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I'm a novelist and have an interest in space science and physics. I've been a programmer for more than 30 years and I like reviewing new and up-and-coming authors.
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News 11th Feb 2021
My internet connection has now been established in my new home, and the Raspberry Pi's are working their hearts out to update the pages containing NASA data. There is a brief period that Mars Weather data is temporarily lost (I assume I'll be able to recover it when the data is next uploaded to the PDS repository in about 6 months time).
Meanwhile, it is just a week until Perseverance makes its guided landing in Jezero Crater on the flanks of Syrtis Major in the northern hemisphere of Mars. I am assured that the rover will be sending back weather data which I'll be able to pick up from the NASA servers in the same way I've been picking up the weather data from InSight. I'll start a new section for Mars Weather with pages for InSight data, InSight data (recalibrated) from the PDS archive, and Perseverance (and later Perseverance recalibrated).
It'll be a while before Perseverance begins sending data back, but feel free to hold your breath!
Animal Farm Part 2
In an earlier article I explained why using a wiki farm could be productive for someone who is on the move or likes to preserve previous versions of documents, and also for someone like me who uses multiple operating systems.
It's worth noting too that collaborating becomes a lot easier using a wiki, and since the platform preserves old versions of each document, it provides a safety net too. That aside, I thought I'd share how this all works for the user.
Animal Farm
As a writer, I love sitting at my computer and either writing my next novel, or working on the development phase - world-building, character creation, plot development etc. However, after 12 hours sitting at my desk I'm getting a bit uncomfortable and if I listen very carefully, I can hear the sofa's siren call… Breaking free of the desk has been something I've been working toward since the middle of the year.
Raw Weather Data
I have (at last) managed to get hold of all the Mars Weather data that's been missing from my dataset. In fact, I've got hold of so much (over 110Gb) that it's going to take some processing - it bears little resemblance to the data I currently fetch. I need a plan.