Episode 1 - Clippy is Gone Now, Clippy Was Not a Help

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Jan 23, 2015

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ANECDOTE

Radar Gun Measures Raindrops

John repurposed a 1970s police radar to measure raindrop speeds in his backyard.
He collected data during squall lines, validating cloud physics predictions with this simple setup.

INSIGHT

Thermal Inversion Bends Sound

Thermal inversions cause warmer air above colder ground, bending sound waves back to earth.
This refraction can amplify distant sounds, explaining mysterious booms heard far from their origins.

ADVICE

Skip PowerPoint for Figures

Avoid using PowerPoint for figures or posters; it lacks quality for publications.
Learn Illustrator or try Inkscape, which offer professional-level graphics and better output for scientific visuals.

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Episode 1 - Clippy is Gone Now, Clippy Was Not a Help

We discuss paper writing, figure making, debate the merits of our favorite software, and discuss a possible explanation of last week’s mysterious booms in Oklahoma. Shannon also discovers that John does strange things with his spare time and a police radar gun. We discuss the demise of clippy, the MS Word virtual assistant.

Global Warming Trend Graphic
John’s blog post on using a police radar gun for raindrop speed

Paper and Report Writing

John uses LaTeX, specifically MacTeX
Shannon uses MS Word mostly
There is value in features like track changes, scripting, distraction free environments, formatting, figure numbering, etc.
John uses markdown initially to have a distraction free writing environment (in the atom editor)
LaTeX help is easy to find!

Poster and Figure Making

Many options, but some are better than others
Powerpoint (please don’t use this for posters or figures)
Adobe Illustrator (expensive, steep learning curve, but good)
Inkscape (free clone of Illustrator at the slight expense of install/usability headache)
Photoshop
InDesign
KalidaGraph
IGOR Pro
Python
Plot.ly

Update on Oklahoma Booms

There was talk that these could have been a result of a thermal inversion
Demo of how sound bends in an inversion can be found on Dr. Dan Russell’s site and this YouTube video.
Civil War may have been influenced by acoustic propagation. There is a summary article and book about it.
We found a 1984 newspaper article from Oklahoma mentioning this phenomena.

FunPaperFriday - Radio Bursts from Blitzars

Show - www.dontpanicgeocast.com - @dontpanicgeo - show@dontpanicgeocast.com

John Leeman - www.johnrleeman.com - @geo_leeman

Shannon Dulin - @ShannonDulin

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of our employers or funding agencies.