“Morning sunlight is the single strongest signal for regulating when you feel alert, and it is far more powerful than indoor light.”
David Forester
@arborscientiae.bsky.social
I teach astronomy, biology, and chemistry, and I coach esports. Hobbies include hiking, biking, climbing, drumming, gaming, and photography.
A long but good thread about perverse incentives around AI in the business world, and the smoke and mirrors games that are letting it drag on longer than it should, wasting resources at multiple levels all along the way. Essay version linked in Doctorow's second post.
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C)@doctorow.pluralistic.net · 4d agoNeoclassical econ assumes rationality. The corollary of, "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" is "you're rich, so you must be very smart!" Thus, people assume that if powerful, well-compensated CEOs insist that "AI is changing everything," well then, *AI must be changing everything*. 1/
@schiff.senate.gov @padilla.senate.gov Please vote NO on HR 139. @mikelevin.org Please vote YES on HR9638 for permanent Standard Time. As both an astronomy teacher and a parent, I'm telling you that this is the better option. We had permanent DST once, it lasted a year. Standard should be standard
Save Standard Time@savestandard.bsky.social · 6d ago“I’m a fan of respecting the sun, having the sun do what it does… If you keep Daylight Saving Time the entire year, in NYC the sun won’t rise until 8:20am. There’s safety issues with that.” —Dr Neil deGrasse Tyson
@phaneritic.bsky.social saw some cool rocks on top of San Jacinto while backpacking and thought of you. Sorry I didn't get any full 3D scans.
I feel bad for all the people who went into the park to see the fireworks...
Not surprising, but still sad. I asked my 8yo what happened on this day 250 years ago, they responded "we declared independence." "From who?" "England". The bar is on the ground and half the country couldn't step over.
NPR@npr.org · last mo.A new national poll reveals a striking paradox in public sentiment ahead of America's 250th anniversary: a disconnect between Americans' strong patriotic pride and their lack of civic knowledge.
@realinfowars.bsky.social just blew this wide open. The Phoenicians made secret tunnels, took over hell, and then encoded numerological messages in the Declaration of Independence taking credit for the plagues! youtu.be/tdSB8muDtzc?...
WELCOME TO THE REAL INFOWARS
YouTube video by The Onion
youtu.be
Funny, I could have sworn that once upon a time he claimed he was going to be losing money by becoming president since he would miss out on so many business opportunities. Surprise, surprise, he wasn't content to actually miss out.
George Takei@georgetakei.bsky.social · last mo.How does a president's net worth nearly triple in a single term? Trump's newest disclosure answers that plainly: bribes, tributes, and self-dealing, woven so tightly that each scandal fades before the next lands. That's not an accident. It's the design, and we can start dismantling it.
Pretty sure my 3 y.o. has been taking notes from Sampson (Romeo and Juliet). I told them to stop hissing at the cat and they denied it, then when pressed said, "I'm not hissing at *that* one". They knew the law was not on their side if they said ay.
Only slightly unrelated, there's an opportunity for a sequel here: "Who Framed Roger Rabbit 2: Electric Boogaloo", about diverting power from Toontown to run a data center, and replace toons with AI agents.
Catherine Lutz@cathylutz.bsky.social · 2mo agoUnderstanding how the car has led to wars for oil, death & injury, & environmental harm helps us understand how AI will do similar damage. Great analogy to think and resist with. We Reshaped the Landscape for Cars, Not People. Will We Do the Same for AI? nobody-wants-this.ghost.io/we-reshaped-...
@hankgreen.bsky.social Grellow, then Grue, now... Blurple? One of these days I will nail it! Side note: This should be a "God Damnit!" as well.
This is a disgrace. "A major flu outbreak has sickened nearly 160 troops at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas less than two months after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that U.S. troops would no longer be required to be vaccinated for the flu." www.nytimes.com/2026/06/18/u...
Scores Fall Ill at Air Force Base After Hegseth Makes Flu Vaccine Optional
nytimes.com
Since I did do my PhD in cyanobacteria growth and treatment optimization modeling AND work in the water treatment industry, I’m gonna share my theory as to what’s happening here and how to fix it. People are focusing on the painted bottom of the pool increasing residual heat, and while that 1/19
derek guy@dieworkwear.bsky.social · 2mo agoRIP Mark Rothko. You would have loved how the hydrogen peroxide bleach is only turning the Reflecting Pool blue around the perimeter
This ocean-monitoring system was built over the past decade, and planned for decades before that. It cost hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. And Trump is dismantling it. It's fucking obscene. It's the moral equivalent of shooting a missile to blow up the Hubble Space Telescope.
Trump Just Gutted A Major Line of Oceanic Defense
Just in time for hurricane season, the Trump administration is defunding its global ocean-monitoring system.
thebulwark.com
Yet another crappy thing is Musk's fault. (This corroborates what I heard from an emergency management specialist in March of this year)
ryan cooper@ryanlcooper.com · 2mo agoI thought people were kidding, turns out Elon really did axe the screwworm containment program back in March 25. fucking imbecile www.agri-pulse.com/articles/226...
Time to make myself a custom website to use as my own homepage again, with links to all of these and more. I don't even need to host it online, just have the local HTML file.
Celeste Labedz@celestelabedz.bsky.social · 2mo agoA weird little benefit of Google's ongoing enshittification is that I'm visiting more websites again??? When I need a definition/synonyms, instead of googling, I'm now typing a dictionary/thesaurus URL and searching there. When I need a fact, instead of googling, I'm typing the Wikipedia URL first.
Slightly increase a band: 4 Friday Tepidplay
Ryan J Hollister@phaneritic.bsky.social · 3mo agoSlightly increase a band? Mediocre Religion
tech ceo: we regret to inform you that the torment created by the Torment Nexus is the fault of the depraved author of beloved novel DON’T CREATE THE TORMENT NEXUS
Lincoln Michel@thelincoln.bsky.social · 3mo agoBig tech corporations have finally figured out who is to blame for their crappy products: science fiction writers.
I already knew this, and I already do this, but this post reminded me that it isn't necessarily common knowledge so I'm sharing it to raise awareness.
That girl with the posts@roodypatooti.bsky.social · 3mo agoPlease share this one.
NIMBY means, “I want its benefits, but won’t tolerate its difficulties,” e.g.homeless shelter, incinerator, municipal dump, airport runway. Anti-data-center is frequently anti-AI altogether. It’s saying, “This isn’t valuable, we don’t want it at all.” So there’s a big difference.
Study finds that students using chatGPT learned and remembered less than students who did not use it. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
ChatGPT as a cognitive crutch: Evidence from a randomized controlled trial on knowledge retention
The rapid integration of generative artificial intelligence into higher education has outpaced empirical understanding of its effects on fundamental l…
sciencedirect.com
Film you've watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Star Trek, Star Wars, LOTR, DC, Marvel, Disney, Pixar, Spielberg, Cameron, Wachowskis, or Ghibli.
Astronaut Jim Lovell (by Tom Hanks) says, "Houston, we have a problem." The clip is from Apollo 13.
Alt: Astronaut Jim Lovell (by Tom Hanks) says, "Houston, we have a problem." The clip is from Apollo 13.
media.tenor.com
Robert McNees@mcnees.bsky.social · 3mo agoFilm you've watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Star Trek, Star Wars, LOTR, DC, Marvel, Disney, Pixar, Spielberg, Cameron, Wachowskis, or Ghibli.
Sorry, but if you’re mad that the Southern Poverty Law Center paid informants to infiltrate Nazi groups to expose them, then you are a Nazi.
Jacquelyn Gill dropping knowledge! There are a myriad of factors negatively impacting the free and public education that our youth deserve, and most of the biggest ones are outlined in this thread.
Jacquelyn Gill@jacquelyngill.bsky.social · 3mo agoThe attack on education in the US is not new, but the slow fuse that arguably started with Reagan is now setting off detonations across K-12 and higher education that are going to be incredibly difficult to walk back if we don’t treat this like the urgent crisis it is.
The richest man owns X. The second and fourth richest men control Google. The third richest man owns The Washington Post. The fifth richest man owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. And now the sixth richest could soon take over both Paramount and Warner Bros. See the problem here?