I confess that I have a plan to build my own little game arcade with a Raspberry Pi, and eventually I’ll get there. In the meantime, I frequently check out articles such as Adam Dachis’ article on How to Turn Your Computer into a Retro Game Arcadeover on LifeHacker which often has alternative ways to do it, or links to good resources that I will need for the RaspPi3 project. The article dates back to 2011, but still has the main thrust:
While contemporary video games have come close to cinematic masterpieces, there’s often nothing better than the fun and simplicity of retro classics. If you’ve never jumped into the world of emulation, this guide will take you through the very simple basics and have you up and running right away. We’ll also take a quick look at ROM hacking so you can power up your emulation experience.
The approach generally is two-fold — get an emulator (something akin to a software version of the original hardware) and then get the games. The challenge in part is that there are LOTS of different types of emulators…some just for individual consoles/systems, others that mimic multiple consoles through plugins. At the time of writing, he had Nestopia for NES, SNES9X for SNES, Kega Fusion for Sega, and PCSX Reloaded or ePSXe for PS1. If you want more, he recommends checking out Zophar’s Domain.
For the actual games, the search is pretty quick even in Google — you search for ROMs (i.e. read only memory in computer parlance as the old consoles used cartridges that were on ROM storage) + the name of the game system you’re emulating. The popular sites mentioned include EmuParadise, CoolROM, UseNet or BitTorrent, etc.
While most of that is pretty straightforward, what I like most about the article is that it doesn’t stop there. It talks about configuring the keyboard, handling classic save points vs. digital “freeze” saves, options for controllers, and extensive links for Game Genie codes.
He also did an article for doing the same thing with Android or iPhone but the mobile market changes so rapidly for apps and operating systems, most of the advice is simply a retread of the PC one linked above and even has links for jailbreaking iPhones from the old days.
Despite the fact that I bought my telescope five years ago, I consider myself relatively new to astronomy. Mainly because of the myriad of alignment challenges that I’ve had over the last five years, I feel like I’m starting fresh, albeit with more knowledge than most enter the hobby. I’ve done some basic starhopping, attended numerous RASC meetings, gone to star parties, done some outreach. You know, got my feet wet.
As a RASC member, I also get the annual RASC Observers Handbook. Yet for the last five years, it’s been hit or miss with me whether it was useful. In 2015, I dove deep, and did a review (A newbie’s guide to the RASC Observer’s Handbook 2015) based on being a complete noob and how I found the contents. 2016 was okay, flipped through. In 2017, I didn’t even open the plastic wrap around it until a few weeks back when I got the alignment issues solved.
This year, I wanted to go hard core on the guide as part of my 50by50 challenge. The 2018 edition arrived two weeks ago, and my basic intent was to read it cover to cover. I know, I know, it’s part field guide, it’s not meant to be read cover to cover. Yet I wanted to know what was in it so that I could go back and dive into sections when I needed them. Here’s what I found…
Introduction
One of the biggest and most obvious challenges for an Observer’s Guide of this range is trying to hit a target audience of RASC members that combines newbies, solid amateurs, semi-professional astronomers and photographers, and outright astro-physicists. That is a huge spectrum of potential users, and there is virtually no way to write a single text that will fit all four stops on the spectrum. Yet, for me, a newbie alumni potentially, I found some quirks that bothered me.
One thing that bothers me is a number of website errors in URLs. Don’t get me wrong, the web changes every day, and trying to keep up to date on a series of links is a no-win battle. That’s true of almost any publication that is linking to publicly available information. Sites change their structure, move some files, and voila, a dead link. And I have this site which deals with dead links all the time.
But that’s not this type of error. Most of the links haven’t changed, and they are already up to date on the RASC main site. Just somehow they got edited before they went to print, and they no longer work. On page 10, there are some recommended readings, atlases and software links, and there is a link to an article by Andrew Franknoi. Except the link takes you to a generic entry portal for the magazine that the article is in, and it was only by other google searching that I luckily chose the right issue. However, later I was on the RASC national site for the 2017 guide, and the link was there. So I clicked it again, and it worked, took me right to the article. So between last year and this year, someone edited the URL for no apparent benefit. In the same section, there is a reference to Sky Safari being available on the desktop which was news to me. So I surfed and couldn’t find it. Until I realized that yes it was available on desktop, but only Mac. Would have been good to know before wasting time looking for something that doesn’t exist. Later on page 15, there are a list of selected internet resources. Some good ones in there, a standard list that appears every year. Which URL is wrong? The one for the Observer’s Handbook. On the site, it is rasc.ca/handbook; on the list, they called it rasc.ca/observers-handbook. Which doesn’t take you to the handbook, it just throws an error. Really? They got their OWN url wrong?
Page 16 starts with an article about using the handbook for teaching purposes, and I really like the resources they have for the Night Sky (page 17) around constellations, when they’re visible, and even just a list of them.
Basic Data
Page 25 has “observable satellites of the planets” and I’m very excited by the list. I’m sure some variant was in previous handbooks, but I’m adding it to my observing target list for 2018. Equally, page 38 has information on observing artificial satellites too.
Optics and Observing
Pages 49-59 are all about magnification, telescope parameters, night myopia and exit pupils. I read the articles twice and I was more confused than when I started. At the end of page 53, there are some examples, and it probably should have aimed to get there a lot faster. Ideally, and I may be missing some huge variables, they would take some basic types of scopes and give ranges…like for the Schmidt-Cassegrains that range in aperture from 4″ to 8″, or maybe even 11″, they could use basic eye piece sizes (32mm, 25mm, 20mm, 15mm, 10mm, 8mm, 4mm), show the magnification that goes with that, and add the exit pupil. Then use shading in the table to show the different ranges that are good combos. Then do the same for refractors, reflectors, dobs, etc. Heck, if they want, they could add in seeing quality to eliminate most of the “high magnification” values that are more theoretical than practical, unless you have near-perfect skies. I’m going to look for better explanations online. It is clear they know their stuff, it just doesn’t come across as very user-friendly to understand.
After the challenge of the first ten pages of the section, I was excited to see the updated article on binoculars that is included in some form annually. And so it has the great info on page 60 about what you can see, i.e. without needing a telescope, you can see a lot. Unfortunately, when it comes to practical information, the only pair it recommends is the Canon 10x42L with image stabilization. Sure, I agree it is a superb instrument. And for the almost $1500 it costs, I would expect that. I’m not sure why that pair is relevant as the majority of people buying are people who didn’t have $1000 for a scope or even $700. The reason there’s a market way less than that is because that is what people can afford. Much more useful would be some indication of the entry-level astro models with 2-3 examples, and then maybe a small jump up before going all the way to the wallet breaker.
By contrast, no pun intended, the filters article on page 64 is awesome. Great combo of basic info about all the different types of filters. Having recently experienced for the first time the benefits of the Ultra Block and an Oxygen III in viewing the Veil and Orion Nebulae, I was inspired to branch out more with this article.
Skipping over a few articles of limited resonance for me, I came to the one on Weather Resources. I think this article has appeared before, but I was struck on page 76 that it is incredibly outdated. It talks about the effects of fires in B.C. in 2002 and 2003 having implications for viewing far away, but so did the ones in 2015 and again this year. This year could be forgiven for being excluded due to time constraints in publishing, but we have much more recent examples than 2002. But where I just about lost my sh** was on page 77 when I read:
The popular Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes do not come with cooling fans and they are known to suffer from internal turbulence, especially at large apertures. Only a few advanced amateur astronomers will have the courage to add fans to those telescopes. Any telescope, and particularly the Schmidt-Cassegrains type, should always be brought outside to cool it down at least two hours before the observing session. Better yet is to keep a telescope permanently outside in a backyard observatory.
The bold and italics are added by me. I don’t have a problem with the cooling info for SCTs. I do however have a huge problem with such a strong economic bias creeping into a field guide for observers. Just like with the previous article on binos, albeit written by a different author.
First of all, not everyone lives in a house to even have the chance to have a backyard. Lots of people live in apartments and condos. Second, separate from that, many wouldn’t have the money to build a whole separate observatory in their backyard or the space to do it, or even the lines of sight to make it useful, even if the skies were dark enough where they live. Third, this is in a paragraph about SCTs. Why are SCTs so popular? Because up to 8″, they’re highly portable. But sure, the best object is to go out and buy a house so you can have a backyard to put a SCT in your personal observatory. There’s a reason a lot of the people doing that are retired…they have retirement and savings, and have the time and resources to do that. Most Canadians don’t. I’m extremely fortunate to have a good job, and above average disposable income, and I don’t have the extra money to move to darker skies and build a personal observatory. I wouldn’t expect an article in a field guide to actually piss me off, but this one did.
Moving on, we come to light abatement, and there is a great chart on page 84 about star parks and dark sky preserves in Canada. Except for some reason, the chart is organized by reverse chronological order of when they were created — not by GPS coordinates, not by province, not by closest city, just by reverse chron. I suppose it shows history, but most people would want to know where they are in Canada…so why not put a map with a date next to it? I don’t get it.
I’m all the way to page 85 before I start hitting the mother lode. Alan Dyer’s deep-sky observing hints. Which starts with planning. Page 86 has Paul Markov on the observing logbook, and while I didn’t use the RASC default one (side note — the URL for this was wrong too, again one of RASC’s own links (!), although I did find it eventually on the national site), I found enough in the Markov article and elsewhere to design my own. I’m not quite finished with a couple last minute additions and tweaks, and adding a bunch of static info up front, but I’ll print and bind it in coil when I’m done so I’ll have a nice half-sheet size notebook.
Kathleen Houston has another inspiring article on sketching, and I confess I was a bit underwhelmed. Even though I have no ability whatsoever for drawing anything, I love the premise. Enough so that my logbook has a space for each observing to draw in, if I so choose. I figure if I put it in, I have the option; if I don’t, I’ll never do it. So it’s in for now. But I think what would make this article “sing” more is some actual practical examples. Like a few pictures with a corresponding simple sketch beside each one. To actually show people what we’re talking about, rather than pages of prose. After all, the whole point is that a picture/sketch is worth at least a couple hundred words, isn’t it?
I was a bit disappointed with the astrophotography primer, and maybe that isn’t fair to the author. It’s an almost impossible task to describe at any level of detail that will make the masses happy. But for me, the part that bothered me was around the afocal imaging and a rather basic / negative treatment of it. If anyone has doubts about the quality of imaging with a smartphone, check out Andrew Symes on Twitter. Based in Stittsville, he has some amazing planetary shots. All with his iPhone and Nexstar 8SE with Alt-Az mount. None of the equipment that people are supposed to use to do AP. And he’s getting amazing results.
The Sky Month by Month
Okay, I confess. My eyes glazed over reading this section, which admittedly is the meat of the book. Many people might buy it just for these chapters. A great overview of each month, all condensed down to 26 pages. Yet, I can’t help but feel there is something missing. Like Letterman doing a top 10 list for each month. Or maybe even just the top 3. Three things that are UNIQUE to that month. The best time all year to see Saturn. Or a fantastic view of some DSO that will be high in the sky with little distorting atmosphere between us and them. Or a meteor shower. January for example has 42 events listed for the month. Even if you go with the bold ones, there are 17. Sure, I can guess which ones are better. Hello, lunar eclipse! But it would be great for people to have almost a “basic” option, a “medium” option, and a “challenge” option for each month.
Eclipses
Page 122-146 has a lot of information, and while some of the lunar stuff is interesting, I confess I feel like the entire chapter is a year too late. I don’t remember if 2017 had such a chapter, as I said I just opened it(!), but there was a reason to have it this year. Without the solar eclipse in N.A. driving interest, I feel like the whole chapter is overkill. Even with a lunar one this year to aim for…
The Moon
I love this section. Maybe in part because I want to do the Lunar certificate for RASC sometime, and I think the moon is undervalued as an accessible target for people.
For me, the entire handbook is “made” just having the info from Bruce McCurdy on lunar observing starting on page 158 as it is perfect for me. Relative shifts per day (p. 158), Canadian content (p.160), the Hadley Rille (p.161), and the lunar certificate (p. 161) are all great elements for the coming year.
The Sun
Like the previous chapter, I am interested in this one as I have a solar filter. I don’t however have a solar scope. Which means what I can do is kind of basic. But it’s a start. And I can do it during the day. Kim Hay’s article on page 186 on solar observing is a bit more basic than I would like, would have been good to have a bit more detail like the moon article. Oddly enough, I found Roy Bishop’s article on Sky Brightness at midnight the most, ahem, illuminating. While fairly basic, I hadn’t thought of the night wind-down in terms of times and horizons, partly as I’m more constrained by sky glow of suburbs that don’t start to taper off until after 10:00 and often 11:00 or 12:00 anyway.
Planets and Satellites
Pages 211-240 cover the seven planets and is probably the most useful section in the short-term. Like the Month-by-Month section, I wish it was a bit clearer as to when the best viewing was, as some of the descriptions are kind of “on the one hand, this is good, but on the other, this is not so good”. Give me a date or a month, people! Break it down! I have what I *think* it means, but honestly, I have no guarantees I’m reading it right. But I took a LOT of notes in the margins.
Dwarf and Minor Planets // Meteors, Comets and Dust
I was going to skim read these two sections, I confess, as I’m usually in the city glow, not a dark sky, and I have an 8″ SCT. Which means my chances of picking these ones out are quite low in the beginning. Maybe later when I know what I’m doing, and I’m at a dark site, I might have a chance. But I’m willing to pick the best night of the year to try for it, and if I can time that for a dark sky viewing, I’ll go for it. I’m optimistic that some day I might get to it, but maybe not 2018.
Stars
The star section, pages 270-306, should be the simplest in my view, and yet I find the various lists confusing. First we have named stars, that seems simple enough, 85 stars whose names I have seen. Then there’s a list of the brightest stars. Equally simple, I thought. It even says there are 286 of them. Great. Except it organizes by the technical name, not the known name, so Mirach is Andromeda B. Umm, okay. Fine. I guess that makes sense. And then we have the 50 brightest stars by magnitude. WTF? Why wouldn’t you just combine this with the list of 286? Presumably they’re on the list. Couldn’t that REALLY detailed table have a column to identify it’s rank out of 286? Then there’s a list of nearby stars. Okay that makes sense too. Wait, a separate list of “easily observable” nearby stars. Okay, colour me confused. No wait, I haven’t got that far yet — I still have double stars, multiple stars, and carbon stars, before I get to coloured double stars. Not to mention variable stars and expired stars. I see lots of LONG lists, and not much of a guide to filtering them other than to do the 50 brightest or the easily observable nearby ones. It would be great if they were organized by season though. Not sure how I’m going to use much of the lists unless I can download the e-version.
The Deep Sky
Unlike the stars section, the deep sky section is just richness personified. I love all the lists and I want to do them all:
Deep Sky Selection – From Near to Far;
Open Clusters
Globular Clusters
Messier – by season
Finest NGC Objects – by season
Dark Nebulae
Deep Sky Challenge Objects
Deep Sky Gems – by season
Wide Field Wonders
40 Optically Brightest Shapley-Ames Galaxies
The Nearest Galaxies
Galaxies with Proper Names
Conclusion
The RASC Observers Handbook 2018 has a huge amount of material that is useful to multiple users across the spectrum. And for me personally, there are a lot of things that I will try and turn into useful target lists for various nights. But there are some editorial and tone issues in a few places that made it a less than positive initial engagement with the guide.
I’m not sure I was an unbiased viewer of tonight’s live performance — Arsenic and Old Lace at the Ottawa Little Theatre.
Some of you may remember back in the day when my lovely bride and I were married at that theatre. We had been season’s tickets subscribers in the past, it was near our old neighbourhood, and we were looking for an off-beat venue. It was perfect for us. So we kind of have a special place in our heart for the old girl. And this year we are season’s ticket holders again. We missed the first play, but I really wanted to see this one. So much so that we changed the tickets to a more convenient night as next weekend is a bit busy.
Why was I excited? Because it’s Arsenic and Old Lace, duh.
I know, I know, you probably don’t even know AOL as anything other than an internet provider that old people used to use. Well, no, A&OL is Arsenic and Old Lace. Lots of older people would remember it as an old Cary Grant movie. If they were truly aware, they would know that it was based on a hugely successful Broadway play starring Boris Karloff, who is referenced repeatedly throughout the original play, movie and tonight’s version. But me? I first heard it as an old-time radio broadcast following an “intro” to radio dramas in Grade 9 Canadian History class.
The comedy tonight has three main levels of cast members…tier 3 involves some beat cops, a visitor, a director of a sanitarium. Tier 2 involves a bride-to-be, a plastic surgeon, and three nephews. And tier 1 includes two elderly aunts. As you find out within the first few minutes of the play, Aunt Martha and Aunt Abby have taken to performing acts of charity with lonely old men — they poison them and bury them in the basement.
Now, with the two aunts, the show lives or dies by their delivery. If they’re “on”, the play sings; if they’re not “on”, it suffers. Tonight? Janet Banigan as Aunt Martha and Sarah Hearn as Aunt Abby were downright awesome. They tripped over lines a couple of times, but not egregiously, and they do occupy almost 40% of the play. Entirely believable. Played by Jean Adair and Josephine Hull in both Broadway and film versions, the characters are delicious to watch. Innocently spooky almost. Just don’t drink their elderberry wine.
The three nephews — Mortimer, the normal one; Jonathan, the criminal; and Teddy, the one who thinks he’s Teddy Roosevelt — were played by Kurt Shantz, Paul Williamson, Dan Desmarais (the roles occupied by Cary Grant, Raymond Massey as a clone of Boris Karloff, and John Alexander in film). Shantz and Williamson were pretty solid, although Shantz looked a bit too much like Dan Ackroyd in Trading Places at times when he was going for “smug”. Williamson was definitely thug-like for his role, a little bit nutty with a strong mean streak.
The Doctor was played by Claude Laroche, and I almost want to see the film version to see Peter Lorre in the role. Can’t even imagine him as Einstein. With Mary Whalen handling the part of Elaine, the girlfriend/bride-to-be (Priscilla Lane in the film in one of her last roles). I’ve seen Whalen before, and she’s hit and miss for some roles — tonight she did great. As did Laroche, in a role that is hard to balance between a little sleazy, a little weak, a little mousy, a little evil.
The rest of the cast is a bit of a wash both in terms of their performance as well as the roles themselves. In the radio drama, most of them don’t even show up — mostly it’s just the three nephews, two aunts, the doctor, and a beat cop. Seven cast members, not the 13 who were in tonight’s version.
I was nervous — I like the play so much and I just wanted them to nail it. Which they did.
One of the best performances Andrea and I have ever seen at the OLT. Great night…
I’ve been working on my HR Guide in varying forms for a long time. While I have wanted to share it as posts and eventually as a book, I haven’t made the time to finish it. There’s some simple and some complex reasons behind that, but regardless, I don’t have it in the full prose version that I want.
But last April, I was having a conversation with someone who basically said, “Oh, I don’t care if I get the prose yet, I’ll settle for the deck version you shared previously.”
Huh. I do HAVE a deck version, and it IS the basis for most of my prose. Just shorter. Way less complete. But done.
What if I shared that a bit more? So I did. And I went a step further. I uploaded it to my site, put it in a prominent place in the sidebar, and made it available to anyone who wanted to download it.
So how did that work out for me?
Well, just under 18 months later, I just surpassed 1000 downloads of it (1001 as of tonight).
I’m still working on the prose version, but I think 1000 downloads is worth including in my 50by50 achievements. Yay me!
I’ve been reading Jeffrey Kottler’s “Change” and am now onto Chapter 3, “When Lives are Transformed.” It seems a bit odd to be three chapters in and just starting to talk about the “big” changes as opposed to change in general, but this chapter starts to hone in on the “quantum” or “transcendant” type of change where it rises to the level of true transformation – perhaps where you radically change not only how you see yourself, but also how you see the world.
It is perhaps cheating, but I like Kottler’s description itself:
…an emphasis on relatively significant and permanent modifications that have been internalized, resulting not only in altered beliefs and priorities, but also in new, more effective behaviour, as well as continued growth that may even take place at a cellular level in the brain.
Pretty heady stuff. But for me it is simpler – a significantly different way of thinking and behaving that is sustainable over time. It doesn’t have to be “permanent” in the sense that there won’t be backsliding, nor does it have to be fully internalized to the point of instinct. You may still have to consciously override your internal voices to say, “No, that’s not what I’m going to do today.” Alcoholics in a 12-step process are not saying they’ll never drink again; they’re saying they won’t drink today, day by day, and the days hopefully add up to never again. But it still requires the daily commitment to a change in behaviour.
While part of the chapter talks about people who have created new religious movements or new ways of global thinking as a result of formative events – unplanned, sudden, brief, vivid and intense, positive and long-lasting i.e. intense but positive traumas – the real benefit for me is a small section talking about maintaining momentum to change temporary change into long-term change.
For Kottler, there are often several conditions that must be met for the change to be sustainable:
The benefits/functions of the old way of doing things must have been disrupted and no longer “working” for the individual;
The choice to act like the old you has to be greatly reduced ineffectiveness or has a higher cost now i.e. again you need to find another way;
The underlying causes/triggers for the old behaviour are addressed through other means; and,
There was some meaning attached to the changes that permit the person to find some greater purpose to his or her life.
It’s a good list, but I think it can be simpler. You have to disrupt / cut the ties to the past way of doing things…the triggers have to be mitigated, the benefits have to be recognized as costs. And there needs to be a narrative for the person – a story to tell themselves – that clearly recognizes the old choices are not practical anymore and that they are making the change for a better version of their self for the future. A “change” story.
Kottler emphasizes this at the end of the chapter. While negative motivators (avoiding pain and other costs) and positive motivators (awareness, insight) help move you forward, it also helps to find ways to cement your change in identity as you redefine yourself in terms of the new behaviour. There is a lot of power to saying “I am x” and having the empowered choice to decide what X is. That could be “drunk” in the past and “recovering alcoholic” now. It could be less painful ones – shy, nervous, awkward. But those labels are one dimensional and reinforcing of your old behaviour. If you tell yourself that you’re awkward, you will avoid social situations, for instance. If you only tell yourself you’re overweight, you won’t see yourself as capable of doing a lot of things. And unless you see yourself in the “new” light too, you can’t sustain the momentum once you do make some changes.
For me, using my “goals” as a catalyst for change, part of my story is telling myself that “I am someone who can make changes in my life.” I can write, I can spend time with my son, I can learn a new hobby, etc. An act of empowerment built into the simple act of setting goals that starts with the belief that I can achieve those goals.
It works for me, not sure it will resonate with everyone. Does it resonate with you? What is your “I am …” statement?
