I am very glad to observe that Adam Falkowsky has resumed his blogging activities (for how long, that's early to say). He published the other day a blog entry titled "Where were we", in which he offers his view of the present status of things in HEP and the directions he foresees for the field.
I was about to leave a comment there, but since I am a very discontinuous blog reader (you either write or read, in this business -no time for both things together) I feared I would then miss any reply or ensuing discussion. Not that I mean to say anything controversial or flippant; on the contrary, I mostly agree with Adam's assessment of the situation. With some distinguos.

I do not keep crocodiles[*] in my drawer, so this short piece will have to do today.... Stephen Hawking, the world-renowned British cosmologist, passed away yesterday, and with him we lost not only a bright thinker and all-round scientist, but also a person who inspired two or three generations of students and researchers, thanks of his will to live and take part in active research in spite of the difficulties he had to face, which he always managed to take with irony. Confined on a wheelchair by ALS, and incapable of even speaking without electronic assistance, he always displayed uncommon sharpness and wit.

Lisa Pratt, the new planetary protection officer for NASA takes up her job at a challenging time for astrobiology. We are approaching a major decision point for Mars. If Elon Musk succeeds in his ambitious plans, then some time in the next couple of decades we may introduce trillions of hardy microbial spores to the planet. Not deliberately, but just because we can't help but take them with us wherever we go.

Lisa Pratt, the new planetary protection officer for NASA takes up her job at a challenging time for astrobiology. We are approaching a major decision point for Mars. If Elon Musk succeeds in his ambitious plans, then some time in the next couple of decades we may introduce trillions of hardy microbial spores to the planet. Not deliberately, but just because we can't help but take them with us wherever we go. This is a major quandary for astrobiology. But not just for astrobiologists. 

I think almost anyone would be saddened if we had this headline news story in the 2030s:

Large amounts of ink (well, electrons) have been spilt over the web in the past few months to discuss the #MeToo movement. It seems this blog will eventually join the crowd, although a bit belatedly, and with a slightly different viewing angle. 
After keeping silent on the matter, I am stimulated to discuss it after a BuzzFeed article exposed several cases of alleged sexual harassment and related inappropriate behavior by world-class cosmologist-cum-science-pop-guy-cum-skeptic Lawrence Krauss. Plus, yesterday was international women's day, and I never miss a chance to miss a deadline.

Well, to everyone’s surprise, it seems that Trump and Kim are going to meet. So this is no longer a hypothetical question. (This originates as my answer on Quora to: What would happen if Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump could meet and talk to resolve the tension over North Korea?)

So first, this is good news. Whatever comes of it, it's major progress that

Titan might seem an unlikely place to for humans to build settlements, and maybe eventually colonize. After all, it is so far from the sun, and extraordinarily cold, and it's a long journey to get there (at present). But actually, if you set aside the difficulty of getting there, which we should overcome as our technology improves - it's got more going for it than you might think. This is an idea originally developed in some detail by Charles Wohlforth and Amanda Hendrix, authors of Beyond Earth: Our Path to a New Home in the Planets

I’ve had several PM’s and we’ve had comments by scared people in our Doomsday Debunked Facebook group who have read alarmist stories suggesting that Putin threatens to attack the US. If you have read these stories, it is worth listening to his actual speech to get the Russian perspective on it. It could hardly be more different. He presents it as, in his view, the only way to preserve peace.

Statistical hypothesis testing is quite boring if you apply it to cases where you know the answer, or where the data speak loud and clear about one hypothesis being true or false. Life at the interface between testability and untestability is much more fun.