Data Science: My Blog with R

Over the past few weeks, I've been taking an online course on Data Science with the R programing language. It's my first time taking an online course and it's been quite fun. I wanted to learn more about data science in general and this course came recommended by a friend. I didn't know anything about R at the start, but I have many years of experience working with Python, IDL, IRAF, etc, so it was easy to pick up. One of the best ways I learn, however, is through practice. So I figured I would create my own personal project: some data analysis on my blog.

This blog post will focus on the statistics I gleaned from accessing the API for Blogger, which is a product of Google. If you are interested in more technical details, I'll point you to my Github repo where I share the code I used to get the results I present below. Rather than focus on visitors or visibility, I instead focus on production. That is, how often do I post? What is the typical length of my posts? What words do I tend to use? And so forth.

This is a relatively long post with some graphs and lots of discussion. Read on if you're interested in how this blog has evolved through time or if you want to learn how to do it yourself.

Astronomy: On Leaving Academia

Earlier this month, I got a request for a telephone interview for one of the many academic positions I applied for. While it was good news, I immediately knew that this was not something I wanted. This was not because of the particular offer, but because of the greater aspect of being a professor. It was the moment I realized what had been nagging me for the past few years: It was time to leave the academic path.

In this post, I'll describe some of what I went through. I know I am not the only one that has left academia, nor will I be the last. I think this may be of help to people passing through the same situation.

The Blog in Review: 2013

This completes the second year I have been running my blog. As before, I provide some overall statistics for how the blog ran last year and since it's start. The nature of the blog has changed throughout the year, though it still retains some of its original spirit.

RIP Kindle

As of Oct 24, I declare my Amazon Kindle 3 to be dead.
This is a sad, mournful day for all involved.

The 2013 Hugo Award Winners

I woke up this morning to the news of the Hugo Awards. These are arguably some of the most prestigious awards a science fiction or fantasy book (or related work) can get. I had not paid close attention this year, but I'm pleasantly surprised to see several books/novellas I've read have won.

For Best Novel, John Scalzi's Redshirts took the prize. Scalzi always has this humorous style that's fun to read.
For Best Novella, Brandon Sanderson's The Emperor's Soul took the prize. This was a good novella that managed in a short time to convey a full world and epic story.

My congratulations to the authors and to the many others that won or were nominated this year. A full list of the nominees and winners can be found in Tor's website.

Astronomy: ALMA Observatory on Strike

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is the largest astronomical project in existence with collaborations from across the world. It consists of 66 radio antennas located at an altitude of 5000m in Chile's Atacama desert. These antennas can be moved to provide the resolution, or image sharpness, of a giant telescope.

In summary, ALMA is one of the most powerful observatories available to explore the universe. 

And it is now on strike.

Smog in Santiago

Santiago, Chile: April 30, 2013

Santiago has some of the worst air pollution of any city I've been to. Last week, I took a few pictures from my office that very vividly illustrate the problem here. The first is above, for the next few and some discussion, keep reading.

Chile: 3 Years after the 27F Earthquake

Mayor earthquakes in Chile since February 27th 2010. (Credit: José Infestas & EMOL)

Three years ago, before I moved to Chile, there was a massive 8.8-magnitude earthquake in the central region. This occurred on the 27th of February 2010 and the event is commonly refer to in the news as 27/F (or variants like 27-F). A few days ago, there was an interesting report on earthquake statistics in Chile, which I would like to summarize (and translate, as it's in Spanish) for you.
Given my current travels this is a scheduled post and I didn't have time to double check all the facts in the report. I'm hoping they are mostly accurate, though that newspaper has had it's share of mistakes in the past. Nevertheless, the important trends still should hold. Now, on to my summary...

Fund Me Maybe

Short post today to point out Emily Rice's excellent work compiling a parody video of Call Me, Maybe.  This was a hackAAS project at the most recent American Astronomical Society meeting.
You have to see this; it's excellent. And as a bonus, I appear briefly near the end!

Blogging for A Year

Last year, on January 2nd, I started this blog, something I've been meaning to do for quite a while.
I've since written 95 articles primarily about either astronomy or books. The divided nature of the blog has troubled me, but I'm not yet ready to split it into solely one or the other category. We'll see how things evolve in 2013.

Word cloud (wordle) of some of the most frequently used words this past year. Some html formatting may have slipped through.

In this post, I go over some of the basic statistics of my blog (as of Jan 2, 2013) and mention some of the more popular articles.

Video Book Reviews

As you may know, I've written several reviews for books I've read and enjoyed this past year. You can see them all by searching for "book review" on the right-hand search box, or showing all those entries with the label "books" (for example, the tab above). You can also filter by science fiction or fantasy if you prefer.

One thing you may have noticed, though, is that my reviews tend to be a bit long. I have suffered when people ask me what a book is about and I can't tell them quickly enough.

Enter: 1-minute book video summary/reviews/thoughts.

Of Hurricanes, gods, and planet Jupiter

It's hurricane season in the Atlantic right now, so that means lots of news channels will be reporting on the latest storms to develop. Given that I grew up in Puerto Rico and lived a few years in Florida, I have had my share of storms and can attest to their intensity.

Above is an awesome graph created by John Nelson, a data visualization expert. The graph depicts every tropical storm and hurricane that has been recorded since 1851, color coded by intensity. The projection is polar, so we see Antarctica in the center and the US off in the edge near the right. The Southern Hemisphere hasn't been tracked until more recently, hence the fewer storms there.

This post, as you may be able to tell from the title, ties together hurricanes, storm gods, and the planet Jupiter. More information after the jump.

Marketing for Scientists Workshop

This past week, I attended a three-day workshop to learn about marketing skills scientists like me can use. This was led by Marc Kuchner, astronomer, songwriter, and author of Marketing for Scientists: How to Shine in Tough Times (check out the website here). The workshop drew heavily on what's in the book and we were encouraged to have a look ait it too, given that it goes more into depth. Naturally, I can only say a few of the highlights here, but I purchased the Kindle version of the book and I am already seeing extra things there that are useful to know.

LoTR Mini-Round Up

It's been a while since I posted anything, so here's a short post gathering a few interesting things related to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.

On July 24 1954, 58 years ago today, The Fellowship of the Ring was first published. As many of you know, this is the first part of The Lord of the Rings and I would consider it a classic of modern literature.

They say you should never judge a book by it's cover. You should also never, ever, try to guess the plot of a book by the cover. Yet, this 6-year old girl was asked to for several classics in science fiction and fantasy. Here's what she has to say regarding the cover for The Fellowship of the Ring:
This book is about a tree on a hill. The tree is the star of the book and it’s a very nice tree but everyone else is mean. I think the tree has a magical ring and some evil guys capture the ring and put him on the top of the hill so they can watch him.


Last but not least: we're getting closer to The Hobbit film!
Here is the latest video blog with some tidbits about Comic Con and the final stages of filming:

I have a feeling that many Tolkien purists will be dissatisfied with the film. A lot is being added that isn't in the original story. It's going to feel less like The Hobbit and more like a The Lord of the Rings prequel. I personally have no problem with that since I enjoyed the prior films. This will be an amazing visit back to good old Middle Earth.

A Memory of Light Cover for Kindle

This may be old news for some, but Tor has revealed the cover for the final book of the Wheel of Time, A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson:

In my opinion, this is one of the best covers to date for the series. It's done by a different artist, Michael Whelan, who is well known in the community and has created many fabulous book covers (for example, see The Stormlight Archives #1: The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson). All the prior Wheel of Time covers were done by Darrell Sweet, but sadly he passed away in December before finishing his sketch for the cover:

If you own a Kindle or other e-reader, you may want to use the new Whelan cover as your background/wallpaper/screensaver, so you can pretend you're reading the final book of the series well ahead of everyone! I searched, but couldn't find that anyone had converted the cover (a trivial process), so here you go:

You can download the 600x800 version here (from the Picasa album).
Instructions for how to set it up on your device will vary, but here is some useful information one for the Kindle.

If you prefer Sweet's version (with the title/authors added by Aidan Moher) here you go:

You can download the 600x800 version here. It looks a bit grainier since the original size was smaller than this. I personally prefer the Whelan cover.

Exciting May Book Releases

This month sees the release of several books I'm very excited for. So much so that I almost (but not quite) regret starting House of Chains, fourth book of the Malazan Book of the Fallen rather than waiting to read these titles.

May 1

The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi

Soldier boys emerged from the darkness. Guns gleamed dully. Bullet bandoliers and scars draped their bare chests. Ugly brands scored their faces. She knew why these soldier boys had come. She knew what they sought, and she knew, too, that if they found it, her best friend would surely die. 

In a dark future America where violence, terror, and grief touch everyone, young refugees Mahlia and Mouse have managed to leave behind the war-torn lands of the Drowned Cities by escaping into the jungle outskirts. But when they discover a wounded half-man--a bioengineered war beast named Tool--who is being hunted by a vengeful band of soldiers, their fragile existence quickly collapses. One is taken prisoner by merciless soldier boys, and the other is faced with an impossible decision: Risk everything to save a friend, or flee to a place where freedom might finally be possible.

This young adult novel is set in the same post-apocalyptic universe of Ship Breaker, which I recently finished reading. Despite being categorized as "young adult," I'm sure this book, like Ship Breaker before it, is far more complex than meets the eye and engaging for audiences of all ages. io9 has a magnificent book trailer here, just watching it makes me want to go buy the book and start reading it now.

May 1

The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin

In the desert city-state of Gujaareh, peace is the only law. Along its ancient stone streets, there is no crime or violence. Priests of the dream-goddess, known as Gatherers, maintain order: harvesting the dreams of the citizens, healing the injured, and guiding the dreamers into the afterlife. . . 

When Ehiru-the most famous of the city's Gatherers-is sent to harvest the dreams of a diplomatic envoy, he finds himself drawn into a conspiracy that threatens to drag the dreaming city into war.

This is the first book in the Dreamblood duology (so, two books). The next book comes out in June, so you don't have to wait years and years for the conclusion. Jemisin has proven herself as a great author with The Inheritance Trilogy (check out my review of book 3, The Kingdom of Gods). The setting and magic for this duology is said to have come from Jemisin's fascination in ancient Egypt, Freudian dream theory, and Jung's ideas about the collective unconscious. Sounds very interesting and I'll be sure to check it out.

May 15

Railsea by China Mieville

On board the moletrain Medes, Sham Yes ap Soorap watches in awe as he witnesses his first moldywarpe hunt: the giant mole bursting from the earth, the harpoonists targeting their prey, the battle resulting in one’s death and the other’s glory. But no matter how spectacular it is, Sham can't shake the sense that there is more to life than traveling the endless rails of the railsea–even if his captain can think only of the hunt for the ivory-coloured mole she’s been chasing since it took her arm all those years ago. When they come across a wrecked train, at first it's a welcome distraction. But what Sham finds in the derelict—a series of pictures hinting at something, somewhere, that should be impossible—leads to considerably more than he'd bargained for. Soon he's hunted on all sides, by pirates, trainsfolk, monsters and salvage-scrabblers. And it might not be just Sham's life that's about to change. It could be the whole of the railsea. 


Mieville is a great story teller and a master of language. You can see he's drawn from Melville's Moby-Dick for this novel. I have no doubt that this book will be an amazing ride into yet another fantastical world. Unlike Bacigalupi and Jemisin, Mieville has less of an online presence (ie, twitter, blog, etc), but he doesn't need it: his works are of such quality that people all over keep talking about it. You've probably heard of the numerous awards that his last book, Embassytown, has been nominated for (this just in: Embassytown among the 2012 Locus Award finalists).


All these books have free previews available online, either through ebook stores like Amazon, or through the author's own websites. I personally have not read any of the previews: I trust these authors enough to buy their works without any prior glimpses.
Right now I'm about a third of the way through my current book and will probably start The Killing Moon next. Though I have a few other sci-fi novels queued up, it looks like those will have to wait. Why does my to-read list increase faster than I can read?

Did I miss any notable May releases? I'm sure there are plenty of books being released every month, but in the realm of sci-fi and fantasy, these are the ones I personally am looking forward to reading.

Update (May 2):
It looks like I did forget one exciting release!

May 4

The King's Blood by Daniel Abraham

WAR AND MADNESS CAST SHADOWS

OVER THE LANDS DRAGONS ONCE RULED.

Geder Palliako's star is rising. He is a hero of Antea, protector to the crown prince, and darling of the court. But storms from his past are gathering, and with them, a war that will change everything.

Cithrin bel Sarcour founded a powerful bank on stolen wealth, forged papers, and ready blades. Now every move she makes is observed, recorded, and controlled. Unless Cithrin can free herself from her gilded cage, the life she made will be for naught; war may provide just the opportunity she needs.

An apostate priest sees the hidden hand behind all: a long-buried secret of the dragon empire threatens everything humanity has built. An age of madness and death is on the way, with only a few doomed heroes to stand in its way.

This is the second book in The Dagger and The Coin series. I read the first book of that series (The Dragon's Path) and considered it to be one of my top 5 books I read in 2011. This is traditional epic fantasy, but with some cool elements in it. The author claims he borrowed ideas from multiple sources and yet he managed to meld everything together so it feels new and fresh. I like it! I'm looking forward to this book and I can't believe that it slipped under my radar.

The 2012 Hugo Award Nominees

The 2012 Hugo Award nominations have been announced today!
There are plenty of categories but the one I always pay attention to (and probably the same for most people) is the Best Novel category. Here are the nominees:

• Among Others, Jo Walton (Tor)
• A Dance With Dragons, George R. R. Martin (Bantam Spectra)
• Deadline, Mira Grant (Orbit)
• Embassytown, China Miéville (Macmillan / Del Rey)
• Leviathan Wakes, James S. A. Corey (Orbit)

I have personally read three of the five nominated works: A Dance With Dragons, Embassytown, and Leviathan Wakes. I rated all very highly so I'm not surprised to see them listed.

A Dance of Dragons, while good, doesn't stand on its own. It's great because it's part of a series and had a lot of anticipation behind it. I'm honestly not sure how a book within a series would fare in these sorts of awards. Here's what I wrote on Goodreads (I didn't have my blog back then):

I took my time reading the book, savoring each chapter (also I had a lot of work to do...), but now it's finished. Overall impression: it's good and a worthy addition to the series. The best part was getting to read about the characters that did not star in A Feast for Crows. I still think Book 3 is better, but this was better than Book 4. There were a few awesome events that occurred, which made me happy, but there were a few minor issues that detracted from the experience. 

The most minor of these (and actually I found it funny) was how there was always food in practically every chapter. Obviously characters have to eat, but GRRM spends a lot of time describing what everyone is eating each time, whether it's stew, mutton, rat, or unborn puppies. 

The pacing of the book was a bit off. Tyrion's chapters were flying by with lots going on, Jon's somewhat less, but Dany's chapters were a bit slow. It felt like nothing really happened until near the end. About halfway through the book we catch up to the previous one, and we see a little more develop with those characters (not all of them), but we are still not given closure on any major plot line. I think there was only a single Jaime chapter and it left me wanting another one, which is unfortunate as we'll have to wait until next book. It makes me wonder whether that chapter should have been there at all? (The events of the chapter does get referred to in a later chapter so I guess that's fine). 

A Storm of Swords ended with a blast (or more accurately, a bolt). I have no memory on how A Feast for Crows ended. This book had a mixed ending. For one character- wow! What a cliffhanger! For another- oh, I guess it's done. And for yet another chapter- huh? where's the next chapter?! I felt the ending wasn't very clean, it sort of petered out at the end; it was honestly a surprise to turn the page and see "Epilogue". I expected some closure in at least a few of the plot lines. I know this isn't the end of the series, but he needs to start wrapping up things soon. 

One thing that bothered me a bit was the introduction of a brand new plot line. We get a brand new character that changes everything. I guess that's fine, but I feel that the series should be wrapping up, not adding new things! I didn't see this coming and so it came as a bit of an unwanted surprise. It's still cool, but detracts somewhat from the story. 

Overall, the story telling and the characters are still great. Those issues I outline above are present, but they don't ruin the story- they just make me worry that it will take more than 2 books to end the series. While I enjoy the series and could easily read more, I do want some closure at some point. 

Leviathan Wakes was a surprisingly good novel. I read it since it was included in The Dragon's Path by Daniel Abraham. In fact, Abraham is half of James S. A. Corey (the other half is Ty Frank). Here's what I had to say about it on Goodreads:

This was an excellent read. I generally don't read as much science fiction as fantasy, but this was included with my copy of The Dragon's Path (which was also good). I can usually pass over scientific inaccuracies for the sake of the plot, but as a professional astronomer I am always happy when the author pays attention to detail and conforms his/her work to real science. That said, this is not hard scifi- there are no explanations on how drives work, etc, but the main point is that orbital mechanics (and thus the consequences of how space battles will be fought) is accurate.

The story is also quite engaging. In scope it just covers the solar system and if you've ever taken an intro to astronomy course you should recognize all the places they visit. The characters are very interesting, but I wish there would have been more than 2 viewpoint characters. I feel it's aiming to be epic, but by just going back and forth between just these 2 characters it reduces the scope and makes the story a tad predictable.

In conclusion: I am very happy with the book and will be checking out the rest of The Expanse when it comes out.

And finally, Embassytown. If I were voting this year (not sure yet, I'd have to pay the $50 supporting fee...) this is the one I would pick. I consider it the best book I read in 2011. I'm actually re-reading it at the moment and will have a detailed review later this week. For now, here's what I wrote on Goodreads:

China Mieville does it again: an excellent book! This may be the best I've read from him yet (or best ever), though at the moment I can't decide if I like it more than The City & The City. The first ~third of the book is absolutely awesome. It's classic sci-fi like something you would expect from Asimov or Clarke. The next ~third drags a bit, but only because the focus shifts a bit from being about the concepts to being about the plot/characters. The final ~third is great and shines new light on that middle third that makes it quite exciting. 

The ending is quite satisfying and the story overall doesn't feel as dark as some of his other works (I'm looking at you, Perdido Street Station). I love the way he expresses the Hosts' Language. It looks easy to pronounce, but is, in fact, impossible to do so- a truly alien way of speaking. My only regret is that we didn't see more of the immer. I would love to read other books set in this universe. 

I would recommend this book to fans of aliens, space travel, language, and/or sociology/politics. I would not be surprised to see this book nominated for (and winning) awards this year.

Looks like I correctly predicted the Embassytown would be nominated for awards! It's also been nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke award.

In sum: I think there are some pretty good contenders this year. I haven't read the other two novels, but can imagine that they are good given the company they share.

I can't comment on the other categories as I'm not that well-versed in them, but I can say that I've read the nominated short story "The Shadow War of the Night Dragons: Book One: The Dead City: Prologue" by John Scalzi and it is hilarious. It came out as an April Fool's Joke, but I, along with many others, wish it were real.
For the Best Related Work, I actually do listen to Writing Excuses and enjoy it very much. I'm a bit behind on the podcasts, though.

How to Make 3D Images with GIMP

Recent years have seen an increase in 3D movies wherein you use special glasses to see a film with an added perception of depth. It turns out you can easily do the same with a basic camera, free software, and some careful planning. When using red/blue glasses (or any two opposite colors, really) these are known as anaglyphs. I've been creating these since 2009 and have uploaded some to my Picasa albums. In this post, I will describe how I generate these.

Step 1: Take the Pictures

You need at least 2 pictures for this to work. The important thing to realize is that human eyes are separated by a few centimeters. If you want to duplicate this effect, you need to take two photos and move between each one. If you want a more pronounced effect, you can shift more than a few centimeters, but I wouldn't recommend shifting by more than a foot (30 cm). 

An alternative is to have two cameras attached together and going off at the same time. The advantage there is that by taking simultaneous images you don't have to worry about any moving objects, rotating the field of view, or capturing a slightly different angle. Unfortunately, you do need two cameras and a more complicated setup.

Let's consider you have one camera only, like I do. You take image 1, then you shift by about 10-20 cm or so to the right and, facing the same direction, take image 2. Ideally you will not have any moving objects (cars, birds, etc) in your frames. If you do, these will ruin the desired effect. Try not to rotate the camera in any way when shifting, just face the same direction. The two images will look very similar, but there will be minor perspective changes. It is these changes that will provide the illusion of depth.

Here are two such frames I've taken. I've placed them side by side for two reasons. One is so you can compare them. The other is that by displaying these images side by side and crossing your eyes you can see a 3D image and can check that everything is fine. It takes a bit of practice to learn how much to cross your eyes. You basically want to see 3 images, the one at the center will be the combination of both of them and will have the added depth perspective. Remember that you can click these images to see them larger.

The images above were taken with a SONY DSC-S500 6MP camera so as to demonstrate that you don't really need a fancy camera for this. I've used the iPhone camera to make good anaglyphs as well. I usually (like in this case) reduce the raw image size to 1024x768 so as to make them easier to process.

Step 2: Load up the images on GIMP

GIMP is a free and powerful image processing tool. The basic tasks to produce an anaglyph are fairly simple, so any decent image processing program should be able to work. So feel free to use Photoshop or similar programs if you have them.

You can either open up the image directly in GIMP or open the program blank and copy-paste the image onto the frame. Dealing with large images can take up a lot of processing power. It's up to you how big you want your images, but as this technique does have it's faults I try not to go beyond 1024 pixels in one dimension. If you have a good camera, a steady hand, and a beautiful shot, then go ahead and use the largest you can handle!

You want to load up the two images in separate layers. In GIMP, this is accomplished easily. When you paste the frame, click on the new layer icon on the Layers Dialog window and it will automatically create a new layer with the image you just pasted. Or even easier: just go to Edit -> Paste As -> New Layer.

Step 3: Make Some Color Layers

Set a new foreground color to FF0000; this is red. Make a new layer and select the Fill Type to be the foreground color. You will have a uniform red layer. Set the layer mode to Screen, duplicate this layer, then do Color -> Invert. That will basically produce another layer with color 0000FF, which is cyan. You could have created the second layer the same way as the first layer, though. The important thing is that both layers must have mode=Screen activated (you can do set on the Layers Dialog window).

Step 4: Merging Layers

Move the layers so that you have them in this order: Cyan, Image 2, Red, Image 1. Image 1 is the left-hand image I have above and Image 2 is the right-hand image. It is very important to get this right otherwise you will need to flip your red/blue glasses backwards (your left eye should see the red image). Activate only the Cyan and Image 2 layers (ie, hide the other two). I do this by clicking the eye symbols on the Layers Dialog window. Merge those two layers (Image -> Merge Visible Layers) and set the mode to Multiply. Now activate all layers and look at the result:

That works, but I personally don't like it. The shift is a little bit too large, especially for the center feature. This brings us to the last step.

Step 5: Tweak to Perfect

With the cyan-merged frame selected, use the Move tool to tweak the image until getting a desirable result. You may also find that you need to apply a small rotation. I personally like distant objects to be neutral (ie, no red/cyan on their edges). However, that may cause some of the foreground material to be too far shifted. You want to hit a balance such that things don't appear too close or your eyes will have trouble seeing details. Here I aim for such a balance and crop out some of the edges:

This is the version I'm happy with and so I save it as a PNG or any other format I prefer.

Images taken July 2011 at Joshua Tree National Park in California. More such anaglyphs I've created can be found in my Picasa albums.

Remember that there is some eye strain when crossing your eyes and when looking at these artificial 3D images, so don't spend too much time looking/creating them or you'll end up with a headache.

Common pitfalls to avoid:

• The two images are slightly rotated. This can be fixed in GIMP, but is a bit more involved.
• Different light levels in the images. Again this can be fixed, but ideally you want similar light levels on both raw images.
• Intense red/blue colors. Most red/cyan glasses aren't perfect and if you have some bright colors this can mess up the intended effect. For example, a red rose will not end up very nice as an anaglyph.
• Moving objects. Sometimes a bird in the background appears in only one frame, or the wind shifted a flag, or you have a shot of the sea. If it has motion, it's going to be tricky to arrange with this simple setup. You may have to use some dual-camera setup.

---

A few anaglyphs I've made are displayed below for your viewing pleasure, more can be found here:

The Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO)

The Shane 3-m telescope at Lick Observatory

Camptosaurus at the Museum of Natural History in Los Angeles

The Cerro Tololo International Observatory (CTIO) in Chile

A panda at the San Diego Zoo

Suvudu Cage Match 2012: Initial Thoughts

For the past few years, Suvudu has run a tournament pitting memorable characters from science fiction and fantasy against each other to find out who is the Cage Match Champion. This year is no different and they've just announced the lineup for the coming competitions. I encourage you to take a look. Voting begins March 5th!

One of the cool things about these cage matches, which is obviously their intent, is that you get introduced to characters you've never heard before and encouraged to read about them. I can honestly say that this resulted in The Name of the Wind and The Malazan Book of the Fallen moving up higher on my to-read list (last year Quick Ben of Malazan won and the prior year Kvothe ended up third). Characters from those two books/series are back again- Bast and Anomander Rake. Anomander is absolutely awesome in Malazan (at least up to book 3, where I'm currently at), so I (and many others) will definitely be cheering him on. This year, I must check out Peter V. Brett's The Warded Man (the cover for the sequel, The Desert Spear, initially drew me in). His character, Jardir, is facing off against Lady Jessica of Dune. Apparently, Jardir is also a desert warrior so the organizers were very excited for it. I'm also happy that I've read the first book of Brent Weeks' Night Angel Trilogy as I now know who Kylar Stern is (he's facing Gimli of The Lord of the Rings).
Some other characters to watch out for, in my opinion, include: Moiraine Damodred from The Wheel of Time, Kelsier from Mistborn, Tyrion Lannister from A Song of Ice and Fire (aka Game of Thrones), Richard Rahl of The Sword of Truth, and Mr. Wednesday from American Gods.

The cage matches are not just about voting on some online poll. Many authors sign up to write up what they think will happen so you get to see some very cool 'fan fiction' as characters from completely different series clash against each other (I still remember how Jaime Lannister threw Hermione Granger out a window). They've also asked fans to draw art for the characters. That should also be very cool.

So be sure to follow along on Suvudu's website for the news and vote for your favorite characters. May Anomander Rake the strongest one win!

FloridaTech... 6 years later

Nearly 6 years ago, I received my Bachelor of Science degree in Astronomy (technically, it was Space Sciences, option in Astronomy & Astrophysics) from Florida Institute of Technology. I bumped into one of my old professors, Dr. Terry Oswalt, the head of the department, at AAS this January and he encouraged me to stop by and give a talk. I agreed, after all, right now in February we are in summer recess at the Universidad de Chile and I intended to travel a bit.

So I made my way to campus and got there an hour before my talk. It was raining and cloudy and I was super tired- I had arrived just that morning in Orlando from a long flight. Fortunately, my brother was driving so I could sleep part of the way. I wanted to walk around campus, but decided to first go to the Physical Sciences building as it was still raining. Already I could see new buildings on the Southern side of campus; there's even a swimming pool now. It looks like things are looking up for FIT.

Upon entering the department, I was pleasantly surprised:

My talk was being advertised on TV monitors! I think this is a first for me. They also had the more traditional paper advertisements, but this was so cool.

I went in and chatted with the Department Head about FIT, the changes, and what's new with me. When I was an undergrad I took his introductory astronomy classes, but other than that we hadn't interacted much. Now I was drinking an expresso (alas, he could only offer me decaf) in his office and talking science. I felt like I was now practically an equal, a point that became more evident after I gave my talk.

My talk started at 4pm in one of the classrooms I had used. I remember once giving there a brief 10-minute presentation on some research I had done as part of a Research Experience for Undergrads program (at UCLA), so it wasn't the first time I had been up in that room talking to people. A bunch of my old professors showed up and shook hands with me. That included Matt Wood, who taught the advanced astrophysics classes and was glad to see one of his students come back with a PhD; Ming Zhang, who I worked with modeling the Earth's magnetosphere; and Marcus Hohlmann, which, although a physicist, was my advisor at FIT.

The talk, Identifying & Studying Nearby, Young, Low-Mass Stars, went very well. It was a bit longer than other times I've given it, clocking in at about 55 minutes, but that may be because I stopped to explain a few basic concepts since I know that many there would be physicist or undergrads and may not know any of the astronomy slang. I had a diagram for describing UVW space velocities (as well as some gestures that went along with it) and a very basic explanation for visibilities when talking about radio astronomy. There were a handful of good questions at the end, which I think I addressed properly, and a student came up later to talk about how the SARA telescopes could be used to do related science.

It felt nice to revisit my old campus. While heading out I bumped into Hamid Rassoul, the Dean of the College of Science. He was always a cool and enthusiastic professor. He couldn't make it to my talk, but we chatted for a bit. He said it would be nice if I came back to work here as faculty- they would like to have new professors and researchers that were educated at FIT. I think I've made a good impression on my old teachers. I felt like an equal among them. Before, when I was an undergrad, I was a bit intimidated by how smart these people were. Now I realize that I am one of them and can join them in discussing science and the future.

A last look at the Olin Physical Sciences Building (the one with the dome)