@astronomerritt@hachyderm.io
@astronomerritt@hachyderm.io avatar

astronomerritt

@astronomerritt@hachyderm.io

ADHD astronomer doing postdoc things at Queen's University Belfast. Interested in exoplanet atmospheres and distant solar system bodies, but mostly I write open-source research software and do very little science. Good at Python for an astronomer (bad at Python).

Outside of work: part-time k-pop stan, full-time queer nuisance. Also reading good novels, writing bad novels, gaming, cross-stitching, and accumulating new hobbies.

Opinions mine, not my employer's. I'm much cooler.

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bibianaprinoth, to random

@JuliaVSeidel High-res / SNR observations allow resolving sub-features! So instead of taking the whole transit now, we can also just take parts of it and resolve it in time. If you do that, you see that the sub feature comes from egress suggesting dynamics in the form of an equatorial jet. So what those ingress show us?

Does it confirm the jet, suggest radial winds or is it a global day to nightside wind? We‘ll friends, I am not allowed to share it with you. Stay tuned! 🤫🚫

image/png
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astronomerritt,
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@bibianaprinoth hey, before I forget: thank you SO much for all these summaries, I've really appreciated them!! kind of bittersweet to see so many faces I miss from exoplanets but also very exciting to see what everyone is up to 😊

elizabethtasker, to vr
@elizabethtasker@mastodon.online avatar

"Riven" (the sequel to Myst) is coming to #VR!

The beginning of Myst drops you on an island with... absolutely... zero instructions. While that can be a frustrating start for the uninitiated, it felt incredibly realistic with the headset where game play details can ruin (a little) the immersion.

So, super excited! There's also an updated version for the computer (presumably with free movement) for keyboard warriors.

https://cyan.com/2024/03/19/a-classic-reimagined-riven-set-for-2024-release-for-flatscreen-and-vr-platforms/

astronomerritt,
@astronomerritt@hachyderm.io avatar

@elizabethtasker YES!! So excited for this - I know Myst back to front so I didn't bother getting it for my headset, but I never completed Riven.

astronomerritt, to random
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You know, say what you want about TikTok, but unlike other short-form video content providers (for example, YouTube Shorts 😶) it never fucking jumpscares me with Ben Shapiro in the middle of a bunch of innocuous videos about videogames and k-pop.

astronomerritt,
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I don't know what it is about YouTube's algorithms that makes it think I'm interested in watching some alt-right weirdo "own the left" but I'd quite like it to stop.

I don't even watch short videos often. I have ADHD, the last thing I need is to hook myself up to the dopamine drip-feeder. I'm making healthy decisions, damn it.

astronomerritt, to random
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It's spring in Northern Ireland, which means we start to get PSAs on the telly about how you should never turn your back on a cow.

https://youtu.be/gfqlrV_gJ34?si=NCgWzisfYlvXooDr

astronomerritt, to writing
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If I were to offer one of my novels for free, online, as a serial, where is the best place for that? Should I just make a blog?

I'm not interested in publishing it, really. I don't need or want to make money from it. I don't even want a big readership. I just think it might be nice to have a couple folk read it.

(Also let me know if you'd give it a look. It's a murder mystery/crime procedural set in a post-industrial fantasy world. Queer main characters.)

astronomerritt,
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@passenger aw thank you! it's a niche genre mashup so I don't expect many people to be interested 😅

astronomerritt, to random
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Just been informed that my entire kitchen has to be dismantled and the floor pulled up to solve my flat's ongoing plumbing issues.

So the boiler is not, in fact, cursed.

The PIPES are cursed.

And they're much more difficult to exorcise.

astronomerritt, to random
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Academia is full of the neurodivergent, both diagnosed and undiagnosed, and also folk who are just a bit obsessive about stuff.

So you can do pretty well socially by just learning what everyone's special interest is and asking them about it when you see them.

"Anastasia! Built any good model planes recently?"

"Hi Trevor, how's the bike?"

You may not escape the conversation for a good half hour but you'll probably learn something!

(examples made up so as not to expose my colleagues)

astronomerritt, to random
@astronomerritt@hachyderm.io avatar

I enjoy that one of the problems we're dealing with in our survey simulator (which simulates the results of an astronomical survey of solar system objects) is "what if one of the simulated planetoids collides with the Earth? we should probably remove it from the simulation, right?"

Perhaps we should check the size of the planetoid to see whether the telescope (and human civilisation) still exists, and if not, end the simulation...

astronomerritt,
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I kind of want to write this as an Easter egg. Add something to the log. "Object <id> collided with the Earth. Simulation ended due to presumed destruction of survey telescope and collapse of global civilisation."

(I won't do this, it would be very annoying for users, but still...)

astronomerritt,
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@passenger 😆 excellent point. I mean, there isn't actually anything to stop a user from running very, very large objects through the simulator....

(...as long as they don't expect it to be correct, because we don't model the gravitational effects of the simulated planetoids themselves. 😅 )

astronomerritt,
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@passenger We don't track object mass at all, only brightness (which is a rough proxy for diameter if you know how far away it is).

The maths for the second part is probably pretty easy to figure out for someone who isn't me...

astronomerritt,
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@passenger Thank you!! I'm proud of our work. There's actually going to be six papers this year on our survey simulator, I think 😅 I'm leading the main software paper and some other excellent folk are leading science papers using the software. We're aiming for August. I will post links to the preprints as they come out. I'm also going to do an explainer thread at some point. 😊

hosford42, to random
@hosford42@techhub.social avatar

I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but if you know someone who has a chronic health problem, and they mention it to you, that's not an invitation to suggest 20 different quick fixes. Odds are, they've already tried all of them and about 200 more you've never even heard of. It takes energy to swat down superfluous suggestions, and that's something chronically ill folks are often short on. Don't add to it. If we want advice or troubleshooting, we will ask directly.

astronomerritt,
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@michael_w_busch @hosford42 Solidarity. I have migraines and people are very keen to tell me "ooh, maybe it's your diet, have you tried cutting <foodstuff>?" or the inevitable "maybe yoga would help!" I've had severe chronic migraines since I was twelve, please assume I have tried everything!

astronomerritt, to ADHD
@astronomerritt@hachyderm.io avatar

Evening, friends.

I am looking for more resources on neurodivergence in academia and the workplace. It's for our EDI group and a potential awareness seminar so anything under this (broad) umbrella is good.

Please only respond if:

a) you are actually neurodivergent OR
b) your resources were definitely made by a neurodivergent person :)

Boosts welcome!

astronomerritt, to random
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some helpful advice for those who need to hear it: internet strangers don't actually owe you a "discussion", and becoming petulant and emotional because they won't debate you makes you look quite silly

christianp, to random
@christianp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

Academic pals: do any of you work in an institution with a functional system for requesting help from your IT people?

We have a terrible ticketing system which, apart from its inaccessible web interface, is really hard to use: if you want to request help from someone, you have to browse through a list of dozens of ready-made forms for "common tasks", invariably none of which fit what you want. So there's a single "report something is broken" form with a single free-entry text field, and somebody on the service desk triages it. So all you have to do is resist the urge to report the ticketing system is broken, and hope that you can describe who you want to reach well enough for the service desk to deliver it correctly.

astronomerritt,
@astronomerritt@hachyderm.io avatar

@christianp My school has in-school IT support so unless the issue is with a university-wide service, IT support is achieved by dropping a post into the appropriate Teams channel. Responses are prompt and helpful. I am now taking a moment to appreciate our good fortune.

astronomerritt,
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@christianp Oh lord I'm sorry! Was it cost-cutting? Why keep an effective system when you could have a cheap horrible one 🙄

vicgrinberg, to random
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Ursula K. LeGuin's "The Dispossessed" was written in 1974. I first read it, in German translation, in the late 90ies (at which point it already was a classic). It has as much time passed between the publishing and when I first read the book as between me first reading it and now 🤯 (I should re-read it again).

astronomerritt,
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@vicgrinberg One of my absolute favourite books! I should re-read it too, come to think of it: it's been at least a decade.

astronomerritt, to random
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Getting me through today: the most Jim Steinman song he ever wrote. This is pretty much what it sounds like in my head all of the time. Especially the last minute, where EVERYTHING HAPPENS AT ONCE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVr15gWYUek

astronomerritt,
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anyone thinking "wow this sounds familiar but I feel like it should be in German": yes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance_of_the_Vampires_(musical)#Songs#Songs)

and I have to admit, this song certainly sounds like it should be the end number in a musical about sexy vampires

astronomerritt,
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@thomas @ben_tinc I'd love to watch the musical some time. It's appalling that I haven't - I love Steinman.

astronomerritt,
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@thomas @ben_tinc BLESS YOU. This is tremendous. I have a very difficult day tomorrow and now I have this to look forward to at the end of it!

vicgrinberg, to random
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Oh ... So I am now officially permanent-permanent with #ESA. I guess congratulations to me? If I understood the HR email correctly 😅

astronomerritt,
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@vicgrinberg Congratulations!! 😊

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