Saturday, March 01, 2008

The Ubiquity of IDL Color Table 39

I spent four days in a Virginia Beach conference center, looking at data mostly displayed in IDL (Interactive Data Language) color table 39 (Rainbow + white).
On the one day that we finished before dark, I took a walk along the beach and saw this building.
Did they know we were coming?

I saw other sights.
Meet king Neptune.
If you are using IDL in Xwindows (like X11 running on OS X or an UNIX workstation), type "xloadct" at the command line prompt and a widget will pop up that allows you to preview all the color tables available. If not, then use use the color table link below to preview them in a browser of your choice.
See all the IDL color tables.
Learn more about IDL.

Have you ever pondered how much gumption is required for business travel? I flew across the continent and then drove a rental car, alone, in unknown territory in the dark to find my hotel. Mark warned me to be careful to avoid going over any bridges or into a tunnel. Fortunately, I found the hotel relatively easily.

On the way back to the airport, I offered a ride to a fellow meeting attendee from JPL. He had been a program manager of an instrument built out at nearby NASA Langley so he was quite familiar with the way back to the airport. Had it not been for him, I could easily have been trapped in a lane heading through a bridge or tunnel and then missed my flight. From my experience, California road signage is clearer than east coast signage.

Some more thoughts about business travel for mommies:
Mommy don't go
Out to lunch, and dinner and breakfast...
Business Travel for Moms
Bringing Your Daughter to Work

2 comments:

  1. My favorite east coast vernacular road sign is "Exit Only". On the west coast this means that the freeway you are on has an upcoming lane from which you must exit. If you want to, fine. If not, merge left.

    On the east coast when this sign means that after you exit the freeway there is no way to get back on without traveling to the hinterlands of New Jersey for a U-turn.

    ReplyDelete
  2. wow, I had no idea that I could view the colortables; that's rad!

    ReplyDelete

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