Tag Archives: JWST

July 11, 2022

JWST First image!

If you follow stuff like this, you probably already know, but the James Webb Space Telescope team just released the first actual image from the telescope:

More images are expected to be released tomorrow (July 12). Visit their page for details (and the full-sized image — all 4537×4630 pixels of it). Visit their excellent “Where Is Webb?” page for the latest status and stats on the JWST.

Congrats again to everyone involved! This was an amazing (and prolonged) effort. I’m glad I get to see some of the results now!

7 Comments | tags: astronomy, James Webb Space Telescope, JWST, space | posted in Science

May 13, 2022

Friday Notes (May 13, 2022)

By Wyrd Smythe

Not that anyone should care, but it’s Friday the 13th today! More to the point, it’s Friday, and I’ve been remiss about Friday Notes this year. The one last January is the only one I’ve posted so far. Big part of that is having, at long last, reduced my note pile enough that I don’t feel so (word) pressed.

Some of it is the ongoing problem of ennui. The eleven-year blog anniversary is approaching, and that tends to ignite old questions about why I bother to do this. By now I’ve left some sort of small scrawl on the internet wall and explored many of the topics that drove me to blogging.

On the other hand, the pile isn’t by any means gone, so let’s get to it…

19 Comments | tags: Discworld, James Webb Space Telescope, Jerry Seinfeld, JWST, Seinfeld, tesseract | posted in Friday Notes

January 28, 2022

Friday Notes (Jan 28, 2022)

By Wyrd Smythe

It’s been a minute or two since my last post. In large part, I’ve been on a three-week coding binge, moving some projects along and doing improvements and minor bug fixes on library code. At this point I’m a bit burned out and definitely over the binge. I don’t get the mood to really tuck in like this much anymore, so when that mood does strike, I surrender to it.

One consequence of not posting is that the longer I’m away from it the harder it seems to start up again. Some part of me finds this unrewarding and unsatisfying, but another part of me enjoys the writing and is drawn to it. Also, I still struggle with maintaining an artificial politeness rather than unleashing my inner Guido (and I’m so tempted some days).

Anyway, without further ado, another edition of Friday Notes.

22 Comments | tags: derivatives, James Webb Space Telescope, JWST | posted in Friday Notes

January 9, 2022

So Now It’s 2022

By Wyrd Smythe

That’s weird to me. I’m from the 1950s and can measure my life in scores of years (three-and-mumble). I was an avid science fiction reader by the 1960s, so recall an era where we wondered if the year 1984, let alone 2001, would be anything like the famous book.

As it turned out, in both cases: No. Respectively fortunate and unfortunate. The future turned out less extreme (but no less “interesting”). Both demonstrate the difficulty of prediction, a problem science fiction illustrates more often than not.

That said, the other face of Janus looks forward…

57 Comments | tags: 2022, Alastair Reynolds, blog, blogger, blogging, James Webb Space Telescope, Janus, JWST, words | posted in Life, Writing