tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11339200Tue, 19 Aug 2008 20:40:29 +0000http://www.lukemiller.org/journal/journal.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Luke Miller)Blogger70125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11339200.post-5070722516179428148Tue, 19 Aug 2008 20:18:00 +00002008-08-19T13:40:29.539-07:00 My study on barnacle feeding habits (Marine Ecology Progress Series v.349 p:227-234) required a relatively small video camera system that could be deployed in the intertidal zone and withstand submersion during high tide. The goal was to leave the camera deployed for weeks on end. Power would be supplied from dry land, and the video signal would be sent back to dry land via cable to minimize http://www.lukemiller.org/journal/2008/08/relatively-cheap-relatively-water.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Luke Miller)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11339200.post-4576795624112692167Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:08:00 +00002008-06-11T17:40:55.897-07:00NOAA Coastline Extractor This is a page that will generate a line drawing of a section of coast that you're interested in. Very handy for making maps and figures. You just specify the lat-lon area you're interested in, and it will return a data file for use in Matlab or ArcGIS etc, and a line drawing that you can save and use. I found this through a page at Wood's Hole/USGS with a number of http://www.lukemiller.org/journal/2008/06/another-thing-i-wish-i-would-have-known.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Luke Miller)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11339200.post-5787838480392322721Mon, 05 May 2008 00:09:00 +00002008-05-04T17:32:23.203-07:00While trying to format the bibliography of my thesis recently, EndNote managed to hang and crash Word 2007. When I restarted Word, the EndNote tab was nowhere to be seen. The EndNote Cite While You Write Add-in had been disabled by Word due to its malfunction. Re-enabling the CWYW Add-in takes just a few steps. This only applies to Word 2007 for Windows, not earlier versions. Start by clicking http://www.lukemiller.org/journal/2008/05/making-endnote-x1-work-again-sort-of.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Luke Miller)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11339200.post-1285527349347632470Sat, 26 Apr 2008 22:33:00 +00002008-04-26T16:20:39.316-07:00 There are certain situations in life where a set of digital calipers or dial calipers just won't cut it. With the advent of cheap digital calipers, it has become more reasonable to take these instruments into conditions where they may get splashed, knowing that they can be easily replaced should you accidentally drop them in a tidepool. Still, in some cases it's nice to be able to use a set of http://www.lukemiller.org/journal/2008/04/plastic-calipers-close-but-no-cigar.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Luke Miller)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11339200.post-7246802381335522655Sat, 19 Apr 2008 22:17:00 +00002008-04-19T16:02:11.277-07:00 One of the common tools that researchers use to measure temperatures of objects or organisms is the electronic thermocouple. For a few hundred dollars you can have a handheld electronic thermocouple reader and flexible thermocouple leads. The thermocouple readers are quite durable and last for years. On the other hand, the thermocouple wires eventually break after lots of usage. Most people http://www.lukemiller.org/journal/2008/04/rolling-your-own-thermocouples.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Luke Miller)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11339200.post-3124407520064332067Thu, 20 Mar 2008 02:56:00 +00002008-03-19T20:21:31.755-07:00I guess I'm proud to see that I managed to get the only invertebrate on some VH1 blog about animals with drinking problems (number 37): Best Week Ever's list of 50 animals with drinking problems The original picture: And here are the others from the set: These were originally shot during the invertebrate zoology summer course offered at the University of Washington's Friday Harbor http://www.lukemiller.org/journal/2008/03/where-do-they-find-this-stuff.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Luke Miller)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11339200.post-7398454202155343614Sun, 21 Oct 2007 21:01:00 +00002007-10-21T14:31:23.542-07:00Microsoft Word can be easily set up to type in words that you use over and over again automatically. This might be especially useful for things like species names or obscure measurements that require greek characters or other special formatting. The process takes advantage of Word's autocorrect functions. This example uses Word 2007. I have a species name that I need to type quite often, and it http://www.lukemiller.org/journal/2007/10/typing-common-words-automatically-with.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Luke Miller)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11339200.post-522715911341162470Mon, 27 Aug 2007 18:56:00 +00002007-08-27T12:13:43.609-07:00Robocopy is a built-in function in Vista that allows copying of the contents of one folder to another folder, either within the same computer or over a network. In my case I use it to mirror the contents of my Matlab work folder to a second hard drive. The second hard drive is then backed up to an external server once a day. You can run robocopy as a scheduled task to automate the backup process http://www.lukemiller.org/journal/2007/08/mirror-files-with-robocopy.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Luke Miller)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11339200.post-6227869372662068528Wed, 22 Aug 2007 00:46:00 +00002007-08-21T17:47:38.823-07:00This was a fun one to figure out. Maybe it will help someone else. The background: I'm running a heat budget model which steps through seven years of weather data in 10-minute time steps, so there's a bit over 368,000 time steps. One of the outputs is a text file with the elapsed time since the start, and associated temperature predictions at each time step, totaling 368,208 lines. The http://www.lukemiller.org/journal/2007/08/matlab-text-file-precision.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Luke Miller)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11339200.post-5420228782011232337Wed, 01 Aug 2007 23:42:00 +00002007-08-01T17:06:23.386-07:00Comparing the intensity of bands on a Western blot can be done in a number of ways using software that is commonly found on lab computers or freely available for download. The following document outlines some of those methods. For a long time, the de-facto standard for analysis in labs that didn't want to spring for multi-thousand $$ commercial densitometry software was Adobe Photoshop or one ofhttp://www.lukemiller.org/journal/2007/08/quantifying-western-blots-without.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Luke Miller)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11339200.post-6131809217120042749Wed, 30 May 2007 20:01:00 +00002007-05-30T13:04:21.350-07:00Someone came along and attached a tsunami warning sign to the existing sign outside our building. Our lab is unfortunately situated below the shore height that has now been deemed unsuitable for surviving a tsunami. http://www.lukemiller.org/journal/2007/05/were-in-trouble-now.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Luke Miller)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11339200.post-687716415137226733Wed, 02 May 2007 18:00:00 +00002007-05-02T11:04:10.632-07:00Calling these things "affairs" makes them seem so genteel. They are thoroughly entertaining though. Publishing nonsense in a sociology journal: Sokal Affair Possibly publishing nonsense in physics journals: Bogdanov Affair Randomly generating nonsense for scientific meetings: SCIgenhttp://www.lukemiller.org/journal/2007/05/science-affairs.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Luke Miller)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11339200.post-6772678680790274643Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:19:00 +00002007-02-21T14:19:02.052-08:00Bel-Art The Scienceware® Company - VERNIER CALIPERS This is the only source for all-plastic vernier 0.1 mm calipers that I can find these days. Forestry Suppliers and all the other usual suppliers have moved to cheap plastic dial calipers (dial fills with water and stops working) or to digital calipers (also not so good in water). If you're working in an area where you might only occasionallyhttp://www.lukemiller.org/journal/2007/02/plastic-calipers.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Luke Miller)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11339200.post-1968074788917859283Sat, 03 Feb 2007 05:46:00 +00002007-02-02T21:59:51.790-08:00http://www.hadleyweb.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ This site houses a little program called CombineZM, which incorporates routines for combining several macro images into one image with a huge depth-of-focus. To use it, you simply take several pictures of your subject, and between pictures move the camera slightly forward to put a different slice of the subject in sharp focus. Alternatively, you can http://www.lukemiller.org/journal/2007/02/macro-image-stacking.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Luke Miller)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11339200.post-116951962500522065Tue, 23 Jan 2007 02:27:00 +00002007-01-22T18:33:45.016-08:00 If you go out and pop a bunch of mussels off the rock every month, and then dissect out the gonads separate from the rest of the body tissue, and then you dry those two blobs of tissue, and finally compare the mass of gonads versus the total body mass of the mussel (sans shell), you get a graph that looks like this. Now the impressive part is that not only are the mussels at this site 40% gonadhttp://www.lukemiller.org/journal/2007/01/why-wont-they-spawn.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Luke Miller)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11339200.post-116113744213903316Wed, 18 Oct 2006 02:08:00 +00002006-11-15T20:52:08.526-08:00http://www.mbari.org/staff/etp3/regress.htm Edward Peltzer has been nice enough to provide a number of Matlab scripts for doing a variety of different linear regressions. You get the standard Model I linear regression, along with weighted version, a major axis version, a geometric mean (a.k.a. reduced major axis) version, and so on.http://www.lukemiller.org/journal/2006/10/linear-regression-fun-with-matlab.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Luke Miller)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11339200.post-115498599843209201Mon, 07 Aug 2006 21:06:00 +00002006-11-15T20:50:37.836-08:00Since I can't ever remember how to do this: Using Endnote Cite While You Write in Word 2003 to format citations. If you want to add in a comment or some other note into a citation in the text that Endnote is formatting, you need to do the following: What you want: (see, e.g., Smith, 2006) The tricky part: (see, e.g., Smith 2006) How to go about it: Add in the citation as you normally would. http://www.lukemiller.org/journal/2006/08/endnote-stuff.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Luke Miller)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11339200.post-115265118431946561Tue, 11 Jul 2006 20:38:00 +00002006-07-11T14:19:32.650-07:00How to get the Cite While You Write tools to show up in Word 2003 after installing Endnote 7. Normally this would happen automatically upon installation of Endnote, but sometimes it doesn't. 1. Within Microsoft Word go to the Tools menu and select Options. 2. Click the File Locations tab, highlight the Startup folder, and look at the location listed. It will be something like C:\...\Microsoft\http://www.lukemiller.org/journal/2006/07/endnote-7-cite-while-you-write-and.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Luke Miller)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11339200.post-115023640022294353Tue, 13 Jun 2006 22:02:00 +00002006-06-13T15:06:50.230-07:00Hey look! A source for bee tags on the internet! It's been a long time coming.The Bee works (www.beeworks.com). It used to be the case that bee tags were obtained by writing (in German) to some supplier in Germany, and there was no other easy way to contact that supplier. Thankfully someone else has stepped in and started selling these little plastic numbered markers, which are commonly used for http://www.lukemiller.org/journal/2006/06/bee-tags.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Luke Miller)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11339200.post-114962389422176756Tue, 06 Jun 2006 19:56:00 +00002006-06-06T12:58:14.240-07:00Dell Inspiron 700m laptop computers have an occasional problem with the internal speakers going dead. The drivers and audio control panels will all be working fine, and the headphone jack will work, but the speakers along the bottom edge of the screen will simply not output sound. This can be the result of the speaker wires fatiguing and breaking where they pass through the hinge from the base tohttp://www.lukemiller.org/journal/2006/06/broken-speaker-wires-on-dell-700m.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Luke Miller)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11339200.post-114503083331168662Fri, 14 Apr 2006 16:05:00 +00002006-04-14T09:07:13.320-07:00Here's a site that offers a full array of modified cameras for near-IR photography. You can shoot at normal shutter speeds and capture only the 715nm-1200nm range of IR light. http://www.maxmax.com/aXRayIRCameras.htmhttp://www.lukemiller.org/journal/2006/04/heres-site-that-offers-full-array-of.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Luke Miller)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11339200.post-114411607617099589Tue, 04 Apr 2006 01:20:00 +00002006-04-03T19:01:16.213-07:00Stainless steel mesh cages have a long association with intertidal ecology and were a key part in some of the early studies that created the field of experimental ecology. The early work of Joe Connell (1961) is responsible for introducing most people to the use of mesh cages for manipulating the densities of predators and grazers. Connell used 22 gage wire mesh with 8 squares per inch, formed http://www.lukemiller.org/journal/2006/04/how-to-make-durable-cages-for.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Luke Miller)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11339200.post-114365751295012497Wed, 29 Mar 2006 18:29:00 +00002006-03-29T10:41:51.793-08:00One day of deployment, 24 hours of time elapsed, and this is what our pressure transducer looked like: That's a stainless steel housing, meant for use in harsh environments, which the ocean probably qualifies as. The tip that looks broken off is simply corroded away to the water line. The pressure transducer was mounted upside down at an angle in a tide pool, so you can do the math on the http://www.lukemiller.org/journal/2006/03/electrolysis.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Luke Miller)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11339200.post-114024636813815119Sat, 18 Feb 2006 07:05:00 +00002006-02-17T23:06:08.156-08:00I suppose I should wrap up this travelouge properly. The main body of the class shipped out on Feb 3, along with about 120 other people. The five teaching assistants (including yours truly) and one of the instructors stayed behind to clean up, pack up gear, finish up a few experiments, and return all our gear to the various storehouses from which we had borrowed it. You can become close friendshttp://www.lukemiller.org/journal/2006/02/finishing-up-in-antarctica.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Luke Miller)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11339200.post-113886732986136897Thu, 02 Feb 2006 08:00:00 +00002006-02-02T00:02:09.880-08:00Part of our group took a trip out to a crack in the ice about seven miles north of McMurdo Station today. We went out there to make a few CTD casts and measure the UV light environment under the ice. We got to take a quick helicopter flight out to the site, and then we spent three hours taking measurements and fooling around. Most of the time was spent on the latter activities. Part of our crew http://www.lukemiller.org/journal/2006/02/2-2-06-ice-crack.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Luke Miller)