PAM Dirac

Black and white cat sitting on a mantel next to a painting of a black and white cat

Mr Ives comparing himself to the new art work.

Hidden Figures is a story where it is almost essential to read the book AND watch the movie. The book has much more detail and gives you a good sense of exactly what she (and they) did, while the movie is a more emotional experience and lets you stand up and cheer.

When I was in the lab we didn't have any tricks to prevent the nonsense, but we strengthened our resolve to push through it by telling ourselves that if the gods of science were resorting to such ridiculous and crude tactics to thwart progress, surely they were about to give up.

We were worried sick about the spleen removal of out 13yo Lab. It was done 5 days ago and she is almost completely back to her old goofy self. Sending good energy that SDL's surgery goes just as well.

Black Lab with shaved belly laying on a rug, resting after surgery.

Our baby is home resting after successful surgery to remove her spleen. Much pampering to come.

I have proved what kind of cheese, but the proof is too long to to fit into a skeet.

I visited Philly about 40 years ago and was driving in a downtown area going right around 30 mph, which I thought was probably a bit high for the crowded conditions. Someone was enraged that I was going so slow and pulled up on the sidewalk to get around me and zoomed off at ~50 mph.

photometry (brightness vs time) for the star V0582 Cas with the V filter. The plot goes from Jan 2024 to Jan 2026. The is about a 1 mag smooth brightening from April 2024 to Jan 2025. From About Aug 2025 to the present time there are some wiggles of about 0.1 mag.

#photometry update V0582 Cas
telescopes: various, including FSM-MPO61 from AAVSONet
Project: SNEWS Monitoring

A red super giant that shows changes fairly typical of a red super giant. Swings of ~1 mag with no regular pattern. #astronomy

photometry (brightness vs time) plot for the star NSV 3717. The plot goes from Jan 2024 to Jan 2026. Brightness for 2 filters are plotted; B and V. In both filters there is approximately a 0.4 magnitude dimming over the 2 years plotted.

#photometry update NSV 3717 aka HD 62745
telescopes: various, including BSM-NM and BSM-Berry from AAVSONet
Project: SNEWS Monitoring

A red super giant that seems to bit a bit quieter than most of the stars in that category. Maybe a modest dimming over the last 2 years. #astronomy

#wine 2024 Bedlam - Black Ankle Vineyard, MD USA
grapes: 28% chardonnay, 25% sauv blanc, 19% albariño, 15% grüner veltliner, 13% viognier

A real kitchen sink wine. They say this is mostly the last bit out of the press, so a bit more skin contact and a bit more extraction. Works very well and unique

Bottle of 2024 VGV from Black Ankle Vineyard MD, USA

#wine 2024 VGV - Black Ankle Vineyard, MD, USA
grapes: 56% Grüner Veltliner, 44% Viognier

interesting blend, but in this particular case the sum is a bit less than its parts. A perfectly pleasant wine, but I think I would have preferred to have the grapes bottled separately.

Bottle of 2024 Grenache Blanc from Tablas Creek Vineyard, CA, USA

#wine 2024 Grenache Blanc Tablas Creek, CA
grapes: 100% grenache blanc

This is a beautiful wine. Hints of the crisp clean flavors of an albarino, but also some of the round, melon flavors of a viognier. A wine that can just be enjoyed.

Bottle of 2001 Saggi from Long Shadows Vintners in Washing, USA.

#wine 2021 Saggi Long Shadows Vintners, WA
grapes: 62% Sangiovese, 26% Cab Sauv, 12% syrah

Very interesting wine that I have very little reference for as I have almost no experience with Super Tuscans. This wine makes me want to put some effort into exploring that style. Big, rich, concentrated.

The AAVSO has created a smart telescope working group to investigate the ways in which such telescopes could provide useful information and how to make the gathering and submission of such information as easy as possible for the user. See Munkascy abstract at www.aavso.org/114/annual-m...

We moved away from PG County and didn't find a source for Sequel until 2023. We went on a cruise and spent a lovely day in Seattle before boarding with a distant cousin who took us to the Long Shadow tasting room. We were able to sign up for the Wine Club and now we have it shipped to us 😍

I was introduced to this wine in about 2005 by the late, great Mike Tilch of Silesia Liquors in Fort Washington, MD. I walked in one day and he said, "you are going to buy this wine and take it home and drink it now. It is perfect for you and your bride right now". He was right, as usual. RIP Mike.

Bottle with label for 2021 Long Shadows Vintners (WA) Sequel, a wine made from 100% syrah

#wine: 2021 Long Shadows Vintners (WA) Sequel
grapes: 100% Syrah

bramble berry on the nose, dark red/purple color, concentrated blackberry flavors with lots of layers. 15.1% alcohol, but surprisingly that doesn't throw things out of balance.

Bottle and label for 2022 Tablas Creek Vineyard Le Complice; a syrah dominated Rhone blend.

#wine: 2022 Tablas Creek (CA) Le Complice
grapes: 67% Syrah 25% Grenanche 5% Terret Noir
3% Muscardin

Surprising light for a wine with so much syrah. Floral and elegant rather than meaty. A nice contrast to the TC mourvedre heavy Rhone Blends.

I had a high school teacher that once said of the recently graduated who still hung around the school, "Forgotten, but not gone".

ExoClock ExoClock is a project to monitor the ephemerides of transiting exoplanets. Everyone with a telescope and a CCD camera can participate!

There is also a similar project based in Europe called ExoClock. www.exoclock.space

Exoplanet Watch Overview - NASA Science Who we are: A NASA citizen science project, sponsored by NASA's Universe of Learning, we help anyone explore exoplanets at any level, from

If you get interested in this enough to do on a regular basis, you might consider contributing to Exoplanet Watch. science.nasa.gov/citizen-scie...

Was just up to Damiani last month. They have a lot of good stuff. Of course most of the wineries around Seneca have lots of good stuff. We used to go up almost every year but got out of the habit when Covid hit. Time to get back in the habit.

A tuxedo cat sitting on the extended part of a easy chair.

Adoption Day 1: If everyone is really quiet, I'll hide within 20 feet of your chair

Adoption Day 27: If your meal preparation is good enough I will let you sit on the empty half of MY chair.

#cats

Even if (1) is valid does the new prosecutor dump all of Halligan's other bullshit and if so does the whole indictment get no billed or do they pretend that they can repeat all the bullshit and get away with it?

Not that any of drumpf's decisions could be called well thought out, but I would guess "I turned a -20 swing into a -15 swing" wouldn't exactly be an effective rallying cry. It's likely a panic move to just get a win and never speak of the margin.

Black and White cat sitting quietly under a table.

New addition to our household; Mr. Ives, aka "Chuck".

YouTube video by CaroleKingVEVO Carole King - Tapestry (Official Audio)

Tapestry - Carole King www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR5T...

Protein structure is really useful in discovering and developing chemical leads. Most estimates I've seen put lead discovery at 2-3% of the the time and expense of drug discovery, so even if you reduce this part to zero, you don't make a radical change in the cost and time of finding new drugs.

Right, which is all I said in the first place. I'm retired now, but I spent about 30 years in drug discovery and I saw a lot new techniques come in with a lot of hype. A lot of them turned out to be useful, but none hugely changed the basic challenge of drug discovery.

Did you even read the link?

Quote:
On the other hand, most scientists report that despite the dramatic development of deep learning-based technologies for structural prediction, there are strong limitations when it comes to their application to drug discovery problems.