Book Review "The Ant Collective: Inside the World of an Ant Colony" by Armin Schieb If you love insects, nature or ants you should get this book. It's dense with diagrams and illustrations that cover every aspect of the lives of wood ants, the famous ants of temperate forests who build pine […]

Well, my first cycle commute to the new office went well. I had to make a small detour from my planned route when I discovered that the Angas Street bridge over Constitution Road in Meadowbank is currently closed, but otherwise no problems. The only part where I struggled a bit was the climb up […]

Preparations for doing archery, in Australia, in summer: a pair of sun sleeves for UV protection and cooling effect, and a cooling towel. I got the same for the kid, too. #archery

Bloody hell. I made the mistake of the ordering a pair of bib knicks from Bellwether because I wanted one of their Sol-Air long sleeve summer weight jerseys. I was after a pair of knicks and their Volta bib knicks were heavily discounted in a sale, so since I was ordering the jersey I figured […]

Not the electric vehicle that I normally take to work. We're in the new AAO offices on Macquarie University main campus from today, which means no more free on-site parking. I'm trying to use this as a nudge into more active commuting. Today it's train + metro […] [Original post on aus.social]

I'm thinking about getting a spotting scope for archery. I haven't shot at distances above 30 metres yet but I already find it hard to see where my arrows are landing at that distance, and when I work my way up to longer distances I'd definitely need a scope if I want to see where my arrows have […]

Nice font rendering bug you've got there, Chrome. https://piunikaweb.com/2025/09/08/chrome-140-font-rendering-and-stability-on-linux/

LinkedIn now enables "use my data for AI training" by default. You have to go to Settings & Privacy -> Data Privacy to turn it off. Opt-in by default should be illegal. #linkedin #ai #privacy #ml #gdpr #eu

Hyphessobrycon herbertaxelrodi, one of the few fish species known to commit credit card fraud. From Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_neon_tetra

Today's stabbing-at-a-distance session was a lesson in how to cope with windy conditions. Between 11 am and 1:20 pm winds were averaging about 20 kph and very variable, with gusts up to almost 50 kph. The wind direction was also the worst it could be, blowing […] [Original post on aus.social]

We're not quite at the spring equinox yet and my solar panels are already coming close to maxxing out my solar power inverter during the middle of the day. I'm taking the opportunity to put all the spare solar power into our car.

Oh, looks like the NBN speed upgrades have come into effect. It's not quite the nominal 750/50 Mbps but this was during evening peak hours so I'll take it.

Goodbye Australian Astronomical Optics office building. You've been... adequate for these past 13 years.

:pakidge: Pakidge! :pakidge: It's a new bike for the kid, but that's almost as exciting as one for me...

The AAT's Ann plate inspired similar stunts during the commissioning of later telescopes. One particularly noteworthy example is the @esoastronomy's Very Large Telescope (VLT) Unit Telescope 1 writing its own name in 1998. By this point writing with starlight by […] [Original post on aus.social]

This is the "Ann Plate", a photograph that was taken during the commissioning of the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) in 1974 as a demonstration of the capabilities of new telescope. The AAT was the first large telescope to be completely computer controlled […] [Original post on aus.social]

With the building move imminent a number of items are being given away to staff, and today that included a pile a good quality A3 photo prints. As you'd expect there were a bunch of photos of nebulae, galaxies, comets, etc., but I nabbed for myself some […] [Original post on aus.social]

With the building move imminent a number of items are being given away to staff, and today that included a pile a good quality A3 photo prints. As you'd expect there were a bunch of photos of nebulae, galaxies, comets, etc., but I nabbed for myself some […] [Original post on aus.social]

The weather has warmed up so I'm back to making cold drip coffee again.

A relaxing Sunday afternoon with a bit of light archery maintenance. I had some hex screws work loose on my sight while shooting yesterday so I tightened those, and made sure every screw on both bows was good and tight. Even with our low powered bows the shock […] [Original post on aus.social]

Thanks Jira, I hate it. Two side by side pie charts with the same three values, but Jira independently sorts them by size of the slice so that the values are in a different order and different colours between the two charts, which is really misleading. Or course […] [Original post on aus.social]

The short blue buses are an interesting experiment in on-demand public transport. Somewhere between an Uber share and a conventional bus. Open the app, tell it where you want to go from and to, and when, and the system will take everyone's requests and construct […] [Original post on aus.social]

Well that's definitely an improvement.

Just the Jira bot sliding into my Slack DMs to suggest I go check my Jira updates at 1 o'clock in the fucking morning. Totally cool, normal and useful, and not at all weird, creepy and desperate.

Just the Jira bot sliding into my Slack DMs to suggest I go check my Jira updates at 1 o'clock in the fucking morning. Totally cool, normal and useful, and not at all weird, creepy and desperate.

Oh, we're doing tornadoes now? https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-10/tornado-warning-for-central-nsw-during-afternoon-stormy-weather/105758972

A bit of enrichment for the lizard. If he wants those blueberries then he needs to work out how to get them out of the ball. He has done it before, https://youtu.be/MytegkCEQBo #lizardposting #skinksofmastodon #lizardsofmastodon #bluetongueskink #bluetongurlizard #lizard #skink

Astronomy trees! According to a post on the SKA Observatory Facebook page SKA-Low (the low frequency component of the Square Kilometer Array radio telescope) now has more than 10,000 of these tree-like antennas at its site in Western Australia. There is still a […] [Original post on aus.social]

Some small upgrades for the kid's and my bows: new sights. The bow kits we bought included basic Topoint TR1007 sights, which have been fine, but these new Nika Archery SG05 sights should have a few advantages. #archery

Astronomy trees! According to a post on the SKA Observatory Facebook page SKA-Low (the low frequency component of the Square Kilometer Array radio telescope) now has more than 10,000 of these tree-like antennas at its site in Western Australia. There is still a […] [Original post on aus.social]

Huh, I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've seen a real estate listing for an astronomical observatory. It's the Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope, a radio telescope that operated between 1965 and 2023. Along with the remains of the telescope you get a […] [Original post on aus.social]

The NPM supply chain has been compromised again. The author of a number of popular packages got spear-phished. They explain what happened here (orange site): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45169657&trk=public_post_comment-text

I turned on another of my old work laptops to check that I've already copied everything off it, and it helpfully notified me that I can safely unplug the USB stick that I had plugged into it *5 years ago*.

Huh, I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've seen a real estate listing for an astronomical observatory. It's the Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope, a radio telescope that operated between 1965 and 2023. Along with the remains of the telescope you get a […] [Original post on aus.social]

I dug out my old passport to check the exact date, and it turns out that on Monday it will have been a resident of Australia for exactly 20 years. I didn't know when I arrived that it was going to be a permanent move, I initially came here for a 3 year work […] [Original post on aus.social]

@chat8ballbot Do you have any opinions on email clients?

Sitting on the sofa, heard a rustling noise, looked right, and saw this guy staring at me. I think he's hungry. #lizardposting #skinksofmastodon #lizardsofmastodon #bluetongueskink #bluetonguelizard #skink #lizard

Ah, astronomers' code. To their credit they do at least have it in a git repo, there are some usage examples, and there are some comments in the code. However... It wouldn't compile because their code used a datatype that isn't present in recent versions of the libraries used. There are no […]

A BYD Seal, a BYD Taller Seal (Sealion 7) and a BYD Filthy Hybrid (Sealion 6) meet in the library car park. The Sealion 7 is the second best selling electric car in Australia, https://thedriven.io/2025/09/03/australian-electric-vehicle-sales-by-month-and-by-model-in-2025-2/ #ev #electriccar #byd

More astronomy flavoured, project manager-y jobs in this part of the world. Astronomy Australia Limited (AAL) are looking for two Program Managers to work in their Sydney, Melbourne or Canberra offices (or maybe in Perth, if they really like you) […]

I really want to get into flying my FPV quadcopters/drones again. First step, plug my radio into the computer and fire up a simulator. I have several, this one is Liftoff: Micro Drones. #fpv #fpvquad #fpvdrone

I dug out my old passport to check the exact date, and it turns out that on Monday it will have been a resident of Australia for exactly 20 years. I didn't know when I arrived that it was going to be a permanent move, I initially came here for a 3 year work […] [Original post on aus.social]

Stupid headline, followed up with more stupid framing in the article. "The age assurance technologies under-16s could face amid social media bans" "Here's what young people might be required to do." No, *everybody* will be put through this farce! Until your age has been verified the social […]

It's time to plan my travel to lovely* Garching bei München for the MAVIS Final Design Review meetings next month. I am a *big* fan of these Emirates/Qantas flights from Sydney to Munich that arrive in the evening. When you get off the plane you can go directly […] [Original post on aus.social]

Someone told the wildlife that it is now officially Spring so the skinks near our offices are out basking in the sun. Nice to see them again. #lizardposting #skinksofmastodon #lizardsofmastodon #skink #lizard

Spotted this sky puppy hanging out by the tennis courts while the kid was having their lesson yesterday evening.

There are currently a couple of astronomy flavoured job opportunities in my neck of the woods. Head of Programs at Australian Astronomical Optics (AAO), Macquarie University. This person will oversee our program of (mostly) astronomical instrumentation projects, & lead the project management […]

Someone told the wildlife that it is now officially Spring so the skinks near our offices are out basking in the sun. Nice to see them again. #lizardposting #skinksofmastodon #lizardsofmastodon #skink #lizard

Spotted this sky puppy hanging out by the tennis courts while the kid was having their lesson yesterday evening.

There are currently a couple of astronomy flavoured job opportunities in my neck of the woods. Head of Programs at Australian Astronomical Optics (AAO), Macquarie University. This person will oversee our program of (mostly) astronomical instrumentation projects, & lead the project management […]