Working in multiple locations
I guess it becomes more and more usual to work not only in one place but have your office wherever you are. Since years I find it extremely practical to have all my data on one mobile computer (a MacBook Pro, currently) and work with this laptop in various locations. But different locations require different computer settings: The network setup may change, the printer system as well, the filesystem you’re connected to can be different as well as many other things. Since I found it annoying to always have to change all these things by hand, I put in place a set of scripts with which all setttings can be changed from one location to another with one simple shell command. When I get to my institute, I call a script called switchmpia.sh which looks like this:
#!/bin/bash
rm ~/.bash_profile
ln -s ~/.bash_profile_mpia ~/.bash_profile
sudo mv /etc/cups/client.conf.off /etc/cups/client.conf
switch_network_mpia.osascript
export MIDIDATA=/Volumes/astrodata/MIDIDATA# …echo “Environment: MPIA”source ~/.bash_profile_generic
#!/usr/bin/osascripttell application “System Events” to tell (process 1 whose frontmost is true) to click menu item “MPIA” of menu 1 of menu item “Umgebung” of menu 1 of menu bar item 1 of menu bar 1
Kontamination durch Gen-Partikel?
Ein Leserbrief an die Frankfurter Rundschau (FR) über die aktuelle Berichterstattung über die Falschdeklaration von Baumwolle. Baumwolle, die von transgenen Pflanzen stammte wurde als “Bio” gekennzeichnet und das wurde in der FR zum Skandal ausgestaltet. Ich finde diese Einschätzung unwissenschaftlich und überzogen und habe daher soeben folgenden Leserbrief abgeschickt:
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,
seit etwa zwei Monaten beziehe ich die FR in einem Test-Abo und bin enttäuscht über die teilweise tendenziöse und unwissenschaftlich-polemisierende Diskussion aktueller Themen. Konkret geht es mir um die Berichterstattung in der aktuellen Wochenendeausgabe vom 23./24. Januar 2010 über den Vorfall, dass als “Bio” gekennzeichnete Kleidung in den Handel gekommen ist, die mit “Gen-Partikeln kontaminiert” ist (S. Börnecke: “Der Webfehler”, S. 13). Hier wird mit Begriffen und Ängsten gespielt, die der Sachlage überhaupt nicht gerecht werden. Die Schreibweise zeugt außerdem von fundamentalen Wissenslücken in den Grundlagen der Biologie.
Während die (Unter-)Überschriften immerhin noch den tatsächlichen “Skandal” benennen, nämlich lediglich einen (unlauteren, aber harmlosen!) Etikettenschwindel, wird in den Texten unterstellt, dass hier die dummen (“oft Analphabeten”, S. Börnecke: “Ein fast schon vollendeter Siegeszug”) indischen Bauern Saatgut kauften, das irgendwie gefährlich ist. Herr Börnecke versäumt dabei aber zu zeigen, was genau gefährlich ist an dieser “Kontamination” (S. Börnecke: “Ein fast schon vollendeter Siegeszug”).
Ein Greenpeace-Mitarbeiter wird zitiert mit der Aussage, dass eine erste Insektenart gegen das von der transgenen Baumwolle produzierte Bt resistent geworden ist. Aber ist das relevant? Ist es überhaupt eine Schädlingsart? Und ist die Resistenz wirklich durch die Bt-Pflanzen entstanden oder vielleicht eher durch den unvorsichtigen (gentechnikfreien!) Einsatz des Bt-Toxins? Später schreibt Herr Börnecke in demselben Artikel, dass es zur “Pollenvermischung” zwischen verschiedenen Baumwoll-Sorten kommen könne, ohne zu erkennen, dass dies genauso der “Logik der Natur” entspricht wie o.g. Resistenzbildungen.
Blätter man weiter, liest man auf Seite 4 über einen Zwischenfall in einer Urananreicherungs-Fabrik. Die Terminologie ist erschreckend ähnlich derer auf den zwei Seiten davor. In Anbetracht der realen Gefahren bei der Arbeit mit Uranhexafluorid und der lediglich eingebildeten Gefahren beim Anziehen eines Pullovers aus Bt-Baumwolle, erscheint die relative Gefahrendarstellung in den entsprechenden Artikeln völlig verzerrt. Im Kommentar auf S. 13 wird ferner durch den Vergleich dieses Vorfalls mit gefälschter “Bio”-Kennzeichnung von Hendl und Weizen impliziert, dass der Kunde durch das Anziehen eines Pullovers mit “Gen-Partikeln” (was immer das genau sein soll!) möglicherweise gesundheitliche Nachteile erleidet.
In Ihrer Internet-Präsenz wird die Fakten-Verdreherei dann aber ins Unanständige gesteigert: In “Tödliche Felder” wird unterstellt, dass Bauern sich das Leben nähmen, wenn sie das teure Bt-Saatgut nicht mehr bezahlen können. Wieso übernehmen Sie diese Propaganda-Information von Gentechnik-Gegnern so ungeprüft? Dazu gibt es aktuelle wissenschaftliche Studien, die diesen Zusammenhang nicht nachweisen können:
Gruère, G., Mehta-Bhatt, P., Sengupta, D. (2008): Bt Cotton and Farmer Suicides in India. Reviewing the Evidence. IFPRI Discussion Paper No. 808. Washington, DC.
In “Klamotten in Verruf” (S. Hamacher u.a., S.2) widerspricht Frau Hamacher sich dann selbst — offenbar ohne es zu bemerken! Denn das “Organic Label” bezeichnet laut ihrem Artikel ja genau “Baumwolle, die ohne den Einsatz schädlicher Chemikalien angebaut wurde”. Aber genau das ist doch die transgene Baumwolle! Dabei würde ein kurzer Blick in ein aktuelles Nachschlagewerk, z.B. die Wikipedia, genügen, um eine Auflistung wissenschaftlicher Studien zu finden, die nachweisen, dass der Einsatz von Bt-Baumwolle zu dramatischen Reduktionen von (tatsächlich giftigen) Chemikalien führen kann, etwa
Huang, J., Hu, R., Pray, C., Qiao, F., Rozelle, S. (2003): Biotechnology as an alternative to chemical pesticides: a case study of Bt cotton in China. Agricultural Economics. Vol.29, pp. 55–67.
Dies führt dann wiederum zu weniger Vergiftungstoten (in China laut Wikipedia “geschätzte 500 Tode und 45.000 schwere Erkrankungen pro Jahr”):
Pray, C., Huang, J., Hu, R., Rozelle, S. (2002): Five Years of Bt Cotton in China – The Benefits Continue. The Plant Journal. Vol. 31, pp. 423-430. doi:10.1046/j.1365-313X.2002.01401.x
Hossain, F., Pray, C., Lu, Y., Huang, J., Hu, R. (2004): Genetically modified cotton and farmers’ health in China. International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health. Vol. 10, pp. 296–303.
Wer diese Fakten außer Acht lässt und nur den naturfremden esoterisch-postmodernen Wunsch mancher Leute im Sinn hat, möglichst “natürliche” Produkte zu verwenden, dem kann ich sein Gutmenschentum leider in keiner Weise abnehmen.
Ich wünsche mir von meiner Tageszeitung eine ausgewogene, wissenschaftlich-fundierte Darstellung gerade auch umstrittener Themen, bei der mehr Wissenschaftler und weniger Meinungsmacher zu Wort kommen!
Mit freundlichen Grüßen,
Leonard Burtscher
Privacy of letters
I recently got a letter back that I had sent to an outdated address. The envelope was a little bit damaged and on the backside I found a note that the letter had been received damaged back in Eppelheim (where I live). Interestingly there was also a signature testifying this. I take this as evidence as how important privacy of letters is actually treated.
Advice for successful and enjoyable teamwork
During my time as Spokesperson for the Max Planck PhDnet last year I learned a lot — not only about organisational details of the Max-Planck Society and the German research system but foremost about collaborating with people. Two very basic thoughts about teamwork I would like to share here.
1. Communicate!
Tell your colleagues what you are doing, whom you have contacted and what you have found out. Use the ‘CC’ field of e-mail messages intensively and wisely: Your colleagues can (and should) use mail filters to automatically file messages belonging to this project. This way it doesn’t matter if too many messages are sent but everyone has all relevant messages for later reference.
2. Don’t do everything yourself / Make people feel responsible
You are the project manager and you know best about everything related to the project. If you do everything yourself it will go very fast and there will be little errors. But: Your time is limited and you want the project to be a team-effort. Only way out: Make other people feel responsible for something. Don’t try to control everything but trust in people (not in all) and let them do the job. Not only will you be able to distribute your work load, you will also see that people are much more interested in the success of a project if they have contributed a considerable amount of working time to that project themselves.
When to submit to astro-ph
Two days ago I submitted my first, recently accepted, paper to the widely used preprint server arXiv/astro-ph. People have studied the dependence of long-term citation rates of astrophysical papers put on astro-ph as a function of position in the daily listing. Even astro-ph seem to have realized that and offer a page where part of the relevant information to be first in the listing is published. They do not tell you, however, at which time one has to submit to be first and how resubmissions are treated. So I had to find out myself.
I waited until the evening (22:00 CEST = 16:00 EDT) with uploading my paper to the server and finally submitted it at 22:02:00 CEST. However, due to differences in the TeX system on astro-ph and on my computer, the paper didn’t appear as it should have and I had to edit a number of things. I resubmitted the final, corrected version on the next day, still before the deadline of course, at 16:29:51 CEST.
The paper appeared on position 21 (out of 25) in the Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics section. This is what Konrad and I conclude:
- Papers are sorted in descending order, the on submitted last appears on top of the page.
- Numbers are given in ascending order as soon as the paper is the first time accepted by the system (later submission means higher number) and the date and time when you change your paper after the first acceptance by the arXiv system does not have any influence on the position of the paper
The best time to have a paper accepted by astro-ph is therefore 21:59:59 CEST.
Update: As Konrad found out, the inverse is true for the position of the paper in the daily mailing. So if you want to be first in the mailing, submit at 22:00:00 CEST. If you want to be first on the web page, submit at 21:59:59 CEST.
The iPhone in Germany: What happened to Apple’s user friendliness?
As an Apple user from the very first click, I am delighted to see that Apple products have become increasingly popular over the past couple of years. I often considered using a Linux machine instead of my Apple computers for their open source-ness, but never did so because a Mac was just easier to use by far (and still is!). One other main reason of sticking to Apple was that Apple did not treat their user as a criminal by not requiring ‘product activation keys’ (like Microsoft started with XP) or other make-life-difficult techniques.
Apparently with the iPhone Apple has changed its policy and patronizes users in Germany by not allowing them to buy an iPhone and use it as they want but bundling it with an expensive two-year T-Mobile contract.
There are alternatives though: In Italy the iPhone is sold freely via the Apple Store (599 € / 699 € for the iPhone 3 GS 16/32 GB). Apple also offers a “Protection Plan” to extend warranty services to 3 years and this is normally valid worldwide for portable devices which is of course great when you’re travelling. Also, you can buy a Mac abroad and the Protection Plan at home and you have all the benefits of the plan as if you bought the Mac at home as well.
This is not valid for the iPhone. As I was told by the Apple Care hotline just now, the worldwide warranty is not applicable to the iPhone. That is, if I buy an iPhone in Italy and something gets damaged, I need to send it to Apple Italy.
What happened to user friendliness, Apple?
Update 14 Oct 2009
Apart from the problems with tethering mentioned above, there appear to be more restrictions by Apple that are discomforting. One I noticed just recently is that the iPhone cannot be synced wirelessly with a Mac but only with the USB cable. While wireless syncing is supported through “Mobile Me” (which costs extra), one gets the impression that this feature has been deliberately disabled for “normal” iPhone users to advertise Mobile Me.
Update 3 Feb 2010
With the iPhone OS 3.1.3 update tethering now works again (for free iPhones). Thank you, Apple.
The SWIFT song
Okay, I hope you already are aware that astronomers do not just go out in the night and watch stars. Well, sometimes they do [these reports are in German], but most time they don’t.
While searching for something different today I found that sometimes they even make music, like the SWIFT people (a mission to study the cosmos’ second brightest explosions — after the big bang — gamma ray bursts) who wrote an a-capella song that’s not only scientifcally meaningful but that also sounds good for their satellite!
Dading recently reminded me that there is another great piece of astronomical musical art, the Hotel Mauna Kea song.
Another piece of ‘astronomy & lyrics’ I was pointed at by Ben: The Dark Matter Rap (by David Weinberg). Check it out!
Keywurl
Keywurl is a great tool for Safari that adds the capability to quickly access almost any search engine from the URL field. You probably no longer surf to Google to just search for something but enter it in the “search box” in the upper right hand corner. With Keywurl you can do exactly this also for a number of other search engines, e.g. imdb.com, amazon.de, Wikipedia, … you name it. It’s even possible to add more than just one search parameter, e.g. to search for all articles by someone between year X and year Y on ADS. And this is the only part that got me stuck on this otherwise great piece of open-source software (version 1.4 beta 6 for Safari 4): When you want to define more than one search parameter you have to substitute the first search parameter as ‘query word 2’, the second as ‘query word 3’ etc.
IDL and include
If you want to include another file in an IDL routine, you can of course do this with the ‘@’ symbol as explained by Coyote’s Guide to IDL Programming, i.e. you can have a file a.pro with e.g.
a=1
and a file b.pro with, e.g.,
pro b
@a
print,a
end
This works fine as long as you are always in the same directory. It will, however, not compile if your working directory is not the one in which a.pro and b.pro are. Of course you can modify b.pro to read @/absolute/path/to/a. But a more flexible solution to this that makes it easier to give your code to someone else is to use an environment variable and write @$IDLCODE/demo/a.
Getting to work
I like being at the Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) — and I also like getting there. 🙂
In the past weeks I tried various routes to bike up the hill from my appartment in Eppelheim (roughly 110 m above sea level) to the MPIA on top of Heidelberg’s Königstuhl at roughly 560 m above sea level. Here are some of my favourites: