iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

With AI text you need to know what the "author" understands and can do and what the AI just did for them. The only way I can see to do that is to look at credentials and prior output of the author. That destroys so much work we've been doing to unbias reviews!

050

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

And AI is going to make this problem SO MUCH WORSE. Another thing that AI is going to have to break is double-blind reviews. That's a great model when you can assess a team's ability to do the work from the text of their proposals. AI breaks that.

150

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

But more and more I become sympathetic to admitting that the false precision we employ right at the line to decide who gets time/money/whatever is not worth the effort and we should just accept it's basically random and roll the dice to save us all a ton of effort.

130

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Perhaps a multi-step process would help—low-effort first round followed by detailed followup. Restricting the final proposal to just what reviewers need to judge the science is good too—save the technical stuff for accepted proposals.

110

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I agree with this. We have an extremely efficient peer-review process by most standards (1 reviewer, 1-2 month turnarounds, very high acceptance rates) but any time proposal rates drop below 15% the community is collectively wasting time.

190

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I’m referring to toxic internal departmental politicking over things like resource allocation, teaching and service assignments, and hiring. I’ve come to understand our department is blessedly and unusually free of this and I’d like to keep it that way.

120

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

You can email me at astrowright at gmail or DM me or send a carrier pigeon—whatever you like, please send me your names! [and I won't tell them you did!]

220

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Now here's the kicker: sometimes the best leaders are the reluctant ones. My guess is that the best candidate won't even notice the ad has been posted, because they are happy where they are or don't want to move "up" into leadership. So that's why I need YOU to tell me who they are!

121

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

We are one of the largest university astro departments in the country (world?), we teach more undergraduates than any department (by a wide margin), and we have many world-leading research strengths (GWs, instrumentation, exoplanets, astrostats, astroinformatics, astrobiology…).

120

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Astro BlueSky: Be my boss! Penn State Astro needs a new department head and I need YOUR help to find them. Who is your ideal department head? Who can maintain a vibrant, collegial, politics-free atmosphere that supports all members (undergrads, grads, staff, all kinds of faculty)? 🧪

3114

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Anyway, I started the videoconference hopeful that despite his political affiliation we'd have a productive discussion with a pro-science senator and help him be a better advocate for science as long as he's in office. I still think we did, but my esteem for him dropped a lot during the call.

040

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

As a senator he must get these sorts of things all the time. For him to elevate that single comment up into the main discussion in a way that disrupted the event, and insulted many of the attendees, to me said that *he's* the one who can't keep partisan politicking out of nonpartisan venues.

120

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

The word "stupid" came out of his mouth at some point and he complained that "this is why people don't run for elected office." Totally unprofessional and an example of the very behavior he was purporting to decry. Things like this are bound to come up in a chat with 230 people in it.

110

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Someone also posted about how the war in Iran is affecting global science and funds available for domestic science. Now, this was mostly off-topic (though certainly connected!) and I did not expect the moderator to raise the issue or for him to address it. But he read it anyway and reacted badly.

110

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

But what really got me was his unprofessional behavior. He was apparently reading the Zoom chat during peoples' questions because he kept referring to it. He called people asking about the president's budget "ignorant" because it's Congress's budget that is law (but OMB disagrees?!?!)

110

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

It also meant we never got to the meat of the issue: what can/will McCormick, as someone who approves, can subpoena, and can investigate Trump's nominees, do to ensure that the funds he's so eager to authorize and appropriate are spent in the way the law dictates.

110

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

McCormick seemed to dodge the issue of the fact that the government is not spending the money Congress has appropriated. At best he framed it as a "trust" issue about how the government will behave which is…true and fair but dodges the issue that is administration is openly saying we can't trust it!

110

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Was just on a videoconference with about 230 people about science in PA with our Republican senator John McCormick. McCormick clearly supports higher levels of support for basic science which is great. This was organized by the APS and its member societies like @policy.aas.org 🔭🧪

390

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Looks like they are ignoring the fact that the orbit doesn’t work and just doing very detailed modeling of the photometry.

100

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Indeed! I thought this was a *new* claim, but perhaps they're just recycling the old debunked claim! I'll turn off the bat signal.

100

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Well, that’s a first! An AI agent just sent me a long discussion of my paper and claims one of my key references missed an important point and it suggested an avenue to advance gyrochronology. Unsurprisingly, the suggestion is garbage. Is this happening to everyone who submits to the arXiv now?

291

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

This is my first refereed first-author paper (other than the SETI in 20XX papers) in 3 years! Boy am I glad that textbook's out of the way now…

0100

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Anyway here it is! Take a look—I promise whatever your background you'll learn a lot about this cool corner of interdisciplinary research! Accepted for publication in the Journal of Space Weather and Space Climate (!) arxiv.org/abs/2609.22473

arxiv.org

The "Other" Centuries-Long Record of Solar Magnetic Activity Cycles: Lessons From the Stars

Studies of space climate and solar magnetic activity and studies of stellar dynamos and magnetic cycles are separated by discipline and by the quality of the data we have to work with: the Sun gives u...

1110

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

This is the only paper (other than the SETI in 20XX series) that I've moved along since being in "new project jail" until my textbook is finished. I think it's a great review of solar/stellar dynamo theory and observation for astronomers, and of stellar activity cycles for space climatologists!

100

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

The referee disagreed with the picture we painted about stellar dynamos, requiring us to really beef up the connection with dynamo theory by adding, Kristof Petrovay, an expert in the solar dynamo. In the end we ended up learning a lot and writing what I think is a really good review article!

110

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

So I grew a few co-authors, Hisashi Hayakawa who organized the conference and is an expert on Asian records of solar magnetic activity, and @travis-metcalfe.bsky.social who specializes in stellar activity and rotation Then the referee got to it…

110

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Anyway, I was invited to turn my talk about stellar activity cycles and the hunt for sun-like stars into a paper, and I thought this would be a quick project, summarizing what astronomers know about stellar cycles. NOPE! The editors wanted a much more detailed piece of work.

110

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

It turns out we can learn a lot about the solar dynamo by reconstructing proxies for space weather via isotopes in tree rings, ice cores, and other sources. For instance, we can see the sun was still cycling during the Maunder minimum, even though it had virtually zero sunspots then! Weird.

120

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

It was fun to visit Japan, and I learned a lot about space climate: that's the study of the long-term changes in space weather, i.e. the magnetic and particle environment near Earth due to the Sun and external cosmic rays. It's a wild mix of space physics, history, and other fields!

120

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Back in 2024 I was invited to give a talk at Space Climate 9 in Nagoya, Japan on work by Anna Baum and others at Penn State on Maunder Minimum stars. This is an extension of my thesis work, where I tried to establish whether any other stars were in a state analagous to the Solar Maunder Minimum.🔭🧪

1122

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Now that textbook is done I'm happy to say that I'm about to post my first first-authored peer-reviewed work in over a year and a half on the arXiv! Stay tuned for a fun paper! Not SETI, but an extension of my thesis work, with four new co-authors in a new journal for me (not astronomy!) 🔭🧪🎉

0120

Reposted by Jason Wright

American Astronomical Society (AAS) @aas.org · 03/09/2026

🔭 Meet #AAS249 plenary speaker: Rebecca Charbonneau! Historian at AIP, SETI Institute Fellow, and NRAO scientist studying the history of radio astronomy & technosignatures. Don't miss her talk in Salt Lake City — early registration closes 12 Oct. aas.org/meetings/aas... @rebeccacharbon.bsky.social

0246

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Yay! My trick was to read the entire thing out loud backwards, paragraph by paragraph. Removing context and narrative flow helped me spot lots of grammatical errors! OTOH I also almost lost my voice…

010

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Saw a fun post on here along the lines of the different levels of “rich“, based on what you will purchase casually without being price sensitive: 1st level: restaurant meals 2nd: airplane tickets 3rd: automobiles 4th: real estate 5th: urban real estate Elon Musk is level 10 rich.

250

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

My reaction to the Navier Stokes thing is that mathematics might be in trouble but for now a mathematician with a $200/month subscription and facility with AI is worth $22 million in tokens per theorem.

030

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Wordle 1,914 2/6* ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🤯 Well, that’s a first! The Program remains undefeated, going on almost a full year of consecutive wins now…

070

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Boston University curriculum for the win! Go Terriers! But alas, it looks like its graduate Hegel course has been trimmed down to a single semester… www.bu.edu/philo/academ...

bu.edu

Fall 2026 Course Offerings | Philosophy

120

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

It takes nothing away from the bravery and importance of the Stonewall rioters to highlight the crucial role played by work-within-the-establishment pioneers like Franklin Kameny, Harry Hay, Barbara Gittings, Harvey Milk, and others.

010

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Social change doesn’t happen because of a single tactic or a single person. It happens because many slices of society respond to different social pressures and arguments, applied by different kinds of people, employing different kinds of tactics. See: the synergy of approaches of MLK and Malcom X.

110

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I was told when I was young that Frank Kameny visited the New York Mattachine Society and helped radicalize people that participated in the Stonewall riots. Are there any historians on here that know if that’s true?

110

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I would love to know from a professional historian of the time how Kameny’s completely nonviolent tactics were seen by those who employed violence, and vice versa. Clearly the tactics were complementary and both were highly effective.

110

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Does filing lawsuits count as “working alongside existing institutions?“ Does demanding that gay people should not be fired from their jobs count as “assimilation“? The tactic of violence and the goal of letting gay people live honest lives in broader society are not antithetical or incongruent.

100

Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I write this in the context of the OP article, which says the Mattachine Society had “assimilationist goals and preferred to work alongside of existing institutions rather than disrupt them”. That’s a strange phrasing, which doesn’t align with my understanding of the distinction they’re making.

100