Helioseismology from Kepler

In light of the Kepler space observatory's malfunction, which may bring the mission to an early end, here's a nice overview of some of Kepler's contribution to stellar astrophysics from Sky and Telescope.

A 90-Second Image of M13

From @makapala

@darkskyman took this 90 second snap of M13 at @TheAstroCamp a few weeks back http://flic.kr/p/ehSg4U

Amazing!  90 seconds!

The Moon Over Andromeda

One of my favorite bits of information about the sky is how HUGE the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) is.  The thing about galaxies is that they are terribly dim.  Think about it.   We're inside the Milkly Way galaxy and yet, except for the nearby bright stars, we can barely see it unless we go to the darkest spot we can find.

In fact, the apparent size of Andromeda is serveral times the apparent size of the moon.  This photo where the moon is superimposed shows this clearly.

Even when you do see M31 with the naked eye, which you can from a dark location, it doesn't look this big.  Objects have to be bright to look large.  In the same way, the Pleides is much larger than the moon, but they look tiny on the sky.

http://www.noao.edu/image_gallery/html/im0606.html


Image credit: REU program, N.A.Sharp/NOAO/AURA/NSF

Interesting Career Advice

For College Grads From LinkedIn's Billionaire Founder 

via @HNTweets

Posterous

So long, Posterous.  I enjoyed using the service.

First Tweet

My Twitter archives finally became available.  My first tweet on my very first account (which is private now) was Mon 2009-01-12 13:12:00 -0500: “Signing up on twitter.”


My first tweet on my main account was on Sat 2009-04-25 07:16:00 -0400.  This was my first non-test tweet  on that account.

MicroSD card FAQ

Via @HNTweets

At Bunnie Studios.

Data Models for the Internet of Things

Via @HNTweets


The Internet of Things needs an Open Infrastructure by Michael J Koster.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Somehow I'm terribly behind with greetings this year.

Ten Years of Blogging

Well, I let the 10th anniversary of this blog slide by as I forgot to mention it.   So, as the year draws to a close maybe that's the second best time to mention it, 10 years and 102 days according to my Python computation.   The first blog post to Monolith Daily (which was, indeed, my first blog post of any kind) was on 2002-09-16.

Actually I wrote about the history for the ninth anniversary.

So Long, Gerry Anderson

Via @HNTweets

Gerry Anderson has died by Jamie Anderson.

My favorite supermarionation shows were Supercar and Fireball XL5.  Of course I watched Space 1999 and UFO.  I recall Thunderbirds, which seems to be so popular, but I don't remember watching it that much.

Anderson was responsible for one of my favorite sci fi space movies of the 60s, Journey to the Far Side of the Sun.  The space walk scene with the music (theremin?) was quite beautiful, I always thought.

PC World's Top 10 Linux Distributions

Via @pcworld


Another year, another totally different top 10 Linux distros by Katherine Noyes.

1. Linux Mint
2. Mageia
3. Ubuntu
4. Fedora
5. openSUSE
6. Debian
7. Arch Linux
8. PCLinuxOS
9. Zorin OS
10. CentOS

Some Amazing Astronomical Images of 2012

Via @wired

I won't go as far as Wired's title, Best Space Photos of the Year 2012 in the article by Adam Mann, but these are amazing images.

For amazing astronomical images, one every day, see Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD).

This image credit: ESO/B. Bailleul

Some Thoughts on This Evening's Mobile Tornado

via @USWeatherExpert

on MIKE SMITH ENTERPRISES BLOG.

Air Force Flying Saucer Declassified

via @wired

Declassified at Last: Air Force’s Supersonic Flying Saucer Schematics by BENJAMIN PLACKETT at Wired.

Christmas Storm Update

From Mike Smith Enterprise Blog, 4:55 am.   And following posts.

Shortest Day of the Year

So is 2012-12-21 the shortest day of the year?  The actual solstice occurs at different times in different years so I expect this varies.  For this year, looking at the web site timeanddate.com (two d's), which I found via Google…   (Sigh, the power just went out again!)

…It looks like it's actually 21 Dec, at least in Atlanta, GA.  This snippet of their chart shows sun rise and set times, and the length of the day.

Happy Winter Solstice!

At 11:12 UTC, 6:12 EST, 3:12 PST.

Fri 2012-12-21 11:12:00 +0000
Fri 2012-12-21 06:12:00 -0500
Fri 2012-12-21 03:12:00 -0800


In the picture, the sun makes it lowest trek across the sky on the winter solstice.   Winter officially begins.


Image credit:  From NASA/NES Teachers Corner

The Best Shopping Deals on the Internet

Amazon Warehouse Deals.

What Was My First Electronic Device?

On the Podcast Hypercritical on 5by5.tv John Siracusa was answering questions from listeners and one was something like, What was your first electronic device that had a big influence on you?  I think the idea was to discover what maybe contributed to his interest in technology, computers, etc.

I wondered how I would answer this question myself.  I was a bit taken aback by the realization that when I was really young, we practically had no electronic devices in our house.  Of course we had a black and white TV.  Also, by brother had built a stereo hifi system and that had a huge impact on me.  It was a wonderful thing.  Stereo was new, and it was rather amazing at the time.  I still remember listening to one of his stereo demo records with trains and race cars zooming by.

We might have had a radio (I don't remember one from then) and that was probably it.  There was nothing else in the house that would have qualified as electronic.   (Hm, well my brother had his VOM meter).

But those were all tube-based devices.  I don't think there was a single transistor in the house.

At some point when I was a kid I received a transistor radio followed by several others.

Of course there were battery powered toys but I don't think any of them had anything more fancy than DC motors and some incandescent lights.  (LEDs were not on the market yet, at least for consumers).

The first electronic device I remember actually owning (other than the radios) was my first calculator, a Texas Instruments SR-51 (slide-rule with 51 functions).  That was when I was a senior in high school.  In high school physics and chemistry we used slide rules so having an electronic version with 10 digits of precision rather than three, was a wonderful thing!

Sadly the TI barely made it into my second year and was replaced with an HP-25 and then that was quickly traded for an HP-25C.

(Note:  That image is an SR-51-II, a later version of my SR-51.   I wasn't successful in finding an SR-51 image.)