MS Project “helping” me with scheduling…

The White House is proposing $18.8 billion for NASA in FY27, a 23% cut to NASA's 2026 enacted funding. Science, ISS, and education major targets of the proposed cuts. www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...

learning that astronauts have to use microsoft outlook in space is unspeakably depressing. we have set microsoft outlook free from the bounds of earth. polluting the stars with that janky piece of shit

I see these men trying to for an easy-mode sense of worth. Instead of working on themselves, they want to just shove others down and then celebrate how exalted they are.

This is why I don’t use AI. After 20+ years of technical writing , it’s faster to do it myself than to proof AI. Plus, I like to learn new things and you don’t learn if you don’t do the work.

Even if the Supreme Court rules to uphold Birthright Citizenship, and I suspect it will, Trump will still have succeeded in politicizing an issue that has largely gone unquestioned by most Americans. To that extent he will have weakened--perhaps permanently--another pillar of our democracy.

When the birthright citizenship decision comes out, people will say it could never have gone any other way, that the law was obvious. But the mere fact that SCOTUS took on the case is evidence enough that we are living in a time of democratic precarity.

"The whole world should be outraged by it." If "it" means the consequences of the unnecessary war that President Leeroy Jenkins initiated in the region, then yes, yes they should be.

Making the Strait of Hormuz safe for energy shipments would be a remarkable accomplishment, one that the world has never seen since the beginning of the month.

ICE officers getting paid for standing around doing nothing while TSA employees work without pay is a pretty succinct summation of where we're at right now

Rand Paul: Who ordered you on this 'classified mission?' Mullin: Oh, you wouldn't know them, they go to a different Intel agency.

La Brea Tar Pits.

NSF Update through March 13, 2026 1/2

I just finished Hemlock & Silver and what I want to know is whether @tkingfisher.com has read Wicked Plants, because if she hasn't, well, she needs to.

This is what weak and insecure people think confidence looks like: buffoonish bluster and swagger, like a 12-year-old bully. It doesn‘t inspire trust or security. It inspires grave concern for the lives of the people serving our nation whose fate is in the hands of these overcompensating oafs.

Also, this war brought to you by the same Pentagon that shot down a US drone with a laser and closed airspace near El Paso, again. You really want these guys starting wars and/or doing regime changes in Venezuela, Iran, and maybe Cuba in just the first quarter of 2026?

The largest spot-the-difference effort EVER has begun!🚨 On the night of Feb 24, NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory officially released its first ~800,000 public alerts of detected changes in the night sky!🔍 A new era of discovery is here✨ 🔭🧪☄️ 🔗: rubinobservatory.org/news/first-a...

CosmicAI team presenting "AI Among the Stars: How Machines Help Us Explore the Universe" at Texas Science Festival 2026! Join our email list/slack to stay posted on future events! cosmicai.org/get-involved @texasscience.bsky.social @taccutexas.bsky.social

Hey, I know that guy in the middle!

This spring, I'm spending a lot more time on I-35 than usual. Yesterday was particularly hairy: some sort of tarp blowing across windshields, a plastic shopping cart blocking a lane, and a genuine wildfire in Kyle. Spring Break can't come soon enough.

I'm all for pardons and second chances. But it's a hell of a juxtaposition to pardon millionaire NFL players convicted of drug distribution while you're summarily executing impoverished fishermen making a few hundred bucks to shuttle drugs around the Caribbean.

I think we need a new term, like a hell-no-bill.

Hey y'all. I'm hiring. Are you interested in building instruments for astrophysics? wd5.myworkdaysite.com/recruiting/u...

I feel heartened to know this was aired.

How do you not view this as a gorgeous expression of Hispanic culture in the U.S.? Smooth music, beautiful sets, and great dancing.

It felt like a love letter to the Hispanic American experience.

The prof's quotes in this article. 🤮

Phew, one of those times when something is stressing you out that you know you won't care about on your deathbed, but that seems very important right now.

"I'm coming to Boston and I'm bringing hell with me." --Homan in February "Do I expect violence to escalate? Absolutely." -- Tom Homan in March "I actually thought about getting up and throwing that man a beating right there in the middle of the room" -- Homan in July, referring to a D congressman

This was murder. Pretti did not initiate the confrontation. He didn’t strike them. He didn’t brandish his gun. They tackled him, beat him, disarmed him, and shot him.

Pretti clearly did not brandish his gun. Which means the government is saying he was killed for legally exercising his right to carry. It’s as clear-cut a violation of the Second Amendment as I can possibly imagine. And we’re about to see the bulk of the gun rights crowd defend his murder.

TFW you are refereeing a paper you know you should have said no to...

/2 This will be grotesque. Edward R. Murrow didn’t have a radio show in 1946 where Eisenhower debated Göring about whether the Nazis had some good points. Today’s media would absolutely do that. Today’s media will platform people defending and rewriting Good’s murder for years.

I'm glad this is happening to a rostered faculty member instead of an adjunct or TA.

Martin Peterson's creative response to being banned from teaching Plato (shared with his permission).

The White House having it's "we've always been at war with Eurasia" moment.

Also, cedar fever days like today make me think I should retire on medical grounds.

I'm teaching this semester and just had my first teaching bad dream. A student called my Canvas modules "mediocore" lol.

The same editorial board described Seattle’s mayor raising taxes to pay for childcare as a totalitarian power grab

Yeah, man, the only difference between your career and Mark Rufallo’s career is the political stuff.

Happy New Year! 2025 Top 10 reading list: 10. The Secret of Ventriloquism -- Jon Padgett 9. Remembering Peasants: a Personal History of a Vanished World -- Patrick Joyce 8. When we Were Real -- Daryl Gregory 7. The Good House -- Tananarive Due 6. Queen Demon -- Martha Wells

Boycotting Constitution Hall because the DAR won’t let Marian Anderson sing has costs. It may end opera. Is that worth it? By Megan McArdle, 1939

I don't argue much on social media but I did get put on blast when I said that Bernie Sanders doesn't accomplish much in Congress.

What’s the funniest reason someone got mad at you on Bluesky this year?

Still mind-blowing that a top admin official was revealed to have taken $50,000 in cash in a paper bag from people looking for government favors, the reaction of the administration was "Whatever losers, this is how it works now" and bigshot news media said "If you say so, we'll forget about it"

This is sad news. Good luck to the repair team at Lick in the upcoming months.

He lied that Haitian immigrants were trapping and eating cats...

What do you think is the greatest ever TV news clip? For me this can never be beaten...

they've always been biased against anyone who's not a white man and now white men are feeling more of the economics of scarcity as well.

I wonder if these guys don’t realize people will lie to avoid an uncomfortable conversation. The hiring committee chair lied to me the first time I was shortlisted; I learned from that and never forgot.