Antiques Roadshow https://xkcd.com/3281/ (alt-text too long for a BlueSky message, see image alt-text instead) Explain xkcd: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/3281
Kiona N. Smith
@kionasmith07.bsky.social
Science reporter and author. Also knitter, crocheter, cross-stitcher, tabletop gamer, Pokemon Go player, and #NAFOFella. Actually 2 goblins and a magpie in a trenchcoat. She/they. https://linktr.ee/kionasmith
I have finally lost my entire mind. Somehow I ended up on the distribution list for press releases about traffic fatality data, and despite consistently replying to the emails with "this isn't my beat, please unsubscribe me," they keep coming, three or four a day.
A few hundred miles north of me the Big Grass Fire has burned 350,000 acres. Coleman Creek Fire, 278,000 acres. Tartar Fire, 138,000 acres. The world is on fire, indeed.
Susan Kaye Quinn is Writing Solarpunk 🌞🌱@susankayequinn.bsky.social · yesterdaywe managed not to die in a nuclear fire... but the world is on fire all the same short-stories.co/@raybradbury...
Meet Tigernos, one of Britain’s earliest named sailors! ⚓️ A Briton and Roman fleet veteran, his story is recorded on the bronze Lanchester Diploma issued by Antoninus Pius in AD 150. It grants him honourable discharge from the Classis Germanica and Roman citizenship. #EpigraphyTuesday #Archaeology
Fae: “Tell us your true name.” Me: “…Just my name? No birthdate, no SSN, no fingerprint scan, no address, no mother’s maiden name? Are you sure you’ve even got the right Olivia Waite? There’s like six.” Fae: “What the hell kind of bargains have you been making?” Me: “They call it health insurance.”
One of the uniting features of humanity, alongside music, liking small animals, and enjoying some form of meat (or veggie substitute) inside dough, is that we will look at a large body of water and go "what if there was a monster in there"
I have discovered a planet. A rust sea drifts against its magnificent beaches. What a good world.
The more we learn, the more we realize that our solar system was shaped by catastrophe. Every body--including our Earth & Moon--is the result of a wild, unpredictable set of collisions. A few different hits & the outcome would have been quite different. 🔭🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
I would like to state for the record that I’ve never used an LLM for… anything. The closest I’ve come is seeing crappy Google AI results.
This thread is worth reading, with caveats (namely that I don't condone even the limited AI use the author describes).
Jonathan Jarry@jonathanjarry.bsky.social · 5d agoIf you’re a science communicator and you use AI, read this. This is about what’s happening to Hank Green.
I tried to go to the bathroom alone. Max says, "Not on my watch!"
Absolutely fascinating book history thread:
Olivia Waite@oliviawaite.com · last wk.A thread on special editions, luxury books, and publishing history: In 1903, J. M. Dent created Everyman’s Library, intended as a cheap line of hardbacks to make a classical education accessible as mass literacy rates were on the rise.
Incidentally, a lot of what I do as a writer is discard material. But in order to discard it, I need to know it exists and I need to understand why it doesn't belong in my book. If I allowed AI to analyze documents for me, it would only feed me information it felt was relevant. What might I miss?
Well. Guess who has two thumbs and just accidentally took the dog's liver meds. It is I, a walking example of the difference between the INT and WIS character stats.
'Anthropic described the project as “our effort to disruptively scan all the world’s books” in an internal memo, which noted “we do not want it to be known that we are pursuing this project”.'
Dr. Jeroen W.P. Wijnendaele@drdragases.bsky.social · last wk.No longer content with pillaging intellectual work and dismembering our environment (already critically weakened), AI companies are now hellbent on destroying books galore including rare editions. Shut down these nefarious enterprises already.
This is a metaphor so on the nose it hurts. Literally, they are removing knowledge from the public domain to feed their machines and permanently deny your access to it. The privatization of knowledge and information is their goal.
chiller@chiller.eurosky.social · last wk.This is ... horrific
👇 "The vast majority of people who work in film and television are not studio executives, nor are they famous actors. They are, overwhelmingly, blue-collar workers, freelancers, and small businesses. And they are in free fall." Yes.
Alvaro M. Bedoya@bedoyausa.bsky.social · last wk.People think "Hollywood" is rich and famous. The reality? Film and TV is a national industry. It's a blue collar industry. And it is an industry free fall. My latest for @newrepublic.com on how the Paramount merger would crush blue collar workers who can not afford it newrepublic.com/article/2136...
My least favorite game of 2026: did I eat one of this week's designated diarrhea vegetables or is this just a Crohn's flare?
Is this a good time to mention that in college my History of Translation lecturer (Michael Cronin) told us that one of the first vernacular translations of The Illiad was into Irish, and the translator had to give the main characters dogs because in Gaelic society a free man had a dog
Nobody wants predictive data models to stop working for the people in medicine. Or translating ancient Pompeii texts. Or the other ways we were already using it. We want it to stop replacing workers, killing the environment, and stealing from artists. Hope that clarifies.
Hello my lovely technical people, you can use your skills to save lives!
Distribute Aid@distributeaid.org · 3w agoWe're looking for people to join our tech team across a range of roles and projects! If you're interested, drop an email to join@distributeaid.org with a short expression of interest and description of any past experience. More roles in the thread ⬇️
From NASA's press secretary, an update on the Madrid DSN site. Wildfire damage is "primarily to pavement and surrounding vegetation, with no significant structural damage observed to antennas or buildings." x.com/NASASpox/sta...
Bethany Stevens (@NASASpox) on X
On July 25, an initial onsite inspection by the NASA Madrid Deep Space Communications Complex (MDSCC) emergency response team found wildfire damage primarily to pavement and surrounding vegetation, wi...
x.com
I’d like to make it clear for all the people following me what the sheer gravity of the news is. Without this facility we can’t ensure constant communication with spacecraft beyond Earth orbit. If this facility is off-line, the Artemis program cannot send a crew to the Moon.
Andy Scollick@andyscollick.bsky.social · 2w agoThe Madrid Deep Space Communication Complex at Robledo de Chavela municipality in the Community of Madrid, Spain on fire. Burgohondo wildfire. 📷 via Infues Avila
The Madrid Deep Space Communication Complex at Robledo de Chavela municipality in the Community of Madrid, Spain on fire. Burgohondo wildfire. 📷 via Infues Avila
🛑 CDC, we are all acutely aware how easily our workers’ rights can be stripped away. One of the best tools to fight this is our union, AFGE2883 Join to protect yourself & future CDC workers 💪 Help us form bargaining units asap. More info 👉 www.afge2883ga.org Join here 👉 join.afge.org/L2883
Home | AFGE Local 2883
🚨BREAKING NEWS: On October 28, 2025, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston (Northern District of California) granted a Preliminary Injunction (PI) in AFGE v. OMB, which continues halting all Federal Reduction-in-Force (RIF) actions initiated or approved by OMB during the current government shutdown. The ruling applies nationwide to any agencies--including CDC/HHS--with at least 1 AFGE Member or BUE that applied the new OMB RIF framework.🚨
afge2883ga.org
Love to see the universe show us every weirdness possible
Corey S. Powell@coreyspowell.bsky.social · 2w agoIt's a "maxi-moon." It's a "planet-planet." It's an "exosatellite." A newfound Jupiter-size object orbits a brown dwarf (halfway between a planet and a star), which in turn orbits a star. So what do you call this object? It's a remarkable discovery, by any name. 🔭🧪 www.eso.org/public/news/...
As someone briefly a history of science major this is SO rad and well timed!
Dr. of Viewpoint Diversity@dr-g.myatproto.social · 2w agoHere’s how we built the “scientific state”. Also the outline of my spring course. In 1862 in the heat of the Civil War, American Hero Justin Smith Morrill got the Morrill Act passed while the slavers were out of Congress and funded state higher ed in the public interest at the Land Grants. 1/?