Dropbox has a new beta feature out that I think you should know about. While Dropbox is well known as a go-to backup and file sharing platform, few would realize that they’re posed to become much more integrated into our digital world. The trademark feature, and primary reason for the ubiquity within their market, is the […]
Cheap Yankee: Free Upgrade for a Kitchen Scale
A few months back I purchased a cheap kitchen scale that I figured would come in hand for projects in both the kitchen and the workshop. As time would show, the scale was quite useful but with one major flaw. Being a scale of the cheaper sort, it chewed through expensive button batteries and would inevitably […]
Time is money: The value of opportunistic sampling
NOTE: This article is a reposting on one originally posted on the UNOLS Chief Scientist Workshop website (here) with slight modifications. Aboard the R/V Sikuliaq we often run around-the-clock operations and do our best to collect every last bit of data. Not only is our time limited, but ship time is valuable—really valuable. Even if […]
Learning to Drive the Boat: the Start of Chief Sci Training
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the terminology used for scientific, research cruises; a chief scientists is the de facto boss of the science party and coordinates the research plan with the captain and crew of the ship. This role often incorporates traits from other positions such as diplomate (between crew and science party), […]
Back out to Sea
The eve of my departure is finally here, yet I am feeling less sanguine than expected. More than likely, it has something to do with the length of these upcoming travels and the scale from which I see them. besides, I’ve never found the easy uncertainty and the foreshadowing calm very easy or calming, I’d […]
Trial Week, Part 2
A few months ago I wrote up an article about what I call a Trial Week. It is a week where you break free from habits and take part in a personal experiment. The only real good is to live your life during that week a bit differently and come away from it with a new […]
First Impressions of Shiny, an R Package
Today I wanted to try something new; so instead of discussing a project, let’s briefly take a look at an R Package I’ve recently discovered. Before we being let me just mention that I realize not everyone uses R or have even used it before, instead my focus here will be on the technology, innovation, […]
The benefits of interdisciplinarity: residence time
The so-called residence time of a system is both an immensely useful and highly intuitive conception which provides a relevant timescale for processes. For example, the residence time of nutrients flowing into a pond would be the average ‘lifetime’ of the nutrients before being taking up by the pond creatures. If it is a small […]
Julia Language for Scientists
Today I wanted to take a moment and introduce a programming language to my friends and colleagues. While certainly not a common topic, I do so because I believe that it is well worth your time. Rather than trying to get non-programmers into a language, I write this for the already initiated such as those […]
Data Compression: Benchmarking Performance on Generic Data
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 […]
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 […]