State of the Onion
Development of the Tor Browser
On Monday November 16, 2020 there is a State of the Onion: Tor & Community Updates from 2020 event.
Join us for the (virtual) State of the Onion at on Nov 16, 2020 @ 16:00 – 18:00 UTC.*
Paul Sutton – personal blog
State of the Onion
Development of the Tor Browser
On Monday November 16, 2020 there is a State of the Onion: Tor & Community Updates from 2020 event.
Join us for the (virtual) State of the Onion at on Nov 16, 2020 @ 16:00 – 18:00 UTC.*
Astronify Review
Just watched the latest Space Telescope Science Institute lecture, mentioned in a blog post from 10/11/2020
The full lecture title was
Hearing The Light: How Sonification Deepens our Understanding of the Cosmos and Makes Astronomy More Accessible
This talk was really interesting, it covered how data from astronomy can be presented in an audible way, rather than as a graph on a screen or paper for example.
Why would this be important ?
Well, for most people, visual data can be seen by the eyes, if you are blind or partially sited, this this data is in accessible to you.
One of the examples given is the light curve from a star transit, this may look as follows
------ --------
| |
| |
| |
--------------
So this, would illustrate, how the light from a star, drops when a planet passes in front of the host star.
If we were to express this audibly then the curve would start off as one tone then drop to a lower tone and go back up to the original higher tone.
This makes astronomy more accessible. It is also another way to represent data from Kepler and TESS telescopes.
The lecture explains this far better, but from the Q/A session we learn that this can be found in every day life.
The lecture emphasises that sonification is not about recording existing sound we could hear. So a microphone under water to record sound from sea life is NOT Sonification, however I think they suggested that turning non audible sound to audible sound IS an example, Other given examples, included star flares, which again can be represented. Once you know what to listen for, it helps us confirm the data further.
The team has a website at https://astronify.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ but I would recommend watching the video first.
#astronomy,#stsci,#data,#audio,#sonification,#presentation,#Astronify
Astrobiology course 4
So following on from previous post I have been watching the lecture on Where to look for life in the solar system presented by Dr Jennifer Blank.
Really interesting and in fact this builds on the course undertaken as part of my Certificate in Contemporary Science course. S186 : Planets and introduction.
So lots of moons around Jupiter that seem to have sub surface water, but importantly thank to Tidal Heating this could be liquid water under the surface.
So Io, Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa, are interesting but given between Jupiter and Saturn there are over 100 moons. There are lots of interesting moons out there, some with very interesting molecules that include organics.
Astronify
Tuesday 10th November
Location: Online Attendance Only Time: 8:00 PM – 9:30 PM
So following on from Septembers lecture, the Space telescope science institute present their next lecture.
You can find more upcoming (monthly) lectures below.
http://www.stsci.edu/public-lectures
Link to last months video lecture and a review of the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope lecture
Astrobiology course 3
So following on from Astrobiology course 2 the section on Rise of life (video 4) had quite a lot of biochemistry, including look at the nucleobases that make up RNA & DNA
RNA Nucleobases
RiboNucleic Acid
DNA Nucleobases
Deoxyribo nucleic Acid
So in essence here there are only 5
The links point to wikipedia, which is NOT a academic source of information.
#AstroBiology,#Nucleobases,#Cytosine.#Guanine.#Adenine, Thymine,#Uracil
Debian Developer update 8/11/2020
Freeze is near, prepare for it ==============================
On 12 January 2021 we're hitting the first milestone of the bullseye release: the Transition and (build-)essentials Freeze. If you made plans for the bullseye release, now is the time to evaluate if it's realistic to go ahead or if time is running too short. Remember you always have experimental to stage changes. If there is a unfixed bug that is nagging you, remember to fix it (e.g. via an NMU) now rather than later.
When the Transition and (build-)essentials Freeze starts, we'll be expecting maintainers to not start new transitions, and to avoid large and/or disruptive changes in their uploads. Maintainers of packages that are part of (build-)essentials are expected to stop uploading these packages, or in case something is really needed to align with us before uploading.
Please consult the bullseye freeze policy and timeline [BULLSEYE-FREEZE] for detailed information about the different types of freezes and what they mean for you.
[BULLSEYE-FREEZE] https://release.debian.org/bullseye/freeze_policy.html
Help fixing bugs ================
We know that many people would like short freezes (we do as well). We can achieve this if we all pull up our sleeves and fix RC bugs in testing before the transition freeze starts (or help remove packages with RC bugs from testing). You can do that now, by looking at the list of RC bugs BUGS or joining the #debian-bugs irc channel on irc.oftc.net.
Bug Squashing Parties =====================
Normally we would now encourage you to join one of the planned Bug Squashing Parties BSP. However, due to Covid-19, that page doesn't list any yet. So, we are seeking volunteers to (help) organize those, as in most places the traditional strategy won't work HOSTINGBSP. At first sight, having some jisti rooms available at blocked times based on topic or language might be pretty much all that's needed. To lower the bar to step up, we'll be organizing a brainstorm meeting JITSIMEETING on Saturday 14 November 19:30 UTC.
Debian 13 =========
The release team has decided that the release after bullseye and bookworm will be called “trixie”.
Cheaper to prevent pandemics than 'cure' them -
note: This article contains my personal thoughts on the topics presented, I would, of course, welcome open discussion on this.
This is another interesting BBC news article, raises some interesting points on how humans interact with wildlife.
I would guess it also highlights we need to also provide clean, running water to everyone on the planet, in a way that is, of course sustainable.
In another news article, again from the BBC, Denmark are in the process of culling mink, this was after it was found there is a mutated covid strain that could be passed on to humans.
Perhaps the solution to all this is very simple, and will push for clean water for washing, cooking etc. But also access to alcohol handwash in all places that handle animals,including fish. Ultimatlythere are calls to eat less meats anyway, especially beef,due to the climate impact alone.
We need to do something, so this could make a really interesting field of research, incorporating many disciplines it may mean ending some industries, so that will need retraining.
I would guess, if we are going to produce more alcohol based hand gels we need to ensure that there are no implications of or risks of this getting in to water streams.
Astrobiology course 2
So further to previous post I have now watched the course orientation. This has provided an excellent introduction and overview to the course, and the staff who are presenting the course, along with the Teaching assistant who will be assisting learners.
So will now just go through the remaining videos for the course and learn some astrobiology, which should be interesting.
Enigmatic fast radio burst pinned on magnetised dead star
This is an interesting development, astronomers have found something they have been spending years searching for. Not sure where these stars appear on the The Hertzsprung-Russell diagram.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-54815687
The paper for this can be found on Physics World. Reported on IOPScience on 4th November 2020.
Currently discussing on a OU Science forum.
#bbc,#news,#science,#fsb,#space,#astronomy,#physics,#astrophysics.
Particle Physics course review
I have now completed the 5 hour Particle Physics course which is part of OpenLearn from The Open University.
If you have followed other Open University courses such as How the Universe works (S197), then you will be familiar with some of the material. This particular is adapted from SM123 Physics and space.
In which case the course is not too complex, however you need to go in to this with an open mind. You should be familiar with the idea of Protons, Neutrons and electrons in the context of atomic structure. This course goes one step beyond that and looks at the particles and forces that make up these fundamental particle.
The course starts off with introduction with mentions of particles such as electrons, photons, electron Neutrinos. The course then moves on to discuss leptons which are part of the standard model of particle physics so there for discusses electrons, neutrinos, tau and muons in more details and how these are related.
After this, you look at Quarks and Hadrons, which are the fundamental particles that make up Protons and Neutrons of which there are 6 different types, along side their anti-matter counterparts, you then look at what makes up these matter and anti matter particles, with a closer look at Hadrons, anti-Baryons and Mesons, along with their respective charge levels.
There is an interactive activity at this point which asks you to work out the charge range of different hadrons by randomly selecting different quarks, e.g uud, udc, uds for example. So a knowledge of adding up fractions comes in useful (as chargers are expressed as fractions)
After which you move on to High energy reactions, and learn about the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, again there is an activity to have a go at as part of this.
You then look at strong interactions between particles, this also looks at types of decay (beta) then you look at weak interactions. After which there is a look at W and Z Bosons, after which there is a conclusion.
In all this is a really good introduction to the topic, updates you knowledge from courses that may have been completed several years ago. To show the speed of development, I completed my Certificate in Contemporary Science back in 2012, at the time S197 course, still cited the Higgs Boson as theoretical, since then we have proved it exists and not only that discovered it decays.
This course is a level 1, Open University introductory course, I think this is equivalent to Level 4.
Worth taking a look at if you are interested in Physics and how everything interacts together, just take your time to absorb what is being presented.
You may find the WikiPedia diagram useful too
I have a newer version of this that shows the anti matter counterparts, but you can find this by doing a search on the internet, as there are several versions.
Rating 5/5
Notes:
Updated 6/11/2020 – to include direct reference to SM123 Physics and space.