So the pythons showed
the full Monty?
Mine is the one with the Holy Grail DVD in the pocket
4248 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Apr 2007
the biggest space telescope, not the biggest satellite
Many satellites other than the Mentors can be seen by stargazers (even with the naked eye). With my 15x70 binoculars, I start to resolve structure in the ISS and similar sized satellites, but many others are readily visible.
In astronomy, things get really exciting when you can line up different instruments on the same target, to see what it is doing at different wavelengths. Another important difference is that by itself, Spektr-R's images will be much poorer than any radio telescope on the surface of the globe. However, by combining its signals with ground-based scopes we synthetically make large dish, much in the way the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope, or the Very Large Array, or more recently LOFAR build up an image using multiple antennae to simulate a very large one.
dying horribly of causes we can now not only cure but often prevent?
Science and engineering are the main reason human beings have FAR more heartbeats during their lives than other mammals.
Astronomy actually came into being because we needed to predict when to sow and harvest.
Perhaps you should follow real scientific literature now and then and not rely on newspaper articles (which I know can be seriously disjoint from what the scientist actually said). The very science you deride has brought you all the improvements in computing power, and many real cures as well. The work I do as a scientist (computer vision) has ranged from determining whether a drug attacks a specific cancer before administering it, through detection of malformations in blood vessels, and automatically scanning through terapixels of astronomical images for peculiar objects, to supporting post-disaster rescue efforts by automatically analyzing remote-sensing images for collapsed buildings. In the latest case we brought down the compute time from 104 days (=useless) to 8 hours (=useful). I also know cancer deaths have been reduced for certain types, in particular in the case of certain early cancers (no work of mine).
There is a lot of excellent science being done, though I agree more could and should be done. Funding cuts are not just undermining scientific progress, but also the status it has in society (or more particularly bureaucrats). I also agree school science can and should be improved.
I would invite every capable worker in science/technology to get involved in doing just that, by spending time at schools getting children involved in science. I taught some basic science/engineering lessons at my boy's school (they are 7 and 9) and it is great fun. We also organize outreach programs to secondary schools close to our uni, and that too is really nice. Too bad that that funding cuts are threatening even that.
but great instrument once it gets operational. Very Long Base Line Interferometry (VLBI) is about to become ULBI (Ultra Long Base Line Interferometry), fitting, given ULTRA was a British (counter)-espionage unit involved in radio snooping and code breaking: Ultra meets Spektr-R.
After all, "symposium" means get together for the purpose of drinking (literally).
"One aspect absent from the call for submissions is the close relationship between the academic community and policy makers."
I am all for closer links between scientists and pubs
as an amateur astronomer, with a long log of sunspot counts, I am seeing a very quiet sun in the last few years. The last minimum was very deep, and much too long, the current maximum is occasionally throwing up fireworks, but I have also seen some very quiet periods, unlike anything I got in the late 1970s, early 1980s when I started observing.
The current low activity may be a glitch, but it seems to be part of a trend. We may well be in for a prolonged period of low activity, which could be similar to the Maunder minimum.
Pity for those who invest heavily in a hydrogen alpha filter for their scope if it is true, because the fireworks they will get to see with this expensive kit may be less than hoped for.
For really complex documents I really prefer LaTeX
You try automatic numbering of equations with numbers in parentheses BEHIND the equation in word, plus automatically referring to them. Real nightmare.
Besides, one earlier MS-Word version packed in after you tried to create more than 128 equation objects (which means these "links" were stored in a fixed size array in the file format (after all who needs more than 640 kB RAM)). It was not my document, but a PhD thesis of some student at our department years back. He scorned all the rest of us for using old-fashioned LaTeX, instead of something modern. When he hit the 128 equation barrier, the tables were turned.
Just a typo there, the German frikadel (meat ball) is very different from the Dutch frikandel (sausage of the CMOT Dibbler type).
BTW a bitterbal is just a kroket but smaller, and round rather than cylindrical. They are usually served at cocktail parties and receptions. The correct etiquette after biting one is to say "Eeeeeeeeuuuuuuuuuuuh" with your hand in front of your mouth.
Thumbs up to "savoury napalm"
I can.
Really, even with my eyes shut.
This is not simply MS bashing, I simply have an undying faith in the ability of people anywhere (and that includes myself) to get things terribly wrong in ways we never could imagine. This is a kind of inverse creativity embodied in Bergholt Stuttley (or Bloody Stupid) Johnson on the Discworld.
However, MS might get it beautifully right.