Let's take a Break

What a difference a day can make. I have decided that taking a month off thesis stuff is what will make me more sane. No talking, thinking, or doing PhD thingys. Also realizing that graduating in Spring isn't so bad. I will do it before I am 30 at least. So this blog has now reverted back to "Just for Fun". We will talk about my thesis at the end of June but till then.......

Did you hear about the synthetic life? Sounds like robots to me.

11 weeks to & A BREAK DOWN

Hi,

I kind of suffered a break down this week. My body is telling me "no more". Or that is at least what the doctor said. I have headaches that won't go away and major fatigue. I don't know how much more I can take. She said something has to go..the job or the thesis. I am very worried. I did send in 6 pages of one chapter to my advisor though so I am technically on schedule. I am sorry to be a downer but I just feel like crap. Don't worry though, I still have robot gossip for you.

Robot Talk:

I take back everything I said about Robots in Space! I didn't know our astronauts would have to hitch rides with other countries and we would NEVER have any transportation of our own in the near future. That is lame. We aren't moochers....at least I don't want us to be. (I am kind of a food moocher)

So I was wrong. If this new Obama plan makes our astronauts "Space Hitchhikers" (even though that is a cool name), I want no part of it.

What do you think?

12 weeks to go & Taser Robots

Taser Robots?! Yes, that is how we will start this week. The link will explain.

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/308073/april-27-2010/current-events---taser-armed-robots---meth-sheep

It is a little long but damn funny!

Week 12:

I have sent my advisor a schedule (that I can share will you, my loyal followers) and wrote a couple more pages of the chapter. I must adhere to the schedule or All Is Lost! These dates are when I send my advisor rough drafts of each chapter.

May 17th -- Intro to Shapley Supercluster & Data Reduction

May 31st -- NGC1533

June 14th -- Introduction

July 12th -- Data Analysis for 10 Galaxies

July 26th -- ESO325-G004

August 7th -- Total Rough Draft with brief conclusion and future work

13 weeks to go and Living Armor = Magic Robots!

13 weeks to go and I didn't get as much done as I should have last week! I need to get my ass in gear. I mean, I was even putting off this post since, my ambitious 15 page goal turned into 4 pages.......I couldn't even get to 5 pages yesterday so it would be a multiple of my initial goal. That is how nerdy and lazy I am. I am currently watching "Roman Holiday" to relax. Now, on to the Robots and achievable goals.

Living Armor = Magic Robots

I am taking this week to bring attention to a cross roads of two nerd genres, Robots and the fantasy realm. My husband pointed out that my 1.5 year old (who loves Robots....she makes a mother proud) pointed at a knight in a cartoon and said "bot bot", her word for robot. This made him say "I know what you should do your post on this week." We, as adults, know the difference between Robots and Knights in Shining Armor but I can see how she was confused. If anyone has watched more than one Anime, there is a lot of magic infused armor sometimes called "Living Armor." Also, I know some of you love D&D (ok, maybe just me), and to get some sort of technology, you use magic. To get Robots (or constructs), you use spells. I just find it hilarious that even when people write about a world with no electricity, they still need/crave Robots. I guess we all love them.

Can you think of any other examples of Robots minus technology......Steampunk maybe?

Thesis....week 13!!!!

Ok, so 15 pages was a bit unrealistic (well, it still could be with figures). I still need to do some data analysis and write the rest of this chapter. Here is the plan:

Step 1: Find distances of galaxy clusters to get better turnover magnitudes. Once we do this we can get a better number of GCs (using corrected N = number from data file).

Step 2: Merge final from previous project with this project.

Step 3: Write more and finish a rough draft of this chapter!!! (fill in the blanks with info from papers you should be reading) DO IT!

Thanks for all of your help.

14 weeks to go & A Robot Inventing Farmer!!!

Hello Everyone,

Thanks again for being so supportive and here are the updates and Robot gossip.

Robot Gossip:

So my sister told me a story about a Farmer who has no formal education making robots in China. He has made almost 50 that can do things from just walk to pour tea. Here is a short video of him from this year.

http://shanghaiist.com/2010/04/21/robot-farmer-shanghai-expo.php

He is my hero! I mean I do have formal education in physics and have actually taken electronic courses but don't have the balls to make a robot. Maybe I should. If you are really interested in him, watch this next link that was done in 2007. It is nice to see how much he has grown in his craft and how much more recognition he is getting.

http://gizmodo.com/287492/mr-woo-the-chinese-robot-farmer

Stay for the end of the video.....it is pretty cute.

Last Week's Progress and Next's Weeks Expectations:

So, I did get those distances and wrote 2 programs to get me a total number of GCs (Globular Clusters). I felt great because I also wrote 2 pages of one of my thesis chapters. Thanks to my lovely sister and her boyfriend, for taking me in all weekend and playing with my kid, I got a lot of work done.

Next week I hope to finish a rough draft of this chapter. My goal is around 15 pages. I think that is going to be really, really difficult but still doable. Please, cheer me on.

15 weeks to Rough Draft a PhD thesis & Burning Robot Questions!!!

Hi Loyal Followers,

I am posting this as motivation and a cry for help. I want/need to write a rough draft of my PhD thesis by August 7th. If I announce it here, I think I will be held accountable. You, my wonderful geek brethren, can help me by words of encouragement and possibly advice. However, it won't be all, boring posts about globular clusters (GCs), galaxy profiles, and data reduction; I will also post, EACH WEEK, a fun fact or controversial robot question to satisfy your nerd needs.

Robot Question:

What makes a robot? Is Data from Next Generation a robot or an android? Is an android just a subset of robot? Does a robot need to be in a humanoid form (2 legs, 2 arms, head..etc) so are those machines on a assembly line not robots?

Week 1 - Get Distances & Find Total Number of GCs:

I need to collect distances to 11 galaxies in the Shapley Super Cluster and use those distances to get a Globular Cluster Luminosity Function (GCLF) and to find the total number of Globular Clusters (GCs) surrounding each. I need to figure out 'Specific Frequency'. This section is more for me....holding me accountable. Don't worry if you don't understand anything...I am having trouble too. However, if you totally know what I am saying, send me a comment and help me out.

ROBOTS IN SPACE!!!!

So if you are a dork like me, you may has been paying attention to the "Obama's new Space Program" news. Well, it does relate to a couple of my favorite things, robots and space (which is what my research is about). There are a lot of people that are mad that President Obama would favor Robots in space over going to the moon, again, with people. What most people don't understand is that traveling in space is dangerous. Not only does bad stuff happen in the launch but there is radiation, bone and muscle loss. I mean, I know that sending humans in space is exciting but we just don't have the technology right now for a safe flight to Mars. Click on the link to read about the radiation dangers.
http://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/2122/how-safe-is-travel-to-mars

Also most people don't even know that we have something called "The International Space Station (ISS)" where astronauts from all over the world do experiments (switch out people every few months). They are helping medical science and doing work to better understand how humans will react to a long space mission...maybe to Mars. However, it takes time to figure out ways to correct the affects of long term space travel. The one cool thing is that we are sending up Robots..ROBOTS..to the Space Station to help with the experiments. Check out how human it looks. He looks buff (picture and link included)
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=30604

My point it: I would love to send humans in space (and by the way we are sending them to Live In Space on the ISS), but I do not want a premature Mars mission where everyone gets cancer and has a hard time getting back and I also do not want to go back to the Moon, just for the hell of it. If we were building an amusement park there like Futurama, then that would be another story.

What do you think? Do you think Obama made the right decision?