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What I did on my Summer Vacation, part I
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OK, not a vacation in the true sense of the word: I’ve been in the US, attending meetings (in Berkeley), workshops (in Santa Fe), conferences (in Pasadena) and, because I can’t seem to escape them, teleconferences everywhere and all the time. Berkeley In Berkeley, I attended the first all-hands collaboration meeting for PolarBear, an experiment…
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STFC Endgame
Thanks to Dave for pointing out that the final results of the STFC programmatic review sweepstakes popularity contest consultation exercise have been released. Following on from the recommendations, which grouped all projects into five projects, the STFC Council has decided where and how the money will flow. The best news overall is that only the…
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STFC Consultation results
No time for a full blog post, but I wanted to point out the results of the STFC Consultation, now available. Some of my favorite projects like AstroGrid seem to have not fared too well (the consultation panel rated it highly, but PPAN, responsible for the final ranks, disagreed). Nonetheless, Imperial Astrophysics projects like Planck,…
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Gruber Cosmology Prize 2008: Dick Bond
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Dick Bond, a friend, mentor and longtime collaborator has won the 2008 Gruber Cosmology prize. Dick’s work has been instrumental at bringing us into this age of “precision cosmology”. He has always concentrated on that interface between theory and observation, making predictions for what we would see in the Cosmic Microwave Background, and how we…
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Euphemisation
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From the New York Times. Pick one: Bush “overstated evidence” “exaggerated available intelligence” “systematically painted a more dire picture… than was justified” lied about Iraq before the invasion. Bonus points for what that implies about Tony Blair and the UK Government.
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Who Put the Pomp?
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I’ve been busy the last few weeks, writing documents for the Planck SGS RR, grant proposals, getting ready for the exam season, and (I know I can’t complain), travelling to the Aegean. But this afternoon I took a few hours off and attended the Imperial College postgraduate degree ceremony. In and amongst the several hundred…
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IUSS vs STFC
Today’s obligatory pointer to the latest on the ongoing UK physics-funding crisis: the “Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills” committee has released a pretty scathing report, mostly slamming STFC’s handling of the situation (and refuting most of its arguments for how it got us into this mess to begin with). The BBC’s Today show had interviews…
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Invitations
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Over the last few weeks, I’ve managed to get hold of invitations to a few semi-private (semi-public?) beta versions of interesting bits of software. OK, they’re not for Royal Ascot or even a posh dinner party, but I have to take what I can get. So be prepared for some serious geekery — sorry. Evernote…
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New Planck HFI Logo
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This is the new logo for the Planck Surveyor satellite’s High-Frequency Instrument (HFI). I kind of like the retro 60s hand-drawn feel (or is it Le Petit Prince?) but the juxtaposition of typefaces on the bottom is awful (and “Planck” should probably be more important than “HFI”).
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Science, Blogs, Web III: Science Blogging Conference
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In its continuing bid to take over all aspects of science communication, Nature magazine (or more properly, an alliance between Nature Network and the Royal Institution) will be hosting a European Science Blogging conference in August or September. Right now, however, I’m in Norway. In addition to discussing how we’re going to measure the CMB…