As promised, Dwayne Day, who writes excellently about space history and also comments, from time to time, on #ScienceFiction, has delivered a rundown on BUCK ROGERS IN THE TWENTY-FIFTH CENTURY, TV's Disco Era incarnation of the hero. Buck's name was once a synecdoche for science fiction. 🚀🪐👨‍🚀👩‍🚀🤖

I honestly did not expect it to be Trump himself

A little bird's tipped me off: Ada Palmer's fantastic book INVENTING THE RENAISSANCE is on sale for $3.99 in its Kindle incarnation. I already have a hardback, thanks, but e-book lovers on tight budgets, curious about the Big R, may wish to acquire @adapalmer.bsky.social's much-talked-about tome.

This is much needed. The Hubble Space Telescope will turn 36 this year, and the James Webb Space Telescope does not see in the visible area of the spectrum except the very reddest part. There is no space telescope of this capability in the works from any agency in this time frame.

At the movies over the holidays, we saw a trailer for PROJECT HAIL MARY. Which spoiled some of the surprises in Andy Weir's novel, but I guess that's showbiz for you. How many astronauts has Ryan Gosling played at this point?

The George Stevens Academy students observing the World's Oldest Known Hostess Twinkie are colleagues, in spirit, with the extremely patient Pitch Drop Experimenters at the University of Queensland (going 95 years now) and other pitch-dropping institutions. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_d...

The Hayabusa 2 spacecraft bus will encounter #asteroid Torifune on 5 July 2026. "The time of the flyby has not yet been determined," but I figure 19 chances out of 24 that it will still be 4 July in *some* part of the US at the moment of closest approach. During our 250th birthday. 🔭 #PlanetarySci

"costly war" you know, the US killing random people would be bad if it were free of charge, or if we made bank on each kill. maybe fiscal considerations shouldn't be the ones at play here.

If we have someone decent in charge in 6 years, let's start celebrating binary or octal or hexadecimal milestones and pretend the 250th never happened.

On the night before the Feast of the Epiphany, I'm sitting here hoping some wise men will show up. Some wise women would be equally welcome.

There are two types of polar bear sleighs: The Frank Frazetta sleigh has no harness, but the Howard Chaykin sleigh does.

Frazetta’s swordsman propels his sleigh by Sheer Indomitable WILL*. He just happens to be following four polar bears. *The same reason he faces Arctic winds without a sweater. Athough if his mom could see this, she would instantly order him to put one on.

Alternative theories: WATSONIAN: The swordsman‘s sleigh is being pushed, not drawn, by four *other* polar bears behind him, also not drawn. DOYLIST: Frazetta *intended* to paint harnesses on the bears, but a deadline forced him to turn the painting in to a publisher without a trace.

Has anyone broken down all of Fitzgerald’s short stories by identity of probable muse? I’d like to see an infographic.

Hello! I'm an award-winning science fiction writer and these are my four published novels. I have also published over 60 short stories! You can find out more about me and my writing at daviddlevine.com.

OK, we’re starting this new adventure that I found in the JAXA bookstore. HAYABUSA DELIVERS A TIME CAPSULE 7 years, 60 billion km flight It’s written for children and thus… our reading may re-enact this mission in real time… and omit the swearing I suspect took place during this crazy journey.

Want to work in comics? We hear you. So we made a list of all the openings. Please share! #ComicJobs List: www.thepopverse.com/comics-jobs-...

And the one that makes this an ethically fraught warning for me to be issuing but that I know for sure works: my website, dreamwidth.org, has an on-site import tool to grab everything but your Scrapbook photos (which can't be accessed with the download API, sigh): www.dreamwidth.org/tools/importer

Thread. TL;DR: Now may be the time to back up your #LiveJournal. 🧵

Please share this with anyone you know who still uses LiveJournal. It could collapse next week; it could last another two years. I think "next week" is probably too fast and "two years" is probably pushing it, a lot; that's my only prediction.

Finally, thank you to everyone for all your messages, support and interest over the last year. You are the only reason I have spent the last 1️⃣7️⃣ years cataloguing and critiquing helicopter explosions in films. Let's hope that 2️⃣0️⃣2️⃣6️⃣ is a great year for films where helicopters explode!

In 2️⃣0️⃣2️⃣5️⃣ we found a further 5️⃣8️⃣films with an exploding helicopter taking the total number of known films with a chopper fireball to 9️⃣4️⃣1️⃣.

I've seen crank theories of cosmology in my time, but this is a new one on me.

Kudos to our project scientist who helps advocate for these every ~year when I think the view might work and we've got a little bit of energy and time spare in a plan. Doing the science on the day to day is important. Taking a moment now and again to do something just for art is important as well.

I do not care for ketchup, anyway. But I am descended from a long line of ”Brown Sauce” Enjoyers, so I will ask for A1 Sauce.

In 1823 the American ambassador played George Canning at a dinner party; Canning narrowly won, getting "the wand of the Lord High-Steward" on his twentieth go. His predecessor, Lord North, failed to get "the earthen lamp of Epictetus" when playing Harriet More in 1786.

December 1825: the Liverpool Mercury wants you to know about the exciting new Christmas parlour game

My latest cartoon for @theguardian.com books.

Someone needs to make an app that takes the start point and destination of a long drive, and it shows you the weather along the way.

The days between December 25 and January 1 are the Lanthanides and Actinides of the Gregorian calendar

And Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, looked in the future and what did he see? He saw an iron road running from the sea to the sea, bringing the goods to a young growing land, all up from the seaboards and into their hands.

Dean Ellis (1920-2009) was born on this day. Bibliography: www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.c... L, 1970; R, 1972 #scifi #sciencefiction #books

Random reminder that I've written a couple of nonfiction popular science books that I think are fun! You can find them at your favorite bookstore. Or Amazon.

Remembering Christmas Day not all that long ago in 2021, when we were all awaiting an extra special astronomical present: the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) from the Kourou Space Center in French Guiana on an Ariane 5 rocket. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViXo...

Earlier this year, Rubin began taking pictures of the sky with the largest camera ever built and has already revolutionized many areas of astronomy. We are all quite excited about it :) ...but Phlox is not impressed. She liked the gingerbread JWST better.

This year's gingerbread is the Vera Rubin Observatory! @vrubinobs.bsky.social

Just thought I would show off my copy of "Norton's Star Atlas," which I bought from the "Edmund's Scientific" store in the early 70s. Many astronomers from my generation that played with telescopes growing have a copy that's about in the same shapre.

If you are feeling blue about the holidays, @70sscifiart.bsky.social will cheer you up with this four-armed Santa (and more): 70s-sci-fi-art.ghost.io/ed-emshwille...

Has anyone ever successfully gotten back inside a decades-old hotmail account? TIPS?

What should have been a foreseeable consequence of buying a hybrid car: On my gas station loyalty card, the rate of accumulating points has slowed way down. It may take nearly two years of faithful fill-ups at Speedway to reach enough points to redeem for a $10 gift card. Instead of one.

David Agranoff's eloquent words, contemplating James Cameron's AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH, are worth retweeting. #ScienceFiction

"IT for Intelligent Grandmothers" was sold to raise money for Planned Living Assistance Network of Central Texas, a group Cécile was involved with. The cover is absolutely perfect. (21/21)

Just completed final watch through of the finished ROGUE TROOPER film… 25 years of pestering @2000ad.bsky.social to let me give it a shot, 3 years of production to make the thing & now… it’s DONE! Can’t wait for you to see it. So, so proud of our team. We’ve made something a bit special. ❤️

Q. What's Bluey's favorite kind of jewelry? A. Neckless!

#CaptainAmerica Comics #1, featuring the 1st appearance of the USA's favorite super soldier, was released #OnThisDay in 1940. The famous cover showed Steve Rogers punching Hitler in the face, reminding readers then & now that Nazism & bigotry are un-American. comicsarcheology.com/index.php/20...

One day I shall be vindicated.

I am, oddly* enough, one of a handful of USA anthropologists (like, 2) that work with and research about using FOIA & freedom of info records. I will be talking on this in March at Soc for Applied Anth conference (see also my dissertation when it comes & articles at some points). #PhDLife

I see that many people today are encountering the often arbitrary, bizarre, excessive, and opaque redaction practices of our information-management-complex (now with lawless fascists in control so now with even more arbitrary & illegal shit).

Best gift bag design seen (so far) while out shopping in 2025: