Wednesday, March 7, 2018

Five Minutes with an Astronomer

        Astronomer Stuart Robbins should be familiar to all regulars here, if only by his nickname "astroguy." He produces the wordpress blog Exposing Pseudoastronomy, whose raison d'ĂȘtre is similar to this one, but with a far more rigorous approach and with more command of online media.

        Robbins has a new project which I'd like to recommend—it's a series of five-minute talks jointly produced with The Reality Check. I've heard the pilot and I think it's very good—a succinct and factual answer to the question "What the heck is Dark Matter?" The talk is unscripted but I thought it was very fluent. I wish I could force Mike Bara to listen to it—he might, thereafter, stop being so scornful about the topic.

        Anyone can "sign up" for this feed. Just send e-mail to the astronomer and be willing to provide some feedback. The part of the e-mail address before the squiggly sign is stuart, and the part after it is sjrdesign followed by a period and the abbreviation for the word commerce.

        As to how often these chats will appear, that's not yet decided. I'm sure Stuart will record a bunch at a time then release them at fairly regular intervals.


5 comments:

Alienmojo said...

Has he stopped doing his podcast? Been almost 3 months since his last podcast.

astroguy said...

On hiaitus, again, due to work pressures. Hoping for early April re-debut with a new sort of structure, having several episodes already recorded, or at least written, and doing planned "seasons" so that it's obvious when I'm breaking due to work and other things. The "5 Minutes ..." podcast is very, very low-effort for me (1 hr for 3-4 episodes TOTAL) which is why it's moving ahead while my podcast is paused.

Alienmojo said...

That is encouraging. I would hate for you to stop your podcast. I was worried you were going in a new direction. I realize the 5-minute podcasts would be easier... but not nearly as satisfying to your fans. :) Understand that you have a very busy life. I will admit that I'm selfish and enjoy listening to you rather than the other scientists I won't name who really like to see themselves in the limelight.

Anonymous said...

TInEye 1: https://tineye.com/search/36aafde8c693fda076bc1f1b8145bd871681eb3d/
TinEye 2: https://tineye.com/search/7fa122c410703cdf87b61ffcd0efda8d9be0e16d/

expat said...

Not very helpful, anon. The Moon is always going to look the same at the same phase.