Bye Bye Mars Rover... Spirit [An attempt at fiction]

The quest had been "After so much time trying to come out of this slippery place... are they going to let it go?"  "The wheels are already not working, how long can they keep it dragging?" Public opinions are sometimes very sharp.


"I hate to be in this decision making eco-system..." remarks Dr. Z.
"After being involved in this project for some fraction of my life, I feel like.." [his voice breaks]...

"... It is like a family member after you spent so much time with it. ..." [he gathers it]

"... we had so many nice time together..."
"Had it been killed immediately after its time was up, it would have been less painful... As a project manager I have seen so many projects come and go."

"We expected it to last for what ... 90 days? give or take ... it has been running for six years in row ... day and night... We even changed our life style for it's efficient use."

Finally, the call has come into order.

"I am sorry to leave you there in cold... and alone. 
Bye Bye Spirit... you will be remembered."


http://marsrover.nasa.gov/home/index.html

http://marsrover.nasa.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/20100126a.html
Spirit and Opportunity landed on Mars in January 2004. They have been exploring for six years, far surpassing their original 90-day mission. Opportunity currently is driving toward a large crater called Endeavor and continues to make scientific discoveries. It has driven approximately 12 miles and returned more than 133,000 images.

[This is just a fiction]
Incidently, tonight marks one significant date

On Jan. 27, Mars will be closer to Earth than any other time between 2008 and 2014.

Read More http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/01/mars-earth-close-encounter/

Observatory Night@ SUNY Albany

For our first session of the semester two great planets and our moon as well as farther, wider objects will be in view.

Jupiter, one of the top two planets to see in any telescope, will be setting just as we arrive on the rooftop. At 5 pm it won't yet be dusk, so the sun's glare may prevent us from viewing Jupiter's four giant moons. We will need luck in order to catch the planet in the telescope.

Will anyone bring binoculars? In any case we can get acquainted with the planet using just our eyes.

Our Moon is the most fabulous object to view at night through the telescope. On Sunday it is a waxing gibbous, an excellent time to zero in on the landing sites of some of the Apollo missions! (Sorry, we can't see the flags.)

Next, as we peer at a cloudy white region known as the Great Nebula in Orion, we can imagine it is the birth of our own sun - probably similar stars are being born there now!

Mars will be on the rise as we prepare to exit the premises. While it may not be viewable in the scope, we can identify the planet for next week; its position won't change much in that time!

Remember to dress warmly as the observatory is outdoors! While waiting for your turn to view you may wish to wait in the warmer hallway.

If the weather isn't clear then we will cancel.
Follow the announcements at AlbanyStarGaze for updates.

--

Phil Erner
PhD student, SUNY Albany.

Note: We will be bringing pictures of the event and updates.
Previously we had some nice moon pictures... here.

Connecting Through Google Friend Connect

There are a lot of social connection gadgets aiming to bring together the audience of your blog or website.
Namely: Networked Blog through Facebook, My Blog Log, Blog Catalog, Google Friend Connect etc. etc.

I think connecting through google friend connect should be the easiest one. It can be easily integrated into the site.  See the video below.
Although there are a lot of people using Networked Blog through Facebook account, some find it not so convenient. Facebook connect is growing for sure. We can talk about that in future. :)


Once it is installed, connection becomes very easy!

Installation is  easy.
This video explains it all!



I find many blogs out there to be based upon blogger platform. So, installation is piece of cake.





Related:
http://googlesocialweb.blogspot.com/2009/11/google-friend-connect-now-more.html

Nepali Bloggers and Unification

bloggers.com.np:
Are you ready?

Yes, I am talking about saving efforts and energy+time for integration of Nepali Bloggers under one umbrella (Hey we are done with discussion of reviving BLOGAN, right?). In addition, I would like to suggest that there should be some kind of mechanism which penalizes copy and paste things. There are people who love to do copy and paste to produce "blog".


The importance of being organized comes here. One way of realizing it is to have an universal feed from Nepali Bloggers.  
Is bloggers.com.np ready for it?
There is no doubt that it has a great collection of blog by Nepali people around the globe. As I indicated previously, many has gone for hibernation. It would be frustrating to find many links wasted to not find active Nepali Bloggers.

Based upon personal connections, we have nice hamro-circle[link] list of active nepali bloggers. Currently, we have a widget, and Email subscription to updated blogs through it.

Instead of having to go for different server, my question would be whether current blogger.com.np team would be interested in having such aggregation of rss and an universal feed (not hosted in personal server/not any other dot com / dot org or dot net server). I am talking about the Authenticity, Brand and Unification.
Note that experiment with hamro-circle proves that such aggregation is possible.
You can see an example here:
http://knuthlab.rit.albany.edu/people/malakar/planet/dcs/output/
(this is a temporary place for experiment)

What we need next is a server with python support. The software can be scheduled with cron job; this will enable gathering of all the feed as desired. We can also go ahead and work on having some nice gadget from the rss generated thereby ( I had created one... see here).

The beauty lies in the fact that it will be an open source project (more eyes on it), the in-active bloggers (enlisted) are pushed into the bottom. There would be no such thing as new and old blogger "discrimination", all get equal chance to get their post visible. Plus ability to deliver updated blog summary by Email (this help increases the visit to active blog). This may also be the motivational factor for many quality posts. Moreover, since this would be supplemented by the unified forum (Google group), we can bring justice to copy pasted items.

The idea is simple and easy. What we need is connection and commitment.

This is all possible with bloggers.com.np. 
bloggers.com.np: Are you ready?

PS: based upon communications with Aakar, Nepalean G, Dilip G et. al. Views presented here may not be representative view of all quoted above. I will take any responsibility of any such discrepancy in interpretation.

Indiscrete Thoughts: by Gian-Carlo Rota

The conventional approach to teaching abstract ideas and natural sciences are sometimes phrased as, "I do not know how true the story is, I will tell you as it was told to me" [1].

There has been several attempts to break the conventional method of passing the lecture notes from one generation to another so that the classroom environment and learning could be implemented in more effective ways [2]. In the context of discussing the philosophical aspects of what effective teaching and learning environment means to student-teacher relationship, and more importantly to learning, I would like to briefly review the book by Gian-Carlo Rota [3].  Rota was one of the most respected and popular teachers at MIT. He taught difficult but very popular courses in probability, and Applications of Calculus [4].

Rota, as described by others, has always been portrayed as a successful teacher [6]. The book successfully grabs a very rare story told from the perspective of a mathematician and a philosopher.  Reading through the book gives a rare glimpse of what it takes to be a successful teacher. The deep philosophy behind every classroom activities and professional life has been elaborated in beautiful ways.  The learning theme such as "You learn what you don't know you are learning";  "By and large, 'knowing how' matters more than 'knowing what' " [5] forms the basis of  the same philosophy  when it comes to teaching. "Ten Lessons I wish I had been taught" and "Ten Lessons for the survival of a Mathematics Department", not only applies to mathematics professionals and students but equally to any academicians. Moreover, it is equally delightful to read his other chapters which involves portrayal of many famous scientists as human beings. The book is absolutely spellbinding.



References:

[1] Sir Walter Scott: "I tell the tale as it was told to me." http://www.readprint.com/work-5618/My-Aunt-Margaret-s-Mirror-Sir-Walter-Scott.


[2] http://uni600.pbworks.com/Annotated+Bibliography

[3] Gian-Carlo Rota. Ed: Palombi, Fabrizio. Indiscrete Thoughts. Boston: Birkhäuser, 2008.

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gian-Carlo_Rota

[5] http://www.math.tamu.edu/~cyan/Rota.html


[6] Wesley T. Chan (December 5, 1997). "To Teach or Not To Teach: Professors Might Try a New Approach to Classes -- Caring about Teaching". The Tech 117 (63). http://tech.mit.edu/V117/N63/chan.63c.html.