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vicgrinberg

@vicgrinberg@mastodon.social

Me:

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vicgrinberg , to random
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Get into the car in the morning and drive through France into Belgium on the way to the Netherlands. And the only sign of change of country is a sign along the road that I almost missed. Nobody checked our (German) IDs and we did not need a passport.

Living in the , we tend to take it for granted that we can easily cross borders. But it's an wonder, an achievement, something worth fighting for.

vicgrinberg , to random
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I love book recommendation lists but they often tend to upset me. My favorite kinds of lists are either international lit (where I am usually upset that there are not enough women represented) or books by non-male folks (where I am upset that it's often mostly English-writing folks).

So: here is a list of my personal recommendations of books by women in (English) translation. One book for every day of June. Feel free to join - doesn't have to be every day!

0/30

vicgrinberg OP ,
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Narine Abgaryan "Three Apples Fell from the Sky / С неба упали три яблока"

A friend recommended me the book many years ago saying that it makes you feel so warm and happy afterwards - which is a strange thing to say about a book about war, abuse and the hardships of life in a tiny Armenian village, starting with the protagonist on the deathbed. But oh, it does. Because it's also a book about books and second chances and hope.

1/30

vicgrinberg OP ,
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Rose Ausländer - Jewish poet, Bukowina-born (today Ukraine), mostly has written in German but also (in the years after WWII) in English.

The "black milk" in Celan's work? That's an image from her work (& later he influenced her in turn).

Seek out her late poems if you can (most of her work she dictated in her last years, fully bed-ridden) - extremely condensed. Incredible.

(The photo is a graphic novel about Ausländer. Also a rec, by Ukrainian authors, in German.)

2/30

vicgrinberg OP ,
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Mariama Bâ - "Une si longue letter / So Long a Letter / Ein so langer Brief"

I remembered reading the book some 15 years ago and being thoroughly impressed by a world so different from my own - both in terms of society (I know almost nothing about Senegal!) and the viewpoint of a then much older women having lived such a different live.

Take a look - and if my mini recommendation is not convincing you, here is a much longer one ▶️ https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/05/13/feminize-your-canon-mariama-ba/

3/10

vicgrinberg OP ,
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Ingeborg Bachmann - one of the most important voices of post WWII German-language literature (not German, but Austrian). One of the main German-language literature prizes is named after her.

More here: ▶️ https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/07/09/feminize-your-canon-ingeborg-bachmann/ (imho the article focusses a bit too much on her love life & fails to mention a philosophy PhD & impact of her lectures + essays)

I've read her short fiction, which I very much recommend. But there are also a novel, poetry, letters, essays.

4/30

vicgrinberg OP ,
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Eileen Chang (Wiki: traditional Chinese: 張愛玲; simplified Chinese: 张爱玲; pinyin: Zhāng Àilíng) - wrote in Chinese & in English (at least her anti-communist books written for the United States Information Agency). Translated some of her books in the respective other language herself.

I've read her "Lust, Caution", a fascinating insight into pre-communist China during WWII, and definitely want to pick up more of her work, likely her other shorter works.

5/30

vicgrinberg OP ,
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Chloé Cruchaudet "Mauvais Genre / Deserter's Masquerade / Das falsche Geschlecht" [How different the titles!]

Wonderful artwork that beautifully contributes to the unsettling story of war, violence and identity in the Paris of WWI and 1920ies. Not a perfect book but perfect example of drawings and text working together to create art and impact.

(I own the book, as all in the thread, but I forgot to take a photo and am travelling...)

6/30

vicgrinberg OP ,
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Maryna (and Serhiy) Dyachenko - "Vita Nostra"

For everyone who loves mindbending speculative fiction or linguistics. Or both. And no, it's not just for folks like me for whom languages are a hobby - my Latin grammar PhD friend loved it, too (wink)

I've seen it advertised 'Harry Potter'-like. No. There is nothing similar except for a boarding school of sorts. Emphasis on "of sorts".

It's deep, it's clever.

(Independent of two other novels in the cycle)

7/30

vicgrinberg OP ,
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Jenny Erpenbeck - winner of the 2015 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and 2024 International booker prize. Surprisingly less celebrated in Germany than abroad, possibly (likely?) because her work is deeply embedded in the Eastern German experience. I absolutely adore her work.

Start "Visitation / Heimsuchung" or "The End of Days / Aller Tage Abend", feel the need to read everything by her.

(Haven't finished Kairos yet but I can tell than I love the above two more.)

8/30

vicgrinberg OP ,
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Olga Grjasnowa "All Russians Love Birch Trees / Der Russe ist einer, der Birken liebt"

A deeply felt insight what it's like to be a person in their mid-20ies to mid-30ies with a "migration background" in today's (well, 10 years ago) Germany. If you never been asked "but where you are really from", this book will teach you why you should never ask this question. If you did, it will deeply resonate with your experience. You should read it in any case.

9/30

vicgrinberg OP ,
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Maja Göpel "Rethinking Our World: An Invitation to Rescue Our Future / Unsere Welt neu denken"

The only non-fiction on this list - there is hardly any non-fiction in English translation, esp. by women!

One of the founders of "Scientists for Future" invites us to look into transformations needed towards a sustainable future. A good intro book with a political economy angle. Perfect present for folks who aren't there yet but may be on the verge of wanting the change.

10/30

vicgrinberg OP ,
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Angélica Gorodischer "Kalpa Imperial: The Greatest Empire That Never Was" - translated to English by Ursula K. LeGuin.

This book hovers at the perfect point between fantasy and literary, between idea-driven stories and poetic language.

I have so many images and ideas from this book stuck forever in my head. Not always nice images and ideas (it's an empire and even the nice and well-meaning people do not always rule it well), but oh so worth remembering.

11/30

vicgrinberg , to random
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Did you know that it's actually NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope? Even though it is often referred to as "NASA" only.

European Space Agency #ESA has contributed the NIRSpec instrument, half of the MIRI instrument, and the launch (including the payload adapter & launch site services) and has 15 scientists working at the science and operations center. #CSA, the Canadian Space Agency, has contributed the NIRISS instrument.

Graphic from launch kit: https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Webb/James_Webb_Space_Telescope_launch_kit

#JWST #astrodon

rahmstorf , to random German
@rahmstorf@fediscience.org avatar

Hub model for science conferences can save emissions:
"... switching the AAS meeting from a single-venue meeting to a hub model ...with an eastern and western US hub, would have reduced emissions by around 60%."
https://physicsworld.com/a/astronomy-conference-travel-is-on-par-with-africas-per-capita-carbon-footprint/?utm_campaign=26330-58098&utm_content=%E2%80%9Chub%20and%20spoke%E2%80%9D%20model&utm_term=&utm_medium=email&utm_source=iop

vicgrinberg ,
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@rahmstorf And if somebody wants a deeper dive into our paper: https://mastodon.social/@vicgrinberg/112361499785075567

vicgrinberg , to random
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Being an adult means realizing that while you love cat-sitting, having an actual cat will not work for you, because OMG, a week and there is so much cat hair! Everywhere!

A black and white cat licking my hand.

vicgrinberg , to random
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Just stumbled over this lovely article about my friend Erin and her work to decipher the timing of !

▶️ https://www.quantamagazine.org/to-see-black-holes-in-detail-she-uses-echoes-like-a-bat-20240212/

(May possibly give some background context on our recent paper on Cyg X-1 that I posted about yesterday and that Erin was also part of the team for 😊)

vicgrinberg OP ,
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@chris it is great, indeed :)

vicgrinberg , to random
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If your vacuum cleaner does not wlhave the power it used to anymore, change those filters. Seriously. Invest the money, change the filters. It's magic.

vicgrinberg , to random
@vicgrinberg@mastodon.social avatar

Ich möchte mich am Freitag morgen in Innenstadt irgendwo für 2 Stunden mit einem Buch (gerne auch einem Kaffee, muss aber nicht sein) hinsetzen. Also so was wie eine Bibliothek, nette Cafes, Uni-Gebäude mit Sitzmöglichkeiten [edir: eher drinnen!] ... Ideen?

Bitte Orte, die ihr selbst kennt, nichts ergoogeltes (ich habe online schon die Stadtbibliothek gefunden, will aber echte Erfahrungen oder Alternativen).

Gerne boost :)

vicgrinberg , to random
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How far did astronomers travel world-wide for conferences in 2019 in total? More than 300 times to the Moon & back! Or, to put it in astronomical units: more than 1.5 AU, so to the Sun and halfway back!

▶️ https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae143

A 🧵 summarizing our paper "Astronomy’s climate emissions: Global travel to scientific meetings in 2019" - published today, lead by Andrea Gokus (who also wrote the draft for this thread) and @knud, with many people, among them @leo & me, contributing:

1/6

vicgrinberg OP ,
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Astronomy is a very international & collaborative field, but as can be seen from the map, the majority of meetings tend to take place in Europe & North America.

Meetings in remote places cause more flights ➡️ more emissions. We estimate is at least 42,500 tCO2e in total in 2019.

2/6

World map showing where meetings, both conferences (circles) and schools (squares), took place. A color scale indicates the average emission per participant per conference and the size of the symbols reveals the total emissions. Meetings are heavily clustered in Europe and on the east and west coast of the United states. There is very few meetings on the African and South American continent. Meetings in Oceania as well as in Hawai'i have the highest carbon footprint per participant.
ALT
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    • vicgrinberg OP ,
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    Not a big surprise, but the higher the amount of local (less than 100 km from venue) participants, the smaller the average emissions.

    Most astronomy meetings are small, with less than 100 attendees. But depending on the meeting venue, average emissions can be very high if most people have to fly medium to long distance. For large meetings, average emissions scatter around the average value of 1t CO2e per person.

    3/6

    vicgrinberg OP ,
    @vicgrinberg@mastodon.social avatar

    Who gets to travel to these in-person meetings? Proportionally more researchers from wealthier countries with a higher Human Development Index, and those also seem to travel to more meetings in general.

    But more importantly, who does not get to travel much, or at all? ➡️ Scientists at less wealthy institutes or in less wealthy countries; scientists having to deal with lengthy/complicated visa processes; scientists with care-taking responsibilities; and scientists with disabilities.

    4/6

    Scatter plot showing the number of conference attendees from each country, normalized to the country’s population. The grey dots at the bottom of the plot show a distribution of the Human Development Index of countries from which no one attended at least one astronomy meeting in 2019.
    ALT
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    • vicgrinberg OP ,
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    What do we conclude from this? Making meetings more sustainable can make them also more inclusive. Because if we make meetings at least hybrid, or even fully virtual, many barriers fall away. However, virtual attendees must not be treated as 2nd class participants in order for virtual/hybrid meetings to work!

    Because networking is one key element at meetings, opportunities and space must be created for people to network naturally. as engaging in lively discussions.

    5/6

    vicgrinberg OP ,
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    Passively listening to talks online is, of course, not the same as engaging in lively discussions!

    One important aspect, however: In order to create more sustainable and more inclusive meetings, it is necessary that our community works together to reach this goal and that we don’t let perfectionism be the enemy of progress!

    6/6

    vicgrinberg OP ,
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    @FMarquardtGroup thanks for bringing this up, it's such an important point! There are some things that are hard to replicate online (although they are possible in virtual mingling environments - I had a project and a job offer grow from mingling in "gather town" + casual conversations that grew there) but what surprises me is that we often consider coffee breaks and dinners crucial, yet they are not the focus of conferences. How useful is it to travel across the globe for the hope of a chance -

    vicgrinberg OP ,
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    @FMarquardtGroup - encounter over dinner that one may end up not being invited to or for a coffee conversation that may not happen because the person one hoped to talk to was in side meetings all the time? Instead, we may want a lot less meetings but meetings that are focussed on the core of why we meet in person - unconferences (which an amazing facilitator once described as "structured week-long coffee break") are perfect for that or any other structures than encourage interaction.

    vicgrinberg OP ,
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    @FMarquardtGroup so this is not about the length of conferences (long ones are even harder on many marginalised folks) but about the quality of interaction and creating the right kind of spaces. It does mean breaking with our expectations what a conference is - and a lot of hard work. Non-stop coffee breaks are hard and someone needs to invest time and money to prepare an unconference, which is a lot harder and more work than for a normal conference. But so is the outcome.

    vicgrinberg OP ,
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    @Boerdejakobiner @FMarquardtGroup

    I do not think there was an approach like what you discuss (and honestly feel like the tech involved may be a bit too much), but folks, including in my field, have experience with virtual 3D events - @elizabethtasker for example has taught whole schools that way if I am not wrong.

    vicgrinberg OP ,
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    @elizabethtasker @Boerdejakobiner @FMarquardtGroup apologies, this wasn't clear - what I meant with "too much" would be an in person room with a full co-running virtual connection and/or half of the participants being represented by robots. I'd rather invest the same funds into 3D headsets for folks who can't afford some of their own and go 100% virtual.

    vicgrinberg OP ,
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    @elizabethtasker @Boerdejakobiner @FMarquardtGroup 100% understand the knee jerk reaction, no worries!

    vicgrinberg , to random
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    I just love this image - it highlights why we need all the different telescopes: each of them looks at the same object in different ways. And only when working together a complete image emerges.

    Here, 's wide field is combined with 's zoom-in and sharpest IR image we ever obtained, allowing us to study how radiation interacts with interstellar matter.

    More here and in the linked articles: ▶️ https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2024/04/Webb_captures_iconic_Horsehead_Nebula_in_unprecedented_detail

    elizabethtasker , to random
    @elizabethtasker@mastodon.online avatar

    In my 20s, I was very excited about travel. In my 40s, I’m tempted to cancel the entire trip at the last minute and claim to have contracted want-a-regular-week-with-the-cat fever.

    vicgrinberg ,
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    @elizabethtasker feel you...

    vicgrinberg , to random
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    I love passing by wind turbines. They are such an essential solarpunk element to me. Seeing one feels like a sign of hope: a different future is possible.

    elizabethtasker , to random
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    The latest season of "Queer Eye" includes a man in New Orleans who is the primary carer of a seriously disabled adult sibling, who seems basically helpless.

    It's frustrating because Queer Eye has redone the house & wardrobe, and reminded him of the importance of making time for himself... but there's no talk of getting professional care for his brother so he's just as shackled as before, and probably can't improve things long-term.

    It may not be solvable, but I wish we'd admit it's not right.

    vicgrinberg ,
    @vicgrinberg@mastodon.social avatar

    @elizabethtasker 💔

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