I am at my wit’s end. I have been trying to build some astronomy software for my graduate program for 2.5 weeks and I have hit a dead end. The software is called Heasoft and is used in analyzing spectrum files. I am on Maverick and getting this error -> http://pastebin.com/mDkuRUba when I try to build the package. Are there any astronomy buffs or just some developers out there who can help me? I am really really stuck and would appreciate any help.

Please leave me a comment of shoot me an email Freddymartinez 9 AT gmail . com.

Thanks in advance.

My blog has been slightly ignored in the last year or so. I have sort of moved away from the Ubuntu community. I still advocate and spread the love but I don’t really have time for development. So a few things:

- The Mozilla Team is still strong and running. I was involved in various degrees when it started and it looks like a strong team. Alexander Sack and company have been doing great work.
- The reason I sort of dropped off the face of the earth has been education. I am a full time student getting a Masters in Physics. Physics is now my life and there is not much room for other things. (Side note: I beginning teaching today…life moves so quickly…)
- On Ubuntu development in general: You all rock. I have very much enjoyed my time speaking with all of you. The Chicago LoCo in particular, Nixternal, Jim Campbell and company rock.
- On Comments on my blog: I haven’t checked them in a long time. If you want me to respond please resent the comment or find me on skype. (user name photonphoton) I know, its not FOSS and I need my sins absolved.
- Speaking of FOSS, is anyone interested in writing a FOSS version of programs like Mathematica/Maple? Mathematica may be the best tool I’ve ever use and I really don’t like that FOSS alternatives don’t exist but I can see why they don’t.

Have fun during Ubuntu Developer Week. I really wish I had times to help you. If anyone has an area of Ubuntu development that doesn’t require a lot of time, please let me know. I may be convinced to come back.

Also, I’m confused about all the discussion about Obama’s blackberry. Giving up my Blackberry is not option so it must be non-blackberry users talking about it.

“My experiments were always being interrupted by the salesmen, who would come back with some plastic from a prospective customer.”

Best,

Freddy M.

Meme HOWTO:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open it to page 56.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

I’ve attached my ideas about the election,  I’m focusing on how to interpret polling and what it means.  I’m a big supporter of Obama but I’m not focusing on either party.  If you live in the Colonies, don’t forget to go out and vote.

In the last week, there has been a lot of polling and discussion on what it means.  I’ve looked at most of the latest polls and try to explain what I see.  If you disagree, drop me a comment.  Since about the second debate, I feel we haven’t seen much movement on the national scale.  All the action is on the state level where McCain isn’t looking too good.

First, lets talk about the state level electoral maps:If you consider the polls from Nov 2nd, October 22nd or as far back as October 12th you can begin to see where McCain started losing the election.  As far back as 10/12 as see that VA is leaning Obama should have been serious flags to the McCain camp.  (There is something to be said about the small sampling sizes in that last poll but…). You’ll see that McCain is trailing significantly in areas that matter. In order to win now , McCain needs to flip PA and put a sort of sweep scenario, which is not going to happen. McCain/Palin made the error of trying to spend time in PA instead of staying competitive in locations like FL, OH or even MI. The fact that McCain has to even spend money in MT, ND or even AZ a is serious defensive move that shows a major problem.  Iowa is one state that barely went to Bush and Obama has double digit leads in some polls.  Assuming Iowa doesn’t matter so much (because of the narrow margins in 2004), we still see McCain missed a real opportunity to claim up CO, NV, NM, and lock away VA.  That being said, let’s turn to what we can interpret in recent polling.

-  The race isn’t tightening. Perhaps in the National level, perhaps in some places like OH, FL and a few places.  The races in MO, OH, FL, NC are pure toss ups.  Thats 84 electoral votes.  To say they are tightening is to underplay their value as tossups.  Late movement in the polls can be statistical noise, a product of history or late movement by independents.  However, to think that a PA flip could be an October surprise is fooling ourselves.  If CO and NV were within 1 or 2 points from the margin of error AND PA changed about 5 points to McCain in the last week, I would say that is significant tightening.  That isn’t the case. Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com wrote a great post on the race tightening. They have a great webpage too, I would suggest it for anyone interested polling and news on the campaigns.

- The independents are largely gone. I don’t think people will wake up tomorrow and suddenly make a choice over breakfast cereal or while standing in line.  The McCain camp suggests that independents will break to him in the last few days.  I don’t think we largely haven’t seen that. and if we have its not very visibly to me.

- Most models are wrong. I don’t mean they have it wrong but I think we are missing a large part of the actual pictures.  The cellphone/text message demographic, the Facebook crowd, the ground game on election day, early voting etc.  Obama has a very impressive ground game and would be highly suprised if it didn’t give him some large returns tomorrow.  I feel like we’ll see quite a few news stories about the unexpected factors on Tuesday night.  I’m expecting we will see similar stories all over  the nation.

- Action to watch. OH, NC and FL.  A strong performance by McCain would show real life in his campaign.  If NV, CO, and NM are close, we can expect a real shot.  I think that if NH and PA are within 5 points, we’ll see a real nail-biter tomorrow night. I don’t expect this to happen at all.

Let me know if you disagree and we can discuss it.