A great summary of a really important topic - assessing undergrad astronomy degrees. Though in that context, I do hope work like this is followed by more discussion on grad school in a way that draws distinctions between grad schools that are PhD programs and those that are terminal Masters degrees

So I'm not sure how often SMBC Theater, James Ashby, and @zachweinersmith.bsky.social get cited in scientific papers (or things that look like scientific papers) but this'll add 1 to that too-low number It's in the introduction, so doesn't require too much digging to reach it

With submissions in the double digits, this hasn't just been the biggest year for Acta Prima Aprilia, it's more submissions than the next two biggest years combined (9) or the first 7 years of Acta Prima Aprilia.

As it's now Wednesday in enough of the world - this is looking like a banner year for Acta Prima Aprilia, with a number of submissions in this year's issue: www.actaprimaaprilia.com/2026-issue Here's some highlights

Satellite Pollution xkcd.com/3225/

Kat and I had a chance to talk about (and in my case, moderately evangelize for) the Blue Bayou, which I firmly believe to be the best table service anywhere in Disneyland or DCA. Even if they don't have free rolls anymore And of course, Wild Mouse has a bunch of great episodes I'm not on, too

After like 30 years in the dark, I finally have some idea of what's up with that weird kid in Super Smash Bros

Got to love a meal that comes with some atmosphere

I have JUST realized that the Kroger chocolate chip cookies that are competing with Chips Ahoy even use the exact same pun. They are Chip Mates.

I miss riding high on 14/16 at the end of day one of March Madness

Been thinking the internet's been in need of this one this month because it's been living in my head a lot lately

I know I'm late to the party ono this one, but here we go

I know I'm late to the party ono this one, but here we go

@startorialist.com Just a question coming out of IPAC; is there any chance of Roman earrings (similar to the JWST earrings you have) showing up in the future?

There's not a big enough character limit to express how frustrating it is that Tubi, an otherwise nigh-perfect streaming service, of late doesn't seem to allow for pausing to read the screen. I still can't find a way to keep a normal brightness when paused. Were they worried about being too good?

I think the real result here, noticing how many times I picked certain wrong spots, is that I probably need to clean my personal laptop's screen These results also probably run counter to the number of times I've told my wife I thought two fabrics or threads were the same color

Nothing summarizes just how dysfunctional my sleep cycle is quite like how this morning I woke up an hour before my alarm - the Monday after the clocks moved forward an hour.

Not to unfairly criticise Tubi, because I do appreciate it greatly, but I'm going over the "For the Cinephiles" category to see if there's anything I should add to my already too long watchlist. And "For the Cinephiles" is not the category I'd put Armageddon in.

It's not called an echo chamber unless it comes from the leftist region of the internet, otherwise it's just a sparkling discussion space

I didn't play Myst, but I sort of just presumed there was a solid through line from Myst to Blue Prince

There's a special kind of excitement that comes with seeing one podcast you like ( @stillloadingpodcast.com ) is in the discord of another podcast you like ( @smashinggametime.bsky.social ) and actively recording. Eager to check out the episode later today

I so enjoy that moment 10-20 minutes into a weird movie I've gone into blindly when it does something that makes me think I may have found gold. I watch so many things that let me down to find these moments. Now it's got to keep this going for another hour.

A strong contender for "most tone deaf use of advertising"

In 1994, Tips & Tricks started out their debut issue by explaining the difference between tips and tricks (and also bugs, easter eggs, combos and bosses).

Lucking out because an hour ago this was a sold out screening until someone returned a ticket, but now on my way to Mars.

Folks, please do me a big favor. If you haven’t done so already, please go give @hwoodtimes.com a follow and share this with your friends and enemies. The paid guests articles are already rolling out, and we plan to do so much more. If you like writer owned comedy and fucking hate AI, we got you.

"As a movement, the left has largely refused to engage seriously with the Torment Nexus, ceding debate about a threat and opportunity to the right."

I'm not surprised by it, but I am a little disappointed that the Virtual Boy games can't be played in docked mode.

In the nerdiest day of mail I've had in some time, today I've received both the James Webb bomber jacket that I won at AAS (and they did find one in a size that i can comfortably wear) and the VirtualBoy accessory for the Nintendo switch.

I've apparently trained my Tubi algorithm to just feed me puppet-based movies. Like, say, a slasher movie where all the characters are puppets but otherwise it plays as a slasher would. I'm not sure if that's good or bad, I just know that it is.

Yesterday morning kids were sent running from their bus stop in panic because ICE showed up. This guy at today’s ICE Out of Lindenwold protest is a must watch 😭. @maddow.bsky.social

I don't know what it is, exactly, but first class upgrades always feel so much nicer when i was already seated somewhere in economy and get brought up to first class before takeoff

Still doing everything I can to push our Cheat Code Compendium pre-order campaign. Been on a bunch of podcasts promoting the book, but still have days open to do more. If you have a podcast & want answers about the book, hit me up. I'll do your show. www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3oh...

Carbon Dating xkcd.com/3205/

My big takeaway from this is that kaiju can count as favorite animals now, right?

Binary Star xkcd.com/3203/

So glad I finally took the leap to figure out how to set up a macro to do the first stage of podcast editing. Consistent and automated.

"Oh Salo, this is the best date movie on earth. This is a great date movie. My favorite part of this movie is..."

I'm of the firm view that if a food place has two sizes, neither of them is 'medium'. Those are 'small' and 'large'.

"it's not like that guy could hear what i said" "He 1000% could hear you, why do you think he started laughing at us?" That i easily overheard this exchange on the plane seems a bit fitting.

Apparently i can't get back to California easily, either. There is an irony, perhaps, that American send to want to get rid of interactions with employees, but it's been several of those employees that have made it much easier to get through the problems caused by American's scheduling failures

It's important to take inspiration from elsewhere; after 18 hours of dealing with how badly American Airlines has been at communicating what it thinks its doing my bag, its underscoring how important it is that my code report when it tries to do things but fails, not just reporting what worked

Too bad the world record went to TYC 2505-672-1 and not us.... I still remember receiving an email from the Guinness World Records and thinking there was no way it was real. www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-record...

Operation "escape from LA" having some success. Some ten hours after getting to LAX, I've reached Phoenix. Granted, i think i was supposed to be in DC like 3 hours ago so that's not much progress, but it's something.

Five concerts you've seen with women lead singers Blondie Bernadette Peters Battle Beast Joan Jett The Go-Gos

This is a canary in the fascist coal mine. It is in fact one of the reasons why I obtained Global Entry, so that I would know when/if it was denied or revoked.

I've talked to people on the ground about the strike here tomorrow, and the single thing everyone brings up is just how shockingly wide the support for the strike is. Businesses that no one would have expected to support it are doing so.

The book I'm writing with Todd Hays (GameShark) about the history of cheat codes is currently up for pre-order. You can also watch a trailer about it! www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRgU...

The sheer audacity that I just saw an ad for Zoom talking about how technology should make things easier when I was 10 minutes late to a zoom meeting today because it had to be reinstalled then I had to google to find instructions to edit a config file to stop it from popping between workspaces