Distributed Project To Classify SDSS Galaxies 35
Xandu writes "Be part of a human Beowulf by helping classify millions of galaxies from the SDSS at the Galaxy Zoo. From their about page, "Those involved are directly contributing to scientific research, while getting an opportunity to view the beautiful and varied galaxies that inhabit our universe. Why do we need people to do this, rather than just using a computer? The simple answer is that the human brain is much better at recognizing patterns than a computer. Galaxies are complicated objects that vary in appearance enormously, and yet in some ways they can be very similar. We could write a computer program to classify these galaxies, and many researchers have, but so far none have really done a good enough job. We have not been able to make computers 'see past' the complexity, to reliably identify the similarities that appear obvious to our eyes and brain. For now, and probably for some time yet, people do the best job of classifying galaxies."
Humans... (Score:4, Funny)
They're good for something after all.
Perhaps they shouldn't all be killed then.
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Yep, some should be spared... I heard they provide a lot of btu's of energy.
(The dumbest argument for a movie plot. Ever.)
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... not least because someone earlier in the film had mentioned that they already had viable fusion.
Meh.
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"I heard they provide a lot of btu's of energy." ... for what it's worth
People produce ~ 600 BTUs / hr
That particular movie you refer to implies a human is also a power source, but I'm skeptical on that ...
I know some people that are so dim that I doubt they could power a 5 watt light bulb
Re:Uh.... this is YEARS old. (Score:5, Informative)
Heh, I'll bite. Actually, this is version 2 (which came out 2 days ago). The original Galaxy Zoo was launched in July 2007 [galaxyzoo.org], and only classified galaxies as spiral or not. This is much more fine-grained and allows for significantly better research.
And seriously, 6 jobs in the last 18 months. C'mon!
Re:Uh.... this is YEARS old. (Score:5, Informative)
I also found that it took me probably 3 times as long to classify a single galaxy, because they've gone from an array of buttons to a tree of decisions for each picture. I hope it's worth it, but it's not as dead-simple to operate and it certainly takes longer.
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Depending on the jobs that could be a great thing. I know plenty of freelancers who bill $100+/hr and work a couple of 1-2 month jobs each year and just slack off the rest of the time.
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Six months isn't all that old.
I probably shouldn't help (Score:1)
I don't think I could resist the urge to tag everything as 'Thats no moon!'
Other people who should not help: (Score:2)
So. Uhm. He probably shouldn't help either.
Why not MTurk? (Score:2)
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MTurk isn't free.
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Money.
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everything old is new again (Score:5, Insightful)
"Be part of a human Beowulf"
uh, you mean a team?
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no offense taken.
apology accepted anyway.
What about retaliation? (Score:4, Funny)
After I pick a galaxy out of the lineup, how I can I be sure that it won't come after me later? Many astronomical objects get really bent when they think that they have been incorrectly labeled, and they can hold a grudge for billions of years! Just imagine being outside on a clear dark night and looking over you shoulder and seeing an angry galaxy coming after you. Do you think you can run fast enough to keep out of trouble? I pity the people who demoted Pluto from it's planetary status, I bet that they never go outside when it's dark. I'd rather just mind my own business.
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That's simple. Just stick to identifying galaxies that are more than 100 light years away and you will be relativistically safe. Your children's children's children on the other hand...
Ummm, which galaxies are closer [wikipedia.org] than 100 light years?
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btw - Thanks for the link! Excellent summary there, I just wish it had the red-shift included, but I can follow the links to find that.
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Ok, I'm guilt. I'm the one who misslabeled Andromeda [slashdot.org].
I tried, but it goes to a blank page. (Score:2)
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No, because nobody RTFA.
They don't want me (Score:2)
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The mail was eaten by my spamassassin...
turn it into a game or contest (Score:2)
Nice idea, but not really scientifically useful. (Score:1, Interesting)
In grad school I remember a class where we played the same game. We had to make an estimate of the T-type (numerical hubble class) for the galaxies in the Coma cluster off of plate material. The point of the exercise in the end was to take all of these classifications made by supposedly trained and motivated people and show how much internal scatter you got (it was impressive, for some galaxies not better than random noise).
I hope these guys make you practice on known training sets first so they can "cali