Direct imaging of extra solar planets. The cat dynamicist has the details. (because, linking, I’ve heard, is good.) Fomalhaut b, a nice name.
When I was on the road to becoming an astrophysicist, as a young grad student, I remember thinking how cool it would be to join the planet hunters. I mean being able to say that in your research you “discovered a planet” well how cool would that be. Alas I caught the quantum bug and so all those days spent studying the interstellar tedium are now lost, like tears in the rain.
Other NSF News…Of Funny Kind
Melody points me to this gem of an advisory from the NSF:
In the event of a natural or anthropogenic disaster that interferes with an organization’s ability to meet a proposal submission deadline, NSF has developed the following guidelines for use by impacted organizations. These guidelines will take the place of the previous NSF practice of posting notices to the NSF website regarding each specific event.
Flexibility in meeting announced deadline dates because of a natural or anthropogenic disasters may be granted with the prior approval of the cognizant NSF Program Officer. Proposers should contact the cognizant NSF Program Officer in the Division/Office to which they intend to submit their proposal and request authorization to submit a “late proposal.” Such contact should be via e-mail (or telephone, if e-mail is unavailable). Proposers should then follow the written or verbal guidance provided by the cognizant NSF Program Officer. Generally, NSF permits extension of the deadline by 5 business days. The Foundation, however, will work with each impacted organization on a case-by-case basis to address their specific issue(s). Proposers should be aware that all applications submitted after the submission deadline must be submitted through FastLane since Grants.gov does not accept proposals after the deadline.
Boldface mine. Yeah, read that again: you can get an extension for a natural disaster with prior approval. “Dude, Dr. Program Manager, I know there is going to be an earthquake on the day I have to submit, so could I please have an extension?”
So Much For Research Faculty
New NSF policies on faculty salaries:
A major revision of NSF’s faculty salary reimbursement policy, to limit compensation for senior personnel to no more than two months of their regular salary in any one year from all NSF-funded grants
This pretty much eliminates any NSF funded research professors, as far as I can tell. Well it was a good run, peoples, but that rule change virtually assures that pseudo-professors like myself don’t exist.
Can't Spell "Evil" Without "Elsevier"
John Baez (via Zoran Škoda) points to the case of M.S. El Naschie. El Naschie is apparently the answer to the question “how do you publish over three hundred papers of craziness in an Elsevier journal?” Simple: just become the editor and chief of the journal!
Tell me again the argument about scientific publishers rendering a valuable service with their stellar editing?
11th Annual SQuInT Conference, February 19-22, 2009
The 11th Annual SQuInT Conference (dude that makes me feel old) will be held in Seattle this year. Seattle is in the southwest because Southwest airline flies here (quick book the direct flights from Albuquerque!) In conjunction with this there will also be a satellite meeting, the Workshop on Integrated Atomic Systems II.
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Physics Game Destroys Office Productivity
If you want to have a productive day I suggest avoiding Assembler.
Via: “Phd”ed Man
Winners and Loser Among Hedge Funds
When sky’s fall, apparently they do not fall equally everywhere (contrary to popular theory.) A partial is of those who’ve held up the sky (and even pushed higher) in this New York Times article:
Bernard V. Drury is a rarity on Wall Street: a hedge fund manager who is making money rather than losing it.
While most hedge funds are sinking into red this year and unsettling the markets in the process, a handful of them are posting spectacular gains. Mr. Drury’s fund, for instance, is up 60 percent since Jan. 1.
How did he do it? Mr. Drury, a former grain trader, is not giving away his secrets. He relies on proprietary computer models to chart tides in the markets and to ride the prevailing currents.
Being a successful trader is often like being a good error correcting code: don’t want to reveal any information from local prying eyes!
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Zotero Sued
Zotero is a Firefox browser plugin for keeping track of citations and is very useful in an academic environment. I’ve played with it from time to time and with each progressive version it is getting better and better. Apparently now its even good enought that, Thomson Reuters, makers of Endnote software, a commercial competitor of Zotero, has sued the Commonwealth of Virginia (George Mason University is where the core team developing Zotero is based) over Zotero being able to read Endnote files into the Zotero system. Yeah, if I were Endnote I’d be scared pantless that a startup which actually promotes and open standard is about to take away your market. And peoples, aren’t you happy that all of the value you’ve created in your citation databases in Endnote is effectively forever trapped inside that program. Makes you almost want to not use the Endnote software, doesn’t it. ENDnote?
Whiteboard Pong
Bacon Versus Fries
Science on blogs? We don’t need no science on blogs! We need more Bacon on blogs:
- Bacon Versus Fries. Not what you think.
- Bacon Maple Donut. Or how about Diet Coke with Bacon. If you’ve ever seen me you are all ready likely to have seen a Bacon with a Diet Coke.