Astronomy Hacks by Robert Bruce Thompson, Barbara Fritchman Thompson

Anybody take a look at this book yet?

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/astro.../colophon.html

G.T. wrote:
Anybody take a look at this book yet?

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/astro.../colophon.html

I took a very brief look at this in the bookstore. It's not a bad book.
Some of the hacks are very simple, almost trivial things that you can
find in any introductory book, but others are found only in secondary
books. If you're still early on in your astronomy book acquisition, it
might be worthwhile. If people are still interested, I'll take a longer
look at it...

--
Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.txt

What are these sort of 'hacks' in astronomy? I don't think I understand
fully Thank you.
"Brian Tung" wrote in message
...
G.T. wrote:
Anybody take a look at this book yet?

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/astro.../colophon.html

I took a very brief look at this in the bookstore. It's not a bad book.
Some of the hacks are very simple, almost trivial things that you can
find in any introductory book, but others are found only in secondary
books. If you're still early on in your astronomy book acquisition, it
might be worthwhile. If people are still interested, I'll take a longer
look at it...

--
Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.txt

"Brian Tung" wrote in message
...
G.T. wrote:
Anybody take a look at this book yet?

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/astro.../colophon.html

I took a very brief look at this in the bookstore. It's not a bad book.
Some of the hacks are very simple, almost trivial things that you can
find in any introductory book, but others are found only in secondary
books. If you're still early on in your astronomy book acquisition, it
might be worthwhile. If people are still interested, I'll take a longer
look at it...


I think I may pick it up since I'm very early in my book acquisition.

Greg

"Zarkovic" wrote in message
news:mP%De.10725$s54.293@pd7tw2no...
What are these sort of 'hacks' in astronomy? I don't think I understand
fully Thank you.

I think that the "hack" part is a bit gimmicky but from reading the reviews
it sounds like it may be helpful to me.

Greg

"Brian Tung" wrote in message
...
G.T. wrote:
Anybody take a look at this book yet?

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/astro.../colophon.html

I took a very brief look at this in the bookstore. It's not a bad book.
Some of the hacks are very simple, almost trivial things that you can
find in any introductory book, but others are found only in secondary
books. If you're still early on in your astronomy book acquisition, it
might be worthwhile. If people are still interested, I'll take a longer
look at it...

Zarkovic wrote:
What are these sort of 'hacks' in astronomy? I don't think I understand
fully Thank you.

Oh yes, I forgot about that. A hack, in this context, is a quick way to
do something. For example, a polar alignment hack on my C5+ is to set
the thing up so that it's roughly level, and have the handle point toward
the pole star. That's good enough for visual.

This is the origin, by the way, of the term "hacker" as it is applied to
computers. A hack is a quick, clever, and not necessarily inelegant way
to do a certain task--with the emphasis on clever. The task, contrary
to the popular sense of the word, need not be destructive in any way. I
might come up with a hack that uses sed and awk (two Unix programs) to
automatically insert MP3 tags into all of my audio files.

With the advent of nominal security in computer systems, it did take some
cleverness to break into them, and I suspect that, along with the sense
of hack, "to cut down," conspired to give the term its current negative
connotations. In any case, the book explicitly mentions the original
sense of "hack," and one of its objectives is to "reclaim" the term, as
the authors put it.

--
Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.txt

"G.T." wrote in message ...
Anybody take a look at this book yet?

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/astro.../colophon.html

There are 11 reviews on Amazon.com. All are favorable
4 to 5 stars.


--
Hilton Evans
-----------------------------------------------
ChemPen Chemical Structure Software
http://www.chempensoftware.com

Brian Tung wrote:

In any case, the book explicitly mentions the original
sense of "hack," and one of its objectives is to "reclaim" the term, as
the authors put it.

Reclaim? It was never lost.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker

Even if it was (somehow) lost, why 'reclaim' it from a bunch of
demonstrably ignorant boobs? (e.g., the media, 'social science'
researchers, the government and its lackey's, etc) Far, far, better to
let them make fools of themselves while we hackers laugh ourselves
silly.

Levy's "Hackers" is still, 20 years later, the definitive, timeless
work on the subject:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers...ter_Revolution

Given the subversive nature of the 'hacker ethic' we can perhaps see
why the Leviathan wish to dimiss members of The Chosen as criminals and
terrorists.

I (Brian Tung) wrote:
In any case, the book explicitly mentions the original
sense of "hack," and one of its objectives is to "reclaim" the term, as
the authors put it.

e--------- wrote:
Reclaim? It was never lost.

You're right that it was never completely lost. In the popular
conception, though, it is dominated by the "computer attacker" sense.
Many people, through no fault of their own, have never even heard of
the earlier sense; they think it *only* means "attacker."

Even if it was (somehow) lost, why 'reclaim' it from a bunch of
demonstrably ignorant boobs? (e.g., the media, 'social science'
researchers, the government and its lackey's, etc) Far, far, better to
let them make fools of themselves while we hackers laugh ourselves
silly.

That's a value judgment--one I don't agree with, personally. I think
it's a shame that more people haven't heard of the older sense, and I
have no desire to see it used as a shibboleth. (After all, the sense
prevalent nowadays is not really a foolish use of the term--just not
the one I learned first, is all.)

--
Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.txt

I see it just got Slashdotted:
http://books.slashdot.org/article.pl...&tid=160&tid=6