Today we biked to the soccer game, biked to the light rail, took the train to the birthday party, and will light rail + bike home Putting a cargo bike on the light rail is the best life hack and all transit should be built for this All parking garages need bike cages that work for cargo bikes too…

"We are told that AI is inevitable, that we must adapt or be left behind. But universities are not tech companies. Our role is to foster critical thinking, not to follow industry trends uncritically." www.ru.nl/en/research/...

Let's look at numbers Scooter injury report counts 2021-46 2022-76 2023-151 Seattle rental average daily trips (peaks) 2021-10.8k 2022-11.8k 2023-15.6k OK injury rate is up, 0.42% ➡️ 0.97% Compare to car crash counts 2021-8k, 44 fatal 2022-8.4k, 39 fatal 2023-8.5k, 34 fatal More scooters plz 🛴

Scheduling pediatric COVID vaccinations should not be more logistically complex than swim lessons The place where we had appts & were going to take the kids after school called to say they are out; no estimate for restock Now I get to do this again AND manage kids this PM who were expecting shots

We pulled off a Play Street on the School Street by Salmon Bay K-8 on Thursday! Huge thanks to all who helped make it possible, and came by, especially @sngreenways.bsky.social @seattledot.bsky.social Love to hear "we should do this more often!" but also I am tired & behind on everything not this 😅

As usual, for my birthday this year, I would like smoke-free air and covid boosters readily available to kids Good thing birthdays are a season in my family, I suppose 🫠 Throw in fewer cars and satellites while we're at it, and more bike paths 🚲 and star parties 🎉

COVID & flu: upgrade complete! 💉 Husband and I both were able to make CVS pharmacy appointments online. Had to click "yes" for high risk condition (this should go away with the new announcement from WA DOH). I had to pay ~$200 because CVS is out of network for UW insurance 🙄 Pediatric shots when??

We took the paywall down on this one. defector.com/how-the-fuck...

Yeah biking to school!! Also check out the lovely new yellow curb paint 💅 and our custom loading zone signs 🚫

Dear everybody in charge of wonderful educational and adjacent programs and classes for kids Did you know there are other days in the year?! You could send out your time-sensitive forms and final year-ahead schedules on other days, too If you wanted Not JUST on this day, the first day of school

Governments and industry should care a lot about protecting astronomy. The proper reason, of course, is to unlock the secrets of the cosmos. The more cynical and pragmatic reason is because new physics has a history of unleashing weird, wonderful, and sometimes terrifying technologies of abundance.

Looking forward to talking 🛰️ on an @astrosociety.org panel, "How are we adapting to a new reality?" How indeed. Join me at #ASP2025, a one-day virtual symposium w/ panels, Q&A, and breakouts focused on astronomy, scicomm, & our place in the universe. Snag a last minute ticket: bit.ly/ASP2025SYMP

This is a much bigger transportation network disruption for me than all the I-5 nonsense nobody will shut up about, yet I only heard about it via one email listserv I mean, I'm glad they're going to improve the awful bridge in question! But the detour is bananas www.portseattle.org/projects/ter...

Some days nobody wakes up mildly ill for no reason, the weather is pleasant, and your husband does drop-off and correctly signs up for "disposable flatware/plates" for the daycare potluck

Now for something completely different Solstice Symphony Concert tonight!!! Not too late to snag tickets at the door at Town Hall (8th & Seneca) With deep apologies for the AI art 🙄 but zero apologies for the live Beethoven townhallseattle.org/event/treaso...

Love to stand with the whole family at a downtown bus stop with no shelter or seats for 30 actual minutes on a weekend afternoon Bus count E: 6 7: 4 H: 3 70: 3 C: 2 1: 2 D: 👻 Kids: upset Adults: late

1000 times this wapo.st/41r8xSn

Good(?) news Seattle, the smoke is indeed aloft and not at ground level. Empirically confirmed. Also for some reason we are flying up to, like, Shoreline before landing at SEA

Thanks Davis, it's been warm & bus-tastic! Quite something to spend 2.5 days workshopping new recommendations for mitigating satellite impacts on astronomy. A report should be available in the next ~month Homebound for Worldcon, Solstice Symphony concert, and all the family shenanigans I've missed

A few places in Seattle are so close, yet so far, from this ideal Gilman Park + nearby Ballard breweries (Lucky Envelope, Urban Family) Old Stove Waterfront + new Pier 58 playground Golden Gardens' Kite Cafe + beach and playground Green Lake playground + nearby restaurants Am I missing others?

If anyone has devised an airplane friendly way to turn a roll-aboard bag into a bike share friendly pullable trailer, I am all ears

Good day from the Sacramento airport, where I am waiting for the YOLOBUS (really!) in a highly inequitable shade environment! The nice shade overhang ends where the parking and rental car buses go, and they run constantly. The buses that take you into the city? Wait 30 min. In much hotter shade.

Why the flying frick don't buses take people to the parks on the water in Seattle, she wondered, walking half a mile back to her car in Magnuson Park, after refusing to park illegally like half the other folks at the park, the one time in her life she didn't bike to her destination 😭

For some mostly correct and wholly off the hook Seattle takes, aimed at Worldcon visitors but broadly applicable, Jared gotchu 🧵

On the one hand, I love a rainy August day to wash away smoke and (maybe?) relieve the tiniest bit of drought On the other hand Seattle forgot how to rainy day SO HARD that my husband's rear bike tire just up and noped, so he is valiantly driving 😭 both kids this morning

yikes on bikes

Sometimes instead of going to bed at a reasonable hour you take pictures with your astronomer mom in matching @startorialist.com shirts featuring the @vrubinobs.bsky.social Lagoon Nebula "first look" image she helped make happen 🔭

People will really just pick up their kids, strap them in their car, idle their engine, and take a phone call for 15+ min while parked in a loading zone Whyyy is this normal??

Ironically the AI pushers keep telling us resistance is futile in academia, and that this is how mathematics teachers reacted to the introduction of the calculator, to which I would say, AT LEAST THE CALCULATOR DOESNT MAKE SHIT UP

For the 4th time in a year, Seattle voters made their preference for more progressive governance clear. In the mayoral race, Katie Wilson leads the moderate incumbent mayor Bruce Harrell. Wilson’s opponents tactics of painting progressives as extreme may have gotten stale. #SEAelex #WAvotes

Shoutout to the Seattle Night Out block party on NW 75th that was going strong as I biked to AND from orchestra rehearsal this evening 😎 I biked all over between 3-10pm and saw SO MANY closed streets!! Shame the "halfway safe bike routes x good block party streets" Venn Diagram is a circle, tho

A story: About forced car dependency About freedom of movement About the road where it happened In the Pacific Northwest. A life of bike advocacy begins: "I'm going to fight for something simple, something overdue. A bike lane. On the stretch of road where this happened." Hope he's joined a group.

I may spend too much time on Zoom, but at least the never-ending meetings during this particularly impossible time are often with some of the coolest people! Here is just one example www.pittsburghmagazine.com/profile-dian...

this is … not what we meant when we encouraged members of the astronomical community to talk to their representatives Step 0. Stop defunding science ?!? Nah, let's jump straight to "send the Jupiter orbiter on a physically impossible $15M joy ride, because aliens"

Seattle! Come to the Solstice Symphony on Saturday August 16 and hear some lovely classical music, like Beethoven's Eroica, featuring yours truly in the veeeeery back of the viola section 🎻 TODAY ONLY tickets are 33% off (though they're not expensive to begin with) www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticket...

hey look, it's pretty much exactly what my city tried to do, and will probably try again 😭 this whole thread re. school transportation is worth a read... families' localized problems with school buses are probably more universal than you think

WEST COAST PEEPS! No panic yet, just be aware *Warning for some Aleutian Islands *Advisory for Alaska *Watch for BC south through WA and OR down to Cal/Mex border Tsunami warning/watch/advisory page www.tsunami.gov/events/PAAQ/...

One of those nights where a car parked near your bedroom window has its alarm go off periodically between 2-6am for no apparent reason I don't know why we collectively decided the metal boxes we hurl ourselves around in regularly should have a HONK MORE feature, you know, for safety and security

first they came for the ships, but my research was not done on a boat

The Montlake bike bridge makes the ride from Ballard➡️UW➡️Lake Washington Blvd very nice! We rode down to Genesee Park➡️Columbia City for dinner, & up to UW via light rail for an easier loop. If the northern part of LWB wasn't actively hostile to anyone not in a car, I'd recommend this route to all!

The waterfront pier 58 playground is open AND you can bike there from the ship canal trail and/or West Seattle (and/or Bell St connection to Westlake!) on a fully connected protected bike lane network 🪼 Looking forward to checking this out sometime soon 😄

Ride the bus, they say The bus stop has: - new daylight white LED flood lights - nowhere to sit - no shelter from rain or sun - a security car parked on the sidewalk - a constant high pitched noise designed to drive people away 😰 And no bus for 20 min on a Friday night. We can do better, Seattle

A mutual colleague of ours unexpectedly dropped off a meeting (about astronomy and satellites) today, and then later sent an email saying, sorry, apparently there was a Starlink outage 🫠

ICYMI, a bunch of awesome @vrubinobs.bsky.social colleagues pulled together a lightning fast, highly custom analysis of a new interstellar object with very early commissioning data Once we're fully up and running, science is going to be off the hook You're not ready 🔭

just 1000 more satellites, bro

The 7yo slept under the stars one night at camp last week 🤩 She saw the Big Dipper, 2 shooting stars, wasn't sure how to find the Little Dipper, and told a friend "that's not Orion" because it's summer When I asked about satellites, she said oh yeah lots of those, dismissively, like obviously mom

Seattle bus 44 mystery My husband tried to take the bus this AM, not his usual mode He sends me a photo boarding a *charter bus* in Ballard, noting, this is unusual Then when he realizes it isn't making the normal stops, he gets off in Wallingford What alternate dimension did he just escape?!

Listen, I am YIMBY on a whole lot of things But I do have to draw the line at space debris Decisions like this harm astronomy, too, since many people understandably conflate rockets with telescopes, and colonizers have a well-earned reputation for building things no matter the cost

Attractive, minimalist, interactive design for the site, and EXCELLENT responses to the concerns the NIMBYs are offering. Kids who want & are working for a better city & community future are one of the best things we can have.

Developer: Yeah I reckon the AI coding tools make me about 20% faster Narrator: The AI tools made them 19% slower