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The IceCube Neutrino Detector at the South Pole Hits Paydirt

spectrum.ieee.org

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Re: The IceCube Neutrino Detector at the South Pole Hits Paydirt

#91

Post by satanicAdvocate »

skrebbel wrote: post #74
ghaff wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pilots being another good example. Years ago, I interviewed for a couple of positions with Schlumberger which, at the time, basically went out to oil wells and made various measurements. In a lot of ways, it was essentially a tech job but the reason you had engineers (assisted by techs) was that you had various training and, presumably, other background for when things went sideways.

Fun story, though off topic: Schlumberger, having people all over the world on dangerous places such as oil platforms (but also in offices), thinks that physical safety for their employees is very important. They iterated on this so well for so many decades, that the primary cause of employee death is now traffic accidents, involving employees thousands of miles away from oil wells, on their way to the office. Proble…

Time for motorcycles!

Re: The IceCube Neutrino Detector at the South Pole Hits Paydirt

#92

Post by sonofaragorn »

8bitsrule wrote: post #53
nategri wrote: post #2

Recovering astroparticle physics PhD here. I read this news with great interest because I thought they might have finally detected the flux of neutrinos predicted by the GZK process[1]. But, this can't be the case because 1) 10^14 eV is probably on the low side for GZK neutrinos, and (more importantly!) 2) that flux would be fairly isotropic, and not from point source. But still! Exciting results! IceCube is an ambit…

Curious: alcoholics have Bill Wilson to help them recover ... who do astrophysicists have? (the kind of question that reveals search engine limitations)

Large paychecks from industry/finance

Re: The IceCube Neutrino Detector at the South Pole Hits Paydirt

#93

Post by eeZah7Ux »

craftyguy wrote: post #51
tobias2014 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use mosh and you will have a much better experience. It's made for high latency connections.

Some mission critical production systems don't really want you installing . That's probably a highly unpopular view on HN, but having downtime on IceCube, for example, means they may miss an extremely rare event (neutrino hitting something and generating muons/photon shockwaves) that they could detect.

Indeed. Mosh is still new (less than 10 years old), albeit it could get an exception if it really helps avoiding errors and typos due to latency.

Re: The IceCube Neutrino Detector at the South Pole Hits Paydirt

#94

Post by raverbashing »

skrebbel wrote: post #74
ghaff wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pilots being another good example. Years ago, I interviewed for a couple of positions with Schlumberger which, at the time, basically went out to oil wells and made various measurements. In a lot of ways, it was essentially a tech job but the reason you had engineers (assisted by techs) was that you had various training and, presumably, other background for when things went sideways.

Fun story, though off topic: Schlumberger, having people all over the world on dangerous places such as oil platforms (but also in offices), thinks that physical safety for their employees is very important. They iterated on this so well for so many decades, that the primary cause of employee death is now traffic accidents, involving employees thousands of miles away from oil wells, on their way to the office. Proble…

Seems like your standard tachometer with an alerting system, a lot of companies have company cars with something similar

Re: The IceCube Neutrino Detector at the South Pole Hits Paydirt

#95

Post by jjoonathan »

mjfl wrote: post #59
everybodyknows wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A pity some of our new billionaires don't make a hobby out of funding genuine science research. Rather than, say, adventures in space tourism.

what if scientists actually considered being economically competent? There is no law of nature that holds that scientists must be aloof savants.

Value capture in science is a known hard problem. Snide comments suggesting that it is tractable do not make it so.

Re: The IceCube Neutrino Detector at the South Pole Hits Paydirt

#96

Post by IrishJourno »

munificent wrote: post #29
IrishJourno wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the author of the Spectrum article: this is the exact reason why I get paid for my job :)

You did great. Precise, informative, and evocative. Really fun to read.

Thanks!

Re: The IceCube Neutrino Detector at the South Pole Hits Paydirt

#97

Post by IrishJourno »

fit2rule wrote: post #25
IrishJourno wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the author of the Spectrum article: this is the exact reason why I get paid for my job :)

You did a great job of inspiring me to understand something I have, literally, not even the foggiest iota of a clue about. I finished your article in awe at the human species.

Then I consider that a job very well done :) We can do some pretty neat stuff as a species when we want to...

Re: The IceCube Neutrino Detector at the South Pole Hits Paydirt

#98

Post by IrishJourno »

bacon_waffle wrote: post #71
IrishJourno wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the author of the Spectrum article: this is the exact reason why I get paid for my job :)

Great article, thanks! OT: I keep meaning to join IEEE - do you get any commission or perks for referrals?

I don't get any commission or perks, but I would honestly still encourage you to join the IEEE: It takes its mission of "foster[ing] technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity" quite seriously, plus you get a copy of IEEE Spectrum every month, filled with cool articles from me and my colleagues -- if there's a deliberately moving electron associated with a topic somewhere, we're likely to cover it. :)

Re: The IceCube Neutrino Detector at the South Pole Hits Paydirt

#99

Post by IrishJourno »

Diederich wrote: post #57
ISL wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. If Musk had wanted to make a science contribution, he might have launched one of these [1] instead of a Tesla. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LARES_(satellite)

Would they have allowed their satellite to be launched on an untested platform? That's the idea of putting a 'worthless' payload up first.

Agreed. I'm not a Musk fanboy, but most rockets are initially tested with inert dummy payloads. The choice wasn't between a Tesla and a science satellite, but between a Tesla and sand.

Re: The IceCube Neutrino Detector at the South Pole Hits Paydirt

#100

Post by IrishJourno »

analog31 wrote: post #55
Diederich wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Recovering astroparticle physics PhD here If I may ask: why 'recovering'?

I'm not in astro, but have a physics degree. It's pretty well known that only a few of us get to stay in basic research after we finish our degrees. Most of us have to make the transition to some "real world" activity. Some have an easier time of it than others. While it's also well known that you don't go into certain fields to make the big bucks (astrophysics, viola da gamba performance, etc.), a corollary is that…

Yes: I've a physics degree as well, but I'm a sci/tech journalist now. I'm sometimes asked to talk to physics students as an example of someone using their degree as the basis of a career outside academic research.
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