February 2008

Everyone likes to rag on Microsoft. Especially the European Union. However, sometimes they do deliver as a company. This development looks like it has tremendous potential. Now, I haven’t actually used it, but the intertubes are buzzing with talk of Microsoft’s World Wide Telescope.

“World” Telescope?

What’s so awesome about the WWTelescope is that it seamlessly binds together terabytes worth of data collected from Hubble and various other observatories into one coherent search-able “universe” in an application. Rather than viewing static images, you can actually browse galaxies and our own solar system with accurate image data.

The head of Harvard’s observatory back then [1920’s] argued that the Milky Way Galaxy was the entire universe. Harvard was wrong big time.

With Microsoft’s tool the average user can zoom in on black holes and view astronomic phenomena through all of the spectra of light. Not only can you travel on your own to distant nebulae, but tours built into the data introduce the user to even the most remote yet beautiful images humanity has collected over the last 30 years.

When can I get it?

Soon–this spring, for free! You can watch a video with a bit of the features here. The labor that has gone into this project is incredible, and I can’t wait to experience the universe from the comfort of my chair. Wonder if it shows dark matter?

After being in the town of St. Andrews for over three weeks now, it really is a nice place to live. For those of you on the east cost of the States, think Annapolis. Lots of pubs, plenty to do and see, rolling green hills, wind that never seems to stop, and of course golf. Not to mention that most everyone here is very friendly as it is an extremely small community. Roughly 15,000 people live in the area, half of which are in some way associated with the University of St. Andrews. I can’t wait to see more of Scotland, England, and hopefully Europe.

I can has English?

Apart from the language barrier… OK, not true. Some accents are just extremely difficult to understand. I’m sure they laugh equally hard when I pronounce “crayon,” or “water.” The curriculum is roughly on par here with what I expected. In the sciences, lectures are not mandatory, but definitely recommended. Roughly every week “tutorials” are held, which are just problem sessions or handouts for students to solve. In the Physics department, the only grade you will receive is your final exam. Hopefully you know your stuff by the end of the course! Computer science courses have “practicals” which is generally when your programming assignments are due. Thus far, the classes are enjoyable, although one professor doesn’t seem interested in the course material. Apparently, he wants to study networking in Second Life. So still adjusting a bit to not having daily assigned problem sets, which is quite nice. However, I need to stay on top of teaching myself things I’m missing from St. Mary’s which they require at St. Andrews.

Don’t give me the Flickr

You probably noticed on the right panel of Beauhinks a Flickr feed. It will display the four most current images available in my Flickr profile. In addition I will supplement posts with images from Flickr.  

Steve