Data compression is one of those things that most people don’t really think about. We all know about the benefits of using a ZIP file if our attachment is too large or if we have a bunch of files we want to share with someone over email. Outside of those niche uses, data compression by the […]
Author: Thomas Bryce Kelly
Why I’m looking forward to moving out of the south
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed my past year and a half, almost two years, living in Tallahassee. The often forgotten capital of Florida has served me well and I’ve made friends down here that I wouldn’t sacrifice for anything, yet I already know that my days down here are limited. After having grown up […]
Environmental Sunday: Agriculture
The current agricultural system used to feed the worlds 8 billion plus people is unsustainable and requires a major overhaul. With a rising world population, the stresses placed on the environment due to inefficient and wasteful practices will lead to food shortages and a plethora of socio-economical issues. While in the past the increased pressure […]
Modern Data Organization for the Modern Scientist
Scientists handle a lot of data, I mean a lot of data. The type and format of the data varies, but the predominate format used in oceanography is definitely the humble spreadsheet. Without firsthand knowledge of the practices common in other disciplines I cannot comment on the universality of spreadsheets, but I imagine that the situation […]
Getting Started in 3D Printing
As someone who enjoys working on projects and tinkering with everything from computer systems to welders, I’ve always had a passive interest in 3d printing technology; yet I never seriously considered getting a one for myself. 3d printers work in much the same way a normal printer does, except instead of ejecting ink out of the […]
Free Upgrade for the Harbor Freight Drill Press
After purchasing the Horror Freight, I mean Harbor Freight, benchtop Drill Press a few months ago for around 50 dollars, I’ve been figuring out how to use it and which jobs it’s best suited for. As it is my first drill press I don’t have much to compare it against, but so far I have […]
Building a Proper Workbench
As anyone who has been in my workshop knows, it’s very much a chaotic mashup of impulse purchases and salvaged odds-and-ends. Whether it’s the old pantry door that is now serving as a table or the welded together rack for my tool cases, my shop is full of character (and lots of left-overs). This weekend […]
Call me Ishmael: Seahab
Living on a ship for three weeks means that you pick up a few tidbits of knowledge such as the difference between tieing a bend and a hitch, but a term that is rather unique to sailing on National Science Foundation (NSF) vessels is Seahab. All research vessels control the supply of alcohol on board, […]
Announcing the official CCE cruise blog
Since scientific outreach is an important aspect for many scientific projects, we’re doing our best to provide an open record of some of the things we do and the reasoning behind them. So before I direct you to the site, spoiler alert, there is engaging science ahead: CCE 2016 RAPID Blog.
Call me Ishmael: Professional Insomnia
All professionals accept that there will be occasions when work gets in the way of sleep and that odd hours me be required to get the job done. Generally this interruption in sleep is temporary and isolated to project deadlines or mission critical tasks, but for scientists aboard research vessels this may be a de […]
Announcing a new series: Call me Ishmael
To commemorate my first cruise, as well as organizing the next set of articles by theme, there will be a new series of posts titled “Call me Ishmael” dealing with the 2016 CCE RAPID cruise. This cruise, CCE-P1604 to be precise, has been chock full of new experiences which may be beneficial for my own […]
Daily Dose: Radiation Trouble
Update: See update section following the article for the latest. I recently described in general terms a new method that I’m developing which uses Yttrium to estimate the carbon export from the ocean’s photic zone, so today I saw it fitting to rant about an issue I’m currently facing. Assuming that you have either read […]
Method Development: Yttrium
An ongoing topic of research in Oceanography involves the cycling and sequestration of carbon within the world’s oceans. While it should be no surprise that such a topic is the focus of many labs, including my own, it may be hard to believe that scientists are still grappling with how to best measure the exchange […]
California Current: Cruise
So as many of you know, most of my work to date has been on the California Current ecosystem and, in particular, on modeling the ecosystem there. In just a few short days I’ll be heading out from the Scripps pier for a 22 day cruise. The goal for the cruise is to measure the […]
Interpolating Bathymetry to Unstructured Mesh
A few weeks (perhaps months) ago I introduced the side project that I am involved with (here) whereby our aim is to develop a hydrographic model for Apalachicola Bay, Fl. Today I wanted to provide an update for that project while also sharing some interesting problems that we’ve had to work around. To see the […]
The Concept of a Trial Week
I’m pretty sure I have never written anything that would be classified as self help; and while that section of the bookstore always repels me, the ideas and promises suggested are always quite appealing. For example, who wouldn’t want a “4 Hour Work Week” (link) or to know the “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” (Amazon)? It […]
Marine Geochemistry: a particle flux model
While on a run yesterday in my new Xero brand running sandals[1], I found myself thinking about the proposal I have to write for marine geochemistry. Since I have read a fairly comprehensive assortment of water column particle flux papers, I figure it might be a good fit for this proposal. Vertical carbon flux, which […]
Wood Florring in Tallahassee
Since starting on my kitchen remodel project last month, I’ve been uncertain about what to do with the floors. Currently the floors are simple, glued-down vinyl, which has worked great and makes a lot of sense over a slab foundation, but my kitchen deserves something a bit better. Initially I figured tile would be the […]
Year in Review
While it scarcely seems possible, it was just a year ago that I moved into my first house and started my graduate school career. If the passage of life, and the measure of that life, is to be defined by the events within it, then for the past year I have done a lot of […]
Sediment Traps: Historical Trends and the Promise of Inovation
[NB: The first entry in this series was published here, Introduction to Sediment Traps, which covers the motivation, use and issues of sediment traps.] Although validation of the data was lacking, sediment traps (or sedimentation traps as they were once called) were being used by the 1970s in the study of lakes (Davison et al., 1982; […]
Introduction to Sediment Traps
[NB: The second entry in this series was published here, Sediment Traps: Historical Trends and the Promise of Innovation, which covers some of the history and development of sediment traps as well as my own hopes for the field moving forward.] The biological carbon pump (BCP) is the mechanism whereby marine, biological systems sequester atmospheric carbon into […]
Common Image Formats Explained
After a recent conversation with a friend about photography and digital images, there seems to be many unanswered questions out there regarding the wide variety of image formats which have become commonplace in our lives. A few months ago I wrote a short article on HDR Photography (link) since so many people were asking questions […]
Kitchen Photos
Here are photos from my latest project. It is still a work in progress; new article will be posted when completed.
Independent Exploration: Picking a Model
At the onset of the semester, myself along with Taylor, Xu and Erick committed to setting up and running a 3d hydrographic model of Apalachicola Bay. Since the primary goal of these weekly meetings was to learn how to take a modelling project from start to finish, we needed to be deliberate about our choice […]
Ventilation in the shop
Ever since setting up my workshop last month, I’ve been working on making the space as versatile and organized as possible–a bit of a trial and error process. One step in the right direction was setting up a ventilation system so that the fumes and dust created by the various projects would be taken care […]
Political Economics: Formation of the State
This essay is taken nearly verbatim from notes on the subject taken during a seminar at Boston College and later compiled into essay form. All information was presented by Dr. Fukuyama with additional content and context provided by me. Fukuyama is perhaps best known for his influential textbook, The End of History and the Last […]
Kitchen Renovation: Measurements and Quotes for new Countertops
Over the past two weeks I’ve been running around town either before or after work in the hope of negotiating a fair price for some granite countertops in my latest kitchen remodel. Since I’ve found the experience frustrating and painstaking, I wanted to share my experience with the local businesses in case anyone finds themselves […]
Quick introduction to EOF/PCA analysis
In the field of oceanography, statistical analysis of complex data is a fundamental skill that often calls for mathematics beyond the training of the student. Here I would like to walk through some simple linear algebra and connect it to a well-used yet poorly understood statistical analysis technique. Eigenpairs Given a linear transformation (e.g. ), […]
Moroccan Chicken Recipe
As the title hints, this will be a post about a recipe I created over this past weekend. On Saturday I was hosting a BBQ to celebrate the end of the fall semester and because I wanted to show friends around my place. While I may be able to get by on a charcoal grill, […]
Philosophy Monday: On the Origin, Propagation and Cause of Variations
Darwin’s On the Origins of Species provided a vivid and practical mechanism to explain how variations within a species can be selected for. This mechanism became known as natural selection or, perhaps less accurately, survival of the fittest. Although Darwin’s natural selection mechanism was not novel—Malthus described a similar mechanism as actively limiting a population’s […]