How to talk about travel and work in 2020. There’s the usual thoughts about the meetings that didn’t happen, travel that could have been, and friends that we haven’t seen. This isn’t so much a rehash of the year as it is a retrospective on things how things started and how things are going.
(more…)Category: Brain Talk
-
All the way down into a black hole
There’s been just a little excitement about the latest findings of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) not the least of which is that they’ve actually got a picture of a black hole. And, to quote my wife, “When I check Facebook and all of my theatre friends are posting about black holes I know it’s an exciting day in science.”
Now, while I work on black holes, the photons that I use to study them are carry about a million times more energy per photon than the ~mm radio photons that are used by the EHT. Even so, let’s try to break out what’s cool and exciting about this new result.
(more…) -
2018 in Review, Travel Log
As you probably know, the life of an astronomer is usually one filled with travel. If you’re an optical astronomer (I’m not), then this also includes jetting off around the globe to observe at a variety of observatories that are usually located in the middle of nowhere. This year was no different for me, but I think it’s worth looking back at the travel that came about this year (if for no other reason than for me to remember all of the places I’ve been and why I feel tired all of the time).
This draft has been hiding in my “To finish” folder since mid-December, so I’m pushing out Part I here.
(more…) -
Gravitational Waves and Gamma-ray Bursts
There are (at least) three paths that lead to excitement in the LIGO data, so understanding why all of the scientists all over the world are so excited can be a little confusing. I’m going to try to walk through them (briefly) at the request of a friend.
Just to put this in perspective, nearly everyone who works in any kind of astronomy on the planet is working on this right now, and the nuances of what’s interesting and/or important won’t become clear for another few years.
That being said, no one has ever accused me of not liking to talk (at length) about something that’s interesting (and that I know a little about), so here we go.
-
Good figures, or bad figures?
With the propagation of data science throughout most industries, the quality of inventive graphics on websites has gone through the roof. This page came across my Facebook feed and is a great example of how awesome interactive graphics can be on a site.
Let’s play “Good figures, or bad figures?”!
-
Spring Cleaning (travel mind edition)
This year my travel has been fairly hectic. While it’s rather on par (or below) for a scientist, this means that it’s above and beyond the pale for a “normal” person.
-
Reducing Infinites, redux
It’s been a little over a year since the last time I really tried to purge extraneous content from my daily data ingest. Just wanted to give a status update.
Reducing the noise.
After the 2016 election I really had to try to kill off my Facebook feed and my Twitter timeline. I’ve made the mistake of following too many political people on the latter and the former was giving me a little too much shared despair.
I did turn on the “News” app on my iPhone. In general, I like it. The discovery space is pretty good (for example, how in the world had I NOT heard of GeekDad before this?). But for general daily news updates it’s a little overwhelming; I don’t need five different versions of the same story in a row.
Which leads me to the point where at my house we’ve actually gone back to the New York Times daily print edition. It’s nice to be able to flip through it, get a daily does of politics, and then still find myself reading a story about geriatric marathoners. The world is bigger than the front page, but it’s hard to get down any further than that on a regular basis.
I am back on Twitter, kind of. I find that I generally don’t like trying to jot down clever ideas in 140 characters to keep feed going on a regular basis. I do try to use it as a note-taking device when I’m at a conference, but that’s really more fun when there are multiple people live-Tweeting. In general, people don’t need (or care) about what’s going on with the latest in calibration of various X-ray telescopes. Right?
To avoid scope creep, I’ve had to justify each entry into the feed to myself. If I find myself not reading a story from a particular feed at least once a week then I tend to remove it from my list:
News and Politics
The New York Times
Because, reasons…
The Washington Post
Because sometimes you need *more* Washington coverage.
Vox
One of the more rounded political blogs that I’ve found.
Los Angeles Times
Local news and info (though disturbingly I mostly get information about local celebrities selling their houses for megabucks. This may get dropped soon.
Wall Street Journal
Business news and a view into the more conservative echo chamber.
Science and Tech
Apple News keyword feeds for “NASA”, “Space X”
Launch notifications, other random acts of awesomeness.
National Geographic
Great photojournalism is found here.
Ars Technica
Recently making it back into circulation as I have more time to read tech news.
Sports and Lifestyle
Deadspin
Daily dose of snark and sports highlights.
World Soccer Talk
This was one of the highest-rated Apple News football feeds (and yet odd that it’s moniker has been Americanized to WorldSoccerTalk). Less snark than the Deadspin “Screamer” sub-channel, more centered on news and straight reporting.
Geek Dad
Arguably your one-stop shop for the all things even mildly nerdy, from cold brewed coffee press reviews to daily comic strips. It’s like someone rolled Nerdist, Ars, and Fatherly into one ball of awesomeness.