Archive of Writings
Additional articles can be found on EVSN.tv.
Of NASA and Budgets
Fine print: While I receive funding from NASA for some of my work, this blog post written by me as a private citizen. Today was the NASA Town Hall; that 1 or more hour window of time when some official from NASA stands at the podium and tells us how NASA will grow or...
Slow Science & Peer-Review
Science moves slowly. That may seem like an odd statement when the pace of press releases and breaking news seems to imply that new discoveries are flying fast and furious, with labs making discoveries and publishing them almost before they're ready for prime time....
A Rocket Car Future (for some)
Currently I'm attending the Next Generation Sub-Orbital Research (and Education) Conference in Palo Alto, California. I'm staring at all my notes struggling with finding a coherent theme, idea, or even emotion that I can use to tie together my thoughts. I find that I...
Kindness at 30,000ft
Earlier today I wrote on Google+ that there are day's when you run head first into the tail-end of the probability distribution. Today was one of those days, and now that it's over and I'm laying in bed typing, I can happily say I got to see both sides of the...
Breaking Stereotypes with We are CosmoQuest
The question I get asked the most is "Why are you an astronomer?" The tone of this question varies from "I never thought I'd meet an astronomer? How did this happen?" to "Are you insane - that's hard! Why would you do that!" to "Do astronomers have a reason to exist?"...
In Inbox We Trust
Inbox Trust (TM) is one of those things you have to be really careful with. The reason people are able to spread malware and bilk too many people out of money is the same reason people sometimes take the wrong person home at the end of a date. The person crying over...
Dark Skies, Dark Internet
Looking around the internet today, I'm amazed to see how many people and websites are in their own way protesting SOPA and PIPA. What is most fascinating to me is the reaction people have as the sites they count on day to day blink out. Should SOPA or PIPA actually...
CosmoQuest
For the past several years, my cohost and friend Fraser Cain has been talking about wanting to change how we do astronomy - change access, change the embargo system, change even peer-review. He's not the only one: All across the internets we've seen open science...
AAS219: Austin, TX
I'm currently at the 219th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, TX. I'm here for just two days, and due to meetings, my coverage may be somewhat limited, but I'm going to do what I can to cover press conferences. The last couple meetings I've been...
T’was the Week After Christmas
Twas the week after Christmas, when all through the halls Not a student was stirring - they'd gone out to the malls The professors were all doing their research with care In hopes that peer review would be gentle and fair. The servers were whirring all snug on the...