public perception of astronomers

Public Perception of Astronomers

While the article has some.... almost-interesting points, I don't agree with the thesis or the suggested methods. I don't really have a problem with the stereotype of astronomers being the old, white, socially inept guy - because for the most part that's a fair assessment. We're scientists, and at least for me and my peers, that's directly correlated with not fitting in to some social circles.

I agree that we should become better communicators in general, but it's silly to think that embracing new technologies (i.e. social networking tools) is going to change the public image of astronomers at all. Personally I hope to see a backlash against social networking and blogs sometime in the next 5 years, but who knows.... after all, I'm writing a blog post.

some comics

http://ableandbaker.net/index.php?comic=198
http://ableandbaker.net/index.php?comic=222
http://ableandbaker.net/index.php?comic=357
http://ableandbaker.net/index.php?comic=396
http://ableandbaker.net/index.php?comic=471
545 "Put on your snuggle trunks and jump in the cuddle pool."
http://ableandbaker.net/index.php?comic=905
http://ableandbaker.net/index.php?comic=922

Comedic timing has been fixed using quicksilver's command line execution abilities.

Also been playing with dashboard... Safari's new dashboard feature is pretty cool, but also incompetent.  It refreshes every time you reload the dashboard, which is inefficient and makes saving settings impossible.  Also, the gmail compose feature fails miserably.  So, dashboard must die again.

Quicksilver and Awesome

Set up f17-19 today to play amusing sounds. Also, recalled that I use ScreenSaverEngine to lock my screen with a shortcut key.

Quicksilver triggers are the way to do it. Mac is stupid w/o quicksilver.