Oblate Spheroid

I’m in the middle of writing a grant proposal: hashing out user fees, equipment and supply costs, student stipends, etc… I’m half-seriously thinking about stocking my lab with surplus equipment bought at auctions.

OK, not really. “Runs great” is NOT a wonderful endorsement for a sensitive lab instrument.

I love this plot. It may or may not show up in a paper I’m writing for submission to Geology on some of my PhD thesis samples. In any case, I hope to spend the next few posts explaining why it’s so cool.

Just finished a Cutting Edge workshop: Early Career Geoscience Faculty: Teaching, Research, and Managing Your Career. I found the workshop fascinating and extraordinarily useful. Of course, I suppose the final verdict really awaits the next round of NSF funding. In any case, I highly recommend the workshop to new faculty in the geosciences (loosely defined [...]

From Wired (boldface is mine):
Various blogs claim receiving tips from informed sources about features in the highly anticipated handset, such as a magnetometer (digital compass), a video camera and a speedier processor.
Sweet! I can’t wait for paleomagnetism to get in on the citizen science action (à la Quake Catcher Network).

Family responsibilities and other craziness have forced me to put off my Wednesday post on research… look for more on the magnetic field next week, same bat-time, same bat-channel.

Since it’s Wednesday, here’s something research-related. Here’s the number one question that most people ask me when I tell people my field of study: Is the Earth’s magnetic field going to reverse? And if it is, are we doomed? I figure, since a lot of people ask me this, they must be interested. And since [...]

There’s nothing like obsessively posting to Facebook to get a guy into blogging. My friends on the Big Blue Time Sink know that I post links more or less daily, mostly out of pure nerdy silliness. Once in a while there’s something substantial that merits further commentary, though. I kept wishing I had a slightly [...]