Monthly Archives: December 2013

Favorite Books and Products of 2013

This year, like every other, was full of lots of great, okay, and no so good things. Being the list-oriented person that I am, it seemed appropriate to list out great things of the year. While there were many things that could go here (favorite trips, etc), I thought keeping with the orientation of the blog we should look at the favorite books and products of the year. Not all of these came out in 2013, but I discovered them all in 2013. Without further delay:

Favorite Books

In Suspect TerrainIn Suspect Terrain - John Mcphee
This book reads like a novel, but gives massive geologic context. It is part of a series that I will continue reading this year. If you are curious about the geologic history of the east, this gives a driving cross-section and great context.

Scientific PresentationsThe Craft of Scientific Presentations - Michael Alley I was fortunate enough to attend my 2nd Michael Alley workshop this year and gained much from both it and his book. Dr. Alley is a phenomenal person that is full of energy. His presentation advice helped me give an AGU talk, as well as successfully pass my candidacy exams (those should probably be posts).

EE 101Electrical Engineering 101 - Darren Ashby I've seen this book for quite some time, but decided to give it a read and see what it was like. Overall it was a great intro to electronics for new-comers and a good review for those who, like me, perform lots of electronics hobby work, but are not professional engineers. A few of the analogies were somewhat wrong at anything more than the basic level, but that's what they were there for.

GuesstimationGuesstimation: Solving the World's Problems on the Back of a Cocktail Napkin - Lawrence Weinstein A fun read that helps speed up your order of magnitude estimation capabilities. These were great lunch-hour exercises.

Command and Control

 

Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety - Eric Schlosser Having lived in Arkansas for most of my life, this book was of interest to me. I was quite surprised at just how unsafe much of the nuclear arsenal was and how many close calls we have had.

Feynman's RainbowFeynman's Rainbow: A Search for Beauty in Physics and in Life - Leonard Mlodinow Recommended to me by a professor in the department, this was a quick read that gave an outside look at the life of Richard Feynman from one of his colleagues. A must for any Feynman fan or general physics reader.

Data PointsData Points: Visualization That Means Something - Nathan Yau Another stellar book from Natan Yau of flowingdata.com. Great advice on presenting complex data in an easy to digest form.

Zen

 

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert M. Pirsig Sometimes I will read a classic, and this did not disappoint. Very quotable and very enjoyable.

 

Favorite Products

Timbuk2Timbuk2 Classic Messenger Bag I didn't want to carry my leather briefcase throughout Italy and Holland this summer, so I ended up with this bag. I can't say enough about how durable it is and what a great traveling companion it makes. I have notice many geoscience folks carry these and believe that they should sponsor AGU.

Blackwing 602Palomino Blackwing 602 Pencils A post in the "How I Work Series" mentioned these and I must say that they are the darkest pencils I've seen. I generally use pen in my notebooks, but these are great replacements.

Beaglebone

 

Beaglebone Black This is the new small/embedded computer design. I'm implementing them in my infrasound bucket project and in a few others.

Hakko

 

Hakko FX-888D Soldering Station This is my new go-to soldering station for those of us on a budget.

 

USRP Software Defined Radios While expensive, I got to use some of these in a recent project and make a radar out of them!
USRP

What did I miss?

Earthrise - 45 Years Ago Today

Earthrise Photograph

The famous "Earthrise" photograph.

On December 24, 1968 one of the most powerful photographs of our time was captured. Today being the 45th anniversary of this event, I thought a brief look back would be fitting. The crew of Apollo 8 (Borman, Anders, and Lovell) were just finishing their fourth lunar orbit when they saw an awe inspiring sight. Due to a roll maneuver being executed by the spacecraft, the Earth came into view out of the window. As the astronauts were just coming around from the far-side, the Earth was rising over the lunar terrain! This was a sight that nobody had seen before. There was a scramble for film, first a black and white photograph, then finally a color photograph as the capsule rotated further and the event came into view of another window. Listening to the crew conversation is very interesting as they hurry to photograph the event with their Hasselblad 500EL. The "Earthrise photo" is more officially known as NASA photo AS8-14-2383.

The scientific visualizations team from NASA have done a fantastic job putting together a short video showing the events that transpired with syncronized crew voice recordings. By using photos from the recent Lunar Reconnisance Orbited (LRO) and a timed camera on Apollo 8 they have even determined the exact orientation of the spacecraft during these events. I highly recommend watching it! This greatly reminds us of the sentiment Eugene Cernan expressed later in the program: "We went to explore the moon, and in fact discovered the Earth."

Blog and Website are Now One!

Hello everyone! Notice anything new? I’ve combined my blog (formerly at http://madscientistatlarge.blogspot.com) and academic website into this new wordpress powered site.  The old blog will remain up for awhile so that other sites can change their links, but all new content, publications, and updates will be posted here! Please be sure to update your RSS feeds and links.  Also don’t worry about the old content; all articles and comments have been migrated to this page.  I would like to update this blog with more short posts that are more frequent.  As always please be sure to send/comment any feedback!