Slashdot is one of the biggest news aggregators/social networks on the web, where users link to interesting stuff they find, and others can leave comments. They also do interviews, kinda: they line up an interviewee, people leave questions, and then the interviewee answers them en masse. They asked me to do this a few weeks ago, and now my responses are up at Slashdot!

This was a lot of fun. The questions were pretty varied, from JWST (of course!) to where we should be sending probes to look for extraterrestrial life. I tried to keep my answers relatively short but still give folks something to think about. It’s an interesting exercise, trying to do this all in one shot. I found myself thinking pretty hard about how to respond, and then, later, how to best ice down my aching wrists from typing so much. I wish I could’ve answered all the questions, but I’d probably have fatal carpal tunnel syndrome if I had.

My thanks to everyone at /, and to Tim Lord for setting this all up.

It turns out I made some errors in the post. One is a logical fallacy, the other in my structure and wording, implying something I didn’t mean to. These were pointed out to me by a reader who makes several valid points, but then falls into errors of his own. This is worth sorting out, so I want to take a moment to show what’s what.

I was taken to task about my post on Twitter by Noahpinion, who pointed out (in tweets here and here) that many fields of science had higher unemployment rates. I replied that the numbers he quoted (6-7%) were still below the national average.

That was a mistake on my part. Noah pointed out that I was using 9% for the national unemployment average, but that’s overall unemployment. A better figure to use would have been 5%, which is the unemployment rate just for ...]]> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/11/10/mea-culpa-about-studying-science-to-get-a-job/feed/ 45 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/28/wrap-up-donors-choose/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/28/wrap-up-donors-choose/#comments Fri, 28 Oct 2011 18:00:56 +0000 Phil Plait http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/?p=39851 I want to thank everyone who contributed to the Donors Choose science blogger challenge. Because of you all — 90 people who donated in total coming from this blog and my other outlets like Twitter and Google+ — we raised $5,887, and 2,480 students will see new science materials in their clasrooms!

Wow.

Think about that. Nearly 2500 students, positively affected by strangers who simply want more science taught in school. Some of the donations were for a little bit, and some for a lot, but they all added up to a huge effect on those kids’ lives.

So thank you to every who participated, and know that you have been a great help. And for those of you who donated in the last couple of days, I’ve been told the matching donation email has been sent. Check your inbox, and in just a minute of your time you can double your impact.

Y’all are great. Thanks again.

Every week or so, Slashdot does an interview with someone online. They open up questions, collect a few, and send them to the interviewee to answer via email. So guess who they just asked to participate?

That’s right! Rory Calhoun! No wait, it was me! They’ve opened up a page where you can leave a question. You don’t have to register to ask a question, but if you like fresh techy news, you should sign up anyway. Feel free to ask anything, though bear in mind I’ll be writing out the answer, so something like "Why is the Universe expanding?" might be more text than I’m willing to write and you’re willing to read.

But, to save you time, ...]]> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/26/ask-me-something-on-slashdot/feed/ 21 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/21/last-call-donors-choose/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/21/last-call-donors-choose/#comments Fri, 21 Oct 2011 15:43:49 +0000 Phil Plait http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/?p=39686 For the past couple of weeks I’ve been participating in a science blogger challenge with Donors Choose, to raise as much money as we can to go to classrooms that need science equipment.

The challenge ends Saturday at midnight Eastern US time. I just got a note from the folks at Donors Choose saying that from now until then, every dollar donated will be matched by their Board of Directors! This is a great chance to double the amount of money given to children who need to learn science in school. Once all the donations are in, the folks at Donors Choose will take the total amount and divide it by the number of people who donated. You will then receive a gift code via email that will allow you to give that amount to the classroom of your choice. So if the total is $15,000, and 150 people donated, then everyone gets a $100 gift code to donate, no matter how much you personally gave.

If you want more info you can read my original post about the challenge, or just go to http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/21/last-call-donors-choose/feed/ 7 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/19/scientists-are-from-mars-the-public-is-from-earth/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/19/scientists-are-from-mars-the-public-is-from-earth/#comments Wed, 19 Oct 2011 13:00:29 +0000 Phil Plait http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/?p=39504 The American Geophysical Union blog has a link up to a very interesting table, and I feel strongly enough about this topic that I want to share it with you. It’s a list of words scientists use when writing or otherwise communicating science, what the scientists mean when they use that word, and most importantly what the public hears.

[Click to enverbumnate.]

I’ll admit, when I read it I laughed. But then my chuckle dried up when I realized just how dead accurate this is. And the smile pretty much left my face when I read that this table is from an article called "Communicating the Science of Climate Change," by Richard C. J. Somerville and Susan Joy Hassol, from the October 2011 issue of Physics Today.

Yup. I think they have a pretty good point.

My career at the moment could pretty much be called "Science Communicator". I do it here on this blog, I do it on Blastr and in Discover magazine, and when I give talks. Before that (and I guess it’s an occupation that never really leaves you) I was a professional scientist for many years. My training ran deep: 4 years undergrad, ...]]> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/19/scientists-are-from-mars-the-public-is-from-earth/feed/ 149 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/12/i-am-interviewed-by-the-weinersmiths/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/12/i-am-interviewed-by-the-weinersmiths/#comments Wed, 12 Oct 2011 21:00:56 +0000 Phil Plait http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/?p=39149 Zach Weiner, of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, and Kelly Smith, of Weinersmith, interviewed me for their new podcast, The Weekly Weinersmith. I am actually only their second guest, so we’ll see if the podcast survives.

We talked about the James Webb Space Telescope, mostly, though as usual when I talk to Zach we both revert to 15 year old boys. But only briefly, and only if 15 year old boys paid attention in world history class.

I’ll note I made a mistake in the interview: I said JWST will have 6 mirrors, but it actually has 18. D’oh! I remember very clearly picturing the telescope in my head (it’s hard to do a web search during an interview) and for some dumb reason I was thinking of the old MMT, which I’ll admit is a little bizarre. Heat of the moment, I guess. I wasn’t even within an astronomer’s usual factor of two, so I guess I have to give myself three geek demerits.

I think I made up for it by calling JWST — since its future is uncertain — "Schrödinger’s ...]]> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/12/i-am-interviewed-by-the-weinersmiths/feed/ 8 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/12/reminder-donors-choose/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/12/reminder-donors-choose/#comments Wed, 12 Oct 2011 18:17:47 +0000 Phil Plait http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/?p=39176 Just a quick reminder: I’m participating in a blogger’s challenge with Donors Choose to raise money to get science supplies for classrooms in need. I have added a link in the sidebar of the blog (just below the picture of me) so that you can see how much has been raised, and which also provides a link to the donation page.

If you can’t donate, that’s fine, but if you could, please help spread the word through the social networks; Twitter, Facebook, Google+, whatever you can. This is a great way to get people to contribute directly to kids who need to learn about the joy and wonder of exploring the Universe. Thanks!

Sometimes, though, they need a little help.

A lot of kids in the US are in desperate need of school supplies to help them learn about math and science. That’s why, once again, I am starting up my Donors Choose page. This is a fantastic group that allows teachers to let people know what things they need and how much it will cost, and then people can donate as much or as little as they want, to the classrooms they want to.

Last year, Bad Astronomy Bloggees — that’s you guys! — donated over $2600 to worthy classrooms. I’d love to be able to raise that much or more this year, too. This is part of a challenge to see which science blogs raise the most money. So if you can, get a smaller cup of coffee, forgo one t-shirt with ...]]> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/10/please-help-kids-in-need-learn-about-math-and-science/feed/ 7 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/09/05/me-versus-the-world/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/09/05/me-versus-the-world/#comments Mon, 05 Sep 2011 18:30:52 +0000 Phil Plait http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/?p=36780 Speaking of talking… on Friday, August 26, I was interviewed by Todd Whitehead from "Versus the World" — part of what he calls his Alpha Geeks series, including folks like geek musicians Mike Phirman and Marian Call.

As usual whenever I talk, we covered a lot of ground: attacks on science, global warming (which is on my mind a lot lately), and the like. It was a fun interview, and it’s online now, or you can grab the MP3 file directly.

You should peruse his archives, too. There’s lots of geek fodder to keep you occupied!

My topic? Trying to make the world a better place by preventing an asteroid impact from making it a far, far worse place. The other talks look pretty interesting, including one from Kimbal Musk, Elon Musk’s brother, and also from Jake Nickell, co-founder of the Threadless t-shirt company. I think this will be a very cool evening.

Tickets are on sale now but I hear it’s filling up quickly, so if you’re in the Boulder area and want to attend, better hurry!

But it also means people not familiar with this blog may see things they’re not used to. I’ve been getting a lot of, um, interesting comments in the past few weeks, so perhaps it will help if I post a little intro to me and my blog.

1) I post a lot of pretty pictures of astronomical objects, which I then use to gently inject a little scientific awesomeness into your life. In many of these cases, the picture itself is a link to a much higher-resolution version. When this happens, I will let you know with a bracketed sentence under the picture saying something like "[Click to embiggen.]". This is then nearly inevitably comically followed by commenters telling me huffily that no such word exists, despite it being perfectly cromulent. Whenever this happens, I like to think that a deceased Simpsons character gets its ...]]> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/08/09/what-i-do/feed/ 75 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/06/22/geeky-interview-now-online/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/06/22/geeky-interview-now-online/#comments Wed, 22 Jun 2011 20:23:39 +0000 Phil Plait http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/?p=33331 Just as a so’s-you-know: the radio/podcast interview I did with Jules Sherred for Geeky Pleasures is now online for your listening nerdtainment. We talked about a ton of stuff, including the space program, Doctor Who, space colonies, Trek, asteroids, antivaxxers, and nudity.

Oh, did that get your attention? I figured it would. People love it when I talk about Doctor Who.

I’m a little late getting it here on the blog, so I apologize, but the deadline is tomorrow, Tuesday, May 31, 2011 at one minute before midnight Eastern (US) time! I’ll note that the judge this year is theoretical physicist Lisa Randall — she studies what you might call fairly esoteric subjects like warped extraspatial dimensions, cosmology, particle physics, and the like. I’ll be very interested to see what articles she picks.

I’ll also note that this very blog won third place in that first contest, and last year two Discover Magazine bloggers took home the top two prizes. We’re very pleased here ...]]> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/05/30/3rd-annual-3quarksdaily-science-writing-contest-open/feed/ 3 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/05/18/followup-city-lights-from-space/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/05/18/followup-city-lights-from-space/#comments Wed, 18 May 2011 13:00:25 +0000 Phil Plait http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/?p=32003 Last week, I posted a picture taken by International Space Station astronaut Ron Garan, showing city lights at night. I was curious about what the cities were, and initially had a hard time figuring it out. But, using various tools — Wolfram Alpha to get the ISS position at the time the photo was taken, an atlas, and a rough direction and scale using the visibility of Orion’s belt in the picture — I took a stab at which cities were which.

A followup on that post is in order. A lot of people left comments on the post, and some went through similar sleuthing exercises as I did. Quite a few agree with my assessment: the city in the center of the picture is Warsaw, Poland. Berlin is on the horizon, and other cities are as I determined.

I used an old-fashioned atlas to find the cities because I couldn’t find a good piece of software to do it. But then I had a facepalmy moment when several people suggested Google Earth! I got a new computer when my Mac died a little while ...]]> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/05/18/followup-city-lights-from-space/feed/ 14 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/05/16/debating-space/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/05/16/debating-space/#comments Mon, 16 May 2011 13:00:19 +0000 Phil Plait http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/?p=30065 So this is cool: the National Forensic League — the national honor society that promotes debating skills for high school students, and which suggests topics for debate teams — has announced their policy topic for the 2011 – 2012 debating season… and I like it!

Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its exploration and/or development of space beyond the Earth’s mesosphere.

Nice! I think this is an excellent topic, and I know it’ll get a lot of folks thinking about space. There are a lot of pros and cons to space exploration, of course, but to me the positives far, far outstrip the negatives. Not everyone agrees, so I’d be interested in seeing some of these debates.

I get a lot of questions — a lot — about astronomy and space from kids in this age group. I expect this debate topic will prompt many more, since I’m outspoken on the topic. So I’ll take this opportunity to link to a few of my earlier blog posts where I make my opinions pretty clear. I’ve divided them up into subtopics to make them a little easier to read, too. I have no problem trying to influence the opinions ...]]> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/05/16/debating-space/feed/ 43 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/04/20/radio-interviews-now-available/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/04/20/radio-interviews-now-available/#comments Wed, 20 Apr 2011 19:01:58 +0000 Phil Plait http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/?p=31089 This is just a quick note to let y’all know that the two radio interviews I did over the past weekend are now archived.

The Star Talk Radio interview with Neil Tyson and Leighann Lord is stored right here on Discover Magazine’s site, and you can also get it on iTunes.

The Think Atheist interview is available on their website.

They were both fun to do, and I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!