zodiacal light!

Well don't I feel stupid

On this day in 1983, this one man, with one disobeyed order, saved humanity. This is not hyperbole, this is not an exaggeration. Happy Stanislav Petrov Day! www.bbc.com/news/world-e...

rough couple of days for Arthur on Alien: Earth...

share your favorite black and white movie

Important and illuminating new @aaup.org report on the administration’s weaponization of Title VI: www.aaup.org/news/new-aau...

Quite a crowd gathered to listen to @sanjanacurtis.bsky.social talk about the origins of elements! (And the crowd is still growing.)

My current plan for preparing for classes starting next week is for my 14-year-old to go cold turkey on Duolingo.

Hello, Eugene Oregon! Wanna listen to some FREE space talks by astronomers tomorrow? Come to the relaunched Universe on Tap to hear Ben Farr discuss black holes and @sanjanacurtis.bsky.social talk about the origin of elements- no prior knowledge assumed! Claim 52 Brewing at 6pm, Sept 22 🔭🧪🎢

*Picard voice* There are FOUR dryer balls!

idk, feels a bit personal after my layoff notification in June 🤔

The "or" in New Hampshire's motto "Live Free or Die" is inclusive.

Trans folks ARE normal, hard working, law abiding people. Rhetoric that advocates for limiting their freedoms is going to do great damage to normal, hard working, law abiding people.

Almost every scientist in this show is remarkably incompetent... but I doubt this world has a robust public education system teaching them stuff like "don't eat in the lab." A society ruled exclusively by nepobabies and tech bros is going to churn out badly formed humans. So I'm okay with it.

Something I appreciate about ALIEN: EARTH is that it kinda posits that Dallas breaking quarantine to let Kane inside in ALIEN wasn't so much one person making a mistake as a societal-wide issue of almost everyone being an absolute dumbass because they live in a world controlled by corporations.

3²/4²/5² is the perfect day for arguing about best proofs of the Pythagorean theorem. An incredible thing about Euclid's proof is that it applies to the area of *any* similar figures drawn on the sides of a right triangle. 🧮

I promise you that your tiny fragile ego is not more important than your opportunity for growth than the chance to heal what was harmed than your chance to attend to someone(s) you hurt. Being defensive is tempting but meeting the moment that needs you to show up? Priceless.

True mensches (decent human beings) are willing to hear when someone says, "you failed here; there's repair that's needed." True mensches are willing to ask what might be useful if they're not sure. I just had a conversation with someone who listened & responded like a grownup. It was refreshing.

Gemini, a waning crescent Moon, and Jupiter this morning

Most folks will find their courage by finding their people.

I've watched a lot of people find their courage. They usually believed in something, but they also believed in each other. As co-strugglers, they depended on each other. They comforted and encouraged each other. They helped each other. That investment made them stronger, bolder, and more capable.

In my experience, courage is usually the product of love and/or solidarity. When we are deeply invested in each other, we are more likely to take risks that we wouldn't take out of mere principle, or for the sake of people we feel disconnected from. Our alienation mass produces cowardice.

Imagine, in this economy, trying to even find a boot sturdy enough to stamp on a human face for a couple years, much less forever

Full press release below.👇 #AcademicFreedom #HigherEd 5/5 aaup-texas.org/blog/f/texas...

🗣️📢PRESS RELEASE: “Texas A&M University Caves to Political Pressure, Violating Faculty Rights to Academic Freedom and Due Process.” 🧵 1/5

Unironically, an additional benefit of statehood for DC would be the opportunity to rebrand and reclaim the flag as an emblem for pluralism and democracy.

Age verification? LOAD "*", 8, 1

A couple of thoughts: 1) it sounds like the prof in question was not tenure-track, and thus had far fewer protections. As many have been warning, the increasing reliance on NTT lecturers means it's easier for institutions to censor + fire faculty

A lot to say about this, but one thing is that the Professor in question was a lecturer, and thus did not have tenure. The destruction of academic freedom is inextricably linked to the loss of worker protection in the university.

Let's not beat around the bush here. In order to meet budget-cutting quotas, the provost handed the deans the power to rearrange unliaterally the research and teaching agendas of their schools. #Edusky #WarOnEducation #signalboost www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2025...

Prophecy. Fulfilled.

So many good shots at Pine Mountain Observatory last weekend, but this one before dawn was my favorite.

"I'm going to look at it now," Trump said regarding potentially sending troops into Portland.

Last Saturday I took my college buddies Kai and Ben to Pine Mountain Observatory (This was after we stopped at the last Blockbuster in the world while passing through Bend.) A thread of some of the photos I took during the night:

Within the first *8 seconds* this Italian synthpop track from 1989 sounds both like the intro of Stranger Things AND its iconic opening theme "Kids". 🤯

It's really hard to run a 12-month university with nine-month faculty while also having timely and meaningful shared governance. There needs to be some kind of modest summer stipend to make things work in 2025.

Why are so many university cuts targeting Religious Studies…? New article in CHE quoting @vox-magica.bsky.social & others = www.chronicle.com/article/why-...

The latest on layoffs of tenure-related faculty at the University of Oregon. Pink slips are expected to go out on Monday or Tuesday. #Edusky #WarOnEducation newsletter.uauoregon.org/oregon-legis...

"The president of Northwestern University, Michael H. Schill, announced Thursday that he would resign, ending a difficult tenure that included attacks on the school from Republicans in Congress and cuts in funding by the Trump administration..." www.nytimes.com/2025/09/04/u...

One key point this article makes is that—though the attack on the Humanities at Oregon may not necessarily be against Jewish Studies—eliminating faculty in a number of Humanities programs also means the de-facto elimination of Jewish Studies. Don’t cut Humanities, period. www.jta.org/2025/09/03/u...

One thing that is so dispiriting about our present moment is how so much is going to just keep getting worse and new students and faculty won’t know what they are missing only the misery of shitty AI and overworked people trying to hold things together with nails and duct tape

fixed it for him

inspiring thread

Being good at research will not save you if the university decides to rebalance towards teaching. Being good at teaching will not save you when the university decides to prioritise research. Being good at anything will not save you when the university decides to pivot towards the Next Big Thing.

You are not qualified to be a media critic if you misunderstand the source material this badly. May the ghost of Mary Shelley haunt this reviewer for time and all eternity.

Seattle scene report