And yes, by the way, we have noticed that arxiv decisions seem somewhat personal, and definitely opaque. It’s why I’ve been kicking around the idea of starting a competitor with community governance.
During the decadal surveys, arxiv has generally taken “white papers”. That’s why, strategically, I called it a “white paper”. But I was definitely afraid that it would get rejected as non-academic. Also why I had a solid bibliography (a sign of realness).
Cannon’s my hero. Hence The Cannon!
MUST READ:
The best synthesis I have seen so far of things I knew or had put together from various sources but had not really seen pulled together 🧪
Importantly, I don’t think these academics were an aberration. I think a lot of scientists would have entered these circles, given the option.
Hahaha I have it on the brain because @terrahunting.bsky.social is thinking about target selection, exposure time, and cadence.
(This is at fixed cost. If you have choices with different price tags, you have to convert information to dollars (at least marginally!). And then you maximize long-term future-discounted free cash flow.)
Future-discounted, because you’d rather get information now than information much later.
Long-term, because your goal is to support the whole research program, not just the current paper.
Information (inverse variance on your parameters of interest, or KL divergence between prior and posterior), because that’s the thing you get more of as you observe more.
. . .
Hot take: If you are thinking about observation planning, and if you have choices, you should choose the plan that maximizes your long-term future-discounted information gain.
. . .
I appreciate it!! I wrote that as a PhD student and first published it as a postdoc. If you ever meet someone (or ever become someone) who wants to update it to match the contemporary world, let me know!
Very much appreciate the shout outs! I love what you do for our field.
Hahaha uncomfortable with that naming convention but fair.
I cite a medium post by Josh bloom on this point. Denario authors also admit this.
The AAS is already getting enormous numbers of slop submissions, I’m told by @chrislintott.bsky.social this morning.
NSBP / NSHP are my people!!
I’m so proud to be a jury member for
The 2025 International Kindness Olympiad
(haha that doesn’t exist because how could kindness be important??)
Itai Linial @nyuphysics.bsky.social talking about stellar problems at supermassive black holes
I mean the helium matters too?! And the love?
Excellent piece by @briles34.bsky.social on writing in the discipline. It’s depressing that we think that theoretical physics expertise is not just more important but INFINITELY more important than writing to… *writing* PhD dissertations (on any subfield of astro, say). arxiv.org/abs/2510.03493
Was it even 36 hours? I think it was more like 29
The main thing that it all makes me—Palestinian genocide, ICE kidnappings, tariffs, H1b visas, infinite detentions without hearings, all make me—is sad. Tired and sad. Love to all, and strength for this journey.
Probably too late though; it’s hard to revoke such agreements.
That’s why they build all those alien megastructures.
Cantiello @kantyellow.bsky.social at @flatironinstitute.org explains, in terms of fundamental physics, why we won’t be simulating stars in full 3D, ever. I likey.
Josh Ruderman @nyuphysics.bsky.social talking about freeze out and freeze in of dark matter candidates.
My colleague Vasuki Nesiah (NYU) wrote a nice blog post about political things on campus, academic freedom, and our @aaup.org lawsuit. voelkerrechtsblog.org/academic-fre...
Many universities on lockdown after black faculty were sent extremely racist death threats and threats of racial extermination. Stay safe out there. Black faculty at NYU received extremely frightening emails today.
It’s back to school, but not for anyone in Gaza. We all have responsibility for the scholasticide, the killing of students, and the destruction of educational infrastructure.
This is a good (long!!) newsletter covering many things related to academic freedom, with an NYU bias. I learn a ton every time this comes out.
