A toast to Gambrinus

nuff said

the joy of flat fielding

it's amazing what a decent flat field will do for your data. my method of choice is the self-flat made from the data itself... once applied, and the images stacked, you can see tons more data than you would have with a crap flat.

earliest memory of my scientific mind

i remember the first time i got a bollocking at school. i was about 5 i guess, and we were given a booklet to work through. the first exercise was based on spatial chromatic theory -- colouring in essentially. we were presented with an outline of a shape we could recognise and then had to colour it in, keeping in the lines. the first one was easy - a truck. trucks clearly have black tyres, and a coloured body-work right? wrong. i had failed to read the instructions, which stated 'colour me red'. let's neglect the concept of a talking vehicle for a moment... red tyres?! what planet are we on?

unfortunately it was too late, and i was already colouring in the tyres with black. impatience has been a character flaw which has dogged my scientific career so far (and probably will continue). needless to say, i got shouted at (despite my version being more pertinant to the real world)...

lookee see what i found!

(thanks astroshack!)

lexicon

further to mark's ashington lexicon... here are some words commonly used from my neck of the woods, you may like to use them:

dreckley - later, in a while (e.g. i'll do it dreckley)
emmet - non-local
oggie - pasty
lerrup - a good whack (not sure if this is legit)
zactly - exactly

familiarisms:
'alright my 'andsome?'
'alright beauty?'

proper job - good job
cup tae an bit chat? - fancy a cup of tea and a chat?

will think of some more later

alone...

hope john is having a good trip -- no doubt we'll here a report when he touches down and gets to an internet tap. meanwhile it's quiet in 311 - i'm having to listen to jeremy vine all alone.