*pokes head into thread and waves*

I'm a graduate student in astrophysics, at the University of Birmingham in the UK. I've been lurking here for a little while, but I think this is my first post.

I work with data from the Chandra X-ray observatory, and the VLA, mainly looking at galaxy clusters, their evolution, and how supermassive black holes affect their surroundings.

Hello!

*waves back*

Welcome to BAUT!

__________________
If this writing is blue you're going too fast!

'Ello, suppose I should also state I'm a postgrad astronomy student. Can I just say I rather enjoyed NAM this year so thanks to the guys at Birmingham for that. The flashing icecubes at the reception were fantastic.

__________________
Its better tae meddle wi the deil............

Hi Angua, it's good to see you here.

__________________
My message board, now more fun than ever - Text effects - Sky photos - Element spectra
Remember I before E except after C, or be seized by your weird neighbors who have had too much caffeine.

Do you know half hair rich?

Not sure how many remember me, but I'm SKY from the BABB. It's been quit a while since I've posted.

I learned of the merger a while ago, I just haven't had much time to even lurk let alone post. I wanted to at least drop in, introduce myself to those who don't know me and say hi to the few who do remember me. ;-)

__________________
Homer no function beer well without – Homer Simpson

Yo SKY! I can never think about being "spaghettified" by a black hole without thinking of you.

Hi, I'm 20-year-old physics student from Finland mostly lurking here. I got to the BABB from the old Apollo Hoax forum (too bad it dissappeared. I haven't bothered to register to the new forum since I rarely had anything to say in the old one). My interests consist mainly of sciences, manned space flight and aviation. Shyness and bad verbal skills/language barrier prevent me from taking more part in the discussions here, hence the relatively low post count, but I'm expecting to learn a lot from you while lurking, as I have learned in the last year and a half of being a BABB member.

You call that bad verbal skills?

I do not see any language barrier here at all!

__________________
Non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem.

Agreed! If only more Americans could put together as cogent a sentence as JMV...!

__________________
Bring back Firefly!

"It is quite clear that Occam's razor does not sharpen in your pyramid." (Nicolas)

"Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." (Paul Simon)

I actually used a lot of time composing that. I have no trouble understanding English but I have hard time expressing myself with it (though sometimes I have trouble expressing myself even with my own mother tongue). Especially in scientific discussions when I'm trying to explain my thoughts on some very complex matter. Maybe it's the vocabulary that's the hardest part. I need quite a bit of time thinking what was the word I was looking for and refining sentence structures. There have been times when I'd written a short post for almost an hour and after it's complete I review it and see that it doesn't actually say what I want it to say. So I think it's better not to post anything if there's a great probability that readers would get me all wrong.

One approach I've been using for composing posts, including this and the previous ones, is that I write a lot of short simple sentences, or clauses very quickly, a bit like the stream of consciousness thing. Then I start rearranging them according to what their relations are in my head. After that starts the hunt for good conjuctions, conjunctive adverbs and relative pronouns between the related clauses. Then I try connecting the simple sentences with conjunctions to form bigger compound or complex sentences.

It's just review review and review after that, looking for typos, grammatical errors and words I could replace with synonyms to avoid repetitiveness.

If I come up with an expression I'm not sure is real English or not, I try googling it. If there's lot of hits with the expression in them, I'm sure it's OK to use it. I use the same googling technique if I don't know a certain expression but do know a few words related to it. Google usually finds the saying I was looking for.

This all takes time and usually I have to remember to copy to message before I hit submit button because the board has logged me out during the composition. I have lost a few messages because of that.

I was BAD fellow before the merge but somehow all my posts were credited to "guest" (though strangely enough the quotes in old threads show the IMO). I got IMO from my web page and persona as I M Openmind in the Leider wars. I have been an astronomer long enough to be an Emeritus Professor ... born on JD 2429592. The only thing I see as changed after the merge is that I see a lot fewer "To Seek"s happening.

Hey im quite new to this forum im commonly calle Neel i live in london. and im 18 , fully legal , heh!!

__________________
Alcohol... the creator and solution to all problems - Homer Simpson

*YAWN*

Man, wake up after a well earned four month post-graduation coma to find that the BA went and changed everything.

Anyways, I'm a 24 year old holder of two newly minted BS's, one in Electrical Engineering, and the other in Computer Engineer, which I hope to use soon to make a lot of money. I have a interest in everything under the stars, around the stars, over the stars, and inside the stars, which has translated itself into a great interest in science, technology, physics, and last but not least astronomy. I live in the great state of Missouri (or for those that live here, Misery) for the moment.

I have lurked the BABB for a while, posting when I had time and something interesting to add, but for the most part I kept reading and learning a great deal, and I hope to keep doing that here.

__________________
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GE/CS d- s+: a-- C++++>$ UL P+ L+ E? W++$ N o? !K w O? M--- V PS+ PE Y+ PGP-
t+@ 5++ X- R tv@ b+++@ DI? D-- G e>++ h!(*) r-- y-
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

My name is Sarah, I'm 21 (turning 22 in November) and an undergrad physics student at McMaster university in Canada.

I am Dirk Bontes and I quit my job to write about my conceptual science discoveries. I am procrastinating a lot, though, and so wasting valuable time as well as money. Two more chapters to do to finish my little book in Dutch about the main cause of chronic diseases. It is taking nearly forever. You can learn about some of what I wrote on my livejournal/home page.

Hi folks. Haven't been around much lately... busy. I was a little concerned about the merger when I belatedly discovered it, but it looks good.

I live in Maryland in the D.C. exurbs; 41 and happily married. I'm an engineer, been working on space stuff for ~15 years, depending on how you count it. When people ask me what I do, I say "aerospace engineer" for simplicity; but really I've done a number of different things, and my education isn't in Aero - BA in physics and anthropology, MS in EE and another in systems engineering/eng. management.

A number of hobbies, several of which are kinda dormant right now: astronomy, hiking, reading, warbirds (WWII era). Most of my time outside of work and family is taken up by being a volunteer firefighter/EMT. In case I have any energy left, we're fostering a couple of small boys.

Nice to see old faces, and new.

Been lurking on the Bad Astronomy board for maybe about a year and a half. Once the merger took place I figured I'd actually register and so I did. Then went straight to lurking again for a couple weeks until.....now.
Personal stuff, well, my names Chris, I'm 20. Just moved down to Floriduh earlier this year from NYC.
Dont have any fancy schmancy phd thingies. Just find all that astronomy stuff up above really amazing.

Sorry for the late reply Archer17...

I still love WolfKC's Balonified (sp) and Eggified animation's...Actually, I miss all of WolfKC's Animations, where has he been lately?

At least it broke the tension for Purplekitten who seemed genuinely concerned about the Black Hole in question. :-D


My last post was extremely vague. I forgot to post some interests:

Astronomy
Chess
Photography
MMA
Weight Lifting
Drawing
Video Games
Computers

Bad Astronomy was the first online community I ever joined and I only did so after lurking for a year or two, getting a feel for the atmosphere there. I realized they were a great bunch of people and I admired the respect the posters had for the rules of the community, and I admired the admin for his strict enforcement of those rules.

Although I have had little time to read through many threads here, I have no doubt that I will love it here the same (if not more) than I did there. :-) I'm happy to see the merger is being taken positively by all, and I look forward to being able to spend some more time here in the future getting to know people better.

__________________
Homer no function beer well without – Homer Simpson