Episode 1 - Clippy is Gone Now, Clippy Was Not a Help

We discuss paper writing, figure making, debate the merits of our favorite software, and discuss a possible explanation of last week’s mysterious booms in Oklahoma. Shannon also discovers that John does strange things with his spare time and a police radar gun. We discuss the demise of clippy, the MS Word virtual assistant.

• Global Warming Trend Graphic


• John’s blog post on using a police radar gun for raindrop speed

Paper and Report Writing

• John uses LaTeX, specifically MacTeX


• Shannon uses MS Word mostly


• There is value in features like track changes, scripting, distraction free environments, formatting, figure numbering, etc.


• John uses markdown initially to have a distraction free writing environment (in the atom editor)


• LaTeX help is easy to find!

Poster and Figure Making

• Many options, but some are better than others


• Powerpoint (please don’t use this for posters or figures)


• Adobe Illustrator (expensive, steep learning curve, but good)


• Inkscape (free clone of Illustrator at the slight expense of install/usability headache)


• Photoshop


• InDesign


• KalidaGraph


• IGOR Pro


• Python


• Plot.ly

Update on Oklahoma Booms

• There was talk that these could have been a result of a thermal inversion


• Demo of how sound bends in an inversion can be found on Dr. Dan Russell’s site and this YouTube video.


• Civil War may have been influenced by acoustic propagation. There is a summary article and book about it.


• We found a 1984 newspaper article from Oklahoma mentioning this phenomena.

FunPaperFriday - Radio Bursts from Blitzars

• A real-time fast radio burst: polarization detection and multiwavelength follow-up (Petroff et al.)


• Related New Scientist Article

Contact us:

Show - www.dontpanicgeocast.com - @dontpanicgeo - [email protected]

John Leeman - www.johnrleeman.com - @geo_leeman

Shannon Dulin - @ShannonDulin

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of our employers or funding agencies.