Happy 250th anniversary to the United States of America! I don't often post on holidays, but today is obviously an exceptional day worthy of acknowledgement. And if you're online today too, I want to ask you an important question: what makes you proud to be an American?

"𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚏𝚎𝚊𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚛𝚎𝚐𝚊𝚛𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚘𝚞𝚝𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝙰𝚖𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚌𝚊 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚜𝚎 𝚍𝚒𝚜𝚌𝚕𝚘𝚜𝚞𝚛𝚎𝚜 𝚒𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚎." - Edward Snowden, 2013. Today is the 13th anniversary of the Snowden leaks first unmasking the staggering scope of U.S. surveillance operations against American citizens.

Today is the International Day for Biological Diversity. Though it may not feel like it, we are living through the Holocene Mass Extinction Event, a continuous extinction of countless species as a result of human activity. 🧵

Today is the birthday of the inimitable physicist Richard Feynman. Though his work on the Manhattan Project is likely his most famous, I'm replicating one of his other feats: plastic electroplating! Feynman's tenure at Metaplast involved pioneering processes still used today.

199 years ago today, the world lost a visionary in sound research. Ernst Chladni penned several landmark works on the nature of sound. In his honor, I wanted to visit a facility he would have loved: the quietest room in the world! This is the anechoic chamber at Orfield Labs, a staggering -24.9dB.

Today, on Darwin's 217th birthday, I want to call attention to an animal that helped inspire his research. Pigeon breeding was popular in Darwin's era, and the differentiation among their breeds showed the Georgian-era public that traits could be inherited by and amplified in offspring. #darwinday

31 years ago today, a February issue of IEEE Computer magazine began landing on doorsteps. Unbeknownst to even its editors, this issue would include an article so prophetic that it explains why your power bill hurt so badly in 2025.

On this, the 45th Data Privacy Day, I'm feeling both vindicated and disturbed. On Saturday, we got confirmation of something I've long expressed concern about: DOGE used its access to Social Security information to export and download personal data of American citizens. www.wired.com/story/securi...

106 years ago today was the first full day of Prohibition! The 18th Amendment ushered in an era of criminality unlike any other in history. I recently visited one of the most fantastical hideouts of Prohibition: the Wabasha Street Caves, which housed everything from hideouts to a speakeasy.

Today marks the 121st anniversary of Mount Wilson Observatory! This facility is one of the most consequential sites in heliology, home to the first permanent solar telescope. Unfortunately, it's not clear how many more anniversaries Mount Wilson Observatory will see - it receives no federal funding.

Well, y'all, it's another International Volunteer Day! I've done a lot of volunteering this year, but the most thought-provoking event for me was the North Texas Food Bank - I and some coworkers helped organize tens of thousands of pounds of food for distribution across Dallas. 1/2

November is National Veterans Month. This was my last participation in a series of volunteer events distributing food to veterans! Many veterans are also recipients of SNAP, so being able to personally help over 180 families today felt especially meaningful #VeteransMonth

How fitting is it that American general elections are falling on the 10th national Use Your Common Sense Day? This holiday was scheduled in honor of humorist and actor Will Rogers - himself famous for incisive observations like "Rumor travels faster, but it don't stay put as long as truth." #vote

Today is National Pumpkin Day! Pumpkins have been cultivated by humans for thousands of years, and they actually originated down here in the south! This tiny pumpkin is going to be decorative, but the full-sized ones have been used by indigenous peoples since antiquity to create delicious foods.

Today is the 22nd day of the 2025 government shutdown, officially making it the second-longest in US history after the 35-day shutdown in 2018. Donald Trump was president for both, and can also claim the dubious honor of causing more than half of all government shutdown days in American history.

Today is National Techies Day! My workplace, Lockheed Martin, needs all kinds of technical expertise. They recently chose to recognize me and my team as "Cyber Defenders," which came with this fun goodie bag. Pictured are a privacy-focused badge holder, a data blocker, a clip, and a keychain.

As of today, October 1, 2025, the record for most government shutdowns under one president has officially been tied. The only other POTUS to see three discrete instances of such an event was Ronald Reagan (1981, 1984, and 1986).

Today is National Video Game Day! Like most adults, I don't find myself online as often as I once did, but today isn't just about playing games - it's about celebrating their history. Dallas is home to one of the best places in the world to do just that: the National Videogame Museum!

If you researched where the term computer bug originated, you probably read that on September 9, 1947 (78 years ago today), Grace Hopper found a moth inside of the Aiken Relay Calculator. It's a pithy and memorable story that links to several of the founding figures of computation. It is also wrong.

It's World Photography Day! Each year, the anniversary of the daguerreotype being released to the public serves as a holiday to celebrate the wonder of photography. I wanted to use today to share a few photos from this year that I didn't otherwise have a reason to post!

Whether you're going shopping or just sitting at home, be sure to wave at your nearest surveillance camera! Surveillance Day is a perfect day to talk about the newest way we're being watched: the government has contracted Palantir Technologies to begin developing a database of every American citizen

No, there hasn't been a surprise blizzard - this is sand! The last Saturday in June is World Sand Dune Day, and some of the most unique sand dunes in the world are here at White Sands National Park. The pure gypsum sand found here forms the largest deposit on the planet. #WorldSandDuneDay

810 years ago on this day, the Magna Carta was signed. The Great Charter restricted the power of kings and mandated a more just legal system. It would go on to be one of the most influential legal documents of all time, inspiring the checks-and-balances system of the American Constitution. #nokings

We can all think of some apothegms about the journey and the destination - but it only takes a little planning to make them literally true. The Austin Cybersecurity Summit was a blast, but the road trip down there was just as fun in its own right!

I have friends everywhere

The first Friday in May is National Space Day, commemorating America's first manned spaceflight, and I couldn't think of a better way to celebrate than stargazing at the Very Large Array! This interferometer array telescope is the largest in the U.S. I even got a sneak peek at the next-gen dishes!

It's Microvolunteering Day! Volunteering can seem intense; the time and energy commitments for work like food banks can create a significant barrier to entry. Microvolunteering is all about atomically small actions that can help those around us! You just need to spare a few minutes to do some good.

Lightning strikes over the Very Large Array in New Mexico ⚡️📡 📸 Credit: NSF/AUI/NSF NRAO/B. Foott #RadioAstronomy #Astronomy #Astrophotography

Very Large Array Prints: jon.framer.art/image/very-l...

Happy anniversary to the Swansea and Mumbles Railway - possibly the first passenger rail! Unfortunately, this anniversary brings bad news for America's national rail service: the current admin seems bent on selling it for parts to private interests, and forced the CEO to resign last week.

Happy Ides of March!

March 12 is the World Day Against Cyber Censorship! Today commemorates those who have worked towards an open and free internet. Though the United States is far from the worst perpetrator of censorship, I believe that PAFACA deserves intense scrutiny and today is the perfect time to challenge it.

Today is the 10th Day of Women and Girls in Science, a day that's proving more necessary than ever. Two weeks ago, news broke that NASA had been ordered to scrub all mention of "women in leadership" from its websites. www.404media.co/nasa-dei-dro...

Although Martin Luther King Jr Day is celebrated on the third Monday in January, his actual birthday was today, January 15. To celebrate the legacy of the civil rights movement, I suggest that we all take the time each MLK day to learn about the policies he truly advocated through his speeches. #mlk

Fun bit of trivia: the number 2025 is a perfect square (45², specifically). The last year that was a perfect square was 1936, and the next one will be 2116, so for many of us this is the only perfect square year we will ever get to experience! Other fun traits of the number 2025:

Happy Fibonacci Day (1,1,2,3)! I recently had a free day in NYC and got the chance to visit the National Museum of Mathematics @momath.bsky.social, getting hands-on with demonstrations of concepts as classic as the Pythagorean Theorem and as cutting-edge as the world's first aperiodic monotile!

Today is Guinness World Records Day (GWR Day for short, as that is a mouthful)! Today is a celebration of the over-the-top records recorded in this campy catalogue. Nowhere embodies the spirit of Guinness records more than Casey, IL - home to the world's largest collection of world's largest items!

The hardest part about climbing Enchanted Rock isn't the 400-foot elevation gain, but the scheduling! This park is so popular that tickets can sell out months in advance, and for good reason: it's one of the most beautiful places in Texas!

The first Friday in September is National Food Bank Day! Out of all of my volunteer work, food banks are the strangest experience for me - according to some estimates, over a third of all food in the United States goes to waste, even as people go hungry.

Today is the birthday of H.P. Lovecraft! This troubled mind was intrinsic to spawning the most popular Weird Fiction tropes and settings of the modern day, and the NecronomiCon convention was a great place to see how!

On this day in 1958, the first operational nuclear submarine used its revolutionary zero-emission engine to complete the first submerged transit of the North Pole. The nuclear heart that enabled this feat was designed at Argonne National Laboratory, where I recently took an incredible tour!

Today is Red Rose Day! To celebrate roses, I visited Tyler, Texas - the self-styled Rose Capital of America! This understated East Texas city boasts the largest municipal rose garden in the nation, a verdurous 14-acre collection of tens of thousands of individual rose bushes.

It's World Environment Day! Did you know that urban areas with tree cover average around 3°F cooler than those without? Finding a wooded park is a great way to stay cool outdoors, even in cities like Dallas.

Today is National Train Day! This holiday celebrates America's rail network on the closest weekend to the anniversary of the first transcontinental railroad being completed. Amtrak's network has taken me to New Orleans, Minneapolis, and Boston, and more! #amtrak #traintravel

I'm so proud to have been selected for the Outstanding Teammate award for the Software and Cybersecurity Engineering division at Lockheed Martin MFC! I work with an incredible team and I'm honored to have been selected for this award.

Happy Earth Day! I'm celebrating at the Ennis Bluebonnet Festival. These delicate and stunning flowers have been blooming earlier than average in the past few years, a tangible indicator of the climate growing warmer over time. 🪻#EarthDay2024🪻

Today is World Art Day! UNESCO has invited the world to celebrate Leonardo da Vinci's birthday. I imagine that he would have been fascinated by Meow Wolf's The Real Unreal. I've visited this art exhibit twice since its opening last July, and still I feel that there's much more to see and do!

I'm sure everyone's got one of these to share, but I caught the eclipse here in Dallas!

Today, World Water Day celebrates the importance of clean water. That's why I volunteer at the Trash Bash, an event oriented towards keeping Texas freshwater clean. The next Trash Bash is in April! #worldwaterday2024

March 14, a date that resembles the first digits of π, is Science Education Day! I celebrated by doing some science education myself, volunteering with the Perot Museum to help teach visitors about techniques like gel electrophoresis. It was a great experience! #scienceeducation