a woman helped Buffalo Bill load his van, setting off a chain of events that ended in him getting shot by agent Clarice Starling

a “Space Force”, if you will

Blue Origin has successfully launched its huge rocket with a pair of NASA spacecraft destined for Mars. The 98-metre New Glenn blasted into the afternoon sky from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, sending twin orbiters on a journey to the red planet.

Science is not a high school debate club with people on stage. Scientific arguments need to be backed by evidence (and method and theory). Politicians and crackpots argue against things all the time irrespective of the evidence.

Vote Ley (or Wilson) get Barnaby and Canavan.

You can disagree and argue as much as you like but the point of evaluating something scientifically is that not every statement should be given equal credence because evidence matters

Ending very active promotion is hardly censorship. Whish-Wilson, asked Miller “why do you platform climate sceptics” and said News Corp “[relies] on lots of opinion pieces from lots of people that are climate deniers”. “I hope you are not suggesting that we should censor them?” Miller responded.

Moves giant switch from fantasy nuclear to fantasy coal.

Aurora forecast shows some promise but 4 hours is a long time.

By my count there's 65 documents with emails between Krauss and Epstein. In many of them Krauss seems to ask Epstein for advice about the allegations of sexual misconduct leveled toward him.

Conspiracy theorists will still believe the former rather than the latter.

Malcolm Roberts has been a conspiracy theorist for a long time so draconian predictions that never happen isn’t a surprise.

More US-based academics exit the United States, including world famous astronomer Sara Seager 🔭🧪 www.utoronto.ca/news/new-con...

How high are OpenAI’s compute costs? Possibly a lot higher than we thought on.ft.com/43qoQ2L

Seeing photos of aurora from regional Victoria and NSW, including as far north as Sydney.

Just Starting To Get Dark At Queenstown New Zealand And They Are Already Getting A Nice Aurora Show 🌌 #AuroraAustralis #MooningCrew #SolarStorm

Mobile phones often take crap photos of the Moon, and my @aunz.theconversation.com explains why. Some good mobile phone Moon photos are AI embellished unfortunately (sign of our times). Mobile phones can take good aurora photos, and there's a decent chance of aurora tonight. Fingers crossed.

While people may have concerns about overpowered "e-bikes" (aka electric motorcycles), FB marketplace does what it does. Decent odds these will be ridden on public roads.

I am on my way home to Toronto and the aurorae are absolutely phenomenal. If you are anywhere in the northern half of the continent, get outside and look up! Or better still, put your camera on a 10 second exposure and point it up.

Weather doesn't look great for aurora viewing from Melbourne right now but fingers crossed the cloud cover decreases this evening. Will be keeping an eye on Satview at BoM (which has survived the BoM website changes for now). satview.bom.gov.au

Joyce Carol Oates sitting across a desk from Kendrick Lamar: "So I'm putting a team together..." Isaac Chotiner knocks on the open door.

To be honest I would prefer asking an Elvis impersonator difficult questions, because no one (including myself and the impersonator) can pretend I'm actually talking to Elvis.

One of the contradictions of Australian politics is complaining about road quality, wanting speed limits to be high and not wanting more taxes to pay for roads. Basically the faster-better-cheaper problem. At best you can pick two of the three.

The "populist" position is to claim the majority position is elitist while claiming the minority view is popular.

Mobile phones often take crap photos of the Moon, and my @aunz.theconversation.com explains why. Some good mobile phone Moon photos are AI embellished unfortunately (sign of our times). Mobile phones can take good aurora photos, and there's a decent chance of aurora tonight. Fingers crossed.

An appalling waste of talent and vandalism of an important institution

All aboard the CME train.

David Byrne, the former front man of Talking Heads, believes that reunion tours are regressive. “Have you seen any reunion tours where you felt, like, ‘Oh, they’ve really evolved and they’re bringing something new to the table?,’” he said. https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/q_oFKk

People will claim the majority view is out of touch elitism.

politicians, media and large institutions deciding to stop saying 'climate change' hasn't materially reduced public conern about it or support for actions to tackle it turns out people genuinely do not want to be baked alive by the atmosphere they're in!!!

NEWS: The UK is no longer sharing intelligence with the US about suspected drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean because it does not want to be complicit in US military strikes and believes the attacks are illegal, sources familiar with the matter told CNN. edition.cnn.com/2025/11/11/p...

Here is the X5.1 flare in straight EUV light. We are looking at the 193 Å "gold" filter here. The flare is the bright flash, and immediately, you can see a giant blast wave racing through the Sun's corona, lifting tons of plasma into space as an Earth-directed CME.

I’ve declined to give two seminars in the Woodside building so far. I’m glad a sensible decision to step away from fossil fuel interests has been made. It sends a message of hope to the next generations.

Here’s the same data, but with trust broken down by political views (circles are trust among people on the left, +s the right). It’s not just that the BBC is widely consumed — it also has solid trust on both left & right, whereas trust in the biggest US media brands is hugely polarised.

From @nteumonash.bsky.social... In Academic Board this week, Vice-Chancellor Sharon Pickering announced that Monash University will end its controversial partnership with fossil fuel giant Woodside Energy. Vice-Chancellor Pickering also said that the Woodside Building will eventually be renamed.

Podopticon

Why are planetary scientists, astrobiologists and and SETI scientists so negative (pissed off, even) about Avi Loeb’s repeated claims that 3I/Atlas may be an invading alien spaceship? 🧵 🧪🔭🛸 (1/7)

Want to know why your mobile phone photos of the Moon look like crap? I have a new @aunz.theconversation.com article explaining why, how you can take better(ish) photos, and what astronomical sights your phone can photograph well. theconversation.com/why-is-it-so...

The govt is spending billions to keep 100 asylum seekers on Nauru, a nation of 12 000 people the size of Tullamarine airport. Reports implicating the Finks bikie gang in those deals are deeply concerning. Public servants have risked their livelihoods to speak out.

lol she got his ass and he knows it

“One time, the brigade rabbi sat down next to me and spent half an hour explaining why we must be just like they were on October 7. That we must take revenge on all of them, including civilians. That we shouldn’t discriminate, and that this is the only way,” says Maj Neta Caspin.

Is Sydney becoming too much like Melbourne?

A story about extensive infrastructure for cars and car dependency in the outer suburbs. (This post is about policy and design not people who’ve unfortunately had their cars seriously damaged.)

X brand on display. … the shadow health minister, Sloane, said she had began to receive dozens of “pretty hateful” messages on X on Sunday, including some “concerning enough to forward to police”, and had since deactivated her account:

EV and hybrid sales soar in Australia as internal combustion (only) cars fall below 70% market share for first time. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

More a diesel fuel rebate guy.

My annual post about how the Morning Star reported the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 hatfulofhistory.com/2014/11/07/h...