Tag Archives: reference

Reading Mark Manson’s “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck”

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
March 19 2020

As part of PolyWogg’s Reading Challenge 2020, I wanted to read the uber-popular “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck” by Mark Manson. I frequently avoid pop psych stuff as the analytical side is rarely up to my standards, but it is subtitled a “Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life”, and I’m willing to give it a chance. So I started keeping notes as I read it.

Chapter 1: Don’t try

The basic premise is that most self-improvement efforts are too vague or too generic to be helpful. They are all about getting more, doing more, having more success, and that the real key to doing so is self-improvement. But Manson argues:

Self-improvement and success often occur together. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the same thing.

And so people end up focusing on trying to achieve self-actualization in every aspect of their life, every achievement possible.

The key to a good life is not giving a fck about more; it’s giving a fck about less, giving a fck about only what is true and immediate and important.

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Reading Michael Swanson’s “The NexStar User’s Guide II” – Chapter 07 – Connecting a PC, Mac, Tablet or Smartphone to Your Tablet

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
September 8 2019

For reviewing purposes, I skipped over the short Chapter 6, focused on Sky Portal operations, as I’ll do that chapter after I have a chance to connect to my tablet and test some of the operations. I thought of doing the same for Chapter 07, Connecting a PC, Mac, Tablet or Smartphone to Your Tablet, but it’s a short chapter, and easily dispensed with here.

Some of the highlights:

P.165 – Wired Connections for RS-232 Hand Controls…I knew that most of the wired connections used a USB to Serial adapter, and plugs in to the RJ-22 Jack (I thought it was an RJ-45, but apparently not!). However, one “new” thing in the guide is that there is a way to do a wired connection to a tablet or smartphone using SkyWire + Sky Safari with an iOS device. I had no idea there was an option for a physical wire connection.  » Read the rest

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Reading Michael Swanson’s “The NexStar User’s Guide II” – Chapter 05 – NexStar and StarSense Hand Control Operations

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
September 7 2019

Chapter 5 (of Michael Swanson’s “The NexStar User’s Guide II”) is entitled NexStar and StarSense Hand Control Operations and you would be right if you assumed this was going to more like a software manual than a telescope manual. It is a highly specific reference manual for the use of the hand controller and reading it page by page is for the hard-core geek only. But it is full of fantastic info that I didn’t know enough about, even though I’ve worked with the hand controller for years. These are the highlights for me:

Pg. 128 – Adjusting slew rates…I knew how to manually adjust the slew rate (MOTOR SPEED then press 1-9 where 9 was the fastest). I really only use 3, 6, and 9 for rates though. 9 if I’m going a great distance, 6 if I’m adjusting for centreing, and 3 if I need very fine adjustments while doing astrophotography and looking at centreing something on the screen.  » Read the rest

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Reading Michael Swanson’s “The NexStar User’s Guide II” – Chapter 04 – Alignment

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
September 3 2019

Chapter 4 of Michael Swanson’s “The NexStar User’s Guide II” is entitled Alignment and is the chapter that made me want to buy the book and read it cover to cover. Readers of the blog know that I struggled with alignment for my NexStar 8SE (Solving alignment problems with the Celestron NexStar 8SE) and Michael’s online resources were helpful in resolving some of them, or at least narrowing the problem. I even held off buying the book because he said Guide II was coming and I should wait over Guide I. Then I managed to solve most of the alignment issues, and so when his book arrived, I didn’t devour the whole book right away. I just cruised through the Alignment chapter. Then this past summer, I went back and re-read everything in order.

Here are some highlights from Chapter 4:

Backlash compensation (P.87): A great element for those of us with slightly older scopes whose mounts are no longer “factory fresh”.  » Read the rest

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Reading Michael Swanson’s “The NexStar User’s Guide II” – Chapter 03 – Overview of Celestron’s Alt-Az Computerized Telescopes

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
August 30 2019

I like to blog about non-fiction books as I read them, as it helps me both synthesize and retain the info. Chapter 3 is a general overview on all the computerized scopes in Celestron’s arsenal, and I found myself liberally highlighting as I read it. Here are some highlights:

  • P.57 — a great overview of the different processors in the mount, including some of what the processors in the mount do (drive the motors) and the hand control (determining the correct tracking rate)…I was initially confused about something in the manual, as it said the hand controller sends the update to the mount every thirty seconds. I wasn’t sure if this meant it sends a “movement” command every 30s (as that seemed too slow) or a rate adjustment every 30s (adjusting the existing tracking speed), and the author confirmed the latter. Now rereading it, it was already clear, I think I just confused myself;
  • P.
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