drorzel | July 21, 2009(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of an Australian who prefers to remain nameless.)
1) What is your non-academic job?
I'm the manager of a small company that makes high-tech measuring equipment. Most of this is used for monitoring and control in…
drorzel | July 21, 2009(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Dr. Hazel Phillips, a communications specialist for a UK government agency.)
1) What is your non-academic job?
I work for a UK government agency which operates in a scientific
field. My job involves…
drorzel | July 21, 2009There are a lot of things about Infinite Jest that are easier to understand than most people seem to believe. I've never had a problem seeing a plot in it, for example, though a bunch of people don't see it.
One thing that I've never been entirely sure of, though, is just who is narrating this sprawling tale. The book is mostly told in a fairly tight third-person point of view (you're generally privy to the thoughts of one character at a time), but there are a number of asides that confuse this. In particular, the Don Gately sections include a number of footnotes mentioning that the words…
drorzel | July 20, 2009
NASA - LRO Sees Apollo Landing Sites
"NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, has returned its first imagery of the Apollo moon landing sites. The pictures show the Apollo missions' lunar module descent stages sitting on the moon's surface, as long shadows from a low sun angle make the modules' locations evident.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC, was able to image five of the six Apollo sites, with the remaining Apollo 12 site expected to be photographed in the coming weeks."
(tags: space astronomy history pictures science)
News: What Counts for Tenure - Inside Higher…
drorzel | July 20, 2009The Internet has been all abuzz today over the anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing. Tor has the best one-stop collection of reminiscences, but there are plenty of others. They're roughly equally split between "Wasn't that the coolest thing ever?" and "Isn't it a shame we stopped going.
I was a bit over -2 when the Moon landing happened, so I have no personal recollections to offer. It's a significant enough anniversary for a geek like myself, though, that I wouldn't want it to pass completely without comment.
Personally, while I have some sympathy for the laments that we stopped sending…
drorzel | July 20, 2009(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Dr. Richard Edgar of the Chandra X-Ray Observatory project at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.)
1) What is your non-academic job?
I work for the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, which operates…
drorzel | July 20, 2009(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Dr. Patricia Crotwell of the Sanford Cytogenetics Laboratory.)
1) What is your non-academic job?
I am the director of a clinical cytogenetics laboratory. In the lab, we
culture prenatal (amniocytes, chorionic…
drorzel | July 20, 2009(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Dr. Bruce Fowler, a former scientist (now retired) at one of the research labs run by the Army.)
1) What is your non-academic job?
I am going to reply in the context of the position I held prior to retirement,…
drorzel | July 20, 2009Last week's call for non-academic scientists produced a much larger response than I was expecting-- more than 30 people volunteered. Thanks to all who volunteered, and if you're interested, please feel free to contact me-- it's not too late to get involved.
As I said in that post, I plan to post a series of short interviews with people who have science degrees, but are not working in academia. The idea here is to provide information on career options for scientists and science majors beyond the "go to grad school, do a post-doc, get a faculty position" track that is too often assumed to be…
drorzel | July 20, 2009I'm watching an episode of NOVA scienceNOW (eccentric capitalization makes it hip!), and Neil deGrasse Tyson is doing a segment on extrasolar planets. I'm only half listening, because I'm also trying to keep SteelyKid from trying to eat any of the furniture, but it's quite good.
All of a sudden, Emmy's head snaps up. "Hey!" she says. "He owes me a cookie!"
"What?" I ask. "Who owes you a cookie?"
"The human on the tv. He was just explaining science using dogs. Inferior dogs. That's my job!"
"Technically, it's my job. I'm the one who does all the writing, after all." I rewind the DVR a bit to…
drorzel | July 19, 2009
Open Left:: Sotomayor Hearings For The Hearing Impaired
"Oh how I long for the dignified workplace I once had at SNL."
(tags: race politics US law stupid)
Weekend Diversion: A Charity Challenge! : Starts With A Bang
If Ethan gets at least 100 people to donate $10 or volunteer 4 hours for charity, he'll shave his head.
(tags: charity blogs starts-with-bang)
Swans on Tea » Doctor Obvious, Come Here ⦠Slowly
Another example of deception by large absolute numbers.
(tags: science social-science transportation statistics blogs swans-on-tea)
drorzel | July 19, 2009Kate and I will both be on programming at Anticipation, the upcoming Worldcon in Montreal. The official program should be up on the web soonish, but I got my schedule by email, and figured I would post it here for those who care:
When: Fri 10:00
Title: How to Effectively Talk about Science to Non-Scientists and
Why it Matters
Description: Presenting one's ideas is ever more crucial for
scientists. If we don't do it well, you can be certain someone else
will do it badly.
(This will be a slightly reconfigured version of the talk I gave at the Science21 meeting last fall.)
When: Sat 10:00…
drorzel | July 19, 2009The New York Times has a habit of publishing these loathsome little profile articles that either belie the paper's liberal reputation, or are a stealthy attempt to bring about the Red Revolution by stoking class hatred. These generally take the form of profile stories about wealthy suburbanites in Westchester County or Connecticut, who have more money than taste, and whose sense of entitlement can be detected from distant stars through its gravitational pull on the sun.
These typically turn up in the Style section or the Magazine, but today's made the front page of the print edition: Before…
drorzel | July 18, 2009
Clowns Kicked KKK Asses - Neatorama
"âWhite Power!â the Naziâs shouted, âWhite Flour?â the clowns yelled back running in circles throwing flour in the air and raising separate letters which spelt âWhite Flourâ.
âWhite Power!â the Naziâs angrily shouted once more, âWhite flowers?â the clowns cheers and threw white flowers in the air and danced about merrily."
(tags: politics race evil stupid silly)
drorzel | July 17, 2009
slacktivist: TF: Bruce's sermon, part 1
"There's a monster at the end of this book. And if the authors succeed at what they've set out to do, that monster is you.
That's part of why one should only read these books slowly, in small, weekly doses, while pausing to scream at or mock every page."
(tags: books blogs slacktivist religion ethics society)
Physics Buzz: Crazy (in a good way)
"After a month of cramming for finals and living off raw ramen noodles, there's nothing more appealing
to a college student at the end of May than a long summer doing nothing, punctuated, if you're feeling…
drorzel | July 17, 2009After a long service outage, our home Internet is back, and I can post Baby Blogging pictures. Of course, it's not as easy to get those as it used to be, because SteelyKid is always on the move these days:
You pretty much have to hold her in place to keep her in the frame:
(This picture also shows off her "Snugglesaurus: Ferociously Cute" dinosaur outfit. Which I think was technically in the boys' clothes section, but we're all about subverting paradigms, here at Chateau Steelypips. Especially ones involving frilly pink ribbons.)
Of course, there are also times when she just goes fwump:…
drorzel | July 17, 2009I've been really surprised at the number of people writing about Unscientific America who are confused by the discussion of the Pluto incident (Mad Mike is the latest, but it's not hard to find more). For those who haven't read the book, the first chapter opens with a description of the public reaction to the decision by the IAU to demote Pluto from a "planet" to a "dwarf planet."
I didn't think the point of this was all that difficult to figure out, but it seems to have created a great deal of confusion. Some of this is probably disingenuous, but a number of people seem to be genuinely…
drorzel | July 17, 2009This clip of Emmy and SteelyKid is actually from almost two months ago-- I posted it on Emmy's Facebook page, but not here. But it's still cute, and ought to give SteelyKid's adoring public something to tide them over until we get our DSL back and I can post this week's Baby Blogging.
drorzel | July 17, 2009A big thunderstorm last night took out the DSL at Chateau Steelypips (and most of the 518 area code, it seems), and service is still out. So, if you're wondering why I haven't had any online presence since 5pm or so, that's why.
I'm going to deal with the essential stuff using my office Internet connection, but I do have a day job, and lots to do for that as well. I would've posted the Thursday Baby Blogging pictures for the week, but like an idiot, I forgot to copy them onto a USB drive to bring to work.
We apologize for the inconvenience. Normal service will be resotred as soon as possible.
drorzel | July 16, 2009Having spent the last couple of posts talking (in part) about the need to change academic culture, and de-stigmatize non-academic science jobs, here's an attempt to step up and do something direct and productive. No, this won't cost you anything.
One of the difficulties with trying to broaden the usual definition of scientists is that there's not a lot of press for non-academic science. Academic culture is so strongly focused on academic careers that people don't hear a lot about careers outside the usual Ph.D-postdoc-tenure-track-job track. Which helps feed the stress and angst regarding the…