Now on ScienceBlogs: Freethinker Sunday Sermonette: Ricky Gervais on The Book of Genesis
Rob Knop's Blog -- ramblings and rants about astronomy, cosmology, science education, general nerdism, and anything else.
Rob Knop earned a PhD in Physics from Caltech in 1997, and did a 5-year post-doc with the Supernova Cosmology Project, and contributed to the discovery of the accelerating Universe. He was an assistant professor of Physics & Astronomy at Vanderbilt for 6 years before scattering out of academia. He now works for Linden Lab, the producers of Second LIfe. (Note: this is not an official site of Linden Lab! Although I work for Linden Lab, all content in this blog is posted without the review or approval of Linden Lab. All statements and opinions expressed here are my own.)
![[cc-by-sa]](http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-sa/3.0/88x31.png){kind=small}
The contents of each Galactic Interactions post are under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license.
Category: Academia
Commenters convinced me to think twice, and they're right. Our system is screwed up. Never shed light on anything, because you're small and it could hurt you. If a festering wound exists somewhere, just try to get away. Don't try...
Posted by Rob Knop at 10:43 PM • 8 Comments •
Category: Academia
A while back at this blog's former site, I wrote a post entitled A Career and a Life. Now that my career is on the precipice of undergoing a tremendous change, I thought it might be interesting to revisit that post.
Posted by Rob Knop at 5:05 PM • 10 Comments •
Category: Academia
A couple of years ago, I went to a meeting for junior faculty at Vanderbilt about the tenure process. The ostensible goal of the meeting was to help us feel more comfortable by letting us better understand the process. The...
Posted by Rob Knop at 12:29 PM • 9 Comments •
Category: Academia
Loved the teaching. Loved the science. Couldn't take the politics. Couldn't take the tenure stress. That about sums it up. I am sending off today a signed offer letter for employment with Linden Lab, the folks who create and run...
Posted by Rob Knop at 12:35 PM • 67 Comments •
Category: The Business of Astronomy
I suggest that perhaps the way we fund ground-baesd astronomy right now is inefficient, in addition to other flaws it has. I suggest an alternate model that would have a number of advantages.
Posted by Rob Knop at 10:22 AM • 16 Comments •
Category: Academia
In this post at the blog "This Week in Evolution", R. Ford Denison hits the nail squarely on the head. Why should you go to grad school? Because you want to do grad school. If you are viewing grad school...
Posted by Rob Knop at 4:24 PM • 9 Comments •
Category: Science & Culture
On being attacked from all sides.
Posted by Rob Knop at 12:25 PM • 70 Comments •
Category: Academia
Chad just posted a bit of pre-tenure advice, including the very important advice to take all advice with a grain of salt. I would say that also applies to the rest of his advice, because I'm about to post contradictory...
Posted by Rob Knop at 12:05 PM • 10 Comments •
Category: Intellectual Property
I guess we should excuse Wiley now, because they've backed down from pointing their lawyers at Shelly Potential cynic that I am, I have several residual thoughts on the issue. Thought #1: I really want to believe what was in...
Posted by Rob Knop at 1:47 PM • 7 Comments •
Category: Intellectual Property
Fair use? If it benefits the progress of science or the dissemination of scientific knowledge, it really ought to be fair use, no matter what. But when it's cropping out a piece of a figure for an illustration in an...
Posted by Rob Knop at 9:40 PM • 4 Comments •
PZ Myers 11.19.2009
PZ Myers 11.19.2009
Ed Brayton 11.19.2009
Tim Lambert 11.18.2009
Tim Lambert 11.12.2009
