Sister blog of Physicists of the Caribbean. Shorter, more focused posts specialising in astronomy and data visualisation.

Wednesday 27 September 2017

ALMA All-Hands 2017

Last year's ALMA all-hands meeting was in Lisbon and the conference freebie was a USB fan. This year it's in the Netherlands and we get an umbrella, a coaster and some waffles. Plus I won a free drink by getting all the quiz answers deliberately wrong :

Expand the following acronyms :
AQUA : ALMA QUality Alcohol (actually ALMA QUality Assurance)
APA : Annoyingly Precise Acronym (actually AQUA Pipeline Agent)
DRM : Dangerous Robotic Monkey (actually Data Reduction Manager)
OSF : Observatory Supports Farmyards (I would have gone for "fornication" but wasn't sure how the crowd would react; actually Observing Support Facility)
DARED : Deadly ALMA Really Extreme Database (actually... nope, I've already forgotten)
DPTT : Don't Produce This Tool (see above).


Friday 8 September 2017

Dramatic instructions

I'm reviewing a paper for the first time. One of the instructions is a tad dramatic for my liking :

7. If qualified historians wish to use your report, we will ask you or your heirs. If you wish us to destroy your report, then please inform us.

The ultimate in flattening the curve

It just refuses to go down... Well, I'd play the innuendo card with this paper , at any rate.  Galaxy rotation curves are typically desc...