Archive of Writings
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Looking for Questioning (HS) Teachers
Some of the coolest moments in teaching only occur when your students realize they can safely ask anything. On random days, at random times, (during some unpredictable moment) one student will suddenly raise their hand and ask a question along the lines of “What...
AAVSO: Day 2 closes with Jordan Raddick
Long day. Tired day. Great ending. Jordan Raddick is currently talking about using the internet to advance science. He is addressing how we are moving into a new paradigm for doing science as our data is reaching the point of petabyte data sets. The old paradigm has...
AAVSO: Day 1, post dinner blogging
1 good dinner + 1 good martini + 1 calmed brain = ready to blog less panicy Dennis di Cicco is giving a talk on the history the building we are all sitting in. This is actually way more exciting than one might expect. Dennis is an editor at Sky & Telescope...
AAVSO: Day 1
I'm currently at the AAVSO meeting in Cambridge, MA. I just had one of the most terrifying experience of my public speaking life. I attached my laptop to the overhead projector cable and my CPU DIED. Died died died died died. I paniced (and hopefully hid it well),...
Totally Random
Random 1: Tomorrow I fly out to Boston for a meeting of the American Association of Variable Star Observers. I'll be their until mid day Sunday. If you want to get together, let me know. I may be planting myself at a pub on Sunday to work and chat. Random 2: There is...
Return to the Moon
The last time man walked on the moon I wasn't alive. Hopefully I won't be able to say that for too much longer. Several different nations are gearing up to make manned assaults on the surface of the Moon. Before the people, there is a wave of explorer bots. (The good...
Comet 17P/Holmes
If the Sun is down and you are in the northern hemisphere, look at the finder chart here and then go outside and look at this object. Now. This website will still be here when you get back. Hi there. Have a good time? No one quite knows what happened. This normally...
Death to Bots
As a web administrator I spent a frightening amount of time trying to prevent spam from cropping up on this site and some of the other sites I maintain. I don’t always succeed, and occasionally spam creeps into my comments. A have tools to ban specific words and...
Space Carnival
It is starting to reach that busy time of year when people can't quite keep up with everything that needs to get done. If you, like me, are looking for ways to procrastinate on writing reports, preparing Halloween costumes, or preparing for a mid0term (writing it or...
The Improbable Universe
Slide Show + Audio (.mp4) Transcript: This is a talk I originally prepared to present as part of the 2206-2007 convocation series at Illinois College. Since then I have given it before several other audiences, and with every presentation I’ve had more people...