Weird Uncle Konstantin @UncleKonstantin@scholar.social
Friendly rocket uncle, except I don't work on rockets, I am more interested in what can go on the rockets. Cis/het/white, he/him, I try not to be a dick but if I fuck up please let me know.
Currently doing my MSc thesis where I design, build, and (hopefully) launch a ChipSat, may hit people up for knowledge if they're cool with it.
Main at @RedFuture, still interested in ancom space programs but this alt is for thesisposting and questions about academia and science.
Joined Oct 2020
Pinned post
#introductions time! I've just started my Master's thesis, working on building and hopefully launching a ChipSat. Made this account for more specific academicposting, main at @RedFuture
Feel free to ask me space-related questions, I will almost definitely not know the answer but will enjoy the question with you!
Possibly looking for study/accountability pals, not sure yet though.
Weird Uncle Konstantin
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Nice summary of the use of a journal club to develop knowledge of research methodologies in a cross-disciplinary setting here.
Wincentak, Cheung & Kingsnorth (2019) https://doi.org/10.22230/src.2019v10n3a337 [open access]
Weird Uncle Konstantin
boosted
#postdoc #degrowth #EnvironmentalSciences #oceans #consumption #ScholarSocial #academia
5 Postdoctoral Researcher positions (2-yr) at ICTA-UAB Barcelona
Topics Policies, Cities, Consumption, Land, Oceans
Deadline 30.04.2021
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa-jisc.exe?A2=CRIT-GEOG-FORUM;62369a04.2104
Weird Uncle Konstantin
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birdsite link, Derrida
@Cyborgneticz "A professor of mine went to go hear Derrida speak once. The entire talk was about cows; everyone was flummoxed but listened carefully, and took notes about...cows. There was a short break, and when Derrida came back, he was like, “I’m told it is pronounced ‘chaos.’”" (From Phil Gentry, https://twitter.com/pmgentry/status/1379093511539150852)
Babby academic question, TA
2 weeks TAing on an elective soon, first time TAing. Any tips or advice?
Weird Uncle Konstantin
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hello fediverse
if you have like, two minutes, please consider filling out this survey i have to do for school
it's about how many books you read. don't worry if you don't read books very much, that's actually one of the things we're looking for
it's a google form. sorry
Weird Uncle Konstantin
boosted
My favorite thing about synthetic biology is that every time someone is like "We finally understand enough about [any biological machinery] to build one from scratch" and they try to do it, they're wrong and they get a result that makes absolutely no sense with what they were expecting.
Favourite possible replacement for "Et Al"
Weird Uncle Konstantin
boosted
Job opportunity, UK, libraries & research data 
Hey folks, we're recruiting for an Assistant Data Services Specialist at the British Library to support our research data strategy and DataCite consortium. It's a great entry-level post for anyone wanting to develop into a career in research data management from a more traditional research or libraries background.
Full time, fixed term (2 years), salary from £23,250
Details & application form: https://britishlibrary.recruitment.zellis.com/birl/pages/vacancy.jsf?latest=01002386
Weird Uncle Konstantin
boosted
2. A thing that tunnels a locally-running development server and exposes it publicly at a subdomain like myblog.cleverthing.xyz so that you can dynamically and temporarily publish a test/draft version of something without directly having DDNS and holes in your firewall.
If anyone can point me in the direction of either of these I would be very grateful. I was using MacOS last time I used anything like #1, but the thing I used for that had Linux support in development.
Weird Uncle Konstantin
boosted
There are two tools, somewhat related, that I know exist because I've seen both of them in the wild, but I can't remember what they're called or find the right search terms to find them.
1. A thing that sets up virtual domains that only resolve locally and make it slightly easier to test something running in development mode locally. E.g. you start hugo in server mode, and then point your browser at myblog.test and it proxies localhost:1313 to myblog.test:80.
Weird Uncle Konstantin
boosted
Ok, I need a domain name for the nascent GLAM Data Science Network (current website at https://glam-datasci.netlify.app) and these are my top candidates.
Please vote for one, or reply to tell me why I'm wrong and what would be better!
Weird Uncle Konstantin
boosted
in the far reaches of space, there is one place that we may never fully understand, that may forever be an enigma:
Livetooting a conference
...and perchlorates are popular with microbes. Perchlorates absorb a LOT of water though, if you drill a metre below the Atacama there's microbes in pockets of water - possibly something similar on Mars
I seem to have inadvertently started a small argument about ChipSats in the chat though
And we're done!
Livetooting a conference
...and only with good computational techniques when people were looking specifically for Phosphine on Mars. And that was a planet next door!
Q: Viking found perchlorates on MArs in 1974, in 2010 NASA reinterpreted the results. Would such biosignatures have any co-relation with Phosphine?
A: Perchlorates are more oxidising than oxygen, so we shouldn't find it alongside life. Look in the Atacama though - there's perchlorates and nitrates...
Livetooting a conference
Q - Apart from Oxygen, Phosphine, or Ammonia, what biosignatures should we be looking for?
A - There's no perfect biosignature, but we're looking at combinations - Methane AND Oxygen AND some nitrogen compounds
Q - Have we been here before with the Viking missions and claims by Levin?
A - Missed the phosphine signature in early Viking missions, only recovered later. Hope haven't given the impression it's easy to detect, the various fingerprints are fairly low-level...
Livetooting a conference
Question - Is our knowledge of life on earth limiting our imagination as to life elsewhere?
A - He feels that life elsewhere is probably going to be similar to life here, but who really knows?
Q - Should we be looking for degradation products rather than free gas, given the amount of UV in the clouds of Venus?
A - There's a few products, and we did see them, but the key is that the gas should be out of equilibrium to be notable
Livetooting a conference
I was going to ask him about a paper my friend did that's tangentially related but now I'm scared tbh
Livetooting a conference
He is real eager to rip apart that baines et al paper suggesting that the phosphine on venus couldn't be abiotic
This shit is personal it sounds like, he's fully getting sarcastic about it
If this was an in-person conference he'd be asking the authors to step outside to settle it
Livetooting a conference
A lot of papers recommended, "Redox chemistry in the phosphorus biogeochemical cycle", Pasek et al, PNAS, 111.43 (2014) in particular (https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1408134111)
Friendly rocket uncle, except I don't work on rockets, I am more interested in what can go on the rockets. Cis/het/white, he/him, I try not to be a dick but if I fuck up please let me know.
Currently doing my MSc thesis where I design, build, and (hopefully) launch a ChipSat, may hit people up for knowledge if they're cool with it.
Main at @RedFuture, still interested in ancom space programs but this alt is for thesisposting and questions about academia and science.
Joined Oct 2020
