Skip to main content

Error message

By
Sometimes astronomy is exciting. You go out, use a gigantic telescope to collect light from a distant star so far away that the light left in like 1700AD. You sit down at your computer and use that light, in the form of a digitally-recorded image, to measure the movement of the star and notice that the star's velocity is changing in a very predictable pattern. Then you get to use that pattern to divine the existence of a planet orbiting a distant sun. You found a planet, a world, another place in the Galaxy! That might be someone's Jupiter that they look up and see in their night sky. Perhaps some alien got excommunicated from their alien church for proposing that their Jupiter orbited their sun, rather than their home planet. Maybe that world you detected from your night of observing inspires poetry and songs among an alien people.

Other times astronomy is less exciting and much more...um...what's the word? Buggy. For example, today I got the following error message:

Ionization (call_external): EOS_list_species - this error should never happen

No other information was given. No advice. No helpful suggestions. Just the fact that whatever happened should never have happened. Ever. Then the program died gracefully, leaving me wondering where it all went so wrong.

Science!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A view from your shut down

By
The Daily Dish has been posting reader emails reporting on their " view from the shutdown ." If you think this doesn't affect you, or if you know all too well how bad this is, take a look at the growing collection of poignant stories. No one is in this alone except for the nutjobs in the House. I decided to email Andrew with my own view. I plan to send a similar letter to my congressperson. Dear Andrew, I am a professor of astronomy at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). The CfA houses one of the largest, if not the largest collection of PhD astronomers in the United States, with over 300 professional astronomers and roughly 100 doctoral and predoctoral students on a small campus a few blocks west of Harvard Yard. Under the umbrella of the CfA are about 20 Harvard astronomy professors, and 50 tenure-track Smithsonian researchers. A large fraction of the latter are civil servants currently on furlough and unable to come to work. In total, 147 FTEs
Post a Comment
Read more

back-talk begins

By
me: "owen, come here. it's time to get a new diaper" him, sprinting down the hall with no pants on: "forget about it!" he's quoting benny the rabbit, a short-lived sesame street character who happens to be in his favorite "count with me" video. i'm turning my head, trying not to let him see me laugh, because his use and tone with the phrase are so spot-on.
4 comments
Read more

The Long Con

By
Hiding in Plain Sight ESPN has a series of sports documentaries called 30 For 30. One of my favorites is called Broke  which is about how professional athletes often make tens of millions of dollars in their careers yet retire with nothing. One of the major "leaks" turns out to be con artists, who lure athletes into elaborate real estate schemes or business ventures. This naturally raises the question: In a tightly-knit social structure that is a sports team, how can con artists operate so effectively and extensively? The answer is quite simple: very few people taken in by con artists ever tell anyone what happened. Thus, con artists can operate out in the open with little fear of consequences because they are shielded by the collective silence of their victims. I can empathize with this. I've lost money in two different con schemes. One was when I was in college, and I received a phone call that I had won an all-expenses-paid trip to the Bahamas. All I needed to d
8 comments
Read more