Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Job Rumor Mill

Around this time of year, ants invade the pants of young astronomers. Fellowship and faculty search committees have assembled, short-lists have been ranked, fellowships are being offered, campus visits are being scheduled for would-be professors. Rumors fly, and a rumor wiki (we are organized, list-making people, after all) collects all the rumors, so that anxious job-seekers can be badly informed.

When I do check the rumor mill, I check the wiki revisions rather than the main site, to see changes only. Today, the revision notes include this wonderful exchange:

Q: Has anybody received rejection letters for Einstein yet?
...
A: Patience, young grasshopper. They'll get around to rejecting you soon enough.

Free, You Haul: Shuttle Main Engines

Need to spice up your local museum, town square, or megamall? NASA has slashed prices on the soon-to-be-retired space shuttles Atlantis and Endeavor. $29 million apiece, folks!

AND, even better, they'll give away spare space shuttle main engines (you haul, some assembly required).

There's a tantalizing reference to "potential artifacts that include the space shuttle, Hubble space telescope, Apollo, Mercury, and Gemini."

If anyone can wade through the goobledgook to find out how an institution (mine?) can grab a Hubble artifact, that would be swell.

Monday, January 11, 2010

50 Best Physics Blogs? You're joking!

While shoveling the backlog of email after the Thanksgiving/Christmas/AAS snowstorm, I found that the humble AstroDyke is listed as one of the "50 Best Physics Blogs" by a blog about online colleges. Right there with the ArXiv blog & Cosmic Variance. I don't know what that means, but it's funny.

On the subject of blogging: A colleague recently told me that authorship of astroblogs and how-to websites are factored into their evaluations, as a form of community service and outreach. Interesting.

Workplace Issues for LGBT Astronomers

I wanted to highlight a poster from the recent "Women in Astronomy 2009" workshop, held last October. Titled "Workplace Issues for LGBT Astronomers," it's a reminder to our colleagues that LGBT astronomers face extra challenges at work, due to unequal compensation at institutions (lack of health insurance and pensions for same-sex partners), and federal laws that permit discrimination. (Props to L. Kay for presenting the poster and advocating for its inclusion at the WIA meeting.)

Comments? Suggestions for a similar poster for the next winter AAS?


Several of the other posters are also worth a read.

The big AAS meeting in DC

Hi all. Finally catching my breath after the American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting in Washington, DC. Attendance was well over 3000 -- as always, it's an overwhelming experience. In the next week or so, I'll post some highlights.

The AAS streams session videos for past meetings, but there are no links for the current meeting. I'm surprised that the plenary talks aren't publicly available right after the meeting. If I'm wrong, somebody send the URL pronto! Obviously, taping & streaming videos would cost money, but what a great outreach tool, and a way to reach AAS members unable to attend the meeting.

Speaking of outreach, on the DC Metro I spied an example of how thoroughly NASA images have penetrated the public consciousness:

Quick, what Messier galaxy is that? And what is it doing on an advert for dental work?