“NASA’s next big thing,” astronomers say. #NASARoman will be able to map large sections of space, like some ground-based observatories, with the amazing sharpness of Hubble. Credit: D. Kirshenblat/STScI.

This administration is dismantling the scientific infrastructure that we've built for almost 100 years in the US, and they are getting away with it. OMB is gumming up the works and the agencies are stymied across the board. Congress is sitting in their hands. Fight fascism, fight for science.

I've migrated my blog! You can find it at strakul.com/blog I've been using Blogger for 14 years, it was time for a change 😉 Go check it out for random thoughts about books, data science, and more. My professional site now also uses the custom domain strakul.com instead of the Github Pages link.

I've migrated my blog! You can find it at strakul.com/blog I've been using Blogger for 14 years, it was time for a change 😉 Go check it out for random thoughts about books, data science, and more. My professional site now also uses the custom domain strakul.com instead of the Github Pages link.

New Blog Post: A book review for Children of Strife by Adrian Tchaikovsky. A worthy addition to the series with sharp social commentary and a standout character in Cato the evolved mantis shrimp🦐⚔️ #Books 💙📚 #booksky strakul.blogspot.com/2026/05/book...

Just a reminder for my fellow sci-fi fans: @aptshadow.bsky.social Children of Time series exists and is OUTSTANDING. The profundity of ideas and hard science in these books is complemented by Adrian’s vibrant prose and skilled story-telling. My all-time favourite series.

Cool looking bird at my feeder today. Never seen this one before- a rose-breasted grosbeak. #birding #Maryland

The attack on education in the US is not new, but the slow fuse that arguably started with Reagan is now setting off detonations across K-12 and higher education that are going to be incredibly difficult to walk back if we don’t treat this like the urgent crisis it is.

OPPORTUNITY: The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, MD, is searching for a Junior Data Engineer to help build, maintain, and support performant and scalable databases for analytics, reporting, and scientific applications using PostgreSQL: https://bit.ly/3P2VOC9

In honor of Hubble’s 36th anniversary 🎉, the telescope looked again at a scene it first captured in 1997: A small portion of a star-forming region about 5,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius, known as the Trifid Nebula. (1/7)🧵 🔭

When Einstein developed general relativity the closest thing to a practical application that could even be imagined at the time was a slightly more precise description of where to look for the planet Mercury in the sky, and yet now we’d all be literally lost without it. Anyway: fund basic research.

New blog post: An LLM Wiki for DnD Session Notes This was my attempt to test the Karpathy LLM Wiki setup that's been circulating in social media. I also compare it against my RAG-based approach from last year and test a few models. #ai #dnd #DataScience strakul.blogspot.com/2026/04/data...

STScI's Jenn Kotler painted this stunning piece live at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center during a visit to view #NASARoman. The artwork—which took Kotler five and a half hours to complete—highlights the powerful human stories behind groundbreaking science.

If you’ve been moved & inspired by Artemis, NASA needs your help. Literally during A2, the president proposed cutting NASA science 47%, canceling 54 missions, including many already in-flight. To help stop these cuts, check out @planetarysociety.bsky.social www.planetary.org/save-nasa-sc...

New Blog Post: A book review for Queen Demon by Martha Wells. A decent book, 2nd in a series, but nowhere near as fun as her Murderbot Diaries series. #Books 💙📚 #booksky strakul.blogspot.com/2026/04/book...

Lots of great images from NASA of last night's lunar fly-by. This is probably my favorite thus far. #ArtemisII images.nasa.gov/details/art0...

"Orion, the Moon, and the Earth. EVERYONE, in that picture" - #Artemis II Mission Control.

✅#Artemis II update: 6 April, lunar flyby day! See nasa.gov/ways-to-watch/ @exploration.esa.int

Amaze amaze amaze 🚀

FWIW absolutely no one I know who has expertise in spaceflight or planetary exploration thinks this is either remotely plausible or a good idea to attempt on such a timeline. The dominant reaction is somewhere on the spectrum between mockery and dismay. Real, important science was cancelled for this

Excited for today's 1.0 release of Timberborn (with automation!). Also excited for today's early access release of Solasta 2. But which one to try first?! Beaver colony builder or an RPG DnD story? #videogames

Yesterday it was nearly 80F, today it is in the 30s and snowing. Just #Maryland things....

Conference "un-banquet" was at R. House, which allowed me to try the pop up Lote 787- a Puerto Rican themed eatery. Got a interesting fusion burger with mallorca bread, sweet plantains, and fried yuca. Tasty! #Baltimore

There's an Amazon Kindle sale on Queen Demon (the sequel to Witch King, 2nd book in the Rising World series) today for 2.99, US and Canada www.amazon.com/Queen-Demon-... #booksky

New Blog Post: A book review for Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. A pretty neat take on first contact with extraterrestrial life while still being grounded on the real world. And just in time for the movie, too! #Books 💙📚 #booksky strakul.blogspot.com/2026/03/book...

Good morning from after the winter storm. At least it looks pretty and isnt as cold as the last storm. ❄️🌲

Yay... more snow... just what I always wanted... /s 🙃❄️

New Blog Post: A book review for The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson. This is the 2nd book in the original Mistborn series. A slightly slower-paced entry that sets the stage for the final book in the trilogy. #Books 💙📚 #booksky strakul.blogspot.com/2026/02/book...

OPPORTUNITY: The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, MD, is searching for a Senior Cloud Database Developer to help manage the backend data pipelines, database system and ensure reliable data access for our advanced astronomical public data archive: https://bit.ly/46Oj6kR

thank you bad bunny for highlighting the importance of critical power distribution infrastructure bsky.app/profile/cost...

Benito is a threat b/c he makes art so alluring and enjoyable you want to understand everything about it and then you end up learning about sugar and slavery and colonialism and the Taínos and Hawaii and then you probably have some thoughts of your own, and that's why art is powerful and dangerous

New Blog Post: A book review for Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey. This is the 4th book of The Expanse and the universe has opened up bring new opportunities and new threats. An enjoyable, if sometimes tense, read. #Books 💙📚 #booksky strakul.blogspot.com/2026/01/book...

Full week of admin/liberal leave at work due to weather (aka work from home). And it makes sense- I tried to move my car and nope, too snowy and icy for me. Good thing I had stocked up enough so I don't really need to go anywhere.

Have you seen this video of the Comet 3I/ATLAS of observations from TESS? science.nasa.gov/blogs/3iatla... Data available at MAST.

OPPORTUNITY: The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, MD, is searching for a Senior Astronomical Data Scientist, to help advance our data analysis tools for our NASA flagship missions primarily in areas of data visualization: https://bit.ly/3YQDM7y

Got a chance to visit the Goddard Space Flight Center and see the Roman Space Telescope today in the clean room. Very exciting to see the real thing before it launches up to space!

MUST READ thread before Monday night's forecasted G4 / SEVERE geomagnetic storm. Auroras could be seen as far south as the U.S.-Mexico border at times. Widespread mid-latitude displays are possible. Here's what you need to know to have a successful aurora chase tonight! 🧵 #heliophysics #aurora

First time I see an opossum here in these parts. It's usually birds, squirrels, deer, and the occasional rabbit or fox.

Really proud to advertise our accepted peer-reviewed paper analyzing the impact of MAST through analysis of 37,000 papers published in 40 journals over the last 50 years. It's a capstone to decades of work by dozens of MAST staff. Check out the preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2512.18101 (1/3) 🔭

🚀 The Roman Research Nexus is now LIVE! 🚀 A new cloud-based platform built to help the community prepare for—and fully exploit—data taken with the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. A thread 🧵 1/5 #AAS247 #RomanResearchNexus #Nexus #NexusLaunch 🔭☄️

New Blog Post: A book review for Abaddon's Gate by James S.A. Corey (the 3rd book in The Expanse series). strakul.blogspot.com/2026/01/book... I think I enjoyed the TV series version of this one a bit more, mainly due to the more focused cast of characters. #Books #booksky 💙📚

🚀Kicking off #AAS247 in style! @SpaceTelescope hosted a workshop on the #NASARoman #Nexus—a powerful cloud-based platform for exploring its petabyte-scale data. Attendees dove into new workflows, cutting-edge data analysis, and real-time collaboration. How will you use Nexus?

It’s not about drugs. If it was, Trump wouldn’t have pardoned one of the largest narco traffickers in the world last month. It’s about oil and regime change. And they need a trial now to pretend that it isn’t. Especially to distract from his sinking under Epstein and skyrocketing healthcare costs.

Mass Cancellations Hit Caribbean Routes After U.S. Strike On Venezuela

Well 2026 got to being 2026 in a big damn hurry didn't it

Sounds like all #PR airports are closed for the rest of the day due to the attack on #Venezuela. My flight is officially cancelled and I can't reach my airline due to call volume. I suspect it will take a while to rebook.

Stuck in airport trying to rebook my flight since nothing is leaving today 😡

Recently discovered The StoryGraph, a book-tracking app independent of Goodreads/Amazon that allows for a lot more detail when reviewing books. I imported my Goodreads reviews and have been cleaning them up all day 😜 #Books 💙� app.thestorygraph.com/stats/straku...

Saw lots of cool tropical birds today at an aviary. #PR #LaMarquesa

Powerful Christmas Day winds gusting up to 114 mph severely damaged UC Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton, forcing the nearly 140-year-old facility to close while officials headquartered at UC Santa Cruz assess structural damage and begin repairs expected to take months.