Landon Noll: Astronomer, Mathematician
Landon Noll's Internet age is 43, the date of his his virgin experience with the Internet. Landon's hobby is Vulcanoids. He snorts, "Hobby!" and I respond, "Consuming passion?" He's a cryptographer by day. By night...
I met Landon on Orkut. Hoping to mend a broken heart, I searched "Friends of Friends" for dates. I know, I know. Orkut is dead, and overrun with Brazilians, besides. But there I was, contacting people, as if Orkut was relevant.
Landon turned me down. He was on a business trip, busy with work, etc. I eventually stopped looking for dates. Still, I kept hearing about Landon. Landon's an eclipse chaser! Landon's going to Libya, too! There's a going-away party for Landon!" So I maintained a low-level effort to meet this fellow eclipse chaser. It was frustratingly slow...
First contact: Email, 1 November 2005.
Second contact: Jing Jings, 24 May 2006.
Landon has a grant to search for Vulcanoids, small rocky bits left over from the formation of the Solar System. Models show a zone within the orbit of Mercury where they could exist, far enough from Sol to not be blown away by the solar wind, yet close enough to Sol to avoid the gravitational influences of Mercury and Venus. Vulcanoids should exist. Thousands of 'em!
But nobody has seen one.
While the eclipse-chasing hoi polloi were complaining of Libya's alcohol ban, impatiently waiting for totality, rubbing sunscreen into dry skin, and generally having a bit of a party... Landon was scraping the Sahara sand down to firm soil, anchoring three plates with deep spikes, setting his tripod on this stable base, aligning his cameras, and covering them with an electrically-cooled blanket. His project placed cameras in three locations across the path of totality.
Landon is serious about Vulcanoids.
But they're still mythical beasts. They're inside the orbit of Mercury, and they're small. From Earth, the sky is too bright. Space telescopes can't point closer to Sol than 40 degrees because its light reflects in their baffles. SONIA is an infrared telescope mounted on an airplane to carry it above infrared-absorbing water vapor. But because of hull limitations, the telescope aperture is limited, and only allows viewing 20 degrees above the horizon. Observing the sky during total eclipses seems to be the only feasible way of finding these elusive hot rocks.
Landon is analyzing data now.
I hope he catches one!
We ate Vegetarian Mu Shu and Szechuan Dan Dan Noodles. Over a glass of plum wine, the Cryptographer explained an implication of the NSA collecting and analyzing our phone traffic patterns -- the most recent Awful Revelation about the erosion of our civil liberties.
Probable cause is needed to tap a phone line. But the Patriot Act changed things. It allowed transitive phone taps: Any phone calling into a tapped phone, may also be tapped. Evidence uncovered during that phone tap can be used to obtain a warrant to tap THAT phone, and so on, thereby allowing discovery of a network of "bad guys." Having the ability to analyze traffic patterns of untapped phones, greatly helps this search.
I thought, "It's kinda like Orkut, they can now transitive-tap their way to any phone they want, by the most direct route..."
Landon Noll: worth the wait.