More prosaically, I gather Shotwell promised that by the end of 2027 SpaceX Starlink direct to phone service will be better than terrestrial cell service from Verizon or T-Mobile. That is... ambitious.

David Burbach 🇺🇸@dburbach.bsky.social · 5h ago

Putting aside the bigger questions, why humanoid in a factory?

Putting aside the bigger questions, why humanoid in a factory?

FinTwitter@fintwitter.bsky.social · 6h ago

$SPCX - SPACEX PLANS MOON FACTORIES POWERED BY HUMANOID ROBOTS

The Trump administration is drafting a new nukes strategy which emphasises the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons in a regional conflict with China or Russia.

Pentagon drafting a new U.S. nuclear strategy in case of regional war with China or Russia, sources say

The classified strategy informs nuclear options for the commander in chief during crises.

nbcnews.com

Unlike any SpaceX return so far thus would be over land -- southern path for now -- and could halt all air traffic near the path for half an hour or more (which FAA says is worth it). SpaceX intends dozens of launches per day eventually

Next Starship Will Deliver Operational V3 Starlinks to Orbit, Maybe Catch Ship spacepolicyonline.com/news/next-st...

Sidereal time or go home. What's important is that we adjust our puny routines to stay in sync with the sky gods. If Aldebaran is up, time to serve. Turn on a light if it's dark out.

Shipwreck@shipwreck75.bsky.social · 20h ago

Trump on daylight savings time:

SpaceX rocket stage to hit the Moon tonight. Might be visible (though tiny and quick) For me, mostly cloudy plus hazy, not worth getting up middle of the night with an early workday.

Prof. Sam Lawler@sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 20h ago

Reminder: if you are inside the green or dark green area of this map, watch the ~10 o'clock position of the moon tonight at 2:35am EDT/11:35pm PDT. More info here: https://spaceweather.com/archive.php?day=28&month=07&year=2026&view=view You probably won't […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Part of successfully leading social change is knowing where you can push, and where it's not worth it. If you think having D vs R governors n matters, this wasn't worth it, whatever you might think about Thanksgiving

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · yesterday

Francesca Hong was asked last night by Kaitlin Collins if she still believes Thanksgiving should be canceled. Her answer was not 'no.'

Huh. I have questions, tbf, questions vs opinions, but definitely questions. "The concept requires the maturation of several technologies."

Kingston Reif@kingstonareif.bsky.social · 22h ago

"U.S. Air Force Reveals Plans For VTOL Bomber Prototype"

It absolutely does not cause Trumpism. Can we please stop trying to medicalize/explain away arseholery. Sometimes people are just arseholes. This thinking does more to stigmatize TBI, PTS and Moral Injury sufferers. Platner is just an arsehole.

Rick Perlstein@rickperlstein.bsky.social · 5d ago

A watershed piece. America will have have a very hard time becoming less imperialist as long as combat service is sentimentalized and fetishized, when it actually tends to turn men into broken, hateful people, and helps make things like like Trumpism happen. www.newyorker.com/news/the-pol...

Nice day for sure but I will never learn to like crowded beaches given what I grew up with in Oregon

Meteorologists Tony Petrarca@tonypetrarca-wpri.bsky.social · yesterday

Narragansett RI: One of the best Summer days this season. Blue skies, low humidity and seasonably warm. Heat and humidity building later this week

According to King and the ACLU, she was on her property the whole time, Idaho NG troops initiated by opening her gate and coming after her. No comment from IDNG.

NPR@npr.org · yesterday

Military veteran and D.C. resident Anna King has filed a $3 million lawsuit against the Idaho National Guard, saying three guard members assaulted her while detaining her in front of her home. n.pr/4wyjw9S

Tomorrow at 06:35 UTC, a discarded SpaceX Falcon 9 stage will hit the Moon. If you don't own a large scope, or the moon isn't up where you are, you can watch the impact here: www.youtube.com/live/ZfgrV4n... For local viewing times see Showcase Lunar Surface Events at skycalpro.com #Astronomy

The framing that women’s rights are “minority rights” is especially revealing. Women are 51% of the US population. We’re not a minority. What women share with actual minorities is the idea that women are not fit to be full members of the political community.

If this very short story is new to you, read it. Just read it.

Aaron Meyers@aaronmeyers.bsky.social · yesterday

"Today is August 4, 2026" There Will Come Soft Rains By: Ray Bradbury

"Commanders [must] maintain a log of personnel requiring facial hair treatment plans... Must forward a Facial Hair Accommodation Accountability Report in Excel monthly...   Those approved for accommodation must carry the signed paperwork on their persons..." www.militarytimes.com/news/your-na...

Navy orders commands to submit monthly facial hair waiver accountability reports

The Navy has instructed commands that issue sailors shaving waivers to produce facial hair accountability reports "by the 15th of each month."

militarytimes.com

Iran has now gobbled up nearly all U.S. ATACMS and PrSM ballistic missiles, plus half of Tomahawk cruise missiles and a very considerable share of the THAAD and Patriot interceptors, sources tell @reuters.com’s Erin Banco, Jonathan Landay, and Michael Stone. www.reuters.com/world/us-has...

EXCLUSIVE: US has used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war, sources say

The U.S. Army has used up much of its stockpile of highly accurate long-range missiles during its five-month war with Iran, according to three people familiar with the data, raising concerns about the...

reuters.com

Negative partisanship rules everything around me

Joey Politano🏳️‍🌈@josephpolitano.bsky.social · yesterday

DSA-aligned Democrats are now the most pro-free-trade voting bloc in the United States, in an incredible turn of events www.theargumentmag.com/p/who-suppor...

The most fragile snowflakes may be in ICE. which makes sense since they are the least legitimate law enforcement agency in the US (which includes folks like LA Sheriffs). Wildly outside their mandate, incredibly abusive, totally unaccountable, engaging in rape and murder and lethal negligence 1/

Tom Joscelyn@tomjoscelyn.bsky.social · 2d ago

“In recent months, ICE has deployed a round-the-clock digital dragnet to scour the public internet—from Facebook to Instagram to X—for speech that could endanger the agency’s mission.” Speech. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

"This new recruitment drive comes as Denmark prepares to send its first conscripts to Greenland in late August." militarnyi.com/en/news/denm...

Denmark Begun Conscripting 1,600 Citizens into Army — Both Men and Women

Denmark had previously announced that, starting in 2026, it would expand conscription to include women and increase the standard term of service from four to

militarnyi.com

Lol, I get this, but for me the appeal of Boston would be more job opportunities, more professional colleagues to talk to, more intellectuals/scientists to talk to, within a 5 mile radius of Central Sq, Cambridge than the entire Pacific NW combined. 2 or 3x over.

PMC Vanguardist@tylerboschert.bsky.social · 2d ago

It's very easy to understand the appeal of living in Boston. Is the weather good? No. Is the food good? No. Is it affordable? Not in the least. Are the people pleasant? LOL, LMAO. But on the flipside of that, it's very easy to get a shitty donut and a cup full of vaguely coffee-tinged sugar water.

DOD is not letting trans service members attend their own separation hearings unless they conform with Whiskey Pete's notion of their gender. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/u...

SpaceX looking to build a third spaceport for their planned "thousands of launches per year", a LA location would allow polar launches of Starship.

Ars Technica@arstechnica.com · 2d ago

Wildfires in Spokane County, Washington, have destroyed hundreds of structures, scorched more than 5,390 acres of land and prompted evacuation orders for thousands of people. nyti.ms/4hayFtl

i am begging you — including some of you who follow me that i'm seeing in the OP QTs — to actually read what senate democrats are getting out of this and to stop and think for, like, at least 90 seconds, about what *else* you think a minority party *in both chambers* can squeeze out of the majority

GOLIKEHELLMACHINE@golikehellmachine.com · 3d ago

stripping OMB of the ability to dole out grants is an enormous win, this nukes the SAVE act, it prohibits further ICE bailouts, adding a "no, really, trump can't break already on-the-books laws regarding elections the federal government doesn't run" clause would be both unnecessary and unproductive

Jacobson mostly takes a "omg every country must get rid of all nukes!" but one could also read it that if NK is really insane, and if just two or three NK bombs will cause nation-ending EMP and fallout etc, we better go to war with NK and disarm them while we maybe can -- and stop Iran for sure

Caz@timberwind.bsky.social · 3d ago

I read Nuclear War: A Scenario shortly after it came out and found myself totally baffled by what people saw in it. The scenario is like Call Of Duty game level fantastical - NK has magic SOSUS evading subs and uses them to launch Exactly Two missiles, one at a random power plant in CA.

Make a board game dirty: Starfleet Battles: Risa Expansion

Nate Ledbetter@nhledbetter.bsky.social · 3d ago

Make a board game dirty: Asses & Allies

If youre inclined to give any credence to Annie Jacobsen's Nuclear War or Biological War books, be aware "Roswell 1947 was Stalin sending Mengele-mutants to scare America" is literally something she claims in her earlier Area 51 book

Mike Black@mikeblack114.bsky.social · 3d ago

anyway the """fact based""" argument in this piece of shit is a ~bioengineered~ whatever that somehow kills literally everyone in the US in a week lmfao not sure if this better or worse than genetically modified mengele kids doing Roswell for stalin

New: We found 50 cops who misused Flock cameras and other license-plate readers for personal purposes, often to spy on their girlfriends or ex-wives. He "watched every single move I made. ... Who do you turn the chief of police in to?" wapo.st/3S6rTuo

She left her ex. He secretly tracked her through a network of policing cameras.

Flock’s array of license-plate cameras was built to fight crime. But at least 50 law enforcement officers were charged with or accused of misusing it and other systems.

wapo.st

Does this vary by discipline? I've been to dozens of political science panels over the years and they have very rarely been brutal as is being said in commentary on that classicist's Odyssey review.

I would simply demand an omnibus bill of anti-corruption measures as the price for a continuing resolution.

Jenna Norton@jenna-m-norton.bsky.social · 4d ago

The appropriations process is the one place where the minority has any power to curtail the harm of the Trump admin. A “tacit agreement” that Rs will help stop the proposed OMB Fed financial assistance rule is not enough. thehill.com/homenews/sen...