I think one of the biggest mistakes we’ve made in academia over the last few years was treating tenure and academic freedom as a guaranteed right and not a labor relation. Had more understood it as the latter perhaps we would have been better prepared to protect it

The thing regular people don’t often grasp about ‘academic freedom’ is that if you don’t allow experts to research & teach in their fields of expertise, guided by their professional judgment & decades of training, you have effectively given up on the concept of knowledge & shut down your university

lol "it's hard to find Black experts" The Black experts in question: bsky.app/profile/beli...

I finally cleaned up my messy cablework

GOOD NEWS! For the first time ever, Huntington's disease has been successfully treated. A groundbreaking new miRNA treatment, AMT-130, slowed the progression of the disease by 75%. These results are likely to support the first approval of a genetic treatment for the rare neurodegenerative condition.

This story is worth a read, but it's so frustrating to see, since I know virtually everyone quoted in it (and the author) and ... there were *lots* of people warning of these coming dangers. Andreessen became a baby about his feelings long before taking offense to the slight from the Biden admin.

“It is, of course, a very bad idea to structure foreign policy around the Rapture.” — THEY KNEW (2022)

Just a reminder before the “big announcement” today. Autism was discovered in 1911 and the modern definition of Autism came in 1943. Tylenol wasn’t widely used until the 1950s. Anyone trying to tell you that Tylenol causes Autism isn’t someone that should be taken seriously.

Actuellement deux comètes présentes dans notre système solaire semblent se tirer la bourre. Leur nom de code : C/2025 K1 ATLAS (à gauche) et C/2025 R2 SWAN (à droite). En réalité leurs trajectoires respectives sont très différentes. Reunion Island - 20 septembre 2025.

I cannot emphasize this enough: The regime has overextended itself. It is vulnerable to protest and dissent. They have not consolidated power and we are entirely capable of keeping them from doing so. Doomers are not realists.

Two views of tonight's #ISS medium altitude pass over The Hague. This pass geometry allows for less detail than a high overhead pass but provides more varying perspectives. Each 30 x 0.3 ms RGB in Celestron 8" at f/10.

Spotty #Sun yesterday evening 🌞

Todays partial solar eclipse. Luckily the clouds stayed away until after maximum eclipse. From South Canterbury, New Zealand Lunt LS80tha and Grasshopper 3 camera #eclipse

You guys, so many Romance girlies are reading "On Tyranny" that they've broken the Goodreads recommendations algorithm. 10/10; no notes. #romancelandia

The far-right majority in the Dutch parliament (BBB-FvD-JA21-PVV-SGP-VVD) has just designated “Antifa” a terrorist organization. This is a dark day for Dutch democracy and the final nail in the coffin of the VVD as a serious liberal democratic party.

NGC 7023 - The Iris Nebula The bright star at the center of this nebula illuminates the dark, shadowy dust surrounding it. This dust is difficult to photograph, and only becomes apparent in dark skies. #astrophotography #photography #astronomy

View of tonight's #Saturn. 1000 x 25 ms RGB in Celestron 8" + ADC + 2.5x powermate.

Short time lapse of #ISS as it started to enter Earth's shadow at low altitude this evening over The Hague. Covers 15 seconds real time. There is gradual darkening and also a slight perspective shift can be seen. #astrophotography

The third best way to do research is to look things up online. The second best way to do research is to reach out to an expert in the field. But the best and fastest way to do research is to confidently post an incorrect take on the topic, go get a drink, come back and refresh your mentions.

Education is the enemy of fascism.

Good of the telegraph to remind us that as well as racist coked up men with prior convictions for dv, the racist march led by a racist that descended into racist violence also included some racists who shop at oliver bonas & think running the church fete tombola makes them nice people

This may explain why there’s an aggressive response to people who merely post Kirk’s own words. It threatens the existence of the alternate Kirk - the motivational speaker that had been marketed to young kids and white Christian groups through selective quotation & clips.

Spider web threads are so thin (0.01 millimeter at the most and often much, much thinner) that they act like diffraction gratings: splitting up sunlight into its different colours. Best visible in out-of-focus images. Diffraction gratings are a common tool in physics and astronomy.

Gamergate never got the attention it deserved It’s a significant story and folks unfamiliar should Google Karen’s work on it

NATO has officially invoked Article 4 at Poland’s request following the Russian drone incursion. This is significant.

Anyway here it is

For the last two years, I've been paying for the Astronomy feeds hosting myself. It has been a privilege to grow our community here, but I also shouldn't keep doing it for free 😅 That's why I'm delighted to announce that we now have a donations page on Open Collective! 🔭☄️ #astrophotography

Reminder: the only defining feature of populism is that it presents a conflict between the people and some elite which is exploiting them. Early socialist movements such as the Narodniks were entirely populist: here we the people are versus the rich capitalist elites.

1/x 🧵 🔌💡 #Greensky. Hey climate peeps! Here’s a local victory to celebrate, and some lessons from it. Last night, the Town of Poughkeepsie, NY, voted to overturn its 18-month moratorium (6 months, renewed twice) on grid-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS).

The most unlikely educational video on stellar evolution

usually you have to work harder for evidence admissible in the hague

Imposter syndrome has become impossible to experience, every time I look at our leaders these days the real problem is not succumbing to superiority complex

Oh HELL yes

Related to my point: what the lower courts do matters, because it raises the cost of engaging in authoritarian behavior. There's no such thing as an unconstrained actor, ever, and that obviously includes Trump and SCOTUS. bsky.app/profile/stev...

Cannot recommend enough the @bretdevereaux.bsky.social series on what Sparta was actually like, deep and accessible dive into a monstrous society that built an outsized reputation on a fragile system of pure cruelty and ho-hum but ultimately fleeting military success acoup.blog/2019/08/16/c...

If you're a reporter and you wants to talk about WHY 319,000 Black women left the labor force in five months, do not hesitate to reach out to. (Spoiler: The why is #TheDoubleTax) Send an email [email protected] and cc Taylor Thee Publicist at [email protected]! #econsky #blacksky

We have a decades of scholarship on how pro-democracy forces win in competitive authoritarian systems: they form a united opposition that brings together people with otherwise profound political disagreements.

Speaking as someone who used to spend time in their chats, SO much of US contemporary fascism is a function of men assuming that the way adulthood worked was, you got a job and in exchange you got a woman to be your mom plus your sex toy. They are ENRAGED that they have a job but no sex mommy.

Lecturing people about how for the sake democracy they need to stop debating candidates is not actually encouraging people to engage in democracy, just doing a politics of fear, which is a deeply authoritarian impulse

“maybe it will happen today” - early 21st century american proverb

Old Soviet joke for today: A man walks into a newsstand every day, looks around, and leaves. After a long time of this, the owner says “Can I help you find something?” “I’m looking for the obituaries.” “The obituaries are in the back of the newspaper, comrade.” “Not the one I’m looking for.”

here's the thing, don't feel bad about enjoying this moment because if he is still alive, he is now watching literally the entirety of the english speaking globe celebrating and laughing at the thought of him dying, and THAT is worth it alone

This one is only for Blueskyers of a certain age.

My phone was getting full so I finally deleted the Twitter app

The answer to "how is this allowed?" is always "who is going to stop it?"

The plaintiffs are asserting products liability, negligence, wrongful death, and finally they’re asserting a violation of California Unfair Competition Law The UCL theory is GPT 4o violated Cal. criminal code by deliberately aiding & encouraging suicide, was practicing unlicensed psychotherapy,

WOOHOO! My very first APOD ( Nasa’s Astronomy Photo of the Day) I am so pleased and honoured that the APOD team selected my crazy plasma time lapse. It was a pretty unusual sight. They rarely float in the air ( err, I mean space….) like that. #astronomy

For the record: this is how you respond to a federal occupation. Both Newsom and Bass should take note. Now let’s just hope he backs it up with action.

I had a professor of Jewish Studies at UChicago who made the administration very angry because every year he made a proposal for the university to create an on-campus memorial to the worldwide victims of the UChicago economics department.