As this article points out, 2,050 is probably just the beginning of the cuts. On a personal note, I worked at the USGS Great Lakes Science Center for a couple of semesters during my MS. I learned so much there and the people were amazing to work with. I’m gutted by the proposed cuts there.

Infrognito mode.

I didn’t take any pictures of the protest today, but here’s a recreation using things people gave me.

It's day 15 of the shutdown and our first missed paycheck. For feds 👇 🍽️Too good to go app (surplus food from local eateries/stores at a ⬇️ prices) 🗺️https://myfedbenefitshelp.com/shutdown-assistance-map/ 💵https://www.sanders.senate.gov/resources-for-federal-workers/ 🧑‍🏫https://wearewellfed.com/

I'm writing a grant application to fund features and improvements to Literature Mapper, a plugin for QGIS that makes maps of Zotero citations. Has anyone out there used it in it's current state? Or would you use it if only... ? micheletobias.github.io/maps/Literat... #gischat

Ok everyone, I’m assigning you your resistance homework for the week. Everyone ready? Do something silly that makes you smile. I just waved at a dog that had its head out the car window because it made me happy. Don’t let the assholes take your joy.

One more sick day for me. If you get this cold, please try harder not to share it than the person who shared it with me did. It’s miserable. Miscus with her cheese toy to brighten up your feed.

I’m hanging out on the couch with this guy today because RTO with no telework is only really good policy for viruses.

Yesterday was awesome. Morning: took a tap workshop class at my dance studio. Evening: saw &Juliet on tour. I highly recommend both for a break from doing science in ::waives hands around:: all this.

I’m grateful for being exempt & knowing I’ll get paid on time, but it is really hard to just keep working through a shutdown. It’s like we’re being gaslit into thinking everything is normal and not total chaos around us. Penzey being stressed out with pumpkins for my fellow feds.

This is an epic violation. Pretty much every fed knows this because we get notified about the Hatch Act all the time. Even people who count fish and are nowhere near the political side of government get this stuff drilled into us regularly.

My office is funded by interagency agreements so we usually keep working through shutdowns. We’ll find out tomorrow morning if that’s the case again this time. Here’s a cute picture of Penzey the dog for my fellow Feds on this shutdown eve.

I’m loving that I get to mentor a bunch of early career scientists who are making posters for a local conference. I’m having the best conversations with them and it’s fun to see people getting excited about finding patterns in our long-term fish monitoring data. 🧪👩‍🔬🌎 🐟

Minor revisions! This paper is about extracting DNA from fish that are preserved in formalin. DNA is totally not my expertise, but I learned a lot helping out with stats and graphs. It’s so fun to be part of these collaborative science projects where I get to learn new stuff.

Celebration photo in the party aisle for getting my covid and flu shots today!

If you don’t like an account on here, you could just block it and move on.

Weekends. The 40-hour work week. Sick days. That didn't just happen. Organized labor did that. And today, we celebrate how far we've come. And how far we've yet to go to build an economy – and a country – that works for working people.

I’m not sad about the FEVS. As a supervisor at a fed agency, I worry that unfavorable survey results would get blamed on us. These surveys aren’t fully anonymous so they’re risky for employees. We won’t learn anything we didn’t already know & there are more impactful ways to tell our stories.

Happy caturday! Atcha’s technique for getting inaccessible things is consistent, yet entirely ineffective. (She does this to her water bowl, too.) The praying mantis on the screen seemed pretty entertained.

I haven’t been posting much on here lately, but some good news… A paper that I’m a coauthor on got submitted to a journal. Send it constructive review vibes!

Really just had something like this feeling this afternoon. It’s the high that keeps you coming back for more

It’s tomato canning season! This weekend I picked about 25 pounds of roma tomatoes from four plants in my yard. Now they’re pizza sauce and salsa. There are still tons more tomatoes left, but I hit my limit for how much cooking and canning I can do in one weekend.

Today work was stressful. Here’s a picture of Atcha lounging on a giant beanbag chair.

I never get tired of the view flying in to LA. Just here for an hour to change planes on the way to somewhere else, though.

Today I was reminded of the simple but powerful magic of having someone hang out while you run some code. 💻👾📈

Shoutout to the IT person who told me that they could only replicate the mildly annoying thing windows does on my computer when they had too many things open. Now every time that annoying thing happens I wonder what it would be like to not have at least a dozen things open at once.

Sunday scaries time is here again. Hoping this Care Bear stare can scare away the weekday gremlins.

Long boy who is also a short boy got high-centered on a piled of blankets.

Long boy who is also a short boy got high-centered on a piled of blankets.

Tiny good news: I just wrote a regex from memory and it worked.

There have been claims that NOAA/NWS did not foresee catastrophic TX floods--but that's simply not true. This was undoubtedly an extreme event, but messaging rapidly escalated beginning ~12 hrs prior. Flood Watch mid PM, "heads up" outlook late PM, flash flood warnings ~1am.

My latest for American Scientist Magazine helps give scientists the tools to fight back against politicized charges that our research is silly or pointless- tools that will work whether you’re asked “why are we funding this” from your asshole uncle at Thanksgiving or an asshole US Senator. 🧪🌎

A new feral mint plant in my yard. I think it’s a Mexican mint because it has wide leaves and smells like oregano and instead of normal mint. (And a very scientific apple image search and wikipedia.)

My dog is ridiculous when we stay in a hotel with him.

Robert Malone once again brought up potential religious objections to certain vaccines. This is, frankly, bullshit. No major religion opposes vaccines, and in fact they have all been public about strong support for them.

Ugh. Why do journals sit on accepted papers for weeks and then email you page proofs the day you go on leave and then pester you every day about sending them back? There's nothing I can do about it until I get back because I'm not allowed to travel with my work computer any more.

I can’t tell if the thing I just figured out is brilliant, obvious, or a really terrible idea. Whatever it ends up being, I think it’s a path forward for a project I’ve been struggling with. And I have a meeting with my collaborators tomorrow so I can ask them what they think.

Some reality now that I’m home from work… It is exciting to get an acceptance email, but it’s also a little scary. I’m a federal employee who works in California water, writing about endangered fish. It’s going to take some courage to share this paper when it’s published.

Paper accepted!!! Emoji abstract: 🐟📉🗺️⏱️

Another beautiful day for a crowd-sourced art show in Sacramento. Here are my contributions. No kings. Kick out the clowns.

Gnight, all. We ride at dawn. Let’s make tomorrow one for the history books.

I spent most of today doing science!!! 1) read a paper about causal inference 2) studied draft code that a collaborator wrote for a life cycle model 3) drew a diagram of the model It was fantastic! Sciencey days don’t happen enough lately.

Someone from outside my agency asked how things were going. My response, like it’s totally normal: “It’s eerily quiet right now. We’ve got the injunction and now we’re waiting to see what the supreme court does. We’re getting stuff done, but also kind of waiting for the other shoe, you know?”

Hello new followers! What list did I end up on? I’m not seeing anything new showing up on clearsky. Or did you all just love that picture of my dog under a blanket and you’re hoping for more ridiculous dog pictures in your feed?

This guy knows how to do a lazy Saturday morning. Yes, he got under the blanket like that all by himself. He takes being cozy very seriously.

Paper revision submitted! 🎉

I got one of those dumb prepaid cards from a class action settlement. They’re so hard to use because they’re always for random small amounts of money. Tonight I had a brainstorm and donated the balance to an organization that does good things for the world.

We've been talking about the 1A rights federal employees have at work. Today we're covering Hatch Act rules that apply to career feds. Here's what you should know: 📌 You may not solicit or receive political contributions, or run for partisan political office.

one thing I believe is it’s important to celebrate good things 10x as hard and to look for them 10x as often because our animal brains are hard-wired to pay 10x as much attention to bad things; it keeps us alive, but it doesn’t keep us happy happiness has to be fought for, survival will tend itself