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Steve McCluskey

@stevemccluskey.bsky.social

🇺🇸🇮🇪🇪🇺Chicago born Irish-American. History of Science / Cultural Astronomy: Medieval and Native American. USNavy 1961-7. Husband, father, grandfather. Catholic, Democrat, West Virginian.

291 Posts354 Follower33 Folgt
mburnamfink.bsky.social@mburnamfink.bsky.social · 4d ago

5 stars to @wellerstein.bsky.social fantastic book on Truman and the atomic bomb. I'm really glad it finally arrived on the top of my queue, in partnership with the Hiroshima accounts from my short story book group. www.burrowedbooks.com/book/the-mos...

The Most Awful Responsibility: Truman and the Secret Struggle for Control of the Atomic Age — Burrowed Books

A review of The Most Awful Responsibility: Truman and the Secret Struggle for Control of the Atomic Age by Alex Wellerstein.

burrowedbooks.com

Steve McCluskey@stevemccluskey.bsky.social · 3w ago

WaPo changed perspective with new headline and lede: 2 U.S. service members killed, 1 missing after Iran attack on Jordan, military says Iran launched a wave of attacks on U.S. allies Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain as the U.S. military hit Iran, in the seventh consecutive day of clashes.

The Washington Post@washingtonpost.com · 3w ago

The U.S. military used fighter aircraft, drones and warships to strike Iran for the seventh consecutive night, while Iran attacked U.S. allies in the Middle East, as fighting widened to hit critical infrastructure.

Seb Falk@sebfalk.com · 3w ago

Since I completely forgot to post about my own presentation beforehand, here's the abstract. Thanks to everyone who came and/or chatted about the project with me afterwards. It was really useful to air some new ideas to a friendly crowd! Even more excited to get writing the book now!

Back to the Future of Wayfinding: Pre-modern astro-navigation in the GPS age New technologies in the 20th century challenged the need for navigators to look to the stars. The rapid development of radio direction-finding, beam and hyperbolic systems, and finally satellite navigation, promised to make old methods redundant. An unfathomable global system of transmitters and receivers would replace skills in taking sightings and computing with brass and paper tools; the signals from atomic clocks would eclipse the long-fixed shapes of the constellations. Yet from the beginning this march of new technology was contested. In the first place, while black-box systems promised to make knowledge of location and direction universally accessible, the cost of equipment raised new barriers. As prices plummeted and precision soared, concerns grew that sailors and pilots might lack the understanding necessary to interpret navigational data, leading to increased risk. It has even been suggested that reliance on technology rewires our brains, making us stupider.Meanwhile, as ‘traditional’ techniques became outmoded, interest surged in reconstructing the seemingly miraculous methods of the past. Respect for the astrolabe-toting heroes of the European ‘Age of Exploration’ was complicated by a growing pluralistic awareness that their achievements had been preceded by a suite of skills and senses practised in the Pacific. In the Anthropocene, an instinctive feel for one’s environment seems ever more precious when alone atop a vast ocean.Most recently, fears about the vulnerability of GPS systems to jamming or even spoofing have become stronger – and more realistic. Put together, these pressures have caused hydrographic offices and training schools to pull back from abandoning old materials and methods. This paper will survey the arguments of manufacturers and mapmakers, technologists and traditionalists – from the backstaff to the blue dot – to show why, in the age of Google, navigation is so contested.
Steve McCluskey@stevemccluskey.bsky.social · 4w ago

“The Church has a preferential option for the poor.… It’s a formal doctrinal position,… It means a living wage is not a socialist plot but a human right. Catholic social teaching insists on this point so often and explicitly that you have to work hard to miss it. Vance works hard to miss it.”

Commonweal@commonwealmagazine.org · 4w ago

"The narrative arc of Vance’s redemption is not long, and it bends toward power." — Paul V. Brock

Steve McCluskey@stevemccluskey.bsky.social · last mo.

“Precision weaponry that widens the gap between soldier and enemy carries its own moral risks. Disembodied warfare is spiritually vacuous.… The way we conduct war today wounds those who fight it because they are kept from reckoning with the consequences of their actions.”

Commonweal@commonwealmagazine.org · last mo.

We are a people constantly at war and yet rarely in the crosshairs, using technology to offload the moral weight of our violent conflicts. Sophia Sheehy Bulla: 'Innocence & Impotence'

Colleen Morgan@clmorgan.bsky.social · 2mo ago

This is a really lovely interrogation of the use of AI in astrophysics that gets to this fundamental question—are we doing science because we want to know the answer (by any means) or because we like doing science? + www.science.org/content/arti...

Amid a flood of AI advances, astrophysicists are questioning the soul of their field

Researchers see enormous power in new tools—but also the potential end of astrophysics as a human endeavor

science.org

Roger Parloff@rparloff.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Reupping: "Those who engaged in the attacks last week will be brought to justice." ---Trump on 1/13/21, after the House impeached him but before the Senate had voted on whether to convict.

Steve McCluskey@stevemccluskey.bsky.social · 3mo ago

King Charles:“Distinguished members of the 119th Congress, it is here in these very halls that this spirit of liberty and the promise of America’s Founders is present in every session and every vote cast. Not by the will of one, but by the deliberation of many”

emptywheel@emptywheel.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Thinking this speech by King C might be considered his effort to find someone, ANYONE, to form a working parliamentary body. www.royal.uk/news-and-act...

Katie Mack@astrokatie.com · 4mo ago

More context on this #Artemis II image: * This is the night side, lit by moonlight. You can see city lights in Spain & Portugal, & a sliver of day at lower right * The Sun is entirely behind Earth, which makes it a kind of solar eclipse, but w/ Earth doing the eclipsing instead of the Moon: ☀️🌍🚀🌕

A full disc image of Earth, as seen from the Orion Crew Module. The planet is a pale blue, swirling with white clouds and glowing slightly lighter blue in place from reflected light. At lower left, a large brown landmass is Africa, with Spain and Portugal with twinkling lights where the planet curves. At top right, auroras glow in a thin green glow, just barely separated from the planet's surface. Earth is set against the black of space (pic: NASA/R.Wiseman)
Olga Nesterova@onestpress.onestnetwork.com · 6mo ago

Minnesota National Guard members have arrived at a federal building and were directed to distribute donuts, coffee, and hot chocolate to anti-ICE protesters. Guard members were issued reflective vests so they would not be mistaken for federal agents.

Bellingcat@bellingcat.com · 6mo ago

A DHS statement claimed “an individual approached US Border Patrol officers” with “a handgun” in the Alex Pretti shooting incident. A Bellingcat analysis of the footage appears to show that a gun was taken away from where Pretti was situated by an agent just before the first shot was fired.