Cosmology on the Beach! September 1, 2010

Posted by The Quantum Cosmos in : Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASTRO), Cosmology, Gravitation, and Relativity (CGR), Mathematical and Computational Physics (MCP), Nuclear and Particle Physics (NPP) , trackback , edit post

Applications are now open for the Essential Cosmology for the Next Generation (aka Cosmology on the Beach) winter school/research conference! The organizers strongly encourage a diverse group of advanced graduate students and postdoc to participate. Instructors include NSBP member Edmund Bertschinger of MIT’s Department of Physics. Here is the full announcement:

ESSENTIAL COSMOLOGY FOR THE NEXT GENERATION
(also known as Cosmology on the Beach)

January 10−14, 2011 in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

The Conference website and Participant Application form is now available at the Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics website.

This meeting is the 3rd annual edition, following the very successful and popular 2009 and 2010 conferences. It is a combination of winter school and research conference, with course lectures, blended with recent research advances in plenary talks, and student/postdoc participation. We encourage a diverse group of advanced graduate students and postdocs interested in attending to apply. The deadline for application is OCTOBER 15, 2010.

LECTURE COURSES:
Ed Bertschinger, Gravity on Cosmic Scales
Neal Katz, Galaxy Formation
Mark Trodden, Particle Physics, LHC, and Cosmology
Licia Verde, Statistical and Numerical Methods in Cosmology
Martin White, Nonlinear Structure in the Universe

HOT RESEARCH TALKS:
to be announced

Organized by the Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics and Instituto Avanzado de Cosmologia, Mexico.

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The National Society of Black Physicists was pleased to support this endeavor and pleased that the organizers understood that NSBP can bring useful information to the table. Hopefully other organizers of physics/mathematics efforts in Africa will see fit to involve the largest organization of Black physicists on the planet at some point too. And also, hopefully, one day the African Physical Society will be just as big if not bigger than NSBP!

In spite of the terror his philosophies inflicted on LGBT citizens and in spite of the decades long scare-fest of anti-gay hatred, gay-baiting and discriminatory laws foisted on us, Ken Mehlman wants us to know that his coming out experience has been just peachy. No apology for all the suicides his party’s stances inevitably brought on. No apology for hate crimes. No apology for the election campaign involving some of the worst anti-gay hatred anyone has ever witnessed. No apology for the terror LGB military people have had to endure. No apology for the forced rapes female soldiers went through to “prove” they are straight.

He just wants us to know that he’s been through a whole, whole lot and that he’s a very happy and well-adjusted person. Well Ken, fuck you.

Reading this reminded me of how many people have died during this struggle for liberation, and how straights and queers like Ken Mehlman are Nazis who have blood on their hands that will never be washed off, no matter what closet they walk out of. I hope that Ken understands that he built his career on hatred that killed and raped, destroying lives and families.

I take a moment of silence for those who were silenced themselves. And then, as Mother Jones urges us from the grave, “Mourn for the dead. FIGHT LIKE HELL FOR THE LIVING.”

Bring out the queer-, justice-loving noise.

Go to http://www.starwarsuncut.com and watch it!!!!!!

August 10th, 2010

EFF Urges Supreme Court to Block NASA’s Invasive Background Checks

Over-Collection of Personal Data Invades Employees’ Privacy

Washington, D.C. – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged the United States Supreme Court Monday to uphold an appeals court decision that blocks invasive and unnecessary background checks at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), arguing that the over-collection of personal data puts employees’ privacy at risk.

The case was originally filed by federal contract employees working at CalTech’s Jet Propulsion Lab, which houses NASA’s robotic spacecraft laboratory. The workers were low-risk, by NASA’s own admission, and did not work on classified projects. Yet the government instituted sweeping background checks, including a requirement to list three references who were then questioned about the employees’ general behavior. NASA said it needed the information to assess “suitability” for government employment, and would check factors like “carnal knowledge,” “homosexuality,” “cohabitation,” and “illegitimate children.”

“Many of these CalTech employees have worked at the JPL for decades, but now NASA is asking their references open-ended questions in search of derogatory information,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Lee Tien. “This technique is sadly familiar — in the McCarthy era, federal employees had to disclose personal facts via personnel forms as part of loyalty programs — and has no place in the United States today.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled in favor of the employees, enjoining NASA from collecting any more personal data, but the government appealed. In an amicus brief filed Monday, EFF argues that the Supreme Court should uphold the 9th Circuit’s decision in order to protect workers’ constitutional rights.

“These background checks capture all sorts of sensitive personal information that’s totally unnecessary for low-level employees who don’t work on national security matters,” said EFF Civil Liberties Director Jennifer Granick. “Meanwhile, there are gaping loopholes in the legal safeguards in place to protect this very sensitive information. As technology makes it easier to collect and aggregate vast amounts of data, we must be particularly cautious to prevent government misuse.”

For the full amicus brief:
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/nasa_v_nelson/nasavnelsonamicus.pdf

Contacts:

Lee Tien
Senior Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
tien@eff.org

Jennifer Stisa Granick
Civil Liberties Director
Electronic Frontier Foundation
jennifer@eff.org

Related Issues: Privacy

Related Cases: NASA v. Nelson

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I had to do this background check, and it was BULLSHIT. Totally unnecessary.

This is my favorite film about the Holocaust.
My favorite film in the Holocaust genre, as it were.
This time the tears are really real.
And it is not so much cinema as the telling of this story
which we know, over and over.

In 40 years, will they be saying this about Palestine?
I found the portrayal of Palestinian humanity was so profound.
How is it that Israel got this far while the world watched?
They should have stopped trade, cut them off.
But no, they paid for the whole thing until it was too late.

I heard a song and it goes like this
the minor fall and the major lift
over and over we sang baruch atah adonai
never ever again
But we could not hear our own words.

What justice might have been:
a pathetic echo in the history books.
We know, yes we do,
we Jews and Palestinians.
We could have stopped it, we Jews.

In watching the stunning film Adam Resurrected, which stars Jeff Goldblum as a Shoah survivor living in an insane asylum, the thought that echoed loudest in my mind was this: what kind of movies will they make about Palestine in 40 years? In 60 years? How will history look each of us in the eye, knowing who we are and what we stood for?

Of course, this is not the only thing I thought about. I thought about the will of a nation to destroy a people — to drive them into the metaphorical ocean. I thought about how they wanted to kill me. Or the making of me. How they wanted me to never exist for never and never.

We Jews. We know this story. We know it so well. We are the unfortunate bearers of a terrible burden. And now the wound suppurates over Palestine.

We have posted a few times on the Chandra blog about a project known as “Aesthetics & Astronomy” (A&A, for short). It’s a research study we’re conducting along with a team of experts outside of astrophysics to see just how the public perceives and understands the images we put out, as well as those from other observatories and wavelengths.

Please take the survey and not just because the telescope is almost named after me. You can even take the survey on your mobile phone now! You too can tell astronomers how to color in pictures in wavelengths that don’t have “colors” (that we can see).

Male and female actors gave physics lectures to college students. All students thought the males were more knowledgeable. And whereas female students gave a a slight nod to women teachers, male students thought male teachers were vastly better.

Basically, male physics students are all sexist pigs Oh, I wish that was actually a joke and not by and large true in this study . . .

My thoughts on the Astro2010 Decadal Survey, in what I hope is language understandable for non-experts.