"Lucky" Camera Technology Blows Away Hubble

[SmokeyRidesAgain]

This thread is the first time I have heard of boondoggle, and after hearing it 3 times in every one of boro's posts I hope I never hear the stupid word again.

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
Well, only 12 are first author. Getting round to faculty type applications soon though.

[/ QUOTE ]

Publishing must be very different in your field. There are faculty members at Stanford's biology dept that only have 3. But like you said before there is more than one metric....[img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[ QUOTE ]
You a biologist? Which field?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm a computational biologist. As for which field well I'm working in medical/pharma right now. I'm sort of a jack of all trades and hop to a different field every 6 months.

I have a quick question about Hubble since we have an expert here. I've heard a decent amount of quality science has come from amateurs using Hubble to do research. Is this true? I'd love to know what kind of contributions amateurs are making.

[thylacine]

[ QUOTE ]
All right. I'll address your points, in more detail. Not to be too confrontational about it, but you're talking crap. ... I characterized your opinion as 'crap', for the simple reason that your opinion is crap. ... And you're of course free to have an opinion. But you seemed to be contesting my statement that HST has had a unique and extremely strong scientific impact. Which is crap. And I gave you a link to a study to prove it.


[/ QUOTE ]

I think Borodog would dispute your dimensional analysis here. It should be one crap-radian per urg. [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
Drive to Goddard Space Flight Center and ask them if you don't believe me. I doubt opinions have changed much in the 11 years since I was there.

[/ QUOTE ]

Borodog, I'd really like to know some details about your previous work. You have frequently used the 'call to authority' tactic to justify your arguments. In the Environmental Hysteria (anti-global warming) thread you accused the entire discipline of climate science of fraud by saying:

[ QUOTE ]
This is exactly the case in the environmental sciences. This is not an idle claim. I am an academic. I have written grant proposals. We spin them, to portray our work in the best light possible, to make it seem as important as we possibly can, because we are competing for limited grant dollars. I worked as a strategic planner the EPA.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yet at the same time you copied and pasted the index of a 200 level economics book discussing basic linear algebra and called it "mathematical dynamo" Ph.D. material. You've also been corrected on material in your own field of Astrophysics on more than one occasion by more than one person. Now there is this thread which is a poorly supported attack on one of the most important tools of your own discipline.

Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone deserves some grace. But at this point I'm very curious as to what kind of work you've done in the past. What papers you've written, etc. I have no doubt you studied physics. The name you posted on 2p2, Michael Owen*, does pop up on a NC state website:

http://www.pams.ncsu.edu/news/focus_feb2003.php

And I'm sure you have a Ph.D. as well. But if you are going to use the call-to-authority argument then other people should have the right to investigate your credentials. As important as that is, I personally am not concerned with that though. I'm just trying to understand the man that instigates so much polemic. You really do have a knack for hullabaloo. You are a bit of an enigma to me and I'd like to understand Borodog, the leader of the anarchocapitalists.



*Note to other 2p2'ers: The only reason why I posted a real name is because Borodog has posted his name not only on this forum but in his public profile. Click on his user name to see for yourself. He has also posted a picture of his degree hanging on his wall. If somebody desires privacy and behaves in a manner indicating such then the members of this forum should respect that privacy.

[Arp220]

[ QUOTE ]

I have a quick question about Hubble since we have an expert here. I've heard a decent amount of quality science has come from amateurs using Hubble to do research. Is this true? I'd love to know what kind of contributions amateurs are making.

[/ QUOTE ]

It is true, though it's usually only in certain fields. The most common area where amateurs and professionals interact is in searching for supernovae, asteroids, comets and other such 'transient' events. This can be done in two ways: (1) an amateur with their own scope and CCD and computer (you really do'nt need a big telescope to find supernovae or other transients, an ~8 inch or better does just fine), and/or (2) using archival data.

In both cases you get an image of the same patch of sky taken at different times (for the archival work, you'd go to the data archives of a given telescope, download an image of the same patch of sky taken at different times, and look for things that are there in one image but not in the other.

This can be done with HST, as HST has taken a huge amount of data, and all HST data is publicly available. Anyone can download it for free, from:

http://archive.stsci.edu/hst/search.php

Amateur participation in other areas does happen, but is much rarer.

If you're interested, I can put you in touch with people who do this kind of thing (its not really my field though).

[thylacine]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Drive to Goddard Space Flight Center and ask them if you don't believe me. I doubt opinions have changed much in the 11 years since I was there.

[/ QUOTE ]

Borodog, I'd really like to know some details about your previous work. You have frequently used the 'call to authority' tactic to justify your arguments. In the Environmental Hysteria (anti-global warming) thread you accused the entire discipline of climate science of fraud by saying:

[ QUOTE ]
This is exactly the case in the environmental sciences. This is not an idle claim. I am an academic. I have written grant proposals. We spin them, to portray our work in the best light possible, to make it seem as important as we possibly can, because we are competing for limited grant dollars. I worked as a strategic planner the EPA.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yet at the same time you copied and pasted the index of a 200 level economics book discussing basic linear algebra and called it "mathematical dynamo" Ph.D. material. You've also been corrected on material in your own field of Astrophysics on more than one occasion by more than one person. Now there is this thread which is a poorly supported attack on one of the most important tools of your own discipline.

Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone deserves some grace. But at this point I'm very curious as to what kind of work you've done in the past. What papers you've written, etc. I have no doubt you studied physics. The name you posted on 2p2, Michael Owen*, does pop up on a NC state website:

http://www.pams.ncsu.edu/news/focus_feb2003.php

And I'm sure you have a Ph.D. as well. But if you are going to use the call-to-authority argument then other people should have the right to investigate your credentials. As important as that is, I personally am not concerned with that though. I'm just trying to understand the man that instigates so much polemic. You really do have a knack for hullabaloo. You are a bit of an enigma to me and I'd like to understand Borodog, the leader of the anarchocapitalists.



*Note to other 2p2'ers: The only reason why I posted a real name is because Borodog has posted his name not only on this forum but in his public profile. Click on his user name to see for yourself. He has also posted a picture of his degree hanging on his wall. If somebody desires privacy and behaves in a manner indicating such then the members of this forum should respect that privacy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Bump. I'm curious.

[Arp220]

I'm willing to bet you won't get an answer.

[Borodog]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Drive to Goddard Space Flight Center and ask them if you don't believe me. I doubt opinions have changed much in the 11 years since I was there.

[/ QUOTE ]

Borodog, I'd really like to know some details about your previous work. You have frequently used the 'call to authority' tactic to justify your arguments. In the Environmental Hysteria (anti-global warming) thread you accused the entire discipline of climate science of fraud by saying:

[ QUOTE ]
This is exactly the case in the environmental sciences. This is not an idle claim. I am an academic. I have written grant proposals. We spin them, to portray our work in the best light possible, to make it seem as important as we possibly can, because we are competing for limited grant dollars. I worked as a strategic planner the EPA.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yet at the same time you copied and pasted the index of a 200 level economics book discussing basic linear algebra and called it "mathematical dynamo" Ph.D. material. You've also been corrected on material in your own field of Astrophysics on more than one occasion by more than one person. Now there is this thread which is a poorly supported attack on one of the most important tools of your own discipline.

Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone deserves some grace. But at this point I'm very curious as to what kind of work you've done in the past. What papers you've written, etc. I have no doubt you studied physics. The name you posted on 2p2, Michael Owen*, does pop up on a NC state website:

http://www.pams.ncsu.edu/news/focus_feb2003.php

And I'm sure you have a Ph.D. as well. But if you are going to use the call-to-authority argument then other people should have the right to investigate your credentials. As important as that is, I personally am not concerned with that though. I'm just trying to understand the man that instigates so much polemic. You really do have a knack for hullabaloo. You are a bit of an enigma to me and I'd like to understand Borodog, the leader of the anarchocapitalists.



*Note to other 2p2'ers: The only reason why I posted a real name is because Borodog has posted his name not only on this forum but in his public profile. Click on his user name to see for yourself. He has also posted a picture of his degree hanging on his wall. If somebody desires privacy and behaves in a manner indicating such then the members of this forum should respect that privacy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Someone just pointed me to this. This is pretty funny.

A) I didn't accuse the entire field of climate science of fraud. In fact, I specifically said that they specifically weren't committing any kind of fraud at all, and provided a mechanism whereby I was still skeptical of the general consensus, an argument which is still unrefuted.

B) My field is not economics by training. Hence my confusion of the level at which an economics text is pitched cannot be construed as some nefarious deception.

C) "Astrophysics" is a huge field, encompassing practically every discipline within physics. My discipline within it, computational fluid dynamics simulation of mass transfer in binary stars, is a very specialized piece of it. While I am willing to offer my opinions about the field in general, I am also more than willing to accept corrections from those who are more knowledgeable than I about the specific subject at hand, as my record shows.

D) My opinions on the Hubble Space Telescope being (a) not the best use of taxpayer dollars in terms of potential science that could have been produced, ragardless of the quantity and quality of actual science that actually was produced, and (b) the result of political decisions to tie the space telescope to the shuttle program, were informed by my personal communications with scientists at the Goddard Space Flight Center when I was there 11 years for their High Performance Computation and Communications program. They seemed to know what they were talking about. Nothing that my attacker has stated in this thread has contradicted them. But hey, what do they know?

E) I've already stated (I believe in at least two threads, the Am I a Hypocrite thread, and the Personal Dilemma thread in EDGF) that my publication record is sparse, because I left academia around 1999, only returned to complete my Ph.D. in 2002-2003, and have only held lecture, and not research, positions for the past 4 years. While I suppose that makes it relatively safe to attack me on my publication history, I don't see how it scores you any new points.

F) I find your insinuations that I don't have a Ph.D. equal parts hilarious and pathetic.









My dissertation:
http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/theses/avail...ricted/etd.pdf

The last paper I co-authored (December, 2000):
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/p.../0012494v1.pdf

Accretion disk formation is LMC X-4, simulated by me:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=YiGIC-FXOHw

Accretion disk formation in LMC X-4, simulated by me:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=xWs3Phvs-C4

Spiral shock formation in accretion disks and the onset of the vertical ram pressure instability (discovered by me) simulated by me:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Pi8geux4evE

Astronomy Picture of the Day, from my dissertation research while completing my nonexistent Ph.D. in 2002:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020927.html

Unfortunately there is no preprint yet of the paper I have coming out this fall on applications of bispherical geometry grids to astrophysical simulation.

I summarily concede this argument, to both of you. Have a nice life.

[wacki]

Borodog,

In your response you said:

[ QUOTE ]
F) I find your insinuations that I don't have a Ph.D. equal parts hilarious and pathetic.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yet at the same time you replied to and even quoted the following text I wrote:

[ QUOTE ]
And I'm sure you have a Ph.D. as well. But if you are going to use the call-to-authority argument then other people should have the right to investigate your credentials. As important as that is, I personally am not concerned with that though. I'm just trying to understand the man that instigates so much polemic. You really do have a knack for hullabaloo. You are a bit of an enigma to me and I'd like to understand Borodog, the leader of the anarchocapitalists.



*Note to other 2p2'ers: The only reason why I posted a real name is because Borodog has posted his name not only on this forum but in his public profile. Click on his user name to see for yourself. He has also posted a picture of his degree hanging on his wall. If somebody desires privacy and behaves in a manner indicating such then the members of this forum should respect that privacy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thank you for confirming what I have already acknowledged. Although calling me "pathetic" for making accusations that I did not make (and specifically noted I was not making) is a little harsh. Calm down and reread what I wrote again. Also, I was already aware of that specific paper which you were last author.


In the environmental hysteria thread you said you had written grant proposals. In this thread you talked about working for/at NASA and being a strategic planner for the EPA. It is those glorious moments that I was interested in. And it is glorious moments like that that give you the ability to use the call-to-authority tactics you seem to love. And it is those glorious moments that give us insight into the mind of borodog.

Ok gotta go to bed. I wish you well Borodog!

[Borodog]

Conceded.

Edit: Also, I did strategic planning for the EPA's National Environmental Supercomputing Center, now the Environmental Modeling and Visualization Laboratory at their National Computing Center, as well as technical analysis for their Office of Research and Development, when I worked for SRA International, one of two industry jobs I held before I went back to complete my Ph.D. The grant proposals I wrote were when I was a grad student in the mid to late 90s. I wrote an NSF grant proposal earlier this year to fund my development of an overset grid binary mass transfer code, but scrapped it when I decided that I didn't want to take the money. I'm working on that code in my spare time.