Given my title, I believe this is my first official rant. NASA ran a press conference on STEREO today. As the First 3D Reconstruction of a CME, it... okay, let me pause here. There have been 3D reconstructions of CMEs since the SOHO era. And there are at least 7 papers in the literature using some variant of the words 'First STEREO reconstruction of a CME'.

I should have titled my recent paper "Second STEREO reconstruction of a CME" to distinguish it. Putting "First" in an academic title is too similar to the memetic 'Frist Post' on a web forum. Anyone can be first if they define it tightly enough. My paper could have been called the First Hybrid Modeling Reconstruction of a STEREO-observed CME. Whee.

Science doesn't have to be a first post to be relevant. I get that 'first' adds excitement, but it also can oversell the issue. I like the phrase "for the first time" as an intro, it is endearing. For the first time, we are able to see CMEs from multiple angles, and get true 3D placement. Heck, for the first time we can see Earth-incident CMEs at all. Yes, we rock.

But it's also important to look at pioneering work that is the bedrock upon which we build. Being better is better than being first.

I recently had a proposal rejected (wah). It was a competitive round-- only 1 in 10 proposals got accepted. A referee stated a weakness of my proposal was it makes use of several techniques well-understood in other fields and applies them (for the first time) solar work, it is "simply reusing known methods for a new purpose."

I'll repeat. "Simply reusing known methods for a new purpose" was seen as a weakness. While I can understand that stance, I violently disagree with it. The power of computer science is applying excellent methods to as many domains as possible. I would as soon lose points for using well understood, known mathematics instead of inventing a new nomenclature. In short, I'm a bit upset that being inventive, useful and novel isn't enough-- you have to be 'first'.

Anyway, in an interesting bit of coincidence, shortly before four big NASA names spoke at the HQ Press Conference, I presented a demo of my 3D Reconstruction toolkit to STEREO/SECCHI team members. It'll be released openly via the free SolarSoftware archive shortly.

I'm proud to say, it's the first public release of software for setting up and solving STEREO reconstruction problems. The question is, is it valuable because it's good, because it's being made publically available, or simply because... it's first?

Alex, the daytime astronomer