Tag Archives: textbook

Observer’s Handbook, 2019 by RASC (2018) – BR00142 (2019) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸

The PolyBlog
March 12 2019

Plot or Premise

This is the annual observer’s guide published by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.

What I Liked

Each year, the Observer’s Guide is produced and sold to amateur and professional astronomers across North America, and those astronomers vary considerably in their capacity and interests. It’s hard to serve any “one group”, but as I am at the intro stage to the hobby, I’ll review from that perspective. Some highlights include:

  • List of observatories, star parties, planetaria (pp 11-14);
  • Observable satellites of the planets (pp 25-26);
  • Observing artificial satellites (p 38);
  • Overview of filters (pp 64-67);
  • Deep-sky observing hints by Alan Dyer (pp 85-87);
  • Lunar observing (pp 158-161);
  • The brightest stars (pp 274-283, 285); and,
  • The deep sky (pp 307-337).

Of course, it also has the key reference materials:

  • The Moon (pp 148-157);
  • The Sun (pp 184-193);
  • Dwarf and minor planets (pp 241-251); and,
  • Double and multiple stars (pp 291-294, 296-297).

And it has specific highlights for the year:

  • The Sky month-by-month (pp 94-121);
  • Times of sunrise and sunset for 2019 (pp 205-207);
  • 2019 transit of Mercury (pp 139-143);
  • The planets in 2019 (pp 211-229); and,
  • Comets in 2019 (p 264).

I’m happy too that some of the errors in URLs published last year have been corrected.

What I Didn’t Like

I still find the pages on telescope exit pupils (pp 50-53) to be incredibly dense. I keep meaning to find a more basic set of explanations online of it, but I never seem to get around to it. I would add the next section on magnification and contrast in deep sky observing (pp 54-57) as equally confusing. I have to believe that dense text can somehow be explained more easily to the newbie with some basic guidelines for common scopes and ages of users. Equally, I’m not thrilled with the astrophotography section (pp 91-93) which still lists the “big cameras” as best, in the same way that many photography websites ten years ago suggested that professionals would never go digital. There is an emerging market for people sharing prime shots they take with their smartphones — souvenir quality shots, not NASA shots — and it is almost completely ignored by the section (grudgingly it says “even cell phones”). I also find that the economic bias of last year towards higher-end binoculars and scopes continues. But those issues are mostly me just being picky — they aren’t enough to reduce the overall rating.

Disclosure

I received a copy of the guide as part of my annual membership in RASC.

The Bottom Line

Excellent edition for the year.

Big Box Reuse by Julia Christensen (2008) – BR00115 (2018) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
March 14 2018

Plot or Premise

This textbook-sized book includes ten case studies across America where former big box stores – Walmarts and Kmarts – have been put to new use after the store left or closed.

What I Liked

I was drawn to the premise of the book as I have frequently seen large big box stores in Canada, anchoring malls and plazas, move out and languish empty for a number of years. Sometimes it is a short time and another retailer moves in. Sometimes it is a long time, and it looks like urban blight. Rarely have I seen much in the way of “good news” around these sites, and I was intrigued with the idea of a series of case studies where the stores aren’t just languishing empty, but have been put to reuse.

From a policy perspective, the first thing that jumped out at me was that the stores were not all empty because the store “failed”. While the Kmarts closed, most of the Walmarts moved to larger facilities…instead of trying to renovate an existing space (and losing revenue while it was being renovated), they built a whole new store, sometimes just across the road. Secondly, I liked some of the challenges and opportunities that go with the store’s design…they are primarily utilitarian empty boxes. Which means they can be anything you want them to be, except perhaps attractive (usually). Beyond these first two, some other issues that I liked were:

  • Some of the restrictions the former store put on future use when selling the land (lease restrictions to prevent competition for instance);
  • Local ordinances that were hard-learned lessons about responsibilities of the owner when the boxes are being built with a view to future reuse (accessibility, divisibility of the interior space, extra doors, etc.) or eventual removal if it sits empty too long;
  • The short-term reuse by other types of businesses (like an indoor racetrack) until the lease restrictions ease at 10 years and the subsequent eviction of those temporary tenants in favour of larger more profitable retailers;
  • The use of some of the properties as “land banks” to use the land for SOMETHING while waiting until the value increases;
  • The importance of time frame for assessing success as some of the reuses look great initially but weren’t sustainable;
  • The importance of interior and exterior aesthetics to the new users and the public;
  • The consideration of the location not just as a “building” but as tied to the infrastructure around it – utilities, parking, accessibility to good transportation routes, etc;  and,
  • The potential for complicated types of real-estate deals in place to address if you want to reuse something – current lease holder, building owner, and a land owner.

I think my favourite chapter was one that looked at a reuse of a Walmart box by three seniors services organizations that co-located into one building, and the place was thriving. Equally, I saw potential in the reuse by a few Charter schools and a couple of other “startup” organizations who couldn’t afford to build their own building, at least not initially, but they could afford to lease a space, get up and running, earn some revenue, save up, and then buy the building, while slowly expanding their use throughout the space. A library project took the “challenge” of being in a big box and turned it into a way to engage the community (a common challenge to face together, which built support for the project). Finally, there is a chapter on converting a box store into a church, and not just in one location, as it has happened in lots of places.

What I Didn’t Like

I was a bit disappointed that the book only looked at Kmart and Walmart stores, as they all have very specific footprints, which would in some ways limit their reuse. Multiple sizes of stores might have more interesting reuses. I was also disappointed with the lack of other context – how does big box reuse compare to gentrification of factory districts, how do the issues that crop up with historic buildings compare with the issues of more modern box stores, how do they compare with issues when converting schools or churches to other uses? A couple of the chapters are throwaway chapters for me as they are not truly reuse. One looks at a courthouse that took over the space, but just razed the building and built something new; another only used the parking lot; and another just had other types of retailers in the space.

The Bottom Line

An interesting series of case studies for a common modern-day problem.

Observer’s Handbook, 2018 by RASC (2017) – BR00114 (2017) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
November 11 2017

Plot or Premise

This is the annual observer’s guide published by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.

What I Liked

One of the most obvious challenges for an Observer’s Guide of this kind is balancing the needs of newbies and moderate amateurs with the needs of advanced astronomers, photographers, and outright astrophysicists. However, I’m on the newer end of the spectrum, and I found the typical wealth of information such as using the handbook for teaching purposes and resources (p 17); observable satellites (p 25); filters (p 64); deep-sky observing hints (p 85); the sky month by month; and overviews on planets, dwarf planets, satellites, the sun, and various star options before getting to the deep-sky lists (which could benefit from better presentation). However, I think my favourite section was on the Moon. 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 me to try to see in the coming year.

What I Didn’t Like

I was surprised to see a number of errors in included URLs. While it is hard to stay evergreen, these were links that had not changed from last year and when I went back to the RASC website, the links worked just fine. Somehow they got edited in publication and never tested. Even links to the actual RASC website were wrong. There are also some highly technical pages on magnification, telescope parameters, night myopia, and exit pupils, and while correct, they are presented so densely that re-reading them left me more confused than informed. Finally, there is a strong economic bias that creeps into the texts in a few places — on binoculars, the only ones they mention as being good cost around $1500, and when talking about using Schmidt-Cassegrain scopes (often bought as they are quite portable), recommends just putting it in your backyard observatory, assuming, of course, that you have the money to have a house with a backyard with room and resources to build an observatory. In addition, there are numerous editing choices made throughout the text such as lists sorted by one variable instead of by one that might aid organization. I’ve already found myself copying lists from previous years online into spreadsheets so I can resort them into a more usable format.

Disclosure

I received a copy of the guide as part of my annual membership in RASC.

The Bottom Line

Solid guide but some editorial and tone issues throughout.

Rethinking Canadian Aid by Edited by Stephen Brown, Molly den Heyer and David R. Black (2015) – BR00191 (2015) – 🐸🐸⚪⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
March 9 2015

Plot or Premise

This academic analysis of recent Canadian international development assistance is long on political economy and light on “realities on the ground”.

What I Liked

The text had a strong opening for its goals, even if the administrative context didn’t quite match their estimated / presumed political context. When it came to hard statistical analysis (Chapter 6) and mimicry of other donors, the paper was sound. Chapter 12 on children at risk, and the potential for mainstreaming, had potential but was undersold.

What I Didn’t Like

The book had a lot of rhetoric and assumptions than analysis of ethical consensus and normativism (Chapters 1-3), results reporting and power dynamics (Chapter 4, 5, 10), Corporate Social responsibility (Chapter 7, 15, 16), links to military spending for peacekeeping (Chapter 8, 9, 13,14), and soundbite announcements masquerading as policies (Chapter 11).

Disclosure

I am not personal friends with the editors, but I am friends with the author of one of the chapters.

The Bottom Line

More rhetoric than real analysis.

Using HTML 4 (4th edition) by Lee Anne Phillips (1998) – BR00096 (1999) – 🐸🐸🐸⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
October 10 1999

Plot or Premise

Good resource, short on tutorials but long on information.

What I Liked

Good for syntax and great appendix sections.

What I Didn’t Like

Not quite as detailed as other books, and not much theory.

The Bottom Line

Good resource.