I thought the Astronomy Picture of the Day today looked like the face of a cat when it turned up in my google desktop plugin.
Upon opening the real APOD page it turned out to be ‘the unusual stone mesas of the Cydonia region on Mars’.
Monthly Archive for September, 2006
I can’t help but wonder whether all the worry about doing a PhD (like this, and this for example) is self perpetuating. Everyone thinks it’s going to be a killer from day one, and reads comics that promote this, rather than ones that are just naturally awesome…
I don’t have to sit at my computer all the time (though I do sometimes).
I get paid plenty.
My supervisor is really nice.
I like what I’m doing.
Everyone at my school is nice too.
I have time to go to the beach in summer.
I also have time to do silly things.
What is everyone so worried about? So far it’s been a fun time where I get paid to learn stuff, I even have a few bucks left over to buy iPod, digital SLR, cellphone, car, holidays, bling etc…
Bling!
That was the theme of the PARSA extravaganza (aka ball) this year, and there was plenty of cheap jewelery to be seen. Much of it from the ‘fun’ shop in town. I met a dude in awesome while tails that had the very same ‘888′ ring as me.
Congrats to the PARSA social team for organising such a fun event, cheers!
This is the last thing I’ll add while I’m at Parkes, I promise.
I got an excellent tour of the Dish this morning. We climbed on the edge of the dish and took a ride up to zenith, and then climbed up to the focus cabin. The view from up there is spectacular. I’ve never taken so many photos…
I always thought ‘keelhaul’ was pirate for ‘kill all’, but apparently not. Thanks to the originators I have learned somthing, wow.
This image has probably been posted all over the interweb, but it’s so good I couldn’t help it.
I have plently of spare time the last few days. It’s hard to work solid for 15 hours, even with a 24″ lcd to plug my laptop into…
So I signed up to Old Friends, a website where NZ’ers can get in touch with old mates and see what they’re up to now. It’s classic to see who’s married and still living in Palmy, and who made it out into the big bad world. Perhaps the most scary is the sheer number of my old friends whose names appear there, maybe they have even more spare time to muck around with that sort of stuff than I do.
They are pretty advanced here at Parkes, no more guys “running around with their arse hanging out their daks”. They have email here, air-email which is pretty advanced. Like early computers the machines are quite large still. |
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I also discovered a blog by a guy called Luke. He’s an astronomer like me (though a little older). It’s funny to see another side of someone whose name I see on serious papers in the journals… Astronomers are people too!
Thanks once again to the cool people who wrote Simple PHP Blog. I’ve just updated to 0.4.8 and it has this cool looking new theme, and a few other nice bits and pieces.
Oh yeah I’m at the dish, in Parkes NSW. The telescope of the movie is every bit as impressive as it was made to look in the movie. I have proven that by taking amazing photos of it.
Since it’s a radio telescope it can work during the day, which unfortunately we aren’t taking advantage of. Our runs are from 5pm to 8am which leaves one feeling a little tired on occasion.
Nevertheless it has been totally worth the paltry 4 hour drive here from Canberra. Thanks Ken!
