Archive of Writings
Additional articles can be found on EVSN.tv.
The Twenty-Four Hour Work Day (while on vacation)
I'm currently sort of on vacation. I say "sort of" because modern day technology and society combine to really makes it impossible for many of us to be totally off work, totally away for a couple of days, and totally removed from instantaneous communications. Everyday...
STEM Education for Tomorrow
Over the past several weeks I've had more than one person ask me, "What is your view on the future of STEM (1) Education?" Sometimes they have gone on to ask further about how I feel about the future of science in general. This much repeated question has been...
Of Comic Books and Christmas Stockings
Next week, all across America, we will go through a ritual holiday weekend. There is Thanksgiving Thursday; Back Friday, Bloated Saturday, and self-hating (still bloated) Sunday. For many, this is the weekend of eating way the [expletive] too much, watching football,...
Up, Up and … Home
On January 13, 2005 I joined the American Airlines "AAdvantage" frequent flier program. The podcast I was part of, "Slacker Astronomy," had taken off, and I had been invited to go to AAS in Washington DC and AAPT in Anchorage, Alaska to give talks 2 weeks apart. This...
Universal Education
Here in the USA (or I should say there, since I’m currently in France), education tends to be somewhat nationalistic. It has to be. Teachers are tied to state and federal learning standards and if students don’t learn what is specifically listed in those standards,...
Can you help 365 Days of Astronomy get thru to 2012?
Back in 2008, while planning for the International Year of Astronomy, a group of us came up with the idea to do a daily podcast that gives voice to all the people around the world who are passionate about astronomy. This idea became the 365 Days of Astronomy podcast,...
Of travel and sleep deprivation
For the past several days I've been watching discussions on the AAVSO discussion list about sleep deprivation. Many of these good folks are good observers who try and combine a night time hobby with a day time job. Live lives of of sleep deprivation and broken...
Lunar phase visualization contest
Right now I'm sitting in the main 'ballroom'* of the NASA Ames conference center. I'm here for the NASA Lunar Forums, which are hosted by the NASA Lunar Science Institute, which is housed at NASA Ames. (As one might guess, there are NASA meatballs everywhere). It is a...
Set up an AWS LAMP server connected to a RDS database
Apologies for the lack of astronomy in this post. I just spent 6 hours trying to set up a server, and most of that time was spent fussing needlessly. No one should need to repeat my endeavors, so.... I'm taking what I learned and blogging it to save any poor souls who...
AAS Poster: Tweeting Astronomy
Back in October when AAS abstracts were due, I decided to submit something that would force me to think, program, and do something just for fun and not for grants. My original idea was to (utilizing Many Eyes and Processing) do a data visualization of how all the...