Hey fellow astronomers and physicists, any guidance or leads for post-bacc/gap year opportunities for students? I've seen a few advertised and I know it's tough out there, but I'd love to hear about anything you might have come across! 🔭⚛️

An "altextnative," if you will.

I recall a guy who claimed to have a disproof of astrophysical dark matter from a chatbot. I didn't bias it in any way, he said. Turns out his prompt was littered with admonitions for the bot not to be swayed by consensus or the status quo. Then he was amazed when it claimed to buck consensus. 🤔

Out of context, "life tenure, but with a fixed length" is sort of ominous

Wonton? More like Want One

💔 This is it every day. As professors, we get only a tiny view of our students' lives, and except in very rare circumstances we have no idea what they're going through. It's important for us to remember that (and to avoid contributing to it, tbh).

A poem Watching My Friend Pretend Her Heart Is Not Breaking by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer On Earth, just a teaspoon of neutron star would weigh six billion tons. Six billion tons equals the collective weight of every animal on earth. Including the insects. Times three. Six billion tons sounds impossible until I consider how it is to swallow grief— just a teaspoon and one might as well have consumed a neutron star. How dense it is, how it carries inside it the memory of collapse. How difficult it is to move then. How impossible to believe that anything could lift that weight. There are many reasons to treat each other with great tenderness. One is the sheer miracle that we are here together on a planet surrounded by dying stars. One is that we cannot see what anyone else has swallowed.

Lately I feel like I keep getting reminders of how right this poem is

I think "tune in next time" is fun when it's "will Batman escape his bonds before he's burnt to a crisp by the Joker's solar lens?"

But "can society persist?" has me closer to the edge of my seat than I would like.

"Nothing Valued Is Here"

Me getting ready for class this morning except just the left two panels

This is what happens when they try to add an edit button...

Just watched a video of Andy Weir describing neutrinos and he says they quantum tunnel through pretty much everything and I don’t feel this is an appropriate use of ”quantum tunneling”

Anyway why ask a woman physicist when you can ask a dude novelist

Mine is Beep. [later] BEEP [later] I SAID BEEP

Yes but my in-laws have a microwave that chimes little songs and I usually sing them back, so I feel like there's gray area

Losing SLACs (small liberal arts colleges) is absolutely a sign of American academia's decline and the gutting of the humanities in particular.
I'm pretty sure SLACs are a uniquely American phenomenon. Most countries don't have hundreds of small, non-research-oriented colleges dedicated to teaching.

I want to see Pedro Pascal play this guy in the movie.

I've seen a bunch of memes that say it has something to do with lemons...

By no means am I a big account, but I remember one person followed me and then unfollowed me ~10x. I understood it to mean "you're supposed to follow me back. Why don't I try again?"

vindicated at last

Yeah there's another half of this take where these days you never *really* get what you pay for...

A lot of times, grocery store brands are just as good as brand names. But not always... sometimes you get what you pay for.

“Quit immediately” also sounds like a good first step for this guy.

Yeah I’m on book seven and they’re really fun.

Whoa whoa whoa, it’s all well and good to flood the skyline, but it’s possible to go too far!

I’ll readily admit that some sandwich artists are in desperate need of engineering lessons.

But sandwiches are like pizza. A good sandwich is one you’re eating right now.

Yeah you’re not wrong about that. It won’t be the same niche as Statham…

Kinda seems like Alan Richson tbh

come on faine we know you got a sponsorship from Big Mayo a couple years ago

this is that race communism thing isn't it