A geeky way to invite your colleagues for a drink
No time for an original blog today. Here is an email I sent to invite people for a few drinks. A padawan found it funny so I should share it with you. Dear fellow Jedi knights, we need to get some time away from our duty and missions (papers, proposals,...
Remember, remember the 5th of December
When I say “ALMA proposal”, my colleagues respond ironically “good luck”. Not one, not two, but many of them. Strange because luck is probably one the last words you might expect when you talk about science. At first I thought that they actually meant...
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St Andrew’s day and winter blues
Google has a cunning way to teach trivia to the world via his doodles. Today’s doodle celebrates St Andrew’s day, the national day of Scotland. The Scots have devised a genius scheme to beat the autumn-winter blues. Winter blues is particularly acute...
ALMA et encore ALMA
Two ALMA proposals. My original plan was zero. Usually zero is bad. Getting a zero mark at an exam is bad. Having zero euro on his bank account is bad. But for me this zero would have mean freedom, freedom to enjoy my week-end. How am I ending up writing...
Coldplay - The Scientist
The interpretation of song lyrics depends on your state of mind and on your own experience. I should not listen to this song. Maybe because it reminds me some of my past mistakes. But this is a beautiful song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLm_aSP36...
ALMA, the trigger of emotions and stress
Writing observing proposals is stressful but I do not understand why people feel obliged to do it. Perhaps they want to make revenge on selection committees by inundating them with proposals to read and judge. Astronomy is not a dictatorial system. We...
The new doctors (the real ones, not the incarnations of Doctor Who!)
2014 will be their year, whatever they choose to do. Many will live in a new country, meet new people, face new difficulties, but also encounter new opportunities. But we are still in 2013, a few more weeks to go. And a few of PhD students have to defend...
ALMA and the most enviable way to become a professor at MIT
What means “ALMA” for you? If you are an astronomer, you immediately think of the Atacama Large Millimeter Array in Chile. But if you are not, it may be the tunnel in Paris where Lady Diana had her fatal accident. If you are an historian, you may recognize...
Painting and astronomy part I, The Astronomer
I lived a few years in the Netherlands, where my appreciation of the Dutch painters from the old masters to the members of the Stijl grew. But the most famous painting that concerns directly astronomy can be admired in Paris. Johannes Vermeer has produced...
Today is the day of the Doctor
Doctor Who was created 50 year ago. There are many reasons why I like the show but I would rather talk about the first time I was introduced to it. I appreciate that in the TV show The Big Bang the scriptwriters have to push to the extreme the personality...
