BITOD: Bad Idea the of Day

[RJN]

BITOD: Bad Idea the of Day

This post starts a bit of an experiment. I have a lot of bad ideas, most of which sit in notepads or on my hard drive. They are never really exposed to be the bad ideas which most of them surely are. They sit undercover partly because I have a worry that each might have some germ of goodness that could be stolen and published without me. Also, I just don't have the time to investigate many of them.

So this experiment explores the possibility that these ideas are better left to die a more dignified public death than in anonymity. Also, it is harder to steal ideas these days when so much is temporally documented on the web. Last, even if a nugget of goodness existed and was stolen, it is possibly better stolen than just disappearing. Since I already have tenure, preserving my link to ideas is not as important to me as it once was.

Goals of this BITOD experiment are to better vet speculative astronomically-oriented ideas, mine any good bits that may be buried, and have these good bits expanded and eventually published in a recognized and refereed science journal. Why do I care about the later? Because as a professor of physics, my university and department care mostly about refereed journal articles and citations to these articles. Page views they care about -- well not so much. And, sadly, I am not immune to vanity.

Some FAQ:

Why do this? For one, I just don't have the time to explore how bad many of these ideas are. Yes, I usually have grad students and collaborators, but as with many people, I have more ideas than students. Besides, it's unethical to give a grad student an idea that I think is really likely to be bad.

How can you (the reader) help? The easiest way is to comment on these ideas: help seriously vet them. Show why they are logically inconsistent. Cite references that have considered a posted idea previously that I didn't seem to know about, like Wikipedia or a journal article. Or investigate them. Expand them. Use them to generate a truly good idea. If they seem to have a germ of goodness themselves, help me turn them into real journal articles. However, if you feel you really can't make any useful comments, then please don't flame them. Rather, please don't comment at all.

Do you (the reader) need a degree in astronomy or physics to comment? No. Just curiosity, imagination, intelligence, a skeptical attitude, a taste for scientific rigor, and free time. Some training in astronomy, physics, and math is usually useful, though.

What can you (the reader) get out of this? Anyone who contributes something significant should appear on the author list of any papers that eventually appear. Most typically, I would chose not to be first author. Most typically, anyone who does most of the writing of the paper would be first author. (Papers in progress could be written publicly in Google Docs, for example.) My preference for papers in which I am involved is that the first author then determines the rest of the author list. Also, leveraging my status as a physics professor and APOD leader, I can write a letter of recommendation for people who make notable contributions.

Why use the acronym BITOD when "Bad Idea The Of Day" is bad grammar? It seems funnier to me. And most of these ideas are, well, truly a BIT ODd. The blunt grammar mistake (switching "the" and "of") also indicates that the title itself, like the idea that follows, has not been fully vetted.

How come only you (RJN) can post a BITOD? Others can too. It's just that I have more familiarity with this forum than others. In one possible future, BITOD posts become a useful mechanism for many who have half-baked astronomy or space related ideas. BITOD ideas are postulated, bandied, vetted, truly bad ones discarded, good ones expanded and in some cases published, all making the world a utopia where Terminators are tasked only to take out the trash. In another possible future, seemingly more likely, few people will care, what few posts occur will be shrill, shallow, flame-oriented and unscientific, Terminators will enslave us, and this BITOD idea will fizzle out as itself a bad idea. (Or at least not presently popular.)

Will you have a BITOD every day? No. Maybe a few times a year. For me, I expect they would come in bunches when I have an unusual combination of free time and high bravado.

How will anyone know when a post in this forum should be considered a true BITOD? When I do it, I will prefix my post with the acronym BITOD itself. For example, my second post in this series will come soon and be titled: "BITOD: Can APOD Find Inquiries from the Future?" Being an unusual combination of words and letters, searching for BITOD or "Bad Idea the of Day" in search engines should be able to find these posts uniquely.

Second BITOD -- what was the first? This one!

- RJN

[BMAONE23]

Shouldn't that read "Bad Idea Of The Day"? instead of The Of Day BIOTD (feel free to delete this if corrected)

[apodman]

Shouldn't that read "Bad Idea Of The Day"? instead of The Of Day BIOTD (feel free to delete this if corrected)

Why use the acronym BITOD when "Bad Idea The Of Day" is bad grammar? It seems funnier to me. And most of these ideas are, well, truly a BIT ODd. The blunt grammar mistake (switching "the" and "of") also indicates that the title itself, like the idea that follows, has not been fully vetted.

It's a joke, son.

[BMAONE23]

I must have a busted humorous

[orin stepanek]

So; the BITOD could; would; or should become a garbage can for all the posts that turn out to be a bomb? And maybe some that are posted in BITOD could be resurrected if they show some merit? 8)

Orin

[RJN]

I am considering doing a major review of the whole BITOD idea in late January 2010. I might spin this off into its own board, possibly under a different name. This main idea is to foster collaborations between intelligent amateurs interested in participating in astronomy or astrophysics research, and professionals. When I was a kid, and even into college, I might well have been interested in finding such a collaboration myself. Besides Galaxy Zoo (a good project), there are limited options for this on the web even today. Conversely, I think many researchers have quite a wide variety of speculative ideas that amateurs could participate in.

Possibly in late January, if after thinking about this much more and debating this with others, I am considering pointing a separate and permanent link term in the main NASA APOD page to a board where at least several collaborative research opportunities exist. Quite possibly, the term "Research" could appear next to "Discuss" on the main APOD page. If things go bad, or few useful research projects seem to be fostered, then the "Research" term could just disappear after a few months. However, this BITOD thing, or something similar under a more descriptive name, might work. Thoughts?

- RJN

[bystander]

I think splitting BITOD, under whatever name, out to a new forum is a good idea. The rules for it might be a little different, but I don't think you need to create a new board.

[Radar Blue]

BITOD: Bad Idea the of Day

The easiest way is to comment on these ideas: help seriously vet them. Show why they are logically inconsistent. Cite references that have considered a posted idea previously that I didn't seem to know about, like Wikipedia or a journal article. Or investigate them. Expand them. Use them to generate a truly good idea. If they seem to have a germ of goodness themselves, help me turn them into real journal articles.

- RJN

Thank you RjN.
That is great information.
That is eactly what will be done.

Google docs, ..
Neat.

From scribble it shall arise
And be written, with the calligraphy
of the solar winds.

[craterchains]

A bad idea of the day.

Or, in other words, "Think Tank" ideas.
If you can get it for free, , , , , , , why pay for it?

What I would like to know is how you are going to deal with the very obvious IAC (Information Acquisition and Control) agents posting in these forums? (Often called "trolls" or Thought Police, or so called debunkers and skeptics) When it comes to "sensitive" items of discussion that concern such areas as National and World Security, National and World Defense, like your Time Traveler ( http://asterisk.apod.com/vie ... =8&t=17675 ) BITOD thread? How are you or your "moderators" going to deal with "them"?

Just a few questions for you RJN.

[JohnD]

RJN,
I think this may be a good idea (which would contradict the whole premise), but ................

As a senior academic, you will have the opportunity to throw out ideas, good or bad, to your colleagues and students for discussion. In fact, surely, that is part of your job! As academics, with experience and knowledge they will be far better equipped to criticise them, than a bunch of interested amateurs (like me), however much "curiosity, imagination, intelligence, a skeptical attitude, a taste for scientific rigor, and free time" that we have.

If you have a qualified panel to vet your ideas, what can an unqualified one contribute?
Perhaps you would demonstrate what sort of idea you have in mind?

John

[RJN]

Hi John,

Thanks for your post. The general idea is to tap into the tremendous resource that are intelligent people around the world who would like to participate in astronomy research if they could. There are now many "citizen science" sites like Galaxy Zoo that do involve dedicated amateurs in structured projects. The BITOD idea is to involve dedicated amateurs in smaller scale, less structured projects. In analogy, whereas Galaxy Zoo is like the Large Hadron Collider of citizen astronomy, I would like investigate the creation of a room on Science Fair type projects for citizen astronomy. Likely it will fizzle out, but I would like to try.

What do all these people have that a qualified panel of professional colleagues do not? Much, in my opinion. Amateurs are much greater in number and bring specific expertise of their lives and jobs that a small "qualified" panel likely could not. Many areas of research and many research projects do not require years of experience to start. Good "quick start" projects are the ones I would like to promote. In that sense, this idea is morphing away from focusing solely on speculative ideas, in my mind, although those I still consider important. I still picture projects that I myself might be interested in pursuing when I was in high school.

I myself have, so far, contributed two BITOD ideas. They can be found elsewhere on this forum. They have "BITOD" in their titles.

- RJN