Re: musical tastes. Dave is a very accomplished pianist whose tastes trend towards classical (romantic through modern). He and I had several musician friends in common before we met here at the lab (which we only discovered later).

- Matt

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-- BOINC/SETI@home network/web/science/development person
-- "Any idiot can have a good idea. What is hard is to do it." - Jeanne-Claude

Do you guys specialise in only listening to obscure music? The only ones I have heard of on that list are Pierrot Lunaire (and I kind of wish I hadn't) and Queen.

My ‘familarity percentage’ on that list is pretty low, too. Gentle Giant is one of my favourite groups, especially their earlier stuff: their In A Glass House (1973—one of my favourite years for music, come to think of it) would definitely be on my short list for a ‘desert island’ scenario. Classic ‘art rock’ (if a bit quirky—I can’t think of anyone else who’d use a xylophone, for example) with thoughtful lyrics and very fine singing voices.

Adrian Belew was in King Crimson, another of my favourite bands, in their 1980s reincarnation, but I’m afraid I’d choose either Fripp or Bruford over him without the slightest hesitation.

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"Wahweap" refers to an impossible-to-get-to section of southern Utah where I found these.

Wow! What are those formations, are they rock, salt, something else? Great geology.

As mentioned by Eric, I take it the pics were taken here: Lake Powell

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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.

Then I worked on the Far Ultraviolet Coronal Rocket and got a machine named "mofo" for obvious reasons. (Don't explain them unless you want to be moderated.)

Click sig email addr for explanation.

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me@rescam.org

Kevin, You're the answer to an infoholics dream!
Also I've not heard "Gentle Giant" mentioned in years! KUDOS for Brains and Good taste! BUT, NO PINK?

Not on the mp3 player, no. Plenty of it at home, though. The Floyd
are one of those bands I hardly listen to anymore, despite having so
many good albums. I've just heard them all so many times - same with
Yes, old Genesis (Hackett-era), King Crimson, etc. There are just so
many lesser-known bands that play challenging, complex rock music that
I'd rather discover. Finding out that
Matt & Jeff & Court have similar musical tastes to me was yet another
unexpected delight when I started working here. Maybe Dave too...not
sure though.

How about "Quicksilver Messenger Service"?

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I Desire Peace and Justice, Jim Scott (Mod-Ret.)

@ Jim S-

Since it's 0 degrees Fahrenheit here in Minnesota I think I'll have "another hit of cool air" (QMS lyrics).

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I believe they call Don Williams "The Gentle Giant". Among a lot of other songs he had popular were "You're My Best Friend" in 1975 and "Til The Rivers All Run Dry" in 1976.

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Greetings, SETI enthusiasts. As someone who primarily works "at arm's length" from the SETI@home/BOINC group most of the time, I mostly want to use my blog to give a behind-the-scenes perspective of what goes on here, from a sort of "fly-on-the-wall" point of view. I hope such a thing would be entertaining as well as informative. I guess that remains to be seen...hence the blog title, The Outsider's Inside View. Don't like it? Then suggest something else. I thought "The ET Insider" might get me in trouble with Paramount. Not that I watch such dreck anyway.

So who am I and what do I do? I am a postdoc and I study the interstellar medium of our Galaxy. I was brought to UC Berkeley by Eric Korpela, to analyze the atomic hydrogen (HI) spectra created as a (by)product of recording all this SETI@home data. We call this project SETHI, and I've been making datacubes from the over 14-million HI spectra taken with the Arecibo line feed. I do all sorts of other interesting radio astronomy work, about which I can bore you in a later post. My other SETI@home activities are fairly limited - but I attend the weekly Group and Science meetings, which I'm sure will be the source of many sardonic ramblings on these boards (at least until I'm told to stop). Apart from the above, I occasionally get roped in by Dan to help out with anything from confirming telescope pointing data to processing donation cheques.

Seeing as how this is a forum, that means we should talk. Besides SETI & radio astronomy, I have loads of other interests. I think the world would be a happier place if everyone owned a Mike Keneally CD. I am from Canada, and I am a huge hockey fan. Lately I've been dreaming about caves. Is that enough to get things going?

So what else can I say by way of introduction? It might appear that I have rather few credits, being part of the staff and all. There are two reasons for that, one being that I actually have to compete with SETI@home/BOINC processes on most of the machines I use to do my scientific processing. So I probably deserve about 0.1% of Eric's credit, since he's got SETI@home running on so many processors here. The other reason (the real reason, in fact) is that my laptop's hard drive burned out and I haven't installed BOINC on the replacement drive yet (nor am I sure I will).

It's my hope to post a new thread once a week, and if anyone cares to respond with questions, comments, diversions, etc, I will try to answer prior to the next new thread. Is that good board etiquette? I've no idea, but that's my plan for now.

Kevin

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What the point of all this. I was watching a google video (i forgot which one) where some group did make contact. The military came in and shut the frequency down. When it was reopened nothing could be found. The military must have haad them change channels. IF TRUE, what's the point?

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What the point of all this. I was watching a google video (i forgot which one) where some group did make contact. The military came in and shut the frequency down. When it was reopened nothing could be found. The military must have haad them change channels. IF TRUE, what's the point?

mrglenning - if you would - please see you *History* in that Google Thread - and Post the Link you refer to . . . *WE* shall see what's up with Re: ;)

[edit]". . . in our childrens childrens children" - the *opportunity* to find results - via SETI@ home - is reason enough for those that 'ave the Patience and are willing to work towards that goal . . . ;)

What the point of all this. I was watching a google video (i forgot which one) where some group did make contact. The military came in and shut the frequency down. When it was reopened nothing could be found. The military must have haad them change channels. IF TRUE, what's the point?

The long ago reported procedure behind the signals Seti might find is that they will first verify that signal with several other places around the World to weed out any possibility of it being man made or caused by some star going ballistic or whatever. This should stop the you-tube theory from happening, too many Countries involved to shut them all down.

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Welcome to the board Kevin....hmmm..a fellow Canuck eh! You mention that Eric brought you in to the project..I wonder if in one of your future posts, you might mention what part of Canada you are from and if you are currently 'on loan' from a University up here and what projects you might have been involved with prior to coming to Berkeley. You know us, always interested in ex-pats...lol.
Oh !....I live in the heart of University country (Waterloo,ON) and thought I'd mention that any other Canucks in the area might be interested in an upcoming 'talk' being given at the PERIMETER INSTITUTE in Waterloo by Dr. Jill Tarter, Director, Center for SETI Research.
Anyway, thanks for providing us with an insight into what you're working on...much appreciated.

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Welcome to the board Kevin....hmmm..a fellow Canuck eh! You mention that Eric brought you in to the project..I wonder if in one of your future posts, you might mention what part of Canada you are from and if you are currently 'on loan' from a University up here and what projects you might have been involved with prior to coming to Berkeley. You know us, always interested in ex-pats...lol.
Oh !....I live in the heart of University country (Waterloo,ON) and thought I'd mention that any other Canucks in the area might be interested in an upcoming 'talk' being given at the PERIMETER INSTITUTE in Waterloo by Dr. Jill Tarter, Director, Center for SETI Research.
Anyway, thanks for providing us with an insight into what you're working on...much appreciated.

Hi dragon1

I'm not Kevin , but here is some information

Hope this helps :)



Penticton , in the Okanagan Valley , British Columbia , Canada

Dr. Kevin Douglas, Postdoctoral research associate

Kevin is a radio astronomer, specializing in the study of the interstellar medium. He is an expert at observing Galactic hydrogen with the Arecibo multibeam receiver called ALFA, to which SETI@home recently installed its new data recorder.

Kevin is married, with one son. You can read more about Kevin's interests by visiting:

Kevin's Home page

http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/~douglas/

I hope this helps :)

Best Wishes
Byron

I'm retired now and living in Vancouver , British Columbia , Canada

Welcome to the board Kevin....hmmm..a fellow Canuck eh! You mention that Eric brought you in to the project..I wonder if in one of your future posts, you might mention what part of Canada you are from and if you are currently 'on loan' from a University up here and what projects you might have been involved with prior to coming to Berkeley. You know us, always interested in ex-pats...lol.
Oh !....I live in the heart of University country (Waterloo,ON) and thought I'd mention that any other Canucks in the area might be interested in an upcoming 'talk' being given at the PERIMETER INSTITUTE in Waterloo by Dr. Jill Tarter, Director, Center for SETI Research.
Anyway, thanks for providing us with an insight into what you're working on...much appreciated.

Hi dragon1,

I consider myself a western Canadian. I've got a brief bio on my homepage (Byron provided a link) but if there's anything missing there I'm happy to answer questions. I'm not on loan - I got my PhD from U.Calgary in '05. I was involved with the International Galactic Plane Survey before coming to Berkeley to do more Galactic science. I went to a star formation/astrochemistry conference in Waterloo in August 2002. I didn't see much of the city though. I did see the Research In Motion building (the company that makes the Blackberry) though.

Thanks for the post - I'm on "post#003" this past week, so try and keep up eh?

Hey Kevin...thanks for the additional info and thanks Byron for the links. I hope the 'Yanks' down there appreciate your sense of humour...I sure do...hehe. As you know guys don't multi-task as well as women do. That's my excuse for not noticing I was still viewing post #1..Now onto post #6, or is it #3.

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