codeXgalactic hosts technical writings of the work of Christine Corbett Moran, Ph.D., as well as musings on productivity. For polished write-ups on humanities subjects, check out corbett.medium.com
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Finding earth like planets from the comfort of our own planet
Gravitational lensing results from the fact that General Relativity describes our universe: mass bends light and can function in effect like a lens, bending light in ways that can be used to infer the mass distribution itself. Gravitational microlensing is due to this same effect, but refers to the detection of objects which are of Read More …
The Game of Life-simple rules, complex behavior
Here’s a video introduction to the Game of Life Historically, one of the pioneers of computer science John von Neumann was interested in finding machines which could reproduce themselves. He developed an abstraction allowing him to mathematically model his work on a computational grid. A mathematician John Conway took up and simplified his work publishing Read More …
Cold dark matter heats up – a review of a review
This is a review of the recent paper, to be published in Nature, by Andrew Potzen and Fabio Governato Cold dark matter heats up. The paper is itself a review, containing information published in previous studies. I gave a presentation about it at our weekly Astrophysics journal club. The figure in the header is M82, Read More …
Staying Focused
I fully admit to being an information and interaction junky. I feed on bits and pats on the backs to the point of bloating, and with my schedule when I’m working I need to be on point. I try to take a media fast once a year for about a month for a personal cleanse, Read More …
Axolotl Protocol for Cryptographically Secure Messaging: An Illustrated Primer
Whisper At Open WhisperSystems Winter Break of Code, I had the privilege to announce our integrated RedPhone/TextSecure roadmap for iOS and Android. Code named Whisper, it offers a cross platform one stop solution for secure messaging and phone calls. This is a big deal! Close to a billion people are using data channel messaging and phone Read More …
Google Glass–using, hacking, loving
Motivation I’ve been obsessed with gadgetry since I was a little girl, much before I got into hacking and making which was the inevitable progression. I got a pager before I made more than 5 friends (I recall primarily paging myself and ignoring my mother), and was on my fourth palm pilot, second laptop, and Read More …
Tips for the Tough Traveler
I travel quite a bit, and am away from home from 24hr-30 day stretches. Even longer, but after 30 days I transform my coordinate system, and home is again where I am. My advice would fill pages, but here are a few simple tips to keep on the road. Read More …
Hacking Philips Hue, wireless controlled multicolored LED lightbulbs
Philips makes a series of wireless controlled, multicolored light bulbs which I purchased. In the month or two I’ve had the bulbs I’ve fallen in love with them! Best of all, they have a great API integrated. After plugging in the bridge, connecting it to my wireless router, and plugging in the bulbs I can control them fully with Philips’ native iOS client from my iPhone or iPad, where I renamed the bulbs. The app works via a REST API, and there’s an iOS SDK you can use to interact with this easily via Objective C. The future of really is made of JSON! They also have an easy way to get started learning the API and controlling your bulbs from web browser. Read More …
NASA Space Apps Challenge 2013
As in 2012, I participated in the NASA Space Apps Challenge Hackathon, this time as a participant rather than an organizer. Read More …
Cozy Bachelorette Party Games With No Supplies Required
A bachelorette party is a great way to have a night out for a bride-to-be where someone else does the planning, here are some tips if you are the one doing the planning. Read More …