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Building the Light Pollution Matrix

February 9, 2024

Earlier this week, I had the privilege of recording an episode of a Restoring Darkness podcast with Michael Colligan and Mark Baker. The topics of our conversation ranged from light pollution activism, the role of the lighting industry in solving light pollution, and how we at the Environment and Sustainability Institute and Departments of Physics...

Chirp has a New Home

October 7, 2023

At the end of 2019, I posted about a little app that my colleagues and the University of Birmingham and I had been working on called Chirp — a web and iOS app for keeping track of the latest gravitational wave alerts. The COVID-19 pandemic shut down LIGO, and Chirp, but now it’s coming back...

Outreach Talks

December 16, 2019

Upcoming Talks 22nd October 2022 – Plymouth Festival of Physics – What has Astronomy Ever Done for Me? Past Talks 11th June 2021 – Tiverton and Mid Devon Astronomy Society – Improving the Measurements of the Fundamental Properties of Stars 18th July 2019 – Kernow Astronomers I joined Kernow Astronomers on Thursday 19th July for...

Chirp – An App for Monitoring Gravitational Wave Alerts

November 1, 2019

I’m absolutely delighted to announce that a spare-time project I have been involved with for the best part of a year has finally been released. Enter Chirp – an app to help you monitor gravitational wave alerts. The app is being officially released to coincide with the start of O3b, the second part of the...

Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet: A tribute to Stephen Hawking

March 14, 2018

There are a couple of books I can honestly say inspired me to be an astronomer. In college, junior / senior year in high school for those in the USA, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do after I’d finished my A-levels. However, years of watching Star Trek and vivid memories of...

Web Development for Physicists

February 17, 2018

I’m fortunate enough to be sitting at the intersection of two disparate fields which are rapidly hurtling towards each other. More than ever, it’s becoming important to publicise you and your research, whether you’re in academia or in the private sector. Sooner or later, this is likely going to mean you’re going to requiring some...

Dealing with Blank Lines Comments in Fortran READs

September 4, 2017

Just a quick little programming snippet today. When preparing data files, it’s often useful to include headers and comments in them, especially in the more complicated ones. Most data applications that you might be loading data into, such as maybe Python or MATLAB, have plenty of ability to filter out those comments, but what if...

My Plans for the Apple Watch

August 24, 2017

I have traditionally been a fan of Apple stuff, but lately I’ve found myself becoming less and less enamoured with their current offerings. Whether it be the lacklustre MacBook Pro, with zero USB-A connectors and complete lack of an SD card slot, or the omission of a 3.5mm audio jack on the latest iPhones, they...

What I’ve Been Listening To – January 2017

February 1, 2017

Port Cities – On the Nights You Stay Home This is yet another group that convinces me that Canadians are great at music. Any indipendent artist supergroup of sorts, this the combination of 3 different solo acts in a glorious song writing, music producing partnership. If the chilled beat with well produced drums wasn’t enough,...

What I’ve Been Listening To – December 2016

January 17, 2017

Apologies for the tardiness of the post. I’ve been meaning to get it out for a couple of weeks, but unfortunately I’m pretty apt at procrastination. It’s certainly been a hell of year. What with the various questionable bits of politics, scandals, gates of all varieties and now the first year where the antarctic sea...

What I’ve Been Listening To – November 2016

December 3, 2016

There’s no mistaking it. 2016 is beginning to draw to an oh so welcoming close, not so much with a bang, but more of a turgid death rattle. The nights have drawn in to mid afternoon and the weather is as unpredictable as ever. It’s on evenings like this it’s nice to cuddle up by...

What I’ve Been Listening To – October 2016

November 4, 2016

A heady welcome to the second year of my music posts. As we being the long down hill meander towards the end of the year I’ve compiled another bunch of tunes to draw you through the increasingly cold night and crisp mornings. It may be a few days late, but let’s get into it. Kina...