#booksky #bluesky #blacksky

Sounds like a win-win.

Here's a fun one: can you see Earth and the Moon together with your naked eye... from Mars? I do the math! www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-... 🔭🧪

As a travel writer who keeps moving to run away from the event that gave him PTSD - seeing his naturalist mom beheaded by gorilla poachers - Geoff doesn't know what he wants. In Apex Predator (Blackstone, 2027) he finds the person and the cause for which he'll finally stand and fight.

Dear Internet: Crediting the owner of an image you've stolen is still theft. It might not make you a dime and so might not be actionable, but let's not kid ourselves. But stealing the photo and posting "credit to the respective owners?" Really? You can at least take 10 seconds to find the name.

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

Posts claim Social Security checks have officially been renamed "Federal Benefit Payments." That's false. ❌ www.snopes.com/fact-check/s...

Daughter of Robin Williams, Zelda Williams 💔

In times like these we need things we simply love to do.

Netflix, 'The Ed Gein story', has quite a few peculiar claims in it, but I was waiting for this one... The term Serial Killer/murderer has been in use since the 1930s and first example of it I could find dates back to 1927.More information here; fakehistoryhunter.net/2019/09/15/s...

Did U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George declare Trump a direct threat to national security and call for his immediate removal from office? No, the videos circulating online are fake. ❌ www.snopes.com/fact-check/g...

A wonderful essay.

There's not much in the way of human activity that does more damage for a lower return.

The age of doing science in and from orbit began 68 years ago, when Sputnik 1 sent down basic telemetry in its famous beeps. Erika and I talked to the last veterans of the competing satellite programs for this book. www.tamupress.com/book/9781585... . 🧪

The Space Age is 68 years old. My colleague Erika and I wrote the first book that told about both sides of the race to launch the first satellites. The Foreword was the last thing James Van Allen ever wrote for publication. www.amazon.com/First-Space-...

A lesson from the wild.

It looks like God assembled it from spare parts.

If this as his good as his previous work, it will be epic. Definitely in my want list.

On Monday, RFK posted a rambling video on the HHS X account showing a series of graphs and directly stating that vaccines have had minimal impact on human health and saving lives. Today, in response, we brought our own graphs. We will not let his dangerous nonsense go unanswered.

Well worth reading!

Gary Larson told the story of someone from Jane Goodall’s foundation threatened to sue him over this and implied that Jane was insulted. Turns out, she actually found it hilarious and she and Gary worked on a fundraiser for her foundation.

Jane Goodall, from a March 2020 Paste Magazine interview: www.pastemagazine.com/article/jane...

God rest her. She was a hero of the planet.

I may have found my defining quote. Pair this with my pinned post and you will see what I mean!

Should we recover historic satellites from space? Join us to discuss it! thespaceshow.com/show/30-sep-...

Was someone out sick when all us officers were taught the military necessity of Rules of Engagement about when to shoot? Victory in war is not about a body count: it's making the enemy stop fighting, on your terms. We have ROE because killing civilians is not just wrong but VERY counterproductive.

This shows how vital new tools of science can be.

Wow! Brilliant for writers!

Great news! JSTOR now have a free account with an Independent Researcher category. You can access 100 documents per month www.jstor.org/action/showL...

While going through text messages from Kaleb—insert an image of Charlie Brown saying “sigh” here—I found this, from about a year ago. The point he was making applies to all of us.

My best friend from college, Liz Ruth, flew the SOFIA 747 for years. She said it wasn't the most challenging flying, but the 747 is a great airplane and it was fun contributing to astronomy.

Stanford researchers found that AI-generated "workslop" is actually making people less productive, in part because workers have to correct errors or decode the useful information/intent buried in a flood of auto-generated garbage:

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), top Democrat on Senate Commerce Cmte, is out with a Democratic staff report: "The Destruction of NASA's Mission: Whistleblowers Reveal OMB's Unconstitutional Plot to Gut the Agency." www.commerce.senate.gov/services/fil...

There are many "wisdom" posts. There are a small percentage that no one can possibly argue with.

I cannot express how wild this quote is. This is a top tech analyst at a well-regarded firm saying that there is not enough capital to actually pay for all the stuff that NVIDIA and OpenAI has promised. It is so important that everybody realizes that *there is not enough money to do this*

GUYS THIS IS NOT A DRILL, NEW ADRIENNE MAYOR BOOK ABOUT TO DROP!!

Wisdom from my fave author, Jim Butcher. At lunch at a conference, short stories came up. I said I wasn't good at them and didn't try them often. He said, forcefully, "You have to. They make you better." I did. They did. (He said, "It's a knife fight in a phone booth. You make every move count.")

In discussion with a computer scientist from the University of Cambridge last night: Me: "you've described some of the things that AI is good at. How would you describe the category of things it's not good at? **pause** Him: "Anything where it has to be right".

Always good news.

How do research funding cuts hurt the US? There are many ways to answer that question. For a dollars and cents perspective, you can read this analysis. "Cutting federal R&D by 20% would cost the U.S. economy up to almost $1.5 trillion compared with China’s growth pace." 🧪 itif.org/publications...

This is mind-blowing in the best way.

Epic. No need of fictional sea monsters (as much fun as they are) when the ocean offers such a sight.

RFK Jr.’s claim that Tylenol causes autism has no backing Genetic factors are far more likely to influence a child’s later diagnosis. cen.acs.org/policy/RFK-J... #chemsky 🧪

@madisonearhart.bsky.social Dr, a weird question? If you suspected a white sturgeon population due to sighting reports in a place it's never been proven, like Alaska's Lake Iliamna, and you had the time and money to investigate, how would you determine presence or absence?

Shuddering.

Forget politics. Time for important stuff.

So, ChatGPT can write a highly readable summary, but it can't be relied on for an accurate one. It takes so much fact-checking that it may be easier just to write it the old-fashioned way. Too many publications these days don't care.

🧪 Nat Geo has a good article quoting yours truly on the question of recovering historic satellites. Unfortunately, a Nat Geo article cannot be gifted. Do the oldest satellites in space need saving? www.nationalgeographic.com/science/arti...

Nat Geo has a good article quoting yours truly on the question of recovering historic satellites. Unfortunately, a Nat Geo article cannot be gifted: I hope everyone can access. www.nationalgeographic.com/science/arti...