ESA Hubble Image of the Week

 https://esahubble.org/images/potw2209a/

One of the overlapping galaxies in my STARSMOG program was selected by ESA for an "Image of the Week". Nice pick me up after last week and let's just say the *waves hand at everything*.

Minor guilt trip to follow to the missing scientific analysis that I am sure I'll be able to get out any day now. It does help that I have a graduate student working on this now. 

NGC 4496A, an old friend from thesis days when I counted the background galaxies (n>1, the obvious one you see here) in WFCP2 data. 

Online doesn't work (for us) ... or does it?

I’ve seen a bunch of people whine about how online classes and workshops etc doesn't wooooork. And inevitably they are thinking of the classes we threw online in a few days in March 2020 or now because you have <5yo kids (hey remember kids? Under 5? Not vaccinated yet?) and of butt-numbing zoom marathons of online talks that were “conferences”. 

Yes *those* didn’t work. 

The online format. Some observations.

Synchronous sucks. Different time zones, connectivity, the “you’re muted” conversation. In class, trying to keep an eye on those student on the laptop, and those in class and oh god why is it resetting? This hyflex option can go take a hike. Instructor overload and poor results for students/participants. 

Asynchronous with dedicated synchronous is awesomeballs. Record your talk. Make a second take, check the captions, make the slides available. People can watch it when it fits their schedule. The synchronous part happens for an hour or two with discussion, active participation. The interactive parts. This works pretty smoothly for classes and workshops etc. The rest of your life happens around it (since it is still sharing a space with you) but you can do it. You don't feel terrible about missing some. You didn't when it was a conference in person did you?

I feel this is the future for a lot of events. I hope it is. Even though I love going to conferences and hanging out with friends old and new. 

Kleinscheiss Tag

Of course the Germans have a term for it. 

I was reading this medium article. https://link.medium.com/x4NljxKmkib

There is term for that in German — ‘Kleinscheiss Tag!’ — it means ‘little shit day.’”

Or I call it a “crud/cruft burn day. It’s when I discard or deal with all the little requests that have piled up in the email and todo lists. 

From unrelated comic here: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/self_love

This week has been all Kleinscheiss days. Yeah I like the term. Not the activity. All of it is small administrivia or short emails.

And it’s “just this one little thing”. I let all my email etc pile up for a week just to see how much of it there was during a summer week.

Not too bad, 200 new emails to deal with. Unsubscribe a bunch, answer, and of course start dealing with the 100+ items that were sitting in the Today/This Week/This Month folders already. 

It’s happening. Doing some of the more substantial (medium Scheiss?) like replying to referee reports and what have you. But designating a day for Kleinscheiss is for the stuff that has taken on emotional baggage. You know the memes. The stuff you’d keep putting off even though it really only takes 15min. 

Blarg. Burn them with fire. Or you know. Cross out that item on the list.