We did a really muddy but beautiful hike today along a ridge above Pearl Harbor. I got to break in my trail shoes and new hiking pants that I’ll be walking the English Cotswolds in — only two short weeks away! Busy preparing for the meteorite conference (my favorite by far) but last night my wife and I ate Shambu Shambu, or something like that. It’s a Japanese thing where you cook octopus in a bowl of creamy curry and miso. Delicious.
Month: July 2011
Orcas off Ni’ihau
Tropical killer whales, how about that!
visitor
My friend the CSU professor Don has been visiting this week, we’re calling him a Visiting Scholar of Political Science / Planetary Science Lab Assistant as he’s posting up in the lab outside my office. We’ve been getting chocolate-covered croissants in the afternoon. Nobody wins when that happens.
Sea Monster Update July 2011
Oscar P gets his A
not just an operating system
diamonds in my damn chain
I’ve been asked to look at xenocrysts in diamonds from Russian Kimberlites, theoretically (and boldly!) predicted to exist in Siberia and then found. I was thinking about how stuff from Earth really isn’t my thing, then about how the work I’ve done can at first glance appear to contain no common thread. But then I found out a way to express my interests in just a few words: baryonic matter from space! (Kind of like Pigs from Space.) If you’ve got radio waves from another star, that’s cool, but not my cup of tea. Electrons from the Sun? Good for you, talk to somebody else. As a kid did you wonder what bark from a tree was made of? Not me. But interstellar dust, cometary rocks, energetic nuclei from the Sun or our galaxy or another, lunar regolith, interstellar neutrals, Martian meteorites, solar wind — bring it on! The diamonds are cool though because they’re laser cut and so pretty.
Evergreen state
I had a nice long weekend in the Evergreen State: got to hang out with my family, extended family, new puppy, brother’s new house, Hansel, and even new-Seattleite Jesse!
Many of the pictures are of some dead moss in the driveway of the lake cabin.
Went swimming in Hidden Lake again like last year, but it was unbearably cold this time around. Also got to see a little-known musical called “Sound of Music” starring the Von Trapp family singers! It rocked for sure.
The new puppy is cute.
baby names in Europe
Most popular baby names in Europe.
In Estonia, the most popular boys name is “Robert”. Latvia, trying to one-up its neighbor, uses the name “Roberts”.
Other things I learned:
Apparently there are people named “Can”.
Albania either doesn’t have babies or doesn’t name them.
How do you solve a problem like Maria? Send her to Sweden, Finland, Romania, Greece, or Macedonia if you prefer alternative spelling.
new animated gif
I made this in Matlab. Here it is. It may take a few seconds to load but it’s totally worth it.
gifdir='~/Desktop/ag/'; gg=dir([gifdir '*.jpg']); I1=imread([gifdir gg(1).name]); I2=imread([gifdir gg(2).name]); I3=imread([gifdir gg(3).name]); I4=imread([gifdir gg(4).name]); sc=0.33; I1=imresize(I1,sc); I2=imresize(I2,sc); I3=imresize(I3,sc); I4=imresize(I4,sc); [t1, m1] = rgb2ind(I1, 256); [t2, m2] = rgb2ind(I2, 256); [t3, m3] = rgb2ind(I3, 256); [t4, m4] = rgb2ind(I4, 256); delaytime=0.6; imwrite(t1,m1,[gifdir [gg(1).name(1:end-4) '_AG.gif']],'gif' ... , 'DelayTime', delaytime ... , 'WriteMode','overwrite' ... , 'LoopCount', inf); imwrite(t2,m2,[gifdir [gg(1).name(1:end-4) '_AG.gif']],'gif' ... , 'DelayTime', delaytime ... , 'WriteMode','append'); imwrite(t3,m3,[gifdir [gg(1).name(1:end-4) '_AG.gif']],'gif' ... , 'DelayTime', delaytime ... , 'WriteMode','append'); imwrite(t4,m4,[gifdir [gg(1).name(1:end-4) '_AG.gif']],'gif' ... , 'DelayTime', delaytime ... , 'WriteMode','append');
Noctambulator 
