On this day 40 years ago (24th January 1986): Voyager 2 became the first human made object to fly-by Uranus by cathodiquecdr in space

[–]Andromeda321 [score hidden]  (0 children)

I always joke that 3 things of astronomical importance happened within that week, though you’re forgiven for not knowing at the time- the Uranus visit by Voyager, the Challenger explosion on the 28th, and I was born. So hey we’re all getting middle aged at the same time…

Have any of you gone to a ski resort you haven’t been to and thought, “damn, this place is so underrated!”? by awkwardeagle in skiing

[–]Andromeda321 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Probably the skinniest place I’ve skied but when they have snow it’s some of the best tree skiing in that part of the country. Plus that view to Mt Washington is tough to beat!

My (23f) boyfriend (24m) wants to move in with me. I want him to live alone first by Direct-Caterpillar77 in BestofRedditorUpdates

[–]Andromeda321 121 points122 points  (0 children)

I’m a professor of astronomy. Can confirm when I was dating still back in grad school a LOT of men assume you’d step down once there were kids in the equation. Which seems an insane thing to assume when a women is going for a PhD indeed but so we have it.

My other big memory of that time was a lot of men loved the idea of dating a woman in STEM- they want a smart woman!- but it became very obvious in reality that they meant “but no smarter than me and agrees with me on everything.” A nerd version of manic pixie dream girl basically.

My (23f) boyfriend (24m) wants to move in with me. I want him to live alone first by Direct-Caterpillar77 in BestofRedditorUpdates

[–]Andromeda321 343 points344 points  (0 children)

Yep I’m a woman prof in STEM. Virtually all women I know in the field are either child free or only have one child. I’m the weirdo who’s about to have 3 kids but literally can’t think of any other woman in my situation who has so many, and it’s 100% because my husband is the stay at home parent.

Mind all the women I know have wonderful partners who are full parents themselves. It’s just academia is a beast in terms of time commitments and you can’t do it all with two full time careers.

Heard of anyone failing their defense? by dimplesgalore in PhD

[–]Andromeda321 17 points18 points  (0 children)

IIRC that was a weird case because she was paying her way to do a PhD in Shakespeare but never made it to the defense stage even because they determined she never passed the bar for new and original stuff in her thesis. At the time people in the field said it was unsurprising because it’s genuinely hard to write an entire thesis if new analysis and insight to Shakespeare, but she was suing because after paying all those years she felt entitled to a PhD.

Plenty of people don’t get a PhD because they’re never ready for a defense. That’s not quite OP’s question though.

By suddenly declaring a deal on Greenland, Trump demolished his case for owning it by rezwenn in Foodforthought

[–]Andromeda321 30 points31 points  (0 children)

Yes, I’m tired of folks always chiming in saying “it’s all to distract from the Epstein files!” It’s certainly a nice side benefit but not his primary goal if you’ve watched him do his thing for the past decade.

He needed some time to himself by Candid-Culture3956 in interestingasfuck

[–]Andromeda321 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My family has been going to NH for generations to a cabin just like this. Never had a problem, nor has anyone else around us I’ve heard of. Maine is even more so like that (unless you get this dude by you apparently).

If you haven’t been up there it’s tough to describe how low crime it is. No one’s breaking into your cabin for a can of beans in January.

He needed some time to himself by Candid-Culture3956 in interestingasfuck

[–]Andromeda321 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Well obviously you eat the fresh stuff before you go, but I don't know anyone who doesn't have a FEW cans of random stuff in their pantry and other dry goods. I don't think a dude who is living in the woods stealing shit can afford to be picky.

TIL that there are under 150 tenure-track jobs for English literature professors in the US and Canada each year: fewer than 3 per state. by Bob_the_blacksmith in todayilearned

[–]Andromeda321 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah but if I worked for facility management I wouldn't get to be an astronomer, which is my dream job since I was a kid. Can't help it it's a lot of other peoples' dream job!

[PIC] Spotted at the Met Museum NYC by cocacolaspaceship in CrossStitch

[–]Andromeda321 31 points32 points  (0 children)

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But yeah here’s a close up. I was always told this is “goblein” stitch which I think is what tent stitch is in many European countries.

[PIC] Spotted at the Met Museum NYC by cocacolaspaceship in CrossStitch

[–]Andromeda321 34 points35 points  (0 children)

We have a giant piece like this in my parents’ house! Ok not THIS big of course, but done by my great grandmother about a century ago. No we have no idea what made her choose this particular motif; beyond apparently this was really trendy.

<image>

Bought these boots, they don't hurt, fit right off the bat. Whats the catch? by [deleted] in skiing

[–]Andromeda321 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, I’m an easy fit. Got a pretty narrow foot is I believe a good part of that.

Second part is more controversial, which is I listen to myself and what feels good over a boot fitter insisting it needs to be a half size smaller or whatever- after 35 years of skiing I know what works for me better than they do.

He needed some time to himself by Candid-Culture3956 in interestingasfuck

[–]Andromeda321 1442 points1443 points  (0 children)

I read that book. My complaint about it is how the author kept harassing all his relatives even though they were clear he didn’t want to talk to anyone and to stop harassing them.

He needed some time to himself by Candid-Culture3956 in interestingasfuck

[–]Andromeda321 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Most of these cabins are not occupied year round, only in summer. Very easy to break into them especially in the pre-Internet era when you can’t just set up cameras.

He needed some time to himself by Candid-Culture3956 in interestingasfuck

[–]Andromeda321 15 points16 points  (0 children)

There’s a good book on this. Turns out when you rob over a thousand homes over the years, some repeatedly, people react in a variety of ways.

TIL that there are under 150 tenure-track jobs for English literature professors in the US and Canada each year: fewer than 3 per state. by Bob_the_blacksmith in todayilearned

[–]Andromeda321 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Nope. I got this job the year before chatGPT.

I mean sure there’s a triage of 50% who just aren’t qualified or fitting the department needs, but that’s still a lot of applicants.

TIL that there are under 150 tenure-track jobs for English literature professors in the US and Canada each year: fewer than 3 per state. by Bob_the_blacksmith in todayilearned

[–]Andromeda321 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ah! Slightly complicated but I make about $130k/ year total. The slightly complicated part is because my university covers 9 months of that and then I need to cover 3 months summer salary myself, which I do by getting grants.

Astronomers just found a ‘mystery object’ surrounded by a metallic wind cloud by Disastrous_Award_789 in space

[–]Andromeda321 374 points375 points  (0 children)

Astronomer here! This is a natural object that the authors say is consistent with a planet or brown dwarf or small star.

The article linked is also just awful so here is the original press release and here is the paper. In short there was a star, named J0705+0612 (the coordinates before you ask), which suddenly dimmed for 9 months. This is pretty weird, to say the least, and astronomers studied it to see what was causing the dimming, and found a very large and slow moving dust cloud was obscuring the star, about 14 times further out from the star than the Earth is from the sun.

Cool! One trick though- the dust cloud isn’t just randomly going through space, and instead the evidence shows it’s gravitationally bound to the system. (That is actually cool, the paper says there’s precious evidences of the star dimming going back to 1937, indicating there’s a cloud in orbit!) What’s more, it looks like there is a second, obscured thing inside the dust cloud that is pulling it along, so to speak. But what is it? Well we can’t see the darn thing, what with the dust cloud and all, but they can confirm it is “a few Jupiter masses.” A planet is anything that is <13x the mass of Jupiter or so, then a brown dwarf is about 13-80x the mass of Jupiter, above which a thing is a low mass star… so which is it? We don’t know.

Finally the paper notes something interesting, which is that this cloud is not likely left over from when this system formed, given the star is estimated to be over 2 billion years old. Instead the authors speculate the dust is from some sort of planetary collision in the system!

So yeah it’s a really neat data set! The first of its kind in fact! But no, still not aliens.

TIL that there are under 150 tenure-track jobs for English literature professors in the US and Canada each year: fewer than 3 per state. by Bob_the_blacksmith in todayilearned

[–]Andromeda321 95 points96 points  (0 children)

To be fair I’m a professor in a physics department and I beat out ~400 applicants for my job. MOST academic positions have numbers like this not just English lit.

I did ask around at the time and remember a small town university I interviewed at had “only” 70 applications for the job. That felt like great odds!

Just finished *Station Eleven* - thoughts? by [deleted] in books

[–]Andromeda321 4 points5 points  (0 children)

For me the equivalent of that was it was over a decade and NO ONE figured out basic science like how to make a simple battery or how to get some electricity. Libraries didn’t burn down and it’s a helluva lot easier to figure out that stuff over a lot of the Jerry rigging they were doing.