There is something about basketball. On the surface it seems simple, and boring. Put the ball in the hoop. It will never be called a thinking man's game there is little strategy in comparison to baseball. However, basketball gives us one of the most graceful displays of the human athelete.

If you don't watch this game you are truely missing out. This games seems to be guided by grand design. The same design which seems to guide schools of fish, or migrating birds. To see the rebound, and all turn. Running down the court, then all stop. The ball moves, all rotate. Then the shot, and all move finding postion for the next scene in this ballet. The group enacts an amazing choreography and each player is some planned portion.

But just as soon as they all act in motion, one breaks from the group and endouvers into the spectacular. In my opinion the spectacularity in basketball began with Julius Erving, Dr. J. Some will speak of Pistol Pete Maravich and Bob Cousy, but Dr. J took the game to new heights, literally. And then came the invasion of grace George Gervin, Kareem-Abdul Jabar and the like. It is that grace that brought us Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan. The seemingly predestined motion of a man around a group of dumbfounded opponents. This is the harmony of form that allows Kobe Bryant to move through a defense as if they were not even guarding him.

And as in all sports there is the suspense. However I would make a case for the tension in a moment when the ball hangs in the air, and for a one or two seconds all motion stops. And the entire audience waits to see whether the ball will fall through a hoop slightly larger than its diameter or bounce off in humilating disgrace.

Finally, what I think is best about basketball is the showmanship. The ability for a man to put his personality into a game. In the same game we see the serious work horse of Larry Bird and the playfull gaming of Magic Johnson, who you know had fun every night he played. In basketball the pure athelete can find a creative outlet in a stylish slam. And you can see the expression on his face. The dogged efforts of Allen Iverson match his thuggish appearance. Basketball allows these individuals to exist.

By the way, the Lakers won 98-90. Kobe Bryant scored 42 points and with the help of a very capable Shaquille O'neal stole the show, and evened the series to 2-2. On multiple occasions Bryant seemed to toss the ball through three defenders in desperation, but it allways just fell through the hoop.




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Link :Are you lonely? Do you need a women? Would you be happy if you could just convince your friends that you have an out of state girlfriend? ImaginaryGirlfriends.com

So I haven't entered anything in a while, well I've been busy, or rather I've have not been busy. Its an interesting interplay between writing and having something to write about. In a romantic sense I might say I've been gathering things to write about. But really thats all crap... I'm really just being lazy.

So here's a smattering of things, thoughts, and events from this past week so that everyone is caught up...
May 1: I ate the most filling enchiladas ever thanks to Matt Okaty and Jessica Escobar. Nicole fell. Ryan played with cats. Dog&Duck; HEB. David verbalized the healthy aspects of pineapple. Sopranoes. This was quite possibly one of the funniest nights in history. I am truely short changing it.
May 2: Cell phones are quite useful and I one of my newest annoyances are the people who still act like complaining about cell phones is cool.
May 3: Nuclei in pseudobulge galaxies show more blue colors in the center. Thus, they are forming stars. I like this, its a consistent picture. Objects which formed through evolution are evolving.
May 5: Anyone who believes that the Iraqi prisoner scandal has nothing to do with current military policies has done a good job of fooling themselves. The military acts under a very well cemented chain of command. The superior officers knew about it.Maybe Rumsfeld didn't know about it directly, but the military sets and carries out its own policies. Its obviously a stain upon our countries behavior, the only thing to do now is use it to bring about reform in the military.
May 6: I bought my European train ticket.
May 7: Physnic was today, hung out with a German String theorist. Had a alot of fun party hopping with Sarah. Talked a lot of politics late in the evening ... another great night.

Okay, I know that sucked. I'll start writing more often again. It was a good week.


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Link : Lorenzo Sadun (a math professor at UT) is running for congress, WriteInSadun.org.

I have recently changed my mind on an issue we are facing today. I used to be a firm believer in the two party system, citing the choatic politics of Isreal and Austria and other places with many political parties as examples the too many choices in politics is not a solution. However, I do not believe that the direction which our politics are headed will represent the people quite well. I believe a third party would further the coverage of a truely representaive government.

The Cold War and before that World War II gave us (all parties) something to get together on. And since 1989, political attention has been allowed to shift to social issues, in doing so the Republicans have shifted further right than previously. The Democrats currently flounder between the middle and the left. The party is trying to win elections, but has lost its identity. They are afraid to loose the center. What if they didn't try to fight for the center. The Republican Party has firm grasp on the non-moderate political right, and there not doing bad. What I think may be the best plan that helps all Americans is the formation of a moderate party.

What about the Greens? Why not a liberal party, many of us far to the left are feeling estranged these days. And there is the passion arguement, a moderate party just sounds boring (maybe we should call them the Super Power Freedom Party their animal can be the cougar). Unfortunatly the Greens will never gain respect with a signifigant fraction of Americans (oh lets say 5%). I don't agree with this, however too many Americans see the Green Party as one made of hippies and no-good-nicks. The problem with this is not any knock against hippies, but rather the prejudices of the American people. The Green Party won't ever be taken seriously by the non-college crowd. Also remember Perot? He was crazy, literally insane, but he nabbed 19% of the vote. He had name recognition and was not on the far left.

The change requires legitamacy (or atleast the perception of legitamacy by the American people). What I envision is one historic day where John McCain, Arlen Spector, Joseph Leiberman,Colin Powell and Wes Clark all go to the steps of the Senate building (yes I realize Clark is a nobody) and declare to be members of the new SPF party. And they would convert a handful of congressmen, run in states such as Minnesota and Maine and grow a base. Honestly how many people really knew anything about the Green party before 2000, they had no base of support. You have to build seats in congress and the Senate before running for the White House. I say do this on the first day of a presidential term, giving a few congressional elections then if support exists have McCain run for president. I think they would beat atleast on of the parties.

If a moderate party were to exist, the democrats could natually shift leftward. One can illustrate this by how I've constructed the Super Power Freedom Party, the moderate Democrats would leave the party. Naturally making the Democrats a more liberal party. Thus you see it would effectively create a respectable party whom liberal Greenies can feel atleast comfortable voting for in an election.

Finally, there is one last result of our current lack of an SPFP. Everybody's upset that John Kerry can't seem to find a position on anything, remember that word "Electablity." I hate to say... I TOLD YOU SO. Kerry was nominated because he offended the least people, not because anyone really felt strongly about him. We nominated Kerry (and not Dean) for fear of loosing the center. Wouldn't it be nice if we could have elected some barn stormer like Dean, and let John McCain steal Bush's votes.


Oh yeah, if you didn't like this entry I was going to right an explosive Pulitzer worth entry on how a state income tax would help educate the youths in Texas. Turns out that it makes no difference, states like New York have an income tax and have very low test scores... perhaps we are just dumber.


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Link : This is of very little interest to anyone but I have converted my "Contact" page to a page of Links, take a look.

I hope each and every one of you gets to see the rain in arid lands. It is quite different. I should premise this with the statement that I am in no way a nature lover. But to see rain in barren West Texas is a wonderful sight. The rain smell is so strong, and omnipresent. It is nothing like the slight hint of a wiff you get in the city. It permeates all that you do, and gives a pretense of cleanliness. The smell is the odor of fresh. It is the smell of newness. A feeling that things are to come, it is an amazing smell which can brighten ones spirits in the gloom of the grey sky.

This smell is carried on the cool clean breezes wich make the temperature a chilly break from the normal dustiness of an afternoon wave. You almost don't even mind getting wet. Then after the showers are done, the valley has come alive. It may be the gleam of the water or it may be the wisdom of natures way, but the valley sparks with green. I can't explain the boost this gives. After three long days of looming overcast skies. The final push through with a final cleansing of the mountain and valley. As if the weather were apoligizing for the depression it is capable of inducing, it brought new life and raised spirits to the lonely fellow who sits in his telescope all night long.



Unfortunatly, I am now overrun with spiders. Everywhere, they crawl across the computer sceen. Dart out from under the keyboard, sometimes in a suicide attack against my hand. I have smote near twenty thus far, and the battle rages on.


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Link : This is of very little interest to anyone but I have converted my "Contact" page to a page of Links, take a look.

Astrophysics, abstract astro-ph/0404510

Universal Limits on Computation

Lawrence M. Krauss (1), Glenn D. Starkman
(1 and 2) ((1) Case Western Reserve University, (2) CERN)

Comments: 3 pages including eps figure, submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett
Report-no: CWRU-PA 12-04

The physical limits to computation have been under active scrutiny over the past decade or two, as theoretical investigations of the possible impact of quantum mechanical processes on computing have begun to make contact with realizable experimental configurations. We demonstrate here that the observed acceleration of the Universe can produce a universal limit on the total amount of information that can be stored and processed in the future, putting an ultimate limit on future technology for any civilization, including a time-limit on Moore's Law. The limits we derive are stringent, and include the possibilities that the computing performed is either distributed or local. A careful consideration of the effect of horizons on information processing is necessary for this analysis, which suggests that the total amount of information that can be processed by any observer is significantly less than the Hawking-Beckenstein entropy associated with the existence of an event horizon in an accelerating universe.

Full-text: PostScript, PDF, or Other formats

I recently gained hope for my dreams of a liberal president. Consider this thought experiment:

The 2000 campaign was split down the middle, no matter how one argues it was as close to 50% as we'll probably ever see. Thus this election is not about really convincing mass audiences, but rather converting a few people in the middle. A recent survey told that 9 of 10 republicans have no doubt about voting for bush, and the exact same ratio exists for Kerry and the Dems. This iplies taht we are in for another close election. So the election will be decided on which number is greater: How many people do you know who voted for Al Gore in 2004 that intend to switch? How many people do you know how voted Bush and do not intend to vote the same way?

From what I've seen the second number seems greater. So Lurch might be our president after all.



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Link : One of my favorite blogs, it talks about particle physics, blogging, and life as a Jewish-French-Canadian in Texas Jaques Distler

I have just finished reading the last two (in a series of three) articles by David von Drehle of the Washington Post. They are quite good at describing the schism that exists in America today between the conservative suburbarn life and liberals residing in the hearts of large cities. I highly recommend these articles, they are well done. And if you only read one I suggest reading the side to which you are not aligned with. For your ease I have them below in pdf form...

Life is sweet for conservatives in Sugarland

A Liberal Life in the city by the Bay

Okay so we all remember when our parents sat us down and had the talk with us, where they explained that bulges and elliptical galaxies all follow the two parameter de Vaucaluers profile (in which brightness falls off as Exp(r^.25)) and disks follow exponential distributions (brightness goes as Exp(-r). Everybody was comfortable with this. Then in the turbulent and carefree decade known as "the nineties", it became quite evident that a third parameter was necessary. And people slowly were converted to the Sersic profile, Exp[-(r^(1/n))]. This was okay because no one understood what was special about R^(1/4) anyway.

Today the field is abound with people redoing old science with the Sersic function. Coan et al 1994 convinced us that this profile is good, and the new parameter is even physically important. The problem is there are people who don't really know the responsibility of a 3-parameter fit. You can't just blindly fit everything, you actually have to invoke reasoning. What happens when the sersic profile for the bulge better resembles an exponential than a de Vaucalouers bulge? The old definition of a bulge is simply the central concentration that exists above what the disk should have in the inner-radii. But we also know that bulges have specific dynamics and other properties which seperate them from exponential disks. So you should ask, "Do these exponential looking "bulges" resemble bulges or disk?" This is we need to change the old definition bulge, because these excesses of light inside of disks do not look like bulges, the look like disks! Carollo et al 2001 showed us that when you look closely at these pseudobulges they have disk-like features (star formation, spiral structure, etc.).

My gripe here is that people are not putting together the big picture, exponential-like-bulges are not bulges. Classification should eventually reach a point where it indicates different formation histories. Disks do not form like bulges, and exponential bulges do not form like either.



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Link : I can fill my NPR addiction at teh observatory now, www.npr.org

1. Take really bad pictures and make your self even more frustrated.
2. Create a web page.
3. Pretend that the last noise didn't scare you.
4. Think of old words you want to work into to your language.
5. Have a cockamamie conversation with your self.
6. Eat an entire carton of goldfish.
7. Make a list of people you would kill if it were legal.
8. Search the internet for girls/guys you used to have a crush on (secretly hoping you'll find their porn page).
9. sistani.org
10. Change a one line Forum response into half a page.
11. For no reason say things out loud like, "Its the life you choose."
12. Fill the Dewer, again.
13. Talk radio... your only friend.
14. Go to bed an hour early.


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Link : The rally cry of election 2004 is now "Anyone Else!" which has begun the great political science theory page, www.johnkerryisadouchebagbutimvotingforhimanyway.com/

*Thank's Andy

I'm sure everyone knew that today was International Astronomy Day, well yesterday (April 24) was, and of course I didn't know this until now. However I celebrated aptly. I am BACK at McDonald Observatory for another week. And as I am not observing until tomorrow night (you usually get out here a night early) I walked on over to the 36" diameter telescope and joined the public viewing night. After everyone left the astro-guide let me use the telescope and look at whatever I wanted.

It was very exciting. I saw the great dust lanes of the Sombrero Galaxy and the Antanea galaxies in mid-collision. I haven't looked through an eyepiece for over a year. I even got see a couple of the galaxies in my own research. Most astronomers can remember their first telescope expereince like it was yesterday (mine was the rings of Saturn). There is some undefined elegance to the analogue side of astornomy. It just becomes more real.

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Link : I figured this would be appropriate on the highest of holy days Astronomy Day.

1. On May 15, I arrive in Munich and attend a conference on Secular Evolution of Galaxies in Ringberg Castle , for one week. Then I return to Munich and indulge myself in the local culture and there I will meet Sarah . We'll stay here for about a week. And we'll see things like Neuschwanstein Castle.

2. Vienna, is the second stop on our tour. Here I will visit the homes of Beethoven and Mozart . We'll try to see a symphony in the famed Concert House. And visit the Veinnese Hoffburg Palace

3. Next is Venice. I managed to find a cheap place on the Grand Canal.

4. We leave the humid streets of the sinking city for the frozen peaks of France, in Chamonix. This city is actually a ski resort, but in the summer there is a cable car which goes to the top of Aguille du Midi. It is suppose to have a nice view.

5. We leave the Alps for Paris. Of course Paris is the Mecca for European travelers... the eiffel tower, Notre Dame, Louvre, Versaille and we'll be staying in Monte Marte near the Sacre Couer .

6. We'll leave France and return to Germany for the last days of our trip. I have friends in both Wuerzburg and Leipzig. I guess I'll try to make it to both, though I haven't planned this yet. We leave for America out of Frankfurt in the end of June.

PS: (written Apr 24) I have spoken to those who are appalled at the idea of planning a European trip. The problem is that we really can't afford this trip, and the planning is required to ensure we don't run out of money half way through it. Also, we're buying the train pass and to be cheapest you need to know what countries your visiting.

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Link : I have lately been listening to the greatest rap album ever.

Recently, I have been trying to predict who is going to win the election in November, and I have been trying to understand why people would vote for each candidate. I then thought,"Well all the church going crowd will obviously vote Bush." But at second thought I really am at a quandry as to why. And I know that a few people will assume its just my liberal bias. Although I can't figure out why a Christian would vote for Bush, or any consevrative for that matter.

A lot of people right now would obviously say, "Abortion." However, this doesn't satisfy my question. My problem here is that abortion is only one issue, may be its your favorite but its only one. AND I think it would be easier to convince a Democratic candidate to run against abortion, rather than the rest of the nation. I would also point out the discrepency that exist with this policy. Republicans (using Republican and Conservative interchangeably) usually and historically support war and the death penalty. So I ask why is okay to kill foreigners and criminals, but not fetuses. Yes I realize that this makes me sound awful, the fetuses. But really I thought the n-th commandment said,"Thou shall not kill." It doesn't specify its okay to kill foreigners who want to invade another country. And let me be clear, I'm not condemning war, although Jesus would ("Turn the other cheek" and all that). As well to my recollection there is little in the Bible about the right to bear fire-arms (just to throw that in the pot). I don't think Jesus would support a government mandate that says all people have the right to walk around with a killing machine. Thats all guns are after all is machines designed to make killing easiest. I just don't think that it makes sense to align Christianity with Republicans, on the basis of a killing policy, when only one third of the killing policies are in agreement.

Next is a sort of fundamental description of the liberal platform. It operates under the belief in equal rights for all peoples. Yes at times they invoke that crazy sepration of church and state, but doesn't the Bible spend a lot of effort to make clear that God desires people to have free will, freedom of choice. Wouldn't Jesus want a government that allowed all the little children to live in equal freedom? Isn't there a reason that Jesus was not a king? Don't theocracies usually fail (the Taliban for example). I could be wrong here, this is quite interprative.

Dick Cheney?

Finally, Democrats believe a government exists to help the people in its society. They also believe that a society will advance by helping the lowest rung to make itself better. Most conservatives believe that the lowest rung is too lazy to help, and we should somehow get them into jail. I think Jesus would like such inventions as public wellfare, socialized health care. I think Jesus would want a government that helped people, but again thats just my opnion.

I would like to finish by clarifying my intent. Its not that I beleive that Christian should vote liberal; its that I don't understand why christians vote conservative. I would love it if a conservtive christian would explain their position to me (not that any are still reading this). I honestly think if Jesus were alive and voting, he would probably like the Green Party.

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Link : For anyone who writes html Here is a color chart

Are you interested in the time honored ways of the Shia muslim people. Well your search is over, The Religious Authority, Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Husaini Sistani has taken the time to create one pretty fancy webpage, sistani.org. It seems that in his freetime away from rebuilding Iraq, Ayatollah Sistani has had time to make an awesome websight complete with animated links, and pop-down scrolling menus. I highly recomend checking out the video.

While at sistani.org you can read the Grand Ayatollah's thoughts on such great Muslim questions like (read the Q&A section) anal sex, or conversally oral sex. And not to forget Sea Animals, yes that right you can read what the Ayatollah has to say about Sea Animals. I highly recomend this website, and I hope it teaches you as much as I have learned about the Muslim ways of life.

At the request of many people (three), I have added the option for people to respond to my blog. Now because I am not using Movable Type with all its whiz-bang features. And I am only doing things that I can make myself, the guestbook is much more simple than most. There is only one page that will cover all feed backs. So I guess you'll have to take it upon yourself to open each entry with something like, "In response to ..." so I know what your talking about.

It's a well known fact that we are in the middle of an increase in gas prices. What is not so well known is that Americans do not care. Everyone gripes about high gas prices, but action shows a person's true feelings. And we do nothing about these high gas prices.

In the past few months I have not noticed a decrease in traffic, or an increase in people riding the bus. I don't know that I've heard anyone say that they drive less. The figure in the top left shows the average price per gallon of regular unleaded gasoline beginning in 1990 through 2003. Notice that in 2000 there was a big jump in gas prices. At the same time, a growing trend in America is the SUV, a notoriously bad vehicle with respect to fuel efficiancy. Sales of SUVs (shown in the bottom plot) during the increase of gas prices went almost completely unaffected. People don't care that they pay more for gasoline. The continued increase in sales of a highly fuel inefficient car do not reflect the consumption of gasoline as a priority in this country. What is really confusing, is that the past few years were a recession. People should be saving. I'm not saying that as advice, but as logic. If the country is making less money, one would expect it to cut costs not increase them.

Recently CNN did a survey asking people how they would react to increases in gas prices. The results are shown on the right. The apapthy of America shows up in two ways. If gas prices are as high as $3.75 per gallon a 63% of American's would not do anything, they would not drive less, they would not think about fuel eficient cars. Some people might tell you they have to drive as much as they do, for a small minority this is a true statement. However, the majority of Americans live in cities with public transportation, or live in the vicinity of peoplewith whom they could car pool. These people do not care. Secondly, No matter what the gas price, very few Americans would think about hybrid cars. Why not? They go just as fast as gas cars, they save a lot of money (typical milages for these hybrids is 80 miles per gallon). I don't accept that these are hokey or weird anymore. Hybrids have been around since the mid-nineties. American's just don't want to change, and we won't.

This is not the only situation where American's overwhelming side on the ease of apathy. In December America experienced its first case of Mad Cow disease. Everyone in the cattle industry feared that the market for beef would crash. This did not happen. In the country as a whole this market remained quite steady. Profit dropped slightly, however this is accounted for by the decrease in prices not by a drop in consumer interest. In fact, in some regions of America beef sales actually increased during the Mad Cow "scare". The consensus is that these increases were the product of two things (note I did not come up with this theory it was in the Wall Street Journal): first, the prices of beef dropped, and second people were seeing and hearing a wealth of stories about beef. Thus a desire for beef increased. We don't care, American's don't care when a disease that passes through eating an infected animal is present in their food.

After 9/11 the majority of Americans cited a feeling of loss of control as there over riding emotion. It was not sadness for those lost in the tragedy. Nor was it anger at those who attacked the country. Loss of control. I believe that it is the fear of being out of control that drives America today. This feeling drives Americans so much that we will refuse to react when circmustances beyond our control permeate our lives. The truth is that is not necassary, to create an excuss for using less gas. We all are very aware of the damage done to the ecosystem and the limited supply of fossil fuels. On top of that, buying gas today has an immediate impact on our comfort. We have every reason to lesson our uses of gas. But we want this control so bad that we convince ourselves that every thing is okay. We are a nation of people who lie to themselves on a regular basis. And if you don't like that statement your other option is to assume that we are a wasteful, lathargic nation, who will not stop eating beef at the risk of our own lives.

Data for this entry is taken from U.S. Department of Energy Statistics Webpage, U.S. Department of Transportation Webpage, cnn.com, Atlantic Monthly September 2002, and Wall Street Journal January 21, 2004

Its a little known fact that most astronomers are afraid of the dark, well maybe its just me. Most people would be suprised about many aspects of the average astronomer. Astronomy isn't all parades and show like it appears. A major downside to observing is that it must be done in the wilderness. I've already had plenty of run-ins with the west Texas wildlife (see February 19 Blog entry).

To go eat my dinner (around midnight) I have to walk up a road that is a few hundred meters long to get to the cafeteria. So as I was walking up this road tonight, thinking about how being an astronomer is a real glamourous job. I mean the fame and power that we have, not to mention the ladies. Then I come face to face with a huge pack of wild hogs.

Now when faced with danger people react differently. Apparrently I freeze like a deer in the headlights. And then I run back to my saftey hole (aka telescope) like a three year old girl. Oh yeah, by face to face, of course I mean they were walking away from me, and by huge pack I mean two. But they were really close, probably about 15 feet. Anyway, so I finally went back for dinner, and now I won't be leaving my telescope until morning.

"On Earth there is a large group of people that are not astronomers... I call them normal people." --- John Kormendy


Link: It seems that Al Franken has decided to make himself the Liberal equivalent to Rush Limbaugh.

So it turns out that republicans are not so good for the economy. I have spoken with many people over time who said they just didn't like the way liberal people handled money. And last week Sarah found an interesting sight, the U.S. Department of Labor Website. They give almost any statistic you could want one the American workforce. So last night I compiled the unemployment rate for every year since 1960. I noticed a trend, every time a Democrat (red bars) was the president the rate of change of unemployed people drops. I realize many other factors go into this number however, it is undeniable that a marked decline occured during the JFK-LBJ years and the Clinton administration. As well the 8 highest annual unemployment rates all occured during Republican administrations. So if you consider a good economy one in which people actually have jobs, and are not getting fired then Republicans are not good for the economy.


Link: Yes, Yes I'm aware that Condee Rice testified this morning.

I'm back at the observatory, this time for a week. Tonight is the painful first night where you sit around and just try to stay up as late as possible trying to adjust to the night schedule. A bridge was out in Pecos so I had to take the "scenic route." The quotes are there because the scenery was a wall of darkness on either side and the tailights of an 18 wheeler infront of me on the one lane road.

I decided to listen to the radio on this trip. I thought I would find something interesting with a local flair. All I could find was some ultraconservative talk show that had me yelling back at the stereo. This guy was afraid that John Kerry was going to "turn America into a communist state, run by Kofi Anan." AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!

I finally made it, and this time no animals died in the trip from Austin to McDonald.

So I recently listened to a lecture on Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND). It was really an explanation of the principles and motivations of this field. The premise is that on low acceleration (near by cosmologically speaking) the Dark Matter model does not work.

I guess I should back up a little, that many years ago (~30yrs), it became blatenly undeniable that there exists more matter in the universe than we can see. You can find this out by comparing the gravitational dynamics of large systems like galaxies or clusters of galaxies to the amount of mass we can see. And there is a stark deficiency, the overwhelming majority of matter is not illuminated (~100 times more matter is not illuminated). The plot on the left shows that a dark metter halo (red) is needed to fit the rotation of a galaxy, and that luminous matter alone (blue) is insufficient.

You basically have two ways to go with this result. Either you can assume there is a new particle that we didn't know about or that we are incomplete in describing gravity. Most people in the field have decided to go with the new particle, and hence dark matter was born. It has had many successes through the years, and a few failures. However, it is not correct to say that everyone believes in dark matter. A lot of people really get angry when you talk about a particle that does not envolve itself with the electromagnetic and nuclear forces. So MOND was born.

Now back to current day... Every time the astronomy community starts getting together and deciding that we all believe in dark matter those MOND people keep throwing in their bombs. "OOh we only fit one parameter!" and "We can fit the wiggles." It is definatly true that MOND is much more elegant. However, nature doesn't care how elegant our equations are; it does what it wants. I used to be very agnostic on this issue, however the more I hear about MOND the more I believe it will have trouble explaining the inhomogeniety we see in the universe. For example why is there such a diverse shape of galaxy structures. The more conversations I have about this, the more it appears that people are just tired of not understanding dark matter.

Basically there is one final test. There have been a few galaxies in which it appeared that the dark matter has been stripped away. These were not conclusive, however if a conclusive test is ever made then MOND dies. Its okay for the dark matter to be stripped off of the galaxy but its not okay for gravity to work one way here and another way somewhere else. Even better , we can look at globular clusters. This test will be done sometime in the next several years. It is very concievable that Globular Clusters do not have darkm matter profiles. However, MOND prodicts a correction. If they follow non-modified Netonian Dynamics then MOND dies.


Link: One of the few good things about our war with Iraq is that there now exist Iraqi bloggers. Baghdad Burning is a blog by a CS student at the University of Baghdad.

This morining I was greated by an unpleasant form-email telling me I was in "non-compliance with UT regulations" and my "supervisor will be notified of my negligence". It turns out I had been working at UT for the past several years in defiance of the army of people devoted to making the most boring powerpoint shows in history. I had not had my sexual harasment training. Which is good because I had convinced myself its okay to force women and minoriteis into uncomfortable sitatuations as long as they were at work, especially minority women. Anyway so I took the training and jotted down notes (like any good employee), here's what I learned:

1.Sexual Harassment is unwelcome.
2.This for That.
3.Repeatedly engaging in sexually oriented conversations, comments or horseplay.
4.Within confines of the law
5.The alleged harasser may also be someone who comes to campus and exhibits inappropriate conduct of a sexual nature towards our students or staff.
6.Don't say anything because she might make your job unbearable.

I hope you found that as educationally informative as I did. The whole process spent about thirty minutes. The best thirty minutes ever.


Link: For all those people on Linux & Unix machines here's a helpful page on tar files.

Over shadowed this past week by more interesting events is a little court case involving a nonpracticing lawyer, argueing over his child's rights to the supreme court. This real life version of Mr. Smith Goes To Washington stars Micheal Nedow playing a passionate athiest. If you haven't heard he is argueing to have the phrase "... under God..." removed from the pledge

If you didn't know the pledge of allegiance was written in 1892 by the editor of a socialist publication. And the phrase in question was added by Eisenhower, in 1954, to protect us from communism. So now 50 years later Mr. Newdow is trying to make it such that his son does not have to say one phrase in a voluntary pledge every morning at school. And our supreme court, the finest legal minds in our nation have to sit and listen (except for Scolia who has recused himself).

Should this statement be in the pledge... no, of course not. It obviuosly breaks down the seperation of church and state. Is this what I want my Supreme Court to be thinking about tonight, definately not. The truth is, this is obsurd. I really don't see the relevance of this case at all. Honestly I can't remember the last time I said the pledge at all. And what about the kids, they'll grow up and hopefully their parents will have more of an influence on them then a couple lines of prose every morning lead by the vice principal on the lowd speaker.

Unrelated : Bryan ven de Ven is in town this week. We hung out at Crown & Anchor a couple times and reminiced of days gone by. He leaves, on Saturday I believe, back to the glitz and glamour of Los Angeles.


Link: According to these people these are the ten worst attrocities comitted against our oceans (watch the video).

I've decided to unplug my television and place it in the closet. I do this about once a year when my codependance gets out of hand.

I usually decide that the t.v. must go when I finally break down and start watching reality shows. And damned if I haven't been watching the Donald Trump show. At some point during reality shows I eventually feel completely estranged from society. I just can't fathom anyone connecting with these shows even in a fantastical way, then I realize the ratings they get. Then I get depressed about society. Then, finally, I think how much time I am wasting, and then the television get unplugged.

So I will say goodbye to the excellent programs that I find to be perfectly acceptable wastes of time like The West Wing or The Simpson's. And I'll probably just fill my time wasting with reading instead of television. And listen to more NPR than is good for a person.


Link: I just booked a hotel for this summer in Chamonix which is at the base of Aiguille du Midi

(This one is really for the astro-people, but I encourage all to read on and if you have questions email me.) Starting from the beginning...
Galaxies come in a few seperate flavors, and we can use coursly defined bins of description to say that galaxies are elliptical, bulge-disk, and pure disk. However, recently we have found some galaxies which are disk galaxies that masquerade as bulge-disk galaxies. There are various tests to confirm this statement. Pseudobulge detection is based upon the disk like features (distribution of light, kinematics, spiral structure, etc.) that are in pseudobulges. The important distinction is that pseudobulges grow slowly in certain disk galaxies. This is probably what my thesis will cover, so I've been reading a lot about them lately.

More back story... Classic Bulges and elliptical galaxies contain very similar physics. We create scaling relations like the fundamental plane for elliptical galaixies and so far bulges fit on these scaling relations. Scaling relations are great because they allow us to conlcude that classic bulges and elliptical galaxies have similar formation physics. One of these relations is the mass of the super-massive black hole at the center of bulges and elliptical and its relation to the velocity of material (beyond tthe influence of the black hole) in the same galaxy. So what this means is that whatever formed a bulge (colliosional build up of smaller matter) is the same process that grew the black hole. We don't know how to make that happen. Some people think they know but there is no consensus. NOTE: SUPERMASSIVE BLACKHOLES ONLY CORRELATE WITH BULGE PROPERTIES. They don't know about a disk, which is okay supposedly they have different formations.

Recently I found out that some pseudobulges have black holes in the middle. And the amazing thing is that these black holes correlate in the same way that elliptical galaxies do with the supermassive blackholes in their center! This was mind blowing. Recall that pseudobulges know about their disky past, but black holes supposedly don't know about disks. What a fascinating dilemma. In one day I had a bit of a personal revolution, peudobulges are not just components of pure disk galaxies. They are a completely different objects all together. And the slow evolution of a disk galaxy that builds up a pseudobulge has to grow the super-massive blackhole in the same way... amazing! This has created a flury of questions that I need to find answers to!


Link: This is one of the nerdiest things I've ever found on the internet: 100 Ways that Women are like Differential Equations.

I recently had a very nice dinner with several friends, prepared by several friends. It unfortunatly ended on a sour note, that I will fight to defend my position on.

I was sitting around on a Saturday evening when I was called and invited to a dinner being prpared at a friends house. We (me and Sarah) dropped our own dinner preperation and went. Once there we had an enjoyable evening of okay conversation. It was not the greatest night ever, but it was pleasant. An important side note is that Sarah had woken up at three that morning to travel back home from Sanata Cruz, Ca.

So dinner was over and Sarah was beginning to fall asleep while standing up, so we decided to go ahead and leave. Saying good-bye and walking off we recieved the most pleasant of all farwells, "Before you leave can you wash your dishes." I continued walking and got in the car.

Before I go on let me state, I am all for helping others, and shouldering the burden. Hosting a dinner is a fair amount of work. What I am not for is the erosion of kindness at the expense of washing two plates and two forks. When you invite people over for dinner, unless otherwise stated in the invitation, you are shouldering the burden of preperation and cleaning. If you want to ask people to bring something before they come, thats fine its a sort of verbal contract. You don't start passing out mops everytime people come over.

I may just sound lazy but how about the next time I invite you to my house, as your walking out, I ask, "Can you vacuum up all that crap you dragged in on your feet?" Sounds a little rude doesn't it.


Link: If you have a fast enough connection Josh Barnes simulates what happens when stars smash into each other.

In the past few days it has really been setting in to me, just how big a mistake the head of NASA (Sean O'Keefe) has made. We are condemming Hubble space telescope, thus we are condeming the most succesful sceintific laboratory in history. This is not a bias statement. Scientific success is judged by journal articles, basically these are beefed up science fare reports. Scientific reputation is basically decided by the number and impact of these journal articles by a person or organization. On this basis, there has never been a scientific laboratory (including telescopes as laboratories) with the impact that Hubble has had, never. No institution has produced such a high percentage of journal articles in a field of science as Hubble. And we are not going to service it.

Another problem that Sean O'Keefe seems to have forgotten, and so many of us astronomers forget too often. Astronomy gives very little direct physically useful help to the rest of the world. The truth is astronomy is a scientific luxury and astronomers are scientific entertainers. All we can offer the world is knowledge; we can't justify our selves by curing cancer or better energy sources. But that okay, people love astronomy. It is the most accessible sceinces because every one can look at the sky at night and ponder. And people love Hubble, it makes headlines in the paper. Astronomers have a duty to maintain a link to the public, and to invesitigate when the public is interested. A society endeavours to understand what fascinates it, astronomers are willing to do the work for the rest of society, but we shouldn't be putting our efforts into something that the public doesn't care for. The internatianal space station is a much less publicly oriented project, and as well very little science comes out of the space station. But this is what Sean O'Keefe has chosen over Hubble.

Finally there is an interesting difference between Hubble and most other scientific endeavours. Almost every data that Hubble takes eventually becomes publicly available. I don't ever put in proposals for Hubble, I'm a student I would have little chance. But I can easily find data in the archive of Hubble data, and so can you. This is a great addition to science, it allows the public a chance to get the data and use it themselves. Hubble is a project that is wanted by a democratic public and available to it.

I suggest everybody atleast sign the petition at savethehubble.org. And contact your Senator on the Science Subcommittee, (take this link). Tell them that you are for Hubble, a mailed letter is the best method. Sean O'Keefe it seems is having a knee jerk reaction to the Columbia tragedy and wants to give the appearance that he is doing something. The truth is that space exploration is not safe, but instead of killing things that are worth doing why don't we find safer ways to do them.


Link: Have I metioned, I am going to be staying in Ringberg Caslte.

Sorry for the lag in entries. Sarah's been out of town so mostly I just go to work and back home. Although I did finally decide to start exercizing. Its not to look better, its not to slim down. However, apperantly being overweight is really bad for you, I didn't know this. Anyway, so I'm "running" the quotations are because very few people would describe what I do as running. What I do is more like a very sad looking exagerated walk, one might mistake for a man suffering from a heart attack or stroke trying to reach the hospital.

I'm not doing the Atkin's Diet. I think that thing is crazy, you can't eat bread. BREAD! I will not do that. And if anyone emails me about how they think its a good thing that I'm finally getting in shape after all my smoking and eating for the past several years, they will not get a happy reply. My legs really hurt right now, but I'll probably stick with it for a while.


Link: Forget the Northern Lights I am going to be staying in Ringberg Caslte at an Astronomy Conference this May.

This weekend is the recruiting weekend for the Texas astronomy department. I'm not quite sure how I should act during this. I think it will probably be even more boring than Pennsylvania, because I already know most of what they will say. The entertaining part might happen when I catch the recruiters say something wrong.

That said I am still going to go through with it. At the last visit I made a professor said,"Its not often when anyone wants an astronomer. So when you are being recruited take the oppurtinity for all you can get." So that is what I'm doing. I've already reaped boundless rewards like dinner at the Denny's in State College, Pennsylvania.

I wanted to take the bus to the airport and be picked up, and stay with a graduate student. The people in charge didn't realize I was serious when I asked. Anyway, so I have a scheduled meeting with my boss for this, and I can't wait to get a tour of Austin. I do get four free meals.


Link: If you ever wanted to convince yourself that you have a mental ilness I've found the link for you.

My time has finally come, in six short weeks I should have the first draft of my first journal article. It will basically be a journal form of my AAS poster, only in journal article form. However, we've got more of these objects.

The reason for all this now, is that Ralf Bender is in Austin for the next six weeks. He's the other guy on our paper. Okay so he is not exactly in Austin to work on my research. He's here to collaborate with John (my boss) on another paper. But anyway, I am seizing the oppurtunity to get my stuff published.

So for the next few weeks two men of great scientific reputation will be spending a signifigant amount of time with some degenerate, no-good fool (me). And I'll sit and listen to a couple guys who have forgotten more about galaxies than I know.

This also means, if your looking for me in the next few weeks I'm at work.


Link: It may be possible that this summer I'll see the Northern Lights.

I've about had it with this gay marriage arguement. I think its completely digusting that our country, suppossedly a land centered about the guarantee of civil liberties, is enthralled with the idea of cementing a discriminating law into our constitution.

I don't even know why it matters. Okay so your (the conservative) response is to say that marriage is defined as being between a man and a woman. So I look it up in Oxford and much to my suprise you're right. Then I realize the real problem with the whole situation, and a reality that everyone should swallow.

Marriage is a religiuos institution, every religion has procedures for it. People join churches so they can be married there, etc... Religions usually don't like gay people. But Wait! We live in a society which has mandated a seperation between church and state. The reality is there probably should not be government issued gay marraiges, there should be NO government issued marriages at all. The government should only be allowed to issue civil unions. If you want to get married do it in front of Gods eyes, not the U.S. government. Go fill out a form at the court house for you civil union straight, gay, or whatever.

The fact is that there exists advantages in our country (and in world travel) for married couples over unmarried. The fact that America denies those advantages (loan applications, VISA status) to people because of there sexual preference is an ugly stain of hypocracy upon our country. Everyone should be allowed a civil union, and the government should have no say in marriage.

Oh yeah, if anyone tries to argue something about Rome being destroyed by gay people... I will first laugh for about twenty minutes then I'll tell them Rome fell because it became too spread out for it to govern.


Link: This man is an amazing photographer YANN ARTHUS-BERTRAND .

I had been on the road for the past ten days, traveleing from west Texas to central Pennsylvania. I was wrecked from my trip (my flight left at 5:30 am) and my activities the night before (the graduate students through a party for the recruits). Pennsylvania was okay. As far as the idea of attending that university for the next six years, I just can't get very excited.

My parents had traveled to Austin to have lunch with me and they picked me up from the airport. We were trying to get back to my apartment. I told my father to turn left on a street with no steet sign. My father has always been a skeptic to my directions when we drive together. This time was no different. Attempting to gain more information about this mystery street, my dad began creeping into the intersect of 32nd street and Interstate 35, a well traveled road. To his oversight the traffic light switched from green to red. I noted this. I also noted the cars moving at fast pace perpendicular to our path. It then dawned on me, we were about have a wreck. My next response was to scream like a little girl, a very loud, high ptched little girl.

So the wreck was quite bad, although the impact was the least jarring I had ever been in. This is a testement to the fine workmanship that goes into every Volkswagen, because the damage to the car seemed tremendous. And I think we were moved many feet through the intersection by the Buick. Anyway were all okay. I got out of the car and started laughing, I don't think the Buick pilot saw the humor that I did in the event. To each his own.



Link: I haven't found much interesting on the internet lately.

As I was sitting in the control room of my telescope hiding from the onslaught of snow that McDonald Observatory is currently under, I became curious as to what the arguements against global warming are.

It apears that the main problem people have is that the skeptics claim that nothing has changed in the past hundred years. And I respond, "What about carbon dioxide, I thought that we were pumping our atmosphere full of gases which cause a rise in earth's temperature?" The skeptics respond with "carbon shmarbon, carbon dioxide is not important, silly little man."

There is a problem with these skeptics. In their reports I see nothing that reflects that sciency stuff like data , and references to other research , or plots. I don't believe any scientific result until I see it in graph form. In fact most of the arguement for the skeptics is that global warming is being fed to us through a liberal propaganda machine. I think its interesting to point out that the definitive anti-greenhouse writing is in a report from the Cato Institute, which is a political group not a scientific group. And in this report some the main points are that celebrity activists are swaying the opinion of the NSF. I love a good ad homme argument.

The other side is a bit more grounded in science (they've got plots and computer simulations and data). However, they still result to name calling, when Lindzen (the principle neigh sayer) claims that carbon dioxide is not good indicator for climate change, the proponents state,"..it illustrates a lack of understanding of the basic greenhouse mechanism by Lindzen." However, these guys do have a plot. The solid line is the current trend and the dotted line is what would happen if carbon dioxide abundances stopped increasing (notice how the temperature levels out).

The simulation above shows that decreasing carbon dioxide keeps the temperature from rising, the plot, and it is undisputed that carbon dioxide is increasing. So I am comfortable again that global warming is real from a trail of logic. Basically, there is a debate about this because of the evils that we usually expect, well financed industry can keep the arguement going. I mean every once in a while some nut comes along and says Einstein's Relativity is all wrong, but in our world (space physics) there is no advocacy group that will pay that man so nobody listens.


Link: All astronomy people should read Ed Nather's Advice to the Young Astronomer

Last night was the first night in which I used a telescope unsupporvised. I had aided before and even ran telescopes, however always with more experienced observers.

So how did it go, you ask? Well I managed to jam the drive mechanism for the focus of the telescope. Then in the process of trying to get the focus working, I severed communication from the filters to the control room. I never did get the focus back. I was about to call the observer support when I looked outside and could only see about two stars in the whole sky, the rest was covered with clouds. Thus I didn't bother.

The day staff managed to fix all my problems and today (tonight for the non-astro people) was much better. In fact I was rolling right along until a cloud bank coeverd the sky about an hour ago. Let's hope this observing run is the beginning of something.


Link: For the past 30 minutes before writing this entry I've been staring at the weather satellite animations

Today I traveled (fly to Midland and rent a car) to McDonald Observatory for a week of observing.

Apparrently, in west Texas the skies can rain mudd. And supposedly the oil companies in the area have destroyed the lakes with salt water, but their being run out by the local governement, which will destroy the local economy. I couldn't figure out if the West Texas information desk sitting in the window seat thought this was good or bad. His daughter got a pefect score on the Johns Hopkins Scholar test. They have an A&M bumper sticker.

So tonight as I was driving down highway 118, you get no cell phone signal on 118. Its a 50 mile drive and I never saw another car. Anyway, as I was driving down 118 I saw the biggest rabbit I'd ever seen in my life, it even turned into a coyote. So this shape shifter darted in front of my sleak Grand Am rental car. I brake and swerve with evassive manuvers. Next the coyote, in a seemingly suicidal action, makes a ninety degree turn into the path of my car. "Wham Bop," the car hollars as the right side of the car raises over him. I will have to check out the damage to the car tomorrow, I don't believe the coyote made it.

Howard Dean is bowing out of the race for democratic nominee. I think before everybody feels smug and happy about that, we need to really remember Howard Dean. I think its unfortunate that someone who did impact the face of politics will be a little footnote for political junkies like myself.

Besides freaking out everybody in America and scaring the crap out of children, Howard Dean made Democrats excited again. Also, Dean revolutionized the money raising methods of politicians. Through his internet campaign Dean managed to raise nearly one million dollars in a day; its possibile that this will bring the regular joe into political contributions. And thus revolutionize the overly corrupt business of campaign finance.

His big mistake was depending on young people, that will always loose an election. We get real excited about some candidate and go campaign and yell at rallies then forget to vote. Poor Dean if only you realized that yelling like a revival minister does not get you into the White House. It only puts a really creepy picture of you on the cover of Rolling Stone.

I hope Dean continues a political career I think he would make a really good Senator. Although the rest of the Senate would hate him. The ratings of C-Span would definately go up if he were screaming into the silence of an all night fillibuster.


Link: For the politcally minded reactionary Misleader.org