Hello everybody and welcome back from the weekend. I've got one story up today on the website and it's about the two-week summer workshop called the SLAC Summer Institute, or SSI for short. Student workers have been running around the office for weeks getting everything ready for this massive event.
This year's topic? Dark matter. If you haven't heard, allow me to enlighten you. (ha ha ha I'm so clever!)
When scientists observe the way galaxies move throughout the universe—such as the way they spin—they find that the mechanics are all wrong according to Newton's laws of gravity and Einstein's of relativity. The only way the universe can behave as observed is if there is about 20 times as much matter and energy that we can't see than what we can see.
That's right folks, visible matter accounts for only 4% of the stuff in the universe.
So take the entire solar system, the entire galaxy, and all of the trillions and trillions of stars and other galaxies that we can see through our massive telescopes and multiply it by 20.
That's a lot of invisible stuff.
And out of that invisible stuff, roughly 2/3 of it is a substance known as "dark energy" or "vacuum energy." This stuff is causing the universe to accelerate its expansion. You would think that gravity would be pulling everything back together eventually in, say, a couple of trillion years. But no, this stuff is causing the universe to expand faster and faster and faster…
The remaining third is dark matter. Again, we know its there because its gravity effects that of the matter we can see. But we can't detect it. Nobody knows what its made out of. There are a bunch of experiments that are trying to find out, but that is another topic for another day.
Why?
Well because I said so. And because I have an article coming out for the website in the near future about that exact topic…
So I won't waste a good idea for a future reference to satisfy your curiosity now. If you want to know… go find out! Or stick around and keep reading this blog for a few more days.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Friday, July 27, 2007
At the Mercy of Sources
Just one story online today about computer outages because of monthly server updates. The story isn't really all that interesting, it's just to let the lab know when and why they won't be able to use certain site computing functions. But the story behind the story is kind of interesting…
My editor asked me to go to the computing help desk to ask about the topic. The entire site had received an email saying when the outages were occurring, but not really explaining why very well. Seems like a simple enough assignment to go to the help desk and ask a few questions and write it up… right?
Wrong!
The first guy I talked to was pretty helpful, but informed me he wasn't really the guy to talk about it, and all the information was second hand. Instead I contacted the person who sent the email out originally, but he was not easy to get a hold of. And because I was on deadline, I badgered him, probably to the point of stalking, with phone calls, emails, and notes left taped to his office chair…
Hey, a writer has got to do what a writer has got to do…
Eventually he got back to me, I whipped something out, got it edited, and sent it back to him asking for any revisions to be sent to me by 10:00 am on Wednesday morning.
So far, so good.
Get an email Wednesday morning saying he has sent it to some other people in his group for edits and suggestions and will have it to me soon. Super, I can wait. But then 11:00 rolls around, and nothing. Lunch come and goes with no word. And then before I know it, it's 2:30 in the afternoon and my editor has to have the story to publish the next day! It's extremely bad form to publish something without letting the contacts have their say in this line of work.
So I go into panic mode and start stalking…
Eventually, at around 4:15, I get the edits back. They have basically doubled the length of the article and ruined the creative flow I had so delicately pieced together! (OK, so it wasn't really that bad, but it did contain a lot more information that probably wasn't necessary…)
But if they think people need to know it, then I need to leave it in. So after some editing, I chop out some words, rearrange some lines, and soften some of the language. I send it off to my editor and back to the source and head for home…
Next morning I find out that my source had sent me yet another edit after I had left work. Ahhhhh!!! I hope they're all happy with what we published that morning…
"Ken,
Allowing us to shed some light on our internal processes definitely helps to keep our users informed and feel more empowered. Thank you for writing the article, you did a great job."
Whew! Another crisis averted. But it just goes to show you, in this line of journalism when you really want to make everyone as happy as possible, sometimes you are at the mercy of your sources. This usually isn't a problem, but occasionally, they are either busy or you're simply not at the top of their to-do list, and things can get hairy.
All of these problems would go away if there simply weren't any deadlines…
Hmmmm….
My editor asked me to go to the computing help desk to ask about the topic. The entire site had received an email saying when the outages were occurring, but not really explaining why very well. Seems like a simple enough assignment to go to the help desk and ask a few questions and write it up… right?
Wrong!
The first guy I talked to was pretty helpful, but informed me he wasn't really the guy to talk about it, and all the information was second hand. Instead I contacted the person who sent the email out originally, but he was not easy to get a hold of. And because I was on deadline, I badgered him, probably to the point of stalking, with phone calls, emails, and notes left taped to his office chair…
Hey, a writer has got to do what a writer has got to do…
Eventually he got back to me, I whipped something out, got it edited, and sent it back to him asking for any revisions to be sent to me by 10:00 am on Wednesday morning.
So far, so good.
Get an email Wednesday morning saying he has sent it to some other people in his group for edits and suggestions and will have it to me soon. Super, I can wait. But then 11:00 rolls around, and nothing. Lunch come and goes with no word. And then before I know it, it's 2:30 in the afternoon and my editor has to have the story to publish the next day! It's extremely bad form to publish something without letting the contacts have their say in this line of work.
So I go into panic mode and start stalking…
Eventually, at around 4:15, I get the edits back. They have basically doubled the length of the article and ruined the creative flow I had so delicately pieced together! (OK, so it wasn't really that bad, but it did contain a lot more information that probably wasn't necessary…)
But if they think people need to know it, then I need to leave it in. So after some editing, I chop out some words, rearrange some lines, and soften some of the language. I send it off to my editor and back to the source and head for home…
Next morning I find out that my source had sent me yet another edit after I had left work. Ahhhhh!!! I hope they're all happy with what we published that morning…
"Ken,
Allowing us to shed some light on our internal processes definitely helps to keep our users informed and feel more empowered. Thank you for writing the article, you did a great job."
Whew! Another crisis averted. But it just goes to show you, in this line of journalism when you really want to make everyone as happy as possible, sometimes you are at the mercy of your sources. This usually isn't a problem, but occasionally, they are either busy or you're simply not at the top of their to-do list, and things can get hairy.
All of these problems would go away if there simply weren't any deadlines…
Hmmmm….
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Science and Art
Two short articles today on the web. One is a short profile about a former Summer Undergraduate Laboratory Intern (SULI) summer intern who has done very well for himself. I did that a couple of weeks ago when stories were very slow…
The second is much cooler. It’s a short piece, with a killer photo I might add, that describes a barbecue held on-site yesterday. The Mexican-style meats, rice, stuffed peppers, grilled tortillas, and mmmmmmmmmmm it smelled amazing!
Later yesterday afternoon, I went and sat in on a meeting between the director of SLAC, Jonathan Dorfan, and a local artist originally from Australia named Lylie Fisher, who recently had an art display in one of the buildings on site for several months.
I now regret never having made it over to that building to look at all of her pieces, because they are gorgeous. And they're also very interesting because they used photographs taken from physics research four decades old.
Bubble chambers use superheated, pressurized liquid that cause particles passing through to leave behind bubbly trails that are then captured by cameras. The resulting picture looks a lot like computer produced events of today's particle detectors, except they are actual pictures of trails left by particles and not just recreations on a screen.
Fisher took enlargements of these photos, cropped them, and painted directly on the photo with acrylic paints. The colors are bright, vibrant, and I love them. You can read more about her work and look at some of the pieces at her website here, or on SLAC Today here, or on Symmetry magazine here (this last one has lots of great images).
Anyways, they got into a long conversation about science and art, about how they both explore different sides of the same coin. Particle physics asks, "Why are we here?" by investigating the very essence of how matter is created, while art takes the philosophical approach. Fisher said her goal was to combine these two elements into single pieces of art that would not only generate thoughts about existence, but raise interest in physics.
I think its interesting that so many scientists at SLAC have artistic backgrounds, whether in music or in art, and so many have deep appreciations for the arts. It would be a great initiative to find some way of combining the two in schools throughout the country. Sadly, with art programs disappearing every year, this probably won't happen. But one can always hope for a future push, because they really are not all that dissimilar.
The second is much cooler. It’s a short piece, with a killer photo I might add, that describes a barbecue held on-site yesterday. The Mexican-style meats, rice, stuffed peppers, grilled tortillas, and mmmmmmmmmmm it smelled amazing!
Later yesterday afternoon, I went and sat in on a meeting between the director of SLAC, Jonathan Dorfan, and a local artist originally from Australia named Lylie Fisher, who recently had an art display in one of the buildings on site for several months.
I now regret never having made it over to that building to look at all of her pieces, because they are gorgeous. And they're also very interesting because they used photographs taken from physics research four decades old.
Bubble chambers use superheated, pressurized liquid that cause particles passing through to leave behind bubbly trails that are then captured by cameras. The resulting picture looks a lot like computer produced events of today's particle detectors, except they are actual pictures of trails left by particles and not just recreations on a screen.
Fisher took enlargements of these photos, cropped them, and painted directly on the photo with acrylic paints. The colors are bright, vibrant, and I love them. You can read more about her work and look at some of the pieces at her website here, or on SLAC Today here, or on Symmetry magazine here (this last one has lots of great images).
Anyways, they got into a long conversation about science and art, about how they both explore different sides of the same coin. Particle physics asks, "Why are we here?" by investigating the very essence of how matter is created, while art takes the philosophical approach. Fisher said her goal was to combine these two elements into single pieces of art that would not only generate thoughts about existence, but raise interest in physics.
I think its interesting that so many scientists at SLAC have artistic backgrounds, whether in music or in art, and so many have deep appreciations for the arts. It would be a great initiative to find some way of combining the two in schools throughout the country. Sadly, with art programs disappearing every year, this probably won't happen. But one can always hope for a future push, because they really are not all that dissimilar.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Progress Thus Far
Today I've got one short story about an art display that was recently put up in an office building here at SLAC. The photographs are aerial views of beautifully colored salt marshes in the near-bye bay. Check them out if you have the time.
It recently occurred to me that I am now more than half-way done with my internship here at SLAC. Partly because of this, and partly because the professor overseeing this project asked, I'm going to take a look back at where I am compared to where I started.
First, I've learned that no story is too small to make a difference to somebody. Some of the most complimented pieces I've written haven't been about cutting-edge science or amazing experiments. Instead, I get feedback on profiles and human interest pieces. Sometimes writing these types of articles gets monotonous, but praise from the SLAC community helps a lot.
I've learned to tighten my writing style. I now pay more attention to passive verbs and I try to get the point across in fewer words. The use of a solid topic sentence in every paragraph and making sure a complete nut graph appears have also helped a lot.
I've definitely learned to handle heavy editing and constructive criticism. Several stories have been handed back to me with a "this sucks, fix it!" But of course in a much nicer and more diplomatic way along with suggestions on how best to go about rewriting it. And I know not to take it personally, because usually the second draft is much closer to being publishable with few edits.
I definantly now have no hang-ups about nearly stalking people to get an interview.
My interviewing skills are also getting better. I've learned to go in with several questions that I know need to be answered. And I'm getting more comfortable digging deeper and asking spin-off questions when something doesn't quite make sense to me or I sense an interesting answer nearby.
But some things haven't changed. I still rarely use any form of prewriting like an outline. I basically come up with leads and flows in my head before putting them on paper. OK, well, the computer screen. Maybe because of this I still write too quickly occasionally, which might contribute to the several stories that come back with heavy edits. Hopefully the next lesson I learn is to produce excellent work in rough drafts by taking more time to ensure they're decent.
It recently occurred to me that I am now more than half-way done with my internship here at SLAC. Partly because of this, and partly because the professor overseeing this project asked, I'm going to take a look back at where I am compared to where I started.
First, I've learned that no story is too small to make a difference to somebody. Some of the most complimented pieces I've written haven't been about cutting-edge science or amazing experiments. Instead, I get feedback on profiles and human interest pieces. Sometimes writing these types of articles gets monotonous, but praise from the SLAC community helps a lot.
I've learned to tighten my writing style. I now pay more attention to passive verbs and I try to get the point across in fewer words. The use of a solid topic sentence in every paragraph and making sure a complete nut graph appears have also helped a lot.
I've definitely learned to handle heavy editing and constructive criticism. Several stories have been handed back to me with a "this sucks, fix it!" But of course in a much nicer and more diplomatic way along with suggestions on how best to go about rewriting it. And I know not to take it personally, because usually the second draft is much closer to being publishable with few edits.
I definantly now have no hang-ups about nearly stalking people to get an interview.
My interviewing skills are also getting better. I've learned to go in with several questions that I know need to be answered. And I'm getting more comfortable digging deeper and asking spin-off questions when something doesn't quite make sense to me or I sense an interesting answer nearby.
But some things haven't changed. I still rarely use any form of prewriting like an outline. I basically come up with leads and flows in my head before putting them on paper. OK, well, the computer screen. Maybe because of this I still write too quickly occasionally, which might contribute to the several stories that come back with heavy edits. Hopefully the next lesson I learn is to produce excellent work in rough drafts by taking more time to ensure they're decent.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Questions Raised are Questions Answered
Apologies all for not blogging last Friday (like any of you probably really care… four posts a week is probably enough to keep up with, I know its enough to write!) but I absolutely HAD to finish rereading Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince so I could start on The Deathly Hallows on Saturday morning. I am happy to report I did, even though it took me until 1:30 in the morning to finish.
So after a full weekend of reading excellent work, I am now ready to return to my own writing projects.
I would like to point out, however, that Friday's issue of SLAC today was my second exclusive issue. All three stories were written by me. I am slowly taking over the office of communications…
Or so I thought until today when I don't have any stories appearing. But fear not, I am in the works on nine more, which is keeping me rather busy during the day.
I would like to take the opportunity, however, to answer a couple of questions from the Indiana University professor who is so kindly overseeing my project.
My stories, and all stories, on SLAC Today are written for a general audience who may or may not have any scientific background at all. SLAC has over 1500 employees, about 1000 of which are not scientists and might not have any scientific training at all. Writing scientific stories which the layman will completely understand is one of the most challenging aspects of my internship so far.
For example, a previous article about kinematic calculations of the expansion of the universe took about six drafts to get right. A more recent article about monitoring GLAST took about five drafts before I got all of the scientific jargon out of it. And then when I submitted it to the scientists to look over and approve, one of them put a lot of the jargon back in that I had worked so hard to remove, which brought about a discussion between my editors and myself about which terms should be left and what should be simplified. This is a delicate decision and often I agonize over only a few words for a whole half hour.
So how am I doing? Anybody out there with little or no scientific background, please take a look at the two stories I just mentioned and tell me if you understand it all. And if you don't what words, phrases, or ideas do you find troublesome? Let me know so I can do better next time around…
So after a full weekend of reading excellent work, I am now ready to return to my own writing projects.
I would like to point out, however, that Friday's issue of SLAC today was my second exclusive issue. All three stories were written by me. I am slowly taking over the office of communications…
Or so I thought until today when I don't have any stories appearing. But fear not, I am in the works on nine more, which is keeping me rather busy during the day.
I would like to take the opportunity, however, to answer a couple of questions from the Indiana University professor who is so kindly overseeing my project.
My stories, and all stories, on SLAC Today are written for a general audience who may or may not have any scientific background at all. SLAC has over 1500 employees, about 1000 of which are not scientists and might not have any scientific training at all. Writing scientific stories which the layman will completely understand is one of the most challenging aspects of my internship so far.
For example, a previous article about kinematic calculations of the expansion of the universe took about six drafts to get right. A more recent article about monitoring GLAST took about five drafts before I got all of the scientific jargon out of it. And then when I submitted it to the scientists to look over and approve, one of them put a lot of the jargon back in that I had worked so hard to remove, which brought about a discussion between my editors and myself about which terms should be left and what should be simplified. This is a delicate decision and often I agonize over only a few words for a whole half hour.
So how am I doing? Anybody out there with little or no scientific background, please take a look at the two stories I just mentioned and tell me if you understand it all. And if you don't what words, phrases, or ideas do you find troublesome? Let me know so I can do better next time around…
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Space… in 3-D!
Today I've got one and a half stories published on SLAC Today. Why the half you ask? Well, one of them is a short little blurb about the SLAC Summer Institute that is starting in two weeks. This year's topic is dark matter, and I actually wish I could go to learn more about it. It's a fascinating topic. Maybe they'll let me slip into a couple of the lectures…
Anyways, what I really wanted to talk about today is the second story about 3-D animations at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics (KIPAC) visualization lab. I personally visited the visualization lab and was very impressed with what I saw.
You can read the article for details, but I'll give you the highlights here. There are two projectors which have a polarized light filter over each of their lenses. Polarizing light is basically making sure that only waves traveling in exactly the same direction make it through. Anything coming at an angle doesn't make it.
When light is polarized in two different directions, and special glasses with similarly polarized lenses are worn, the effect is a 3-D image. But I'm not talking about your typical cartoons here.
No, instead these movies are created from actual data taken from space. Through complex observations, and even more complex calculations which can take weeks, scientists can form models of really cool events like galaxies forming, the early universe expanding, black holes colliding, and more.
This data is then fed into a rendering program written here at SLAC. You can't find it anywhere else. The program takes the data and creates a 3-D movie in a matter of days, if not hours. The difficult part is actually deciding what you want to highlight. You can't visualize more than one variable at a time. It wouldn't make sense to show the expansion of the universe via temperature and density variations at the same time.
Instead, the lead choreographer, for lack of a better term, chooses which variable will best highlight the data. He also chooses what color scheme to use and which angles to view the movie in. These sorts of decisions can take weeks, but the results are stunning. You can check some of these movies out at the KIPAC's website.
Also, there is another program that lets you imagine you are the captain of the Enterprise (I know I'm a dork.) Again using real data, you can fly through an actual representation of the Milky Way galaxy. You can choose which direction to fly and how far, and the stars passing have real names and data. It's pretty neat.
Anyways, what I really wanted to talk about today is the second story about 3-D animations at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics (KIPAC) visualization lab. I personally visited the visualization lab and was very impressed with what I saw.
You can read the article for details, but I'll give you the highlights here. There are two projectors which have a polarized light filter over each of their lenses. Polarizing light is basically making sure that only waves traveling in exactly the same direction make it through. Anything coming at an angle doesn't make it.
When light is polarized in two different directions, and special glasses with similarly polarized lenses are worn, the effect is a 3-D image. But I'm not talking about your typical cartoons here.
No, instead these movies are created from actual data taken from space. Through complex observations, and even more complex calculations which can take weeks, scientists can form models of really cool events like galaxies forming, the early universe expanding, black holes colliding, and more.
This data is then fed into a rendering program written here at SLAC. You can't find it anywhere else. The program takes the data and creates a 3-D movie in a matter of days, if not hours. The difficult part is actually deciding what you want to highlight. You can't visualize more than one variable at a time. It wouldn't make sense to show the expansion of the universe via temperature and density variations at the same time.
Instead, the lead choreographer, for lack of a better term, chooses which variable will best highlight the data. He also chooses what color scheme to use and which angles to view the movie in. These sorts of decisions can take weeks, but the results are stunning. You can check some of these movies out at the KIPAC's website.
Also, there is another program that lets you imagine you are the captain of the Enterprise (I know I'm a dork.) Again using real data, you can fly through an actual representation of the Milky Way galaxy. You can choose which direction to fly and how far, and the stars passing have real names and data. It's pretty neat.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
More on the LCLS
One story is on SLAC Today about a labor pool group that does a lot of the miscellaneous tasks around the grounds. It's nice to interview regular guys who don't get a lot of props for their hard work and to recognize that without their efforts, jobs on-site would be much more tedious and frustrating.
On to today's main topic; the Linac Coherent Light Source. Some of you may remember me talking about it in a previous blog. I described how the LCLS works, how it takes x-rays produced from accelerated electrons to take pictures of extremely small objects extremely quickly.
Revisit that post here, or visit the LCLS website here, for a refresher…
Today's question is this: How do the scientists actually prepare a sample of something to put in front of this amazing x-ray laser beam?
Answer: Good question.
There are currently two projects underway at SLAC to answer this question. One is called the LCLS Ultrafast Science Instruments (LUSI) project and the second is known as Photon Ultrafast Laser Science and Engineering (PULSE). The purpose of LUSI is to investigate hardware technologies to be used with the LCLS and PULSE was commissioned to explore how the LCLS can be used to its full potential.
For example, technologies exist that can drop a stream of single molecules into the beam line to "take its picture." But every time it drops a molecule, it is oriented in a different way. This makes it extremely difficult to create a high-resolution image of the complex 3-dimensional structure that is a molecule.
Current projects using x-rays to probe molecules have to crystallize the sample first. This makes the sample uniform and simplifies the calculations immensely. However, some molecules, proteins, or other objects can not be crystallized, and the LCLS is capable of so much more than investigating crystallized structures. So one of the projects is to create a machine that can inject a single molecule into the beam line in roughly the same orientation every time.
So the question of how exactly samples and materials are going to be probed by the LCLS beam remains unanswered. But be assured that many scientists are working on it, and when the time comes, the LCLS will produce an amazing array of results.
This is but one of the many projects currently underway at SLAC to ensure that when the LCLS comes online in a couple of years, we will be ready to use it to its full potential.
On to today's main topic; the Linac Coherent Light Source. Some of you may remember me talking about it in a previous blog. I described how the LCLS works, how it takes x-rays produced from accelerated electrons to take pictures of extremely small objects extremely quickly.
Revisit that post here, or visit the LCLS website here, for a refresher…
Today's question is this: How do the scientists actually prepare a sample of something to put in front of this amazing x-ray laser beam?
Answer: Good question.
There are currently two projects underway at SLAC to answer this question. One is called the LCLS Ultrafast Science Instruments (LUSI) project and the second is known as Photon Ultrafast Laser Science and Engineering (PULSE). The purpose of LUSI is to investigate hardware technologies to be used with the LCLS and PULSE was commissioned to explore how the LCLS can be used to its full potential.
For example, technologies exist that can drop a stream of single molecules into the beam line to "take its picture." But every time it drops a molecule, it is oriented in a different way. This makes it extremely difficult to create a high-resolution image of the complex 3-dimensional structure that is a molecule.
Current projects using x-rays to probe molecules have to crystallize the sample first. This makes the sample uniform and simplifies the calculations immensely. However, some molecules, proteins, or other objects can not be crystallized, and the LCLS is capable of so much more than investigating crystallized structures. So one of the projects is to create a machine that can inject a single molecule into the beam line in roughly the same orientation every time.
So the question of how exactly samples and materials are going to be probed by the LCLS beam remains unanswered. But be assured that many scientists are working on it, and when the time comes, the LCLS will produce an amazing array of results.
This is but one of the many projects currently underway at SLAC to ensure that when the LCLS comes online in a couple of years, we will be ready to use it to its full potential.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Schoolin' Matters
Today was the second day of being busy, busy, busy, busy, busy. I've got interviews to conduct, stories to edit, pictures to take, people to harass until they respond for an interview, stories to write and now pictures to find...
Towards the end of the day I sat down with a couple of coworkers and began a process that I've never done before: the creation of a brochure. I am going to be helping to create a new Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) brochure because the old one is out of date.
(by the way, I didn't have to look up what LCLS stands for just now, and that's kind of scary)
Anyways the three of us sat down and began discussing what it is we liked and didn't like about the old brochure and where we wanted the new brochure to go. It was then that the director took some control and suggested we go through the process of:
1) Identifying our main goals
2) Identifying our key audiences
and 3) How we are going to achieve our main goals for our key audiences.
This seemed extremely familiar. It is exactly the process that I'd read about and been taught in graduate school. You can imagine the shock of actually finding that processes found in text books are actually used in the real world, and that they actually work! It turns out that some of the exercises that seemed tedious in class is actually very applicable on the job.
Who woulda thunk it?
So now I've got the task of looking through archived photos to try and find pictures to use in the new brochure. It should be a fun diversion from the usual routine. We shall find out. If it sucks, you'll be the first to hear my rants about it....
Towards the end of the day I sat down with a couple of coworkers and began a process that I've never done before: the creation of a brochure. I am going to be helping to create a new Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) brochure because the old one is out of date.
(by the way, I didn't have to look up what LCLS stands for just now, and that's kind of scary)
Anyways the three of us sat down and began discussing what it is we liked and didn't like about the old brochure and where we wanted the new brochure to go. It was then that the director took some control and suggested we go through the process of:
1) Identifying our main goals
2) Identifying our key audiences
and 3) How we are going to achieve our main goals for our key audiences.
This seemed extremely familiar. It is exactly the process that I'd read about and been taught in graduate school. You can imagine the shock of actually finding that processes found in text books are actually used in the real world, and that they actually work! It turns out that some of the exercises that seemed tedious in class is actually very applicable on the job.
Who woulda thunk it?
So now I've got the task of looking through archived photos to try and find pictures to use in the new brochure. It should be a fun diversion from the usual routine. We shall find out. If it sucks, you'll be the first to hear my rants about it....
Monday, July 16, 2007
I'm Baaaaaack
Greetings everyone, I have returned to SLAC from my short vacation and am here to bore you all to tears yet again! (and there was much rejoicing.)
I believe I forgot to mention this, but my sister and brother-in-law came into town on Wednesday and we all went to Yosemite National Park on Thursday and Friday, then up to Napa Valley on Saturday, and to Golden Gate Park and Fisherman's Wharf on Sunday. I don't think I have to say this but it was a busy four days.
But wonderful.
Yosemite National Park is something that no human being should go without having seen. It is absolutely astonishing and I want to go back for at least a week every year from now on.
Anyways, I came back to work expecting a mountain of emails and editing to get to. I was not disappointed. I have an entire feature story for Symmetry to edit as well as final edits and photos to complete for about five others. One thing is for sure, I won't get bored this week.
But I also came back to a pleasant surprise. I received an email from a coworker with "Congrats" in the subject line and a link in the email. Turns out that my story for SLAC Today was picked up by Physorg.com. I'm not entirely sure what this means, but I think its one person, or several persons', job to to cruise the net and find interesting physics articles and repost them in one place. This lets people who are interested in physics peruse one site for news instead of the entire internet.
So my story in SLAC Today was about the LSST and a clean room with a machine to test materials to be used in its construction. The LSST is a very large telescope that will take detailed pictures of the entire southern hemisphere's night sky in just two nights. The continuous sky scan will build levels of detail never seen before. It's an astounding project, and the camera that is being built for the telescope is equally impressive.
If you want more information, read my article, and visit the LSST website.
I am slightly excited because this is the first time a story of mine has been picked up by an outside source. I don't know if anybody out there actually read it or not, but somebody did at least once in order for it to show up on the website. So that's kind of cool....
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Endless Editing
Somebody famous once said, "A writer is only as good as his editor."
Actually, I'm not sure that anybody famous ever actually said that, but if they haven't, then somebody famous should and take credit for the statement of genius.
There is a large truth to this statement. I'm not sure, it could be that I'm simply not a very good writer, but all of my stories typically come back to me with lots of corrections, style pointers, and rewrite assignments. Now don't get me wrong, most of them are superficial, but some, especially the sciencey ones, require a major overhaul.
I, however, choose to believe that this is not because I am a poor writer, but rather because I am a poor editor. I believe I simply have trouble editing my own work, and am not sure I'd do much better with others' work. I've never had an editing class and absolutely hated grammar in high school and college. It's a difficult talent to master, and it is difficult to edit your own work, made doubly hard by the fact I have no practice editing.
That last sentence was probably a run on, and the whole paragraph was probably too long and could be shortened to just a few short, yet quirky, lines. Here, let me give it another stab…
Some may call me a poor writer, but I call myself a poor editor. Poll any writers and they'll tell you editing their own work is difficult. This inherent problem is compounded by the fact I've never been taught editing skills—I hated grammar in school—and thus have trouble editing text, especially my own.
What do you think?
Actually, I'm not sure that anybody famous ever actually said that, but if they haven't, then somebody famous should and take credit for the statement of genius.
There is a large truth to this statement. I'm not sure, it could be that I'm simply not a very good writer, but all of my stories typically come back to me with lots of corrections, style pointers, and rewrite assignments. Now don't get me wrong, most of them are superficial, but some, especially the sciencey ones, require a major overhaul.
I, however, choose to believe that this is not because I am a poor writer, but rather because I am a poor editor. I believe I simply have trouble editing my own work, and am not sure I'd do much better with others' work. I've never had an editing class and absolutely hated grammar in high school and college. It's a difficult talent to master, and it is difficult to edit your own work, made doubly hard by the fact I have no practice editing.
That last sentence was probably a run on, and the whole paragraph was probably too long and could be shortened to just a few short, yet quirky, lines. Here, let me give it another stab…
Some may call me a poor writer, but I call myself a poor editor. Poll any writers and they'll tell you editing their own work is difficult. This inherent problem is compounded by the fact I've never been taught editing skills—I hated grammar in school—and thus have trouble editing text, especially my own.
What do you think?
Monday, July 9, 2007
Calming Public Fears
Every morning at SLAC the communications office, or all of us available at the time, trek over to the SLAC cafeteria for a morning coffee, breakfast, and a chat. It's a great way to start the day, a relaxed meeting where all conversation can be business or absolutely none of it. And it gets us out of the office creating opportunities to network with the rest of SLAC and occasionally solicit story ideas....
Anyways, today's breakfast was abnormally long and interesting. We had a visitor eating with us that morning, Peter Fisher, head of the MIT Particle and Nuclear Experimental Physics division.
Fisher and a team of researchers from MIT recently made a major breakthrough in the area of wireless electricity technology. Apparently it is quite feasible, and possibly even easy, to do away with the whole system of electric outlets and cords. Instead, some sort of long wave electromagnetic waves would permeate the area which special chips could transform into electricity using resonance to build up the charge. Theoretically, the correct wavelength could cause vibrations in a device to build up until energy is transferred between the two. I'm a bit sketchy on the details, and this is not the point of this entry, but for more accurate and complete information, look at the BBC or the Boston Business.
His team recently started a company that holds the patent to this technology and they're already planning meetings with potential investors. The idea is to just sell the technology to any interested parties such as, oh I don't know, Motorola.
The conversation eventually wandered into the area of public health. Think about this technology for a second, what it does, what it implies, and now imagine the number of people that are going to be scared more electromagnetic waves in the air will somehow give them cancer or something. It's a legitimate worry, but the Fisher assures that the technology is completely harmless. Apparently, we get a much higher radiation dose flying across the country than we ever would from this technology over 100 year time span.
Fisher is a prestigious physics professor at MIT. His word is good enough for me. But there are plenty of people who won't be convinced. There are people who think power lines and cell phones kill, and still others who don't believe we ever landed on the moon... Not everyone will be convinced.
So what is the best way of handling the skeptics?
The general idea seemed to be to listen to them, listen to their worries, take them seriously, and make it a united problem. Assure them that their worries are your worries and everybody wants the same thing, safety, and nothing will go foreward until it is proven safe. The point was made to not create any type of conflict because the second you do, the media will be all over it. The moment there is a conflict, even where one shouldn't exist, there is a story.
Now this sounds harsh on journalists, but I think it's true. Sure there are a ton of responsible journlists out there who would ask all of the right questions, get their facts striaght, and write a fair article that tells the truth. But it only takes a few to run with the false conflict, blow the story out of proportions, get the facts wrong, and create a giant mess out of the whole situation.
So walking the fine line between giving enough information, keeping journalists happy, and keeping the public calm, is yet another aspect of a media relations job not usually handled by a journalist.
My future career path y'all.... Oh happy days lay ahead...
Anyways, today's breakfast was abnormally long and interesting. We had a visitor eating with us that morning, Peter Fisher, head of the MIT Particle and Nuclear Experimental Physics division.
Fisher and a team of researchers from MIT recently made a major breakthrough in the area of wireless electricity technology. Apparently it is quite feasible, and possibly even easy, to do away with the whole system of electric outlets and cords. Instead, some sort of long wave electromagnetic waves would permeate the area which special chips could transform into electricity using resonance to build up the charge. Theoretically, the correct wavelength could cause vibrations in a device to build up until energy is transferred between the two. I'm a bit sketchy on the details, and this is not the point of this entry, but for more accurate and complete information, look at the BBC or the Boston Business.
His team recently started a company that holds the patent to this technology and they're already planning meetings with potential investors. The idea is to just sell the technology to any interested parties such as, oh I don't know, Motorola.
The conversation eventually wandered into the area of public health. Think about this technology for a second, what it does, what it implies, and now imagine the number of people that are going to be scared more electromagnetic waves in the air will somehow give them cancer or something. It's a legitimate worry, but the Fisher assures that the technology is completely harmless. Apparently, we get a much higher radiation dose flying across the country than we ever would from this technology over 100 year time span.
Fisher is a prestigious physics professor at MIT. His word is good enough for me. But there are plenty of people who won't be convinced. There are people who think power lines and cell phones kill, and still others who don't believe we ever landed on the moon... Not everyone will be convinced.
So what is the best way of handling the skeptics?
The general idea seemed to be to listen to them, listen to their worries, take them seriously, and make it a united problem. Assure them that their worries are your worries and everybody wants the same thing, safety, and nothing will go foreward until it is proven safe. The point was made to not create any type of conflict because the second you do, the media will be all over it. The moment there is a conflict, even where one shouldn't exist, there is a story.
Now this sounds harsh on journalists, but I think it's true. Sure there are a ton of responsible journlists out there who would ask all of the right questions, get their facts striaght, and write a fair article that tells the truth. But it only takes a few to run with the false conflict, blow the story out of proportions, get the facts wrong, and create a giant mess out of the whole situation.
So walking the fine line between giving enough information, keeping journalists happy, and keeping the public calm, is yet another aspect of a media relations job not usually handled by a journalist.
My future career path y'all.... Oh happy days lay ahead...
Friday, July 6, 2007
Wednesday Holidays
Well folks, quite honestly, there's not much going on in the office today. I think it's from having the day off in the middle of the week, a lot of people just took the past two days off entirely. Several people went home early and it's been rather quiet. I'd love to go into depth on some amazingly complex insight into media relations or writing or science, but I'd be forcing it, and forcing writing is never a good thing I've learned.
So let me just say that I spent most the day writing a feature for Symmetry magazine and I think it should turn out well. For the rest of the blog, let me tell you about the joy of stouts...
If you don't like Guinness, I would advise you stop reading right now.
To me, a proper stout should be thick, creamy, and nitrogen poured to give that cool effect when a properly stored Guinness is poured. It looks like two separate liquids are mixing and separating, and its just so cool!
But I bring this up because I've had two excellent stouts in the past week. One was call Lord Stanley from Burlingame Brewing and the second was from Seabright Brewery in Santa Cruz simply called an oatmeal stout. Both were rich and smooth with chocolate and coffee undertones, sweet and mildly hopped. They made me very happy :o) But I still have many microbreweries in the area to visit. The only thing that may make me happier then a great stout is a great scottish ale similar to Boddingtons, but that's another entry for another day...
So let me just say that I spent most the day writing a feature for Symmetry magazine and I think it should turn out well. For the rest of the blog, let me tell you about the joy of stouts...
If you don't like Guinness, I would advise you stop reading right now.
To me, a proper stout should be thick, creamy, and nitrogen poured to give that cool effect when a properly stored Guinness is poured. It looks like two separate liquids are mixing and separating, and its just so cool!
But I bring this up because I've had two excellent stouts in the past week. One was call Lord Stanley from Burlingame Brewing and the second was from Seabright Brewery in Santa Cruz simply called an oatmeal stout. Both were rich and smooth with chocolate and coffee undertones, sweet and mildly hopped. They made me very happy :o) But I still have many microbreweries in the area to visit. The only thing that may make me happier then a great stout is a great scottish ale similar to Boddingtons, but that's another entry for another day...
True Public Relations
Today I sat in on a video conference between SLAC and Fermilab's public relations teams. The groups meet every week to talk about lab issues in the media and collaborate often in trying to get their messages out to the public.
One issue that was discussed, and has been discussed before, is the recent failure of Fermilab's "triplets." These are very large, superconducting magnets that will focus the particle beams before they collide in the Large Hadron Collider being built at CERN in Geneva. The support structures of the magnet broke due to asymmetrical forces applied during a pressure test at CERN late in March.
The LHC was planned to be completed later this fall, but many, many different set-backs have caused the projected completion date to be pushed back to the spring of next year. Though the failure of "the triplets" is one of the set-backs, it is by no means the only thing delaying the project.
Fermilab has, and has always had, a policy of complete disclosure in all things related to their science, so they have made no attempts to hide or conceal any information about the test failure. It is partly because of this policy that they are worried CERN is placing un-due emphasis on their magnets' failure. So they're basically worried about shouldering an unfair amount of the blame for the LHC not being completed on time.
Long conversations have ensued about the topic. Various strategies discussed about how to handle the topic in the media and in relations with CERN. Nobody wants to be blamed, but nobody wants to sound whiney or like they're trying to weasel out of responsibility, but at the same time, don't want too much of the blame shifted to their facility.
It's an interesting problem, one that will play out over the next few months, and an insight into the political side of a public relations position. Crisis management, the yin to the yang of good writing…
One issue that was discussed, and has been discussed before, is the recent failure of Fermilab's "triplets." These are very large, superconducting magnets that will focus the particle beams before they collide in the Large Hadron Collider being built at CERN in Geneva. The support structures of the magnet broke due to asymmetrical forces applied during a pressure test at CERN late in March.
The LHC was planned to be completed later this fall, but many, many different set-backs have caused the projected completion date to be pushed back to the spring of next year. Though the failure of "the triplets" is one of the set-backs, it is by no means the only thing delaying the project.
Fermilab has, and has always had, a policy of complete disclosure in all things related to their science, so they have made no attempts to hide or conceal any information about the test failure. It is partly because of this policy that they are worried CERN is placing un-due emphasis on their magnets' failure. So they're basically worried about shouldering an unfair amount of the blame for the LHC not being completed on time.
Long conversations have ensued about the topic. Various strategies discussed about how to handle the topic in the media and in relations with CERN. Nobody wants to be blamed, but nobody wants to sound whiney or like they're trying to weasel out of responsibility, but at the same time, don't want too much of the blame shifted to their facility.
It's an interesting problem, one that will play out over the next few months, and an insight into the political side of a public relations position. Crisis management, the yin to the yang of good writing…
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Be Careful What You Wish For
Alright ladies and gents, first things first, and the first thing is a story on SLAC Today about a new type of cooling system being installed in new computer hardware at the lab. The content is mildly interesting since the technology does bring water within a foot of rather expensive equipment, but its not exactly cutting edge technology either. I saw very similar systems at Indiana University while I was there.
But you may enjoy the title: A River Runs Through It. Pretty corny eh? I may have found a new favorite pass-time... coming up with incredibly corny titles for my stories... more to come.
Anyways, I'm sure you all saw this coming, especially those of you with more than a few months of journalistic experience. I shot my mouth, er I mean my fingers, off at the end of last week complaining that nobody was getting back to me. So what happens this week? That's right folks, everyone and their mom got back to me.
But it wasn't as bad as you might think.
For one thing, two of the people who responded declined to be interviewed. They're either too busy or don't want to be profiled/written about. And since we're in the business of making people happy at the lab, we must oblige. I still got plenty of leads on stories though, like the one about the homemade truck I talked about yesterday.
But in addition to that, I'm working on and redrafting stories about GLAST (a space telescope) monitoring, the homemade car, 3-D movies at the Kavli building, a former SLAC intern, and am trying to work on the Symmetry story about poster art in the midst of it all. I'm sure I forgot a couple in there too, so back to work on Thursday with plenty to do. Which is great, it keeps the day moving fast, helps me learn how to interview and teaches me to write betterer...
But you may enjoy the title: A River Runs Through It. Pretty corny eh? I may have found a new favorite pass-time... coming up with incredibly corny titles for my stories... more to come.
Anyways, I'm sure you all saw this coming, especially those of you with more than a few months of journalistic experience. I shot my mouth, er I mean my fingers, off at the end of last week complaining that nobody was getting back to me. So what happens this week? That's right folks, everyone and their mom got back to me.
But it wasn't as bad as you might think.
For one thing, two of the people who responded declined to be interviewed. They're either too busy or don't want to be profiled/written about. And since we're in the business of making people happy at the lab, we must oblige. I still got plenty of leads on stories though, like the one about the homemade truck I talked about yesterday.
But in addition to that, I'm working on and redrafting stories about GLAST (a space telescope) monitoring, the homemade car, 3-D movies at the Kavli building, a former SLAC intern, and am trying to work on the Symmetry story about poster art in the midst of it all. I'm sure I forgot a couple in there too, so back to work on Thursday with plenty to do. Which is great, it keeps the day moving fast, helps me learn how to interview and teaches me to write betterer...
A Sweet Ride...
Amidst a flurry of activity in today's office that included multiple story leads, interviews, and the return of my officemate and director of the office, one thing stood out; a homemade car that is described as a "rat rod."
This tiny car is absolutely amazing. It has a bent wrench for a steering rod and another for the gas pedal. The gear shifter is made of a screwdriver. There is no hood and when you sit in the seat, you're right next to the gear-shaft running to the back wheels. What floors exist is made coca-cola trays. The front lamp is one, giant light, a cow bell hangs from where the front fender would be if there were a fender, and a raccoon tail hangs from where the windshield would be if there were a windshield.
Need I go on?
Anyways, I took a quick spin in the passenger's seat around SLAC grounds to find a tree to take a picture of the car. The guy was really nice and had actually driven the thing 50 miles from Morgan Hill that morning (apparently bugs and rocks are a lot more of a hassle when you don't have a windshield).
But the rat rod has won awards, and you can tell why. It is immensely cool and very well put together (it gets up to 120 mph before the front wheels start to wobble). Apparently it has beaten Harley-Davidsons and a 2002 Camaro in a race.
See all the amazing things I'm learning about and experiencing at SLAC? Once again, the life of a writer RULES because you get to meet people like this and see things exactly like this car. It's something I will never see anywhere else, and I get to ride in it and write about it for money!
This tiny car is absolutely amazing. It has a bent wrench for a steering rod and another for the gas pedal. The gear shifter is made of a screwdriver. There is no hood and when you sit in the seat, you're right next to the gear-shaft running to the back wheels. What floors exist is made coca-cola trays. The front lamp is one, giant light, a cow bell hangs from where the front fender would be if there were a fender, and a raccoon tail hangs from where the windshield would be if there were a windshield.
Need I go on?
Anyways, I took a quick spin in the passenger's seat around SLAC grounds to find a tree to take a picture of the car. The guy was really nice and had actually driven the thing 50 miles from Morgan Hill that morning (apparently bugs and rocks are a lot more of a hassle when you don't have a windshield).
But the rat rod has won awards, and you can tell why. It is immensely cool and very well put together (it gets up to 120 mph before the front wheels start to wobble). Apparently it has beaten Harley-Davidsons and a 2002 Camaro in a race.
See all the amazing things I'm learning about and experiencing at SLAC? Once again, the life of a writer RULES because you get to meet people like this and see things exactly like this car. It's something I will never see anywhere else, and I get to ride in it and write about it for money!
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