My experience these days is that finding dates that work with friends can be very hard, and the "when do you have time?" back-and-forth is so exhausting it often falls apart. Having some kind of standing open invitation might help, or tacking dinner onto shared activities like clubs. But it's hard.

Been thinking about this lately, too. I feel like when I was young, my parents had people over for dinner somewhat regularly. I realized that those dinner invitations were likely set up by my mom, who didn't work for several years. Organizing a social life takes time. It's almost like an extra job.

Now I want a book of sample return missions written as heist short stories

I thought I was alone wanting this change, but it turns out that the US National Writers Union's Freelance Solidarity Project also has 50% upon 1st draft or 33.3% upon commission as one of their demands! Because it's just... common sense? Why hold off paying writers what we're guaranteed anyways?

Esp. for magazine writing, the delays between submission of a draft and an editor finally publishing it and paying for it can be huge. e.g.: I was paid in October for a draft I submitted in MARCH. And I'm waiting on another ~$4000 from a draft I submitted in July that hasn't yet been edited.

Media outlets should pay freelancers the "kill fee" upon assignment — or at least for the 1st draft. It's guaranteed even if the piece isn't published, so why wait? As things stand, writers usually have to wait until final acceptance or even publication of their draft to get paid *at all*.

Any other freelancers want to relocate to California with me and start a magazine? (Joking, you'll never get me out of Austria. But unironically I expect this amazing law to lead to lots of shared houses full of journalists popping in California within a year or so, hah).

NEW: In March the White House released an FY27 budget request that zeroed out the National Science Foundation's directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE). For months it was unclear what would happen. Now, with FY26 over, the damage to SBE is coming to light. My reporting:

are you in natural sciences or social science? I have the feeling this is more of a problem in humanities but couldn’t find any data to support the hunch

If you think the plight of German academics is not relevant to you — are you sure? I see a lot of fantasizing about escaping Trump's US science apocalypse around here. And Germany is a popular destination for international postdocs...

I'll be at the ECSJ/WISSENSWERTE conference in Hannover next week! Would love to connect with other science journalists while I'm there.

Become a paying subscribe to listen to the audio edition and see just how badly it scrambles my brain to say German words in English sentences.

This week's post is more complaining about the Kafkaesque nightmare of an academic system in Austria and Germany. Have you ever heard of the title Privatdozent? No? Be glad. Because it's a title, not a job, but holding onto it requires you to teach — even if you are not paid for it.

The math is horrifying: I have already formalized my own 30% pay cut when I wrote this year's budget. Fortunately, by virtue of having to move to another country with a lower cost of living, I still have a living wage. But it is true that for most newsrooms, everything teeters on the margins.

Let me say a couple words about paywalls. They’re annoying. I feel that (as a news consumer) and know that (as a news publisher). But asking for your email, either to read an article or even to access a gift link (someone said this happened to them a a Times gift link a moment ago) isn’t some …

There are two secret ingredients necessary for great science media. Here‘s a hint: they rhyme with honey and lime

Spaghettieis is a top-tier cursed Germanosphere food