Miguel V. virtual podium

Intelligence

2007-10-17T14:43:00.000-07:00

James Watson , a sus 79 años, parece ser una demostración viviente de que se puede ser muy inteligente, haber estudiado una carrera, haber sido profesor y dirigido una importante institución científica o incluso haber ganado un premio Nobel de medicina… y aun así ser un perfecto gilipollas.

Via microsiervos

Freakonomics

2007-10-14T07:08:00.000-07:00

I liked that book (Freakonomics), specially because it demonstrates the power of data, and how the reality is at times counterintuitive and we are often deceived by our beliefs. Now I discovered a blog which follow a similar trend of analysis. Not all post are that good, but many are. I read with pleasure one about the future of the music industry and one can conclude that they are doomed. The music doesn't need them anymore. Good news. The same will happen to everyone who tries to hold something as fragile as intellectual property.

Waves

2007-10-08T14:04:00.000-07:00

"The airwaves should belong to the people. If a TV signal comes trespassing onto my property, I should be free to do any damn thing I want with it, and it's none of the government's business."

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.08/satellite_pr.html

Ignorance in the internet age

2007-10-04T12:33:00.000-07:00

"Those who have today readily access to the NET can not be excused for their ignorance"

The other day, I got - again - the old hoax warning about the internationalization of the Amazonia and the evil USA plans, citing a US school textbook as a proof! But the book even doesn't exist. I've been receiving this email for years, since... 2000? perhaps even before. However many people don't even bother to check whether those sources are reliable or not, even though they have readily access to Internet, the best source of information that the humanity has ever had. I mean, one doesn't have to be an expert in the topic, but with just few clicks one can get an idea of almost any topic, weight the different opinions and reach to a conclusion. One can even discuss the ideas in online forums and gets adequate feedback.

I'm optimistic. I believe that anyway the situation is better now than before, when one had to believe what the TV or the newspaper said, swallowing the ignorance and lies of the mass media. This brought me to the memory the initiative of One Laptop per Child (OLPC). I never put too much attention in this project, basically because I strongly distrust centralized initiatives, however I consider that any step that provide access to more trustworthy forms of information is a step forward. If this initiative is successful, soon millions of persons would have access to it. Even those countries where the Internet is actively censored, will be more information than before. The situation can only improve. At least is what I hope.

In the picture the model of the OLPC. Many people criticize it because is underpowered, subsidized, lacking of a business model, etc. However I find it quite well designed, with a beautiful interface (I love the theme) and more important free (of freedom) programs, which means that anybody can learn, modify, document and access them. I wish the best luck for this project. Perhaps one day I'll buy one and give another as a gift.

Such a week!

2007-09-28T06:44:00.001-07:00

These are my lags of this time! I had a deadline today. A proposal to get telescope time, let see if this time we've better 'luck'. A lot to do and many changes during the week. Some unpleasant surprises during the endless checking throughout the data archives. Please, observatories, include as soon as possible visual tools, in something like Google Sky. So we can find out quickly and in only one place, the data we are looking for, and figure out what data are useful and what not.

But, it was a productive week. Paper finally submitted. Uff, It took a long, long time. I hope the referee won't suggest too many changes and the publication won't take so long. It can be a 'piece of crap' but it's MY 'piece of crap' and it's beautiful like a child can be for his mother. Now back to the thesis!

Abejas...

2007-09-23T09:25:00.001-07:00

"If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more food, no more man."
attributed to Albert Einstein.

taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_Collapse_Disorder

Meteorite lands in Peru

2007-09-18T02:16:00.000-07:00

One doesn't hear news like this everyday, but according to many reports a meteorite has fallen in Peru, near to the Bolivian border.

Unfortunately the details are scant and often contradictory, both in the english and spanish newspapers. This is the best photo I was able to find.

The meteorite left a crater of 6 meters deep and 20 wide. The Peruvian seismological service reports no activity, however locals said that an earthquake was felt after a bright light was seen in the sky.

People, who have been close to the crater, fell sick afterwards due to "radiation poisoning!", according to some newspapers. Untrue, meteorites don't have more radiation than normal earth rocks. Likely, it was due to chemicals present in the meteorite or produced by the explosion.

Sloan South: the SkyMapper telescope

2007-09-12T11:08:00.000-07:00

Not quite! But an interesting and very necessary project. A 1.3 meter telescope at Siding Spring Observatory (Australia) aimed to image the entire southern sky, including the galactic plane.

Differences with SDSS. It doesn't use drift scanning and no spectroscopy follow-up is planned. Although it will be a wonderful complement to the already finished 2dFGRS. Furthermore, multi epoch imagery is planned from the beginning, adding an extra dimension to the survey.

A task for them, add the data as soon as possible in to GoogleSky or similar applications.

And a task for the SDSS people, survey the entire northern sky and we won't relay anymore in the old, shallow and imprecise DSS archive.

Follow this link to learn more about the project. They already achieved the first light! Congratulations

September 11

2007-09-11T10:25:00.000-07:00

Translation

GoogleSky paper

2007-09-07T07:19:00.000-07:00

Today appeared in astro-ph the paper describing the technical characteristics of GoogleSky. The authors outlined some possibilities that I imagined long ago, which would help to improve the astronomic work.

To read the paper go to: http://arxiv.org/abs/0709.0752

The picture is the spiral galaxy M100 as seen in GoogleSky. The "stealth bomber-like" shape is the Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2 image, superimposed over a background image from SDSS. Cool!

Firefox, grrrr

2007-09-07T07:10:00.001-07:00

I use Firefox under Linux as my default web browser. It was great when it first appeared, fast, stable, simple, etc. However, more often I'm experiencing problem with it. It's getting slower and slower with each version. Also buggier! I've had several crashes, but normally it just stops working and I've to kill it! In other occasions when I close it, only the windows are closed, but it is still using the memory and I've to use the 'kill' command.

I wanted to test Opera, but some Web 2.0 applications don't display correctly there. :-(

next iPod as a game console?

2007-09-04T11:43:00.001-07:00

Even though i don't have any Apple staff and is not in my plans to buy one. I like to speak about Apple, because is clear that is one of the few companies that have a clear business strategy and understanding of the market. Many others seem to be dedicated to throw products into the stores, with little previous thinking.

Tomorrow or in few days, a new iPod will be presented. As I discussed with an Apple fan friend, it cannot be a iPhone without the phone properties, because the customers won't find any incentives to buy the iPhone (a key product for Apple future). Then? What news characteristics would have the new iPod? I'm writing this post just because I guessed that it could be also portable game console, much like the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP. Let's see if I'm right. If not now, I'll be at some point in the future.

Tools for a PhD thesis!

2007-09-04T10:29:00.001-07:00

I'm not good at writing and beside that, I'm a bit disorganized. However there are some applications that help a lot. Unfortunately I haven't found any that write thesis for me. Some people say that if one mixes random characters during a sufficient long period of time, Hamlet would appear. I don't have such time nor the computing power, then I've to do it by myself.

I use the widely known LaTeX type setting system. You may not know, but it is the standard in scientific writings. Different tools are available to help with the writing in this system. The one i want to mention is Kile for Linux (similar tools are available in other OS). The last version even suggest the words while one is at writing, speeding up a little bit the process. Also, it helps you to organize the project, track errors, correct spelling, find quickly the symbols, etc.

The second tool is called Jabref and help to manage the huge amount of bibliography and create easily the .bib files required by LaTeX. It is possible to create groups of citations according the keywords, link the citations to local pdf/ps files and the links to the journals. Unfortunately the .bib source provided by ADS are often incomplete and the program can't make all the tasks automatically and one has to give manually the extra information. If at least the keywords would be included in the .bib code...

Although, I haven't tested yet pdfedit seems to be another helpful tool. Specially the feature to add notes to pdf files. That's great!

Roxy was freed!

2007-09-04T10:24:00.000-07:00

After more than two months of struggle with the Russian justice system, the prosecutors dropped the charges against her. But she was fined. OK. At the end money is cheap. Freedom is expensive.

Finally is here: GoogleSky

2007-08-22T12:21:00.000-07:00

OK. In reality is just another layer in GoogleEarth, but i think it is a step forward in the proper direction.

It was already a long "dream", product of the dissatisfaction I experienced with most databases, visualization tools and virtual observatories.

The impressive amount of data, already present in the astronomy world, cannot be managed coherently with the large number of heterogeneous tools that currently we are using: How long does it take for anyone to search in every observatory archive for some data? How many virtual observatories will we have in the next years? How many tools do we need to use to perform some BASIC tasks? How many databases do we have to check?

The situation can be worse in few years when the huge, digitalized databases come online. Fortunately, there are steps in the right direction. The Sloan people already have a quite good and relatively easy-to-use web page. Yet more important, they are aware of the problem and pretend to address it in the future. Some of them are participating in http://astrometry.net/ project. Thanks guys! Astrometry calibration is one of the more tedious and time consuming tasks in data analysis.

Now GOOGLE presents this tool. Currently, it is mostly useful for amateur astronomers and sky lovers, but according what I've seen in GoogleEarth, it has a huge potential grow, using the layer architecture: Maps at different wavelengths. Databases. Archive observations. Full catalogs. References to the corresponding papers. Ongoing events and more.

The grow potential is huge. I don't know the details but with plug-ins, observations could be prepared. Download the tables in the area. Load the our own images and catalogs in the display and make the proper comparisons.
And much more. Further ideas?

The image is an example of how one of the clusters, I'm currently working on, looks in "GoogleSky".

http://earth.google.com/sky/skyedu.html

Free Roxy!

2007-08-22T12:00:00.001-07:00

An old friend from my university years is being held in Russia. She is charged for attempting to bring outside of the country some soviet-era medals that she bought to a street vendor, ignoring that it is illegal.

She has been already detained for two months while she waits for the court. And her supporters there say that she can face up to 6 years of imprisonment

This start is dedicated to her.

Any help is welcome.

Some links to the news:

http://www.emol.com/noticias/nacional/detalle/detallenoticias.asp?idnoticia=272789

http://english.pravda.ru/news/russia/21-08-2007/96152-medals_currency-0

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/08/20/america/NA-GEN-US-Student-Detained-Russia.php