And sorry, I’m not tryna throw darts at you in particular Dan. Just, I see threads like this annually from faculty; 99% are some version of “why didn’t applicants follow the unwritten rules we never told them about their CVs, letters, emails, publication hist, etc.” I think about this stat, a lot:

forget the long arc of history bending towards justice, I need the rube goldberg machine of inexorable consequence to endgame the kind of profoundly ironic yet blackly hilarious karmic downfall that would’ve had ancient greek theatergoers hollering at the chorus

I’ve been thinking lately about how all children learn how good and wise America’s constitutional structure is: three branches of government, checks and balances, etc. And then in the real world, they just roll over to whatever Trump does. The idea feels almost quaint at this point.

...Now seems like a good time to draft impeachment charges.

For the past ~5 years, my friends and I have done a book bingo. You can try for just a bingo or, like me, for a cover-all. This year, we added an additional challenge of every book being written (or translated, in my case) by a woman.

If you make your job application due on January 1st.... ....Why?

2025 Year in Review! -falcon hearing worse than ever -center losing 50 to 100% of holding capacity -blood-dimmed tide containment failure -the Worst with record high passionate intensity

I met with my former middle school's robotics team* to talk about use of robots in earth and planetary geology and pursuing higher education in STEM. They were a bright group of kids, and it was a lot of fun! *my former middle school has a robotics team???

I am hip to the memes of modern youth. (In the time it took me to post this, this is no longer the score.)

You can tell that LotR was written by an academic because Gandalf disappears for like 20 years doing research to answer a single question.

Kīlauea volcano erupting during the holidays is all the festivity I need. O come, lava fountains, effusive and triumphant, O come see the volcano eeeee-ruuuuu-uuuup-ting! 🌋

I'm not a Swiftie, but based on this preview, I'm gonna cry so much if I watch the full thing.

Shared on behalf of the USGS: YVO Yellowstone Caldera Chronicles for December 22, 2025 #volcano #earthscience #geology #science The story of the Gallatin Range—magnificent mountains northwest of Yellowstone Caldera www.usgs.gov/observatorie...

Doing my final grading of the semester. The coffeeshop is playing "Linus and Lucy." We're grooving.

A related issue is LLMs take the enjoyable work of discovery and learning an turn it into administrative work of verifying everything. The characteristics of the work change into something many of us tolerate more than enjoy. If I wanted to be a fact checker I would have become a fact checker.

This is blasphemous.

From Dr. Sebastian Voltmer @SeVoSpace www.instagram.com/sebastianvol... 3I/ATLAS with its two tails, captured during its closest approach to Earth. In the distant background, galaxies in the constellation Leo are visible.

The fifth specimen is rhodochrosite---the famed "meat rock" of #MinCup 2023.

That awkward feeling of having to tell an interested prospective student that you're visiting professor in their last year (and, implied, that you don't know if you'll have a job next fall).

"An academic discovers a paper attributed to him that does not exist has been cited 42 times" is a sentence with an actual referent in 2025.

Picking this back up after a bit, here is the fourth specimen: tangerine quartz! AKA, just quartz stained with some iron oxides.

It was bad enough dealing with student papers that cited fake papers from genAI.

"The introductory plaque also presumes that Trump’s addition will stay intact once he is no longer president: 'The Presidential Walk of Fame will long live as a testament and tribute to the Greatness of America.'" It sure as hell better not.

3/3 Good things come in threes, so here is a third flyover of our DTM from our 100,000th observation of Mars. https://uahirise.org/ESP_089986_1980

As it turns out, the institution for which I was filling out an app was where I'd eventually earn my Ph.D. (This was the Sunday morning after AGU because my flight to Newark the day before had been cancelled due to a winter storm in the northeast.

we can kill them all if we just work together and ✨believe💫

"A candle does not negotiate with darkness" is such a good fucking sentence, god damn.

Muppets Christmas Carol is the best Christmas movie bc it includes a song with the lyrics, "your future is a horror story written by your crimes" & nothing says Christmas cheer more than that. Also Michael Caine deserved all the awards for that performance. Perfection. No notes.

I genuinely don't know if this is a "Minnesotan" thing or an "old guy of a certain age" thing but in case it's Minnesotan and people need an anger translator: this guy is so angry he could just about set something on fire with his mind.

I can confirm all three of these items!

For my last Remote Sensing lecture, I cover planetary RS (largely a potpourri of topics the students volunteer). To start class, I always enjoy presenting a "class portrait" of planetary features with names that (most closely) match the students'. It's usually craters, but the students enjoy it!

For my last Remote Sensing lecture, I cover planetary RS (largely a potpourri of topics the students volunteer). To start class, I always enjoy presenting a "class portrait" of planetary features with names that (most closely) match the students'. It's usually craters, but the students enjoy it!

Boiling mud & Frozen Flows! Write up from GT on our new paper: cos.gatech.edu/news/boiling... Paper here: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

Look, Trump has done a hundred worse things than this, but ruining the Kennedy Center Honors does sting.

My opponent in fantasy football this week has Jalen Hurts in QB. My opponent is also my PhD advisor. 😂😂

"As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free," goes harder than any Civil War song has any right to go.

Me and the fellas beating the toxic masculinity out of each others souls

Afterwards, I helped an elderly lady down the stairs and got complimented on my shoes, so you could say it's been a pretty good day!

Let's go!

I zoomed in, added a bit of contrast, and went back and forth over the first few seconds to show how the ground around the vents bulges outward before the lava breaks through and blasts it apart. Remarkable stuff. Nature is neat. #Kilauea

It’s insanity to not have Geology/Earth Science (not to mention Meteorology) at a Land Grant University, located in the Great Plains, USA, where agriculture & water matter more than almost anything. Crazy times.

That’s not a fire fountain. That’s a fire sprinkler.

I *could* be done revising my exam by now, but nooooo... I just *had to decide* that I wanted to add one more question that requires me to write a script to generate a plot for them to interpret. (This also means I'm gonna have to find something to cut.)

Look at her: A kid from Nebraska who wants to know how the world around her works, but wants to stay close to her family and community while doing so. She could do it when UNL thought Nebraskans deserved to. She DID do it! The next generation, though? They can't anymore.

It's over. Despite the fact that the academic council recommended against it, despite the fact that the program brought in more tuition than it cost, and despite the fact that Nebraskans need & deserve this expertise, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences will be cut. www.dailynebraskan.com/news/adminis...

Serial Experiments Lain

Yes indeed, with just a friend, a phone, and a few Lego bricks, you can accurately measure the size of our planet. 😆 www.wired.com/story/how-to...

This motherfucker must just hide in the dark in a coat closet until it's time go perform for the cameras.

A dispatch from my cousin about my 4-year-old godson! 🥰 (He apparently discovered the FIRE OF LOVE documentary on Disney+ and is captivated. I don't blame him... The archival footage is stunning!)