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The Outsider's Inside View Post #008 - Hot and Bothered
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![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 6 Feb 06 Posts: 107 Credit: 23,981 RAC: 0 ![]() |
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. |
![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 29 Feb 00 Posts: 16019 Credit: 794,685 RAC: 0 ![]() |
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. Thanks For the Post Kevin - 'keep your chin up Sir' ;) Good News (Soon w/ BRUNO / EWEN . . .) > goin' ta see Stephen? |
![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 5 Jul 99 Posts: 4548 Credit: 35,667,570 RAC: 4 ![]() |
Hi Kevin , nice post , a very good read !
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 |
PhonAcq Send message Joined: 14 Apr 01 Posts: 1656 Credit: 30,658,217 RAC: 1 ![]() |
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. May this Farce be with You |
![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 3 Oct 03 Posts: 1029 Credit: 636,475 RAC: 0 ![]() |
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. |
![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 6 Feb 06 Posts: 107 Credit: 23,981 RAC: 0 ![]() |
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... |
![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 21 Jun 01 Posts: 21804 Credit: 2,815,091 RAC: 0 ![]() |
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. me@rescam.org |
![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 3 Apr 99 Posts: 9659 Credit: 251,998 RAC: 0 |
... 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 ![]() |
![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 6 Feb 06 Posts: 107 Credit: 23,981 RAC: 0 ![]() |
... Stephen Hawking is giving his talk down in Berkeley right now... 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. |
![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 5 Jul 99 Posts: 4548 Credit: 35,667,570 RAC: 4 ![]() |
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:
I am very pleased to be allowed to participate in this very important scientific experiment .... SETI@home. friendly and respectful Byron ![]() |
![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 3 Apr 99 Posts: 9659 Credit: 251,998 RAC: 0 |
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 ![]() |
![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 3 Oct 03 Posts: 1029 Credit: 636,475 RAC: 0 ![]() |
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. |
![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 3 Apr 99 Posts: 9659 Credit: 251,998 RAC: 0 |
You can read up on Hawking at Berkeley here: UC Berkeley News 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 ![]() |
![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 3 Oct 03 Posts: 1029 Credit: 636,475 RAC: 0 ![]() |
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. |
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