March 17, 2016 - HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!!
March 14, 2016 - Happy PI-Einstein Day to all of my nerdy friends!
March 8, 2016 - A reminder to those of you who are interested in amateur astronomy that Jupiter is in opposition tonight, and all month should be great viewing of the largest planet in our system. If weather permits, I will try to post some of my own photos of it in the next few days.
March 5, 2016 - I just finished watching the final episode of Mythbusters, and I must say it was a great ending to a great show. I can't believe that I was just starting my doctorate when they first aired the pilot episodes. Over the last fourteen years they have managed to make science and engineering exciting for a new generation of students, and they should be proud of everything they have accomplished!
March 1, 2016 - For just over a year now, I have been told by various people that some browsers and search engines were raising security issues about some of my older websites. This past weekend I finally had the time to explore this issue further, and I have found the explanation. Some of the javascript and PHP widgets that I wrote many years ago needed to access remote resources, such as databases, software files or PDF files that my webhosts did not support. Being naive, I didn't realize that some nefarious websites use off-site resources for malevolent purposes, and as such the cyber-security experts are understandably wary of such widgets and develop automated flagging systems to warn users of such things. I assure you that my own website has never been used in this way, but I now understand why there were concerns. As part of my migration to a new webhost (public.drchrisbird.net), I will be rewriting as many of these widgets as possible in the coming months. I apologize for any upset or inconvenience caused to my friends and followers.
February 16, 2016 - I understand from some of my European friends that my new website is not accessible in certain countries. Apparently this is due to the domain name being recently registered, and some servers are not yet resolving it properly. I assure you that I am monitoring this situation, and if it does not resolve itself in the near future I will see what I can do to expedite the process.
February 13, 2016 - With all of the attention for gravitational waves this week, I forgot to mention another major discovery from the astronomy community this week. Using a new radio telescope, astronomers were able to look straight through the center of our own galaxy and discovered a collection of previously unknown galaxies on the other side. It is believed that the collective mass of these galaxies is the source of the 'Great Attractor' effect which has been causing various known galaxies (including our own) to slowly move towards it. Another mystery solved (maybe)!
February 11, 2016 - Congratulations to the LIGO team and their collaborators on the first confirmed detection of gravitational waves! (Interested readers can find their press release and details of the discovery here)
February 8, 2016 - After nearly two months of waiting, the skies are finally clear enough here for me to begin testing my new astrophotography imager and begin construction of my WiFi controller project. If the skies stay clear and if I make progress on it, I will post the details on my website in the coming weeks or months (weather dependent).
January 24, 2016 - A quick reminder that starting tonight our five closest planetary neighbours will all be in the sky together, making for a rare view that only happens about once in a decade. If you have clear skies tonight (which I don't unfortunately) then sometime after midnight you should get quite a show.
January 23, 2016 - It seems someone didn't like me shutting down my contact widget yesterday, because today the server that hosts some of my website files got attacked and a lot of my work deleted. I will try to get it back online as soon as possible, and I apologize for any inconvenience this might cause.
January 21, 2016 - Unfortunately the 'Contact' widget I have been using on my websites has once more been targeted by spammers, and my legitimate mail is getting buried amid the rubbish. And so for the next few weeks I will be disabling that feature, in a vain attempt to discourage these apparent attacks. Those who already have my address can continue to email me whenever they please.
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