I had realized that my hopeful career in cartooning was not exactly a first-class ticket to fortune, but maybe computers were! Eventually I found myself in George’s “Advanced FORTRAN” class. I remember few specifics from the class, except one basic fact of programming that would stay with me for my entire career. George came into the class one night, turned on the overheard and placed transparency showing about 20 lines of code. He asked, “What does this do?” then paused for us to fill the space with our collective wisdom. After about 30 seconds of silence, he could stand no more and stated that the puzzling code did nothing more than clear an array. But golly, he was right! And it was beautiful. Compact, fast and downright clever! And as the light dawned upon our collective noggins, we again glanced at each other thinking the same thought, “my goodness this is a clever solution. I hope I can be as good a programmer as this guy was!”

George understood all too well and read our thoughts. “I bet you think this is clever don’t you?” he said. We nodded in unison. “It is clever. But terrible coding!” Oops! Needle-across-the-record moment here (for the kids in the audience a “record” was a piece of plastic with something like an mp3 file etched in it). He explained that while the code really was efficient and clever it was terrible for the simple fact that we couldn’t figure out what it did. “Don’t be clever unless you absolutely have to” he instructed us. “Write some extra lines of code if you must to clarify your work.” When the code is revisited months or years later, he explained, we wouldn’t have to waste time trying to figure out what we did. Save clever stuff for the small fraction of the project that really needs it.

So, at least once a week I find myself wanting to be clever, and I hear George’s admonition in the back of my head warning me not to. That was the first and most important lesson I learned in this biz.

The license deal includes not only stars, nebula, but 2 million of the nearest galaxies,  complete with their central super massive black holes, as well.

“Getting the black holes into the codebase will be trickiest part. Early prototypes of the new software show the black holes as slowing up or even reversing the iPad’s own internal clock, along with everything else within about a 5 light-year radius of the user. Smithwick told the amusing anecdote of waking up one morning after a hectic night of coding, thinking it was Friday, when in fact it was actually Thursday, September 17, 1996. “As you can imagine, debugging spacetime paths can be tricky, especially if you go back in time before the iPad even existed. I had to relive those 17 years just to step to the next breakpoint.” He continued, “People expect their base-reference time-frame, to stay constant, especially in light of Apple’s embarrassing bug from last year’s iOS 6.1 update.”

“I can’t wait to get this out to my users. While the competition can only show pictures of the Whirlpool Galaxy, Distant Suns will give them the real galaxy. And that’s just cool.”

The new additions are expected to ready by next year as an in-app purchase. Pricing has not been announced.

This was dad. Last Friday morning at about 7AM the Earth flickered just a bit as my father passed away, age 92.

He never came across as a particularly “deep person.” We rarely had conversations that transcended much above our current interests, events in Washington, or how school went. In the recent years I asked him for any words of wisdom from someone rapidly nearing the century

mark. He had trouble coming up with anything profound enough for me to actually remember. But his life and examples were all I really needed.

Born a scant 18 years after the Wright brothers first flew, and while still an infant, he, grandpa and grandma voyaged to India as missionaries. His folks started a small clinic which decades later would be a 250-bed hospital. Dad told us of how if he or his brother had to get up in the middle of the night, grandpa would have to check for snakes before the boys were permitted to place feet on the floor. Or how grandpa personally knew Ghandi. He was 7 when they returned to the US.

Dad ultimately would choose dentistry as a profession followed by joining the Navy because “they had nicer looking uniforms.”

That was dad.

The first girl he ever dated was the only girl he dated. (They would be married just a few weeks short of 60 years before she passed away.) In 1945 he left to join “the greatest generation” for the last 6 months of the War in the Pacific on an attack transport, shuttling fresh troops to Iwo Jima (now in US hands) and returning others back to the states.

That was dad.

When he was out of the Navy, he would still continue serving: first as dentist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Nevada (helping those who others refused to), then as the first dentist in Sunnyvale, California, where one of his patients is some kid named “Woz.”  (I wonder if he ever made good?) In his “spare” time he would found the highly regarded Foothill – De Anza Community College district. During the first week of every new school year, he’d make note to walk around the campus to watch the students register because of the “thrill” he had to see the difference the school could make. He would serve the district for 35 years. (Incidentally, it was at the Flint Center at De Anza College, where the original 128k Macintosh said its very first hello).

That was dad.

In 1981 we had special VIP passes to see the landing of STS-1, the very first space shuttle mission. The viewing site had us standing amongst Apollo astronauts, senators, actors, and even Roy Rogers. In the hotel restaurant the day before, he was yakking with our waiter about the flight, and then invited him to join us. I wonder how many people would have thought of that?

One year Maggie Thatcher came out to speak at De Anza College. After her talk, he asked her if she had any dinner plans. Since she did not, mom and dad took her out to a local Marie Callenders’ .

That was dad.

Even in retirement he had to help others by sending refurbished hospital equipment to bush clinics in Africa, or pharmaceuticals to Russian hospitals.

That was dad.

There are striding among us “great” people and great people. The former rarely are, and the latter? Well, they never think they are. Dad belonged to the second group (and mom as well).

From taking a world leader to a local chain restaurant, to inviting a random waiter to witness one of the most historic events of the 80s, that was dad.

At 92, I think he had a good run. Now it was time for him to rest. He deserves it more then many.

One of the last times I spoke to him I made him promise to give mom a message should he see her before me. The message was “The Giants did it!”

I know he will.

Dozens of comets are discovered each year, most quietly anonymous, meekly shining at magnitudes that require very good telescopes to see. Only the big and dramatic ones reach naked eye visibility. On the average, such comets come around about every 4 or 5 years so we’re due. Comets are made up of water ice, gasses such as methanol and hydrogen cyanide mixed in with dust and rocks, all from the earliest days of the solar-system, providing astronomers with a unique window into those times. Even so, while the big comets can be very impressive with tails tens of millions of km long, the actual nucleus can be on the scale of a few km across making a comet the “closest thing to nothing that can be called something.”

Comets are typically named after their discoverers, usually a lone astronomer or two who might have to spend thousands of hours in the dead of night scanning the heavens before going into work. Comet Holmes was discovered by British astronomer, Edwin Holmes in 1892, and astronomer Robert McNaught has his named attached to 38 different comets. However this comet was discovered by the automated Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System, located in Hawaii and used to spot possible Earth crossing asteroids.

With the latest release of Distant Suns (max) for iOS, you may follow the comet over the next couple of months. Current expectations is that it will brighten up to about first magnitude, or roughly as bright as the major stars in Orion. Look towards the west after sundown, and you should see quite a sight.

In the fall however is Comet ISON, which is currently expected to be the most brilliant comet in the past century and possibly even visible in day time. And as always, Distant Suns will be there, (but I rather doubt if you’ll need it to spot the thing).

Download Distant Suns in the App Store.

My main quest to see the aurora was completed on the one and only clear night. Unfortunately it was considered a “mediocre” display by our guest speaker/photographer, Dennis Mammana. The greenish colors were barely detectable with the eye, and only visible in the photos. Well, I guess that means I have to go again, maybe Iceland next year. Oh… the torture.

A couple of things I have always wanted to do were: go on a cruise (not one of those gaudy drink-yourself-to-the-emergency-room kinda cruises, but something a little more mellow), and to see the Northern Lights. What fun when I discovered that there was a cruise to see the Northern Lights (not to be confused with Friday Night Lights, that was a different network). I signed up almost immediately with the marvelous company MWT Tours.  Melita , the MWT of  MWT Tours has been in the business for nearly 30 years combining her love of astronomy and travel. The eclipse tour last November was also managed by MWT with over 150 participants, but this one has only about 25 making it comfortably small.

The first stop was Kirkenes, about 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle. A small town of 3,300, it is apparently quite popular for the die-hard adventurers and those who have always wanted to stay in a hotel made of ice. We overnighted there last night, then boarded the ship, the MS Finnmarken this morning, our home for the next 6 days.

The aurora webcam in Tromso has been showing nice displays in between the clouds nearly every night for the past couple of weeks. We all hope that the clouds will part at least for a couple of the nights. We are told that there will be announcements when the aurora is visible, even during the dark of night. Hooray.

One of the nice things about these tours is that there is always a special guest lecturer or two. The late Apollo 15 astronaut Jim Irwin was one Melita’s first lecturers back in the 80s, this time is it is highly regarded sky photographer, Dennis Mammana who will give a couple of lectures on photographing the aurora. We all hope we’ll have a chance. Thank goodness there is a nice observation lounge so we don’t have to go out into the 0º F air. There is a midnight snowmobile excursion that looks temping, but uh, I think I’ll pass to save myself for the swim in the Barents Sea tomorrow. Oops, scratch that, I need my physician’s permission. Never mind.

I’ll try and post aurora photos on Twitter live, if we actually seen anything. And if I do try the Barents Sea swim, I will not post photos of my muscles’ seizing up like a cheap Volvo, or the emergency room of the local hospital.

We knew this was going to be different when at the very start several application authors one by one went up on, stage giving a brief history of their work. They all ended with stating their name and said “I make apps.”

Tim Burkes, the energetic force behind the Silicon Valley iOS Developer’s Meetup, spearheaded this effort and made it a fun and memorable time. The opening keynote called “Dare It” was given by Brenda Chapman, who directed and wrote Pixar’s Brave. Not bad company to keep. Tuesday’s keynote, Focus It, was Ken Segall who authored Insanely Simple, which chronicles Apple’s simplicity-or-else approach to design. (a book I had just finished, and I highly recommend it). “Do It” was the theme of the final keynote delivered by Tim Berry, cofounder of Borland. Berry covered writing and presenting the all important business plan for new startups.

In-between these speakers were panels on localization and running a software contracting business. The latter included the CEOs of Bottle Rocket and Black Pixel. On the technical side of things were talks on topics such as the new Bluetooth LE (Low Energy) standard for very low power short range Bluetooth devices, and third party APIs. The artistic itch was scratched with sessions on beautiful use of fonts and animation and sound.

Tim opted to have just a single track so all participants were on the same page for the entire time. This managed to keep the feeling of Renaissance intimate and friendly.

One couldn’t avoid the Microsoft booth as they were soliciting for developers to consider programming apps for Windows 8. I suggested that they were like Mormons going to a Baptist church to gain converts. Nice bunch of people there plus they had extra munchies when the normal cache was put away.

Many hope that there will be a Renaissance 2. If there is, don’t hesitate to sign up.

I want to thank Dave Eicher and the Astronomy staff for welcoming us into their fold, and I look forward to see where this will lead in the future.

Astronomy Magazine is now available as a digital download in iTunes here.