Michael Busch

https://mastodon.online/@michael_w_busch

Planetary astronomer, studying piles of rock in space. Reader of books. Drinker of tea. He/him. This is a personal account. To bigotry no sanction.

Public Key

npub1z4xr937anjupfyf52khlzq48av7807az4hgpcxz3eeqnw3f0hvfsqq4wwh

NIP-05 Address

michael_w_busch_at_mastodon.online@momostr.pink

Profile Code

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Last Notes

2026-04-21 21:37:27 UTC

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I am reminded that while there is value to quoting just how absurd and blatant the lies and propaganda are, they really do need to be preceded and followed by the actual facts.
Otherwise, posts like Aaron Rupar's are simply stenography.

2026-04-05 13:27:24 UTC

This is a reminder that UFOs are a social phenomenon based on people misunderstanding things they see.
Nobody should pretend otherwise.
And it remains way past time for news media to stop giving a platform to Avi Loeb.a

2026-03-31 16:02:03 UTC

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There is a building like that along the Gold Line in Pasadena. The residents did not seem to mind.

2026-03-28 17:04:16 UTC

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I did not appreciate the trans allegory in "The Matrix" until I read a piece by the Wachowskis explaining it.
But Musk continues to miss the point even after they explained it to him personally.

2026-03-28 16:32:52 UTC

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Jeff Bezos is supposedly a fan of "The Expanse". Which is strange, since he is so obviously the villain of the series.
But there is nothing that someone will not miss the point of.
(See Elon Musk misunderstanding everything from "The Matrix" to The Culture novels.)

2026-03-24 21:22:10 UTC

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Counterpoint: Freedom 7 (for which there was never a Freedom 1-6, but because it was the McDonnell Model #7 capsule).
As you wrote, from the beginning NASA mission names have often been problematic.

2026-03-23 21:53:10 UTC

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Starfleet Academy would still work with a TNG-like model. The smaller number of episodes per season gives less opportunity for non-arc plots; of which there are plenty that could have been expanded on.

2026-03-23 17:19:09 UTC

Paramount apparently continues to not understand Star Trek and its fans.
https://gizmodo.com/star-trek-starfleet-academy-canceled-paramount-2000736976

2026-03-22 02:03:34 UTC

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The Starlinks have orbital inclinations 43° and up.
So whenever one re-enters at low latitude, it cannot be going mostly east-west.

2026-03-22 02:00:37 UTC

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The trajectory is wrong: https://fireballs.imo.net/members/imo_view/event/2026/1959 .
And there is a piece of the rock available.

2026-03-18 23:33:15 UTC

When I first moved to Pasadena in '05, I learned it used to be a prank to not tell new arrivals about the mountains north of town so that they would freak out on the rare clear days.
I am glad to have never had to breathe that.
QT Micah @rincewind.run‬
2026 March 18
I have lived in Los Angeles for nearly two decades and I have never experienced the kind of yellow smog that used to define this city
why? because we cleaned that shit up
none of this is beyond salvation
https://bsky.app/profile/rincewind.run/post/3mhe73h62kc2g

2026-03-18 19:14:43 UTC

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Windfall, Ohio is accidentally an appropriate name for a place to look for falling meteorites blown by the wind.

2026-03-18 18:55:12 UTC

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Strewn field map for the 2026 March 17 meteor over Ohio that is now named Windfall, accounting for strong winds blowing meteorites sideways: https://ares.jsc.nasa.gov/meteorite-falls/events/windfall-oh
The largest pieces may have gotten as far south and west as Rittman, with smaller pieces falling out further north and east.

2026-03-17 15:37:28 UTC

Fireball reports from today's meteor over Lake Erie: https://fireballs.imo.net/members/imo_view/event/2026/1828.
Looks like any meteorites will have ended up on land on a line from east Cleveland to Akron; rather than landing in the lake.
QT Brandy Schillace @bschillace.brandyschillace.com‬
2026 March 17
if you are in #Cleveland or #northeast #Ohio, the National Weather Service has announced the giant BOOM *may* have been a meteor strike, as it was seen streaking the sky from Pittsburgh.
https://bsky.app/profile/bschillace.brandyschillace.com/post/3mhb3mqaz5k2k

2026-03-15 14:59:56 UTC

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That is not one that I have encountered.
But I have found that "Staying Alive" no longer works as a reference for CPR cadence.
(Last time through training; I was told to use “Baby Shark” instead.)

2026-03-15 13:33:22 UTC

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I have lately had to explain to the undergraduate research students who Carl Sagan was.

2026-03-12 16:06:05 UTC

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Looking through the referenced paper ( https://acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3322/caac.70067 ) and its references ( https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2844189 ):
Part of why colon cancer is now the leading cause of cancer deaths among Americans younger than 50 is because while deaths from colon cancer have gone up; deaths from other cancers (lung cancer, leukemia, etc.) have gone way down.

2026-03-09 17:01:43 UTC

Re. last repost of @tadethompson.bsky.social :
I discovered a couple of days ago that Google Scholar has started indexing young-Earth creationist pseudoscience in with actual science.
So Google continues to both actively and passively degrade the value of their primary product.

2026-03-03 12:15:35 UTC

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The neutrino flash from Betelgeuse going supernova will get here 2 to 3 hours before the optical flash does.
If you should want advance notice, there is a mailing list: https://snews2.org/ .
(Betelgeuse is close enough that a significant number of people will experience a Cherenkov flash inside their eyeballs from the neutrinos. But that will be largely unnoticed.)

2026-03-02 17:02:15 UTC

RE: https://mastodon.social/@startswithabang/116160638960675056
Clyde Tombaugh remains the only human being so far whose remains will not stay in the solar system.
#note1mud…6wup

2026-02-27 23:29:24 UTC

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If anyone was wondering what the heaviest telescope is:
That depends on if IceCube and LIGO count or not.
Otherwise we can tally up the reinforced concrete, steel, and aluminum of the radio telescopes.

2026-02-27 21:09:16 UTC

The leadership of the American Astronomical Society explains why "move all the telescopes to space" is neither possible nor desirable: https://spacenews.com/the-future-of-astronomy-is-both-on-earth-and-in-space/
I would only add that there are individual telescopes that mass more than everything ever launched into space put together.
Link via @merrdiff.bsky.social .

2026-02-27 18:02:42 UTC

QT ESA Space Science @science.esa.int‬
2026 February 27
Our first glimpse of comet 3I/ATLAS from Juice's science camera
The precious data from the mission's November observations of the interstellar comet arrived on Earth last week. Teams are now digging in to discover what they reveal.
Stay tuned for updates!
More https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2026/02/First_glimpse_of_comet_3I_ATLAS_from_Juice_science_camera
https://bsky.app/profile/science.esa.int/post/3mftdzllfrc2t

2026-02-26 19:57:50 UTC

Company: "We have a new AI that automatically identifies file formats!"
Me: "Be honest."
Company: "We have a routine that does standard file header parsing."

2026-02-26 02:20:19 UTC

I learn that the NASA Planetary Science Summer School on spacecraft mission planning will be taking place this year, amid everything else that is happening.
The pre-application webinar is on 2026 March 4:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSekYR7tiegTFikT9ajqGRdcmyB39BVTc2kWXdrnaf34JX_RFA/viewform

2026-02-19 18:47:32 UTC

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Didn't VIMS pick up CO2 on Iapetus; produced photochemically in sunlight and then cold trapped in darkness?
This is me vaguely recalling stuff from 15 years ago now.

2026-02-19 18:35:09 UTC

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Water and not CO2, because Ceres is warmer.
But yes.

2026-02-19 17:39:30 UTC

I was reminded today of this paper from 2024:
Schorghofer et al. 2024, "History of Ceres’s Cold Traps Based on Refined Shape Models" - https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/PSJ/ad3639
Describing how water ice moves around cold traps on Ceres on a timescale of thousands of years.
Ceres keeps acting more like the Moon or a small terrestrial planet than like the smaller asteroids.

2026-02-11 16:29:35 UTC

Yet again, USA:
Require that new vaccines be made available.
And remove Prasad and #ImpeachRFKJr
QT Lizzy Lawrence @lizzylawrence.bsky.social‬
2026 February 11
Top FDA official Vinay Prasad overruled the agency’s reviewers when he refused to accept Moderna’s application for a new influenza vaccine, STAT has learned.
https://www.statnews.com/2026/02/11/moderna-flu-vaccine-application-rejected-by-prasad-overruling-fda-staff/
https://bsky.app/profile/lizzylawrence.bsky.social/post/3melshksuqk2i

2026-02-10 02:08:44 UTC

This is very sad news.
I recently happened to come across my admission letter to Caltech - which was signed by George.
He will be long remembered.
"Caltech Mourns the Passing of George Rossman (1944–2026)"
https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/caltech-mourns-the-passing-of-george-rossman-19442026

2026-02-07 18:34:55 UTC

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And, yet again, USA:
Require that your members of Congress act to end all of this, #CloseTheCamps, #AbolishICE & the Border Patrol, remove Homan & Miller, #ImpeachNoem, and #ImpeachTrump.
Give them no choice otherwise.

2026-02-07 18:34:43 UTC

More ICE agents who need to be charged with attempted murder, #Minnesota.
QT Nathan Kalman-Lamb @nkalamb.bsky.social‬
2026 February 7
ICE told nurses this Minneapolis man “purposefully ran headfirst into a brick wall.”
What actually happened is that they pulled him from a car, beat him so viciously with a steel baton that he had 8 skull fractures, 5 life-threatening brain hemorrhages, and couldn’t remember he had a daughter.
https://bsky.app/profile/nkalamb.bsky.social/post/3mebyh5lyb22j

2026-02-05 23:28:17 UTC

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Just like baseball cards. Or anything else that is portable and easily convertible to cash.

2026-02-05 15:25:10 UTC

"space data centers" continues to be quite the scam.
Here @npub1rkp…dy04 focuses on heat sinking in vacuum.
But there is also radiation hardening, power limits, unavoidable light travel time lag, and that nobody can launch the mass they would require.
Hype is unconstrained by facts.
QT Zach Weinersmith @zachweinersmith.bsky.social‬
2026 February 5
We didn't talk about space data centers in A City on Mars, but tbh the idea just seemed so transparently silly.
https://bsky.app/profile/zachweinersmith.bsky.social/post/3me4igfplds2h

2026-02-04 23:00:16 UTC

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That reads like it might be "Elder Race" by Adrian Tchaikovsky, except that that was only published in 2021.
Tagging @npub19tt…6nnr for relevant expertise.

2026-02-03 20:52:20 UTC

Listening to a presentation about the asteroid impact hazard.
Speaker: "Nobody likes to talk about nuclear blast disruption."
Scientists and engineers have been talking about that for the last 35+ years.
It just fortunately turns out to not be necessary.

2026-02-03 01:08:35 UTC

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As the linked article acknowledges when it points out that pork and chicken are several times more efficient as food sources than beef.

2026-02-03 01:08:30 UTC

This is a reminder that while we need systemic changes to global food production and consumption; they are much more complicated than "don't eat meat".
QT Doug Parr @dougparr.bsky.social‬
2026 February 2
Stat of the day:
"Every 10% of global conventional meat consumption replaced by alternative proteins has about the same climate impact as replacing all the world’s fossil-fuelled vehicles with electric vehicles"
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/31/humanitys-favourite-food-how-to-end-the-livestock-industry-but-keep-eating-meat
https://bsky.app/profile/dougparr.bsky.social/post/3mdudr2ph3s2k

2026-02-02 22:07:04 UTC

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Only satellites that are not adequately prepared in terms of radiation shielding are at risk.
Which unfortunately describes the Starlinks.
I guess we will see if SpaceX loses an entire launch's worth again.

2026-02-02 20:37:18 UTC

This is a regular reminder that geomagnetic storms only induce significant amounts of voltage and current across very long continuous pieces of conductor.
And current power grids can be and generally are set up with surge protections on long-distance lines to prevent blackouts when that happens.

2026-01-30 17:25:12 UTC

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SpaceX is pleased to claim that Starlink makes money, but only by not including the costs of replacing the satellites.

2026-01-30 16:55:06 UTC

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Quite the thing when the "good" brand is the company that is blowing up Starships and littering the sky with Starlinks while losing lots of money.

2026-01-26 14:52:53 UTC

This is an occasional reminder that there is precedent for Congress forcing out both POTUS and VP and replacing them with the Senate Minority Leader and Governor of New York.
(Trump is not Nixon and Vance is not Agnew. This is just a reminder of what is possible in the US political system.)

2026-01-23 17:31:30 UTC

RE: https://alaskan.social/@AlaskaWx/115945176086559767
When there is more heat to transfer from equator to pole; we end up with Utqiaġvik being 50 F warmer than here in Minnesota at the same time, as air masses move around.
#note1tz8…kgyh

2026-01-19 03:45:38 UTC

ICE is kidnapping snow plow drivers in Minnesota in the middle of winter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQ3l4OvriBw

2026-01-15 15:46:25 UTC

#AbolishICE and the Border Patrol.
"Shawn Jackson was parked nearby the scene with his kids in the car. A law enforcement agency — unclear which one — set off flash bangs that detonated the airbags in his car. Officers then sprayed tear gas. The Minneapolis Fire Department took the children — including a baby suffering breathing problems, Jackson’s mother said — to the hospital.
“They out of control,” Jackson said."
https://minnesotareformer.com/2026/01/14/second-person-in-a-week-shot-by-federal-immigration-agent-in-minneapolis/

2026-01-13 13:47:20 UTC

Today on the #arXiv :
Lisse et al. 2026, "SPHEREx Re-Observation of Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS in December 2025" - https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.06759
#3IATLAS continues to be a pretty typical comet except for where it came from.

2026-01-07 14:37:45 UTC

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I would say rather that the current set of text generators being promoted as "AI" have been designed to manipulate people into anthropomorphizing the software.
It was a deliberately choice for OpenAI, Anthropic, etc. to have the default interface to be chatbots that emulate the usual social media interfaces.
(Although the same manipulative strategy worked with ELIZA even before widespread social medial use...)

2025-12-22 00:20:59 UTC

"As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion ..."
- United States Senate, unanimously, 1796
#ImpeachTrump and then #ImpeachVance.

2025-12-18 20:14:04 UTC

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Venus' clouds would be briefly sour until the sulfuric acid dissolved your taste buds.
Moon dust supposedly tastes like spent gunpowder.
Mars would taste like bloody seawater with a touch of bleach.
Carbonaceous chondrite asteroids would taste like tar with notes of arsenic and mercury.
Comet water would taste like wood alcohol and cyanide.
There are not many good options out there.

2025-12-18 14:38:08 UTC

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PSR J2322–2650b is very light on hydrogen and very heavy on molecular carbon.
So it would taste like charcoal rather than being sour.

2025-12-16 00:47:07 UTC

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With tater-tots as a topping; that would be Minnesotan hotdish.
Which I will not eat again.

2025-12-15 18:59:43 UTC

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I have helped teach a lot of people how to cook using Harold McGee's "On Food and Cooking".
Because while it does not include many recipes itself; it goes into detail on ingredients and methods.
Thus avoiding people following supposed recipes without knowing enough to tell if they make any sense or not.

2025-12-15 00:45:33 UTC

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Thanks go to the National Association of Letter Carriers, who I assume would rather be completing their appointed rounds.
#AbolishICE
https://www.startribune.com/postal-workers-rally-in-minneapolis-to-demand-ice-off-post-office-property/601545921?utm_source=gift

2025-12-15 00:29:32 UTC

#AbolishICE
https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/minnesota-rep-ilhan-omar-says-son-pulled-over-by-ice/

2025-12-15 00:13:32 UTC

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How many decades has "READFITS" been a command now?

2025-12-14 16:30:16 UTC

I have again encountered pieces suggesting mining asteroids for rare-earth metals to ship back to Earth.
More people should read Julie M. Klinger's "Rare Earth Frontiers" about why that does not make any sense: https://uplopen.com/books/m/10.7591/9781501714610
(Much to the disappointment of 20-years-past me.)

2025-12-13 22:12:47 UTC

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I once heard a child psychologist say "anything short of fratricide is normal".
So the range of sibling relationships is wide.

2025-12-08 17:42:14 UTC

Discussion of 3I observations with PUNCH by Kevin Walsh and @npub10m8…6gmu :
https://www.swri.org/newsroom/press-releases/swri-researchers-use-punch-track-interstellar-comet-3i-atlas

2025-12-07 18:06:36 UTC

RE: https://mathstodon.xyz/@johncarlosbaez/115677835220476940
It would be great if people stopped rewarding automated plagiarism machines with outrageous amounts of money.
#note13pw…530w

2025-11-29 01:09:11 UTC

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Somebody pushing new code to production without checking for the possible failure modes of bits getting flipped?

2025-11-29 00:36:27 UTC

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Radiation causing bit flips is a known problem.
The failure here would be Airbus not including adequate protections against it by default.

2025-11-27 16:54:34 UTC

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If I do the math correctly, the LD50 for untreated comet water would be about 1 pint.

2025-11-27 15:32:33 UTC

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There is < 10% as much methanol being sublimated off of 3I as there is water, and only a few parts per thousand as much cyanide as water.
But please do not try to taste the comet.

2025-11-27 04:52:57 UTC

Today on the #arXiv:
Roth et al. 2026, "CH3OH and HCN in Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Mapped with the ALMA Atacama Compact Array" - https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.20845
Suggesting variations in the surface chemistry of the nucleus, with different zones having relatively more or less methanol and cyanide.

2025-11-26 18:27:05 UTC

Images and other data from the OSIRIS-APEX flyby of Earth this year: https://news.arizona.edu/news/osiris-apex-spacecraft-takes-selfie-earth-during-flyby
For those unaware:
OSIRIS-APEX, previously known as OSIRIS-REx and O-REx, flew by Earth in 2023 after dropping off its samples from the asteroid Bennu.
It then looped around twice before the flyby this year, and has two more flybys before it reaches the asteroid Apophis in 2029.
The navigation team does good work.

2025-11-24 18:07:10 UTC

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Nearly 20 years ago now, there was a piece critiquing another sulfate aerosol scheme.
It was entitled "Can Dr. Evil Save The World?".
Evidently, the venture capitalists concerned have learned nothing.

2025-11-17 22:10:23 UTC

It is a very interesting dot.
"NASA to Share Comet 3I/ATLAS Images From Spacecraft, Telescopes"
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-to-share-comet-3i-atlas-images-from-spacecraft-telescopes/
(Again, raw images of 3I from NASA spaceccraft have been available - these are the processed images with expert commentary.)

2025-11-10 16:54:33 UTC

#subpost
At a time when jobs are being lost across nearly all categories of employment, a professional society offering a "how to apply for jobs" workshop does not seem like an adequate response.

2025-11-09 14:59:09 UTC

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I just have this idea that if we taxed the few richest people on the claimed value of all of their assets, we would have fewer cases of investment bubbles driven by billionaires propping up meme stocks.
Rather than Tesla having 20 times the market capitalization of GM while making far fewer cars.

2025-11-08 17:26:21 UTC

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Taking away Elon Musk's wealth by stopping Tesla from being overvalued.

2025-11-08 16:57:16 UTC

I read stories about the massively inflated share prices of various companies.
#TaxTheRich with a wealth tax, so that billionaires actually have to pay taxes on all of those stock holdings.
Then maybe they will actually be accurately valued.

2025-10-29 14:53:50 UTC

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The Vatican has signed the Outer Space Treaty.
It is thus obligated to "not place nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit or on celestial bodies or station them in outer space in any other manner".
This might seem frivolous, but I remember how the Order of Malta briefly owned a fleet of military bombers.

2025-10-22 17:11:14 UTC

Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth continue to order mass murder.
Yet again, USA:
Require that Congress do its job, end all of this, #ImpeachHegseth, and #ImpeachTrump.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-s-strikes-8th-drug-vessel-pacific-side/

2025-10-14 21:26:48 UTC

Since I read discourse today, a reminder:
If everyone took their COVID shots, if we had contact tracing & prompt use of post-exposure antivirals, and if we had clean indoor air standards; we could get the reproduction number for SARS-CoV-2 well below 1 & keep it there.
Until then, wear your mask.

2025-10-13 15:45:42 UTC

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I must again report that EMPs do not work that way.

2025-10-08 17:28:51 UTC

My city government is sending community health workers begging people whose children have not been vaccinated against measles to get them their shots.
Yet again, #Minnesota:
Require that the state permit only verified medical exemptions to vaccine mandates.
And yet again, USA:
#ImpeachRFKJr.

2025-10-07 17:12:42 UTC

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I suddenly feel a need to quote a meme:
"That's not how any of this works."

2025-09-26 15:45:50 UTC

RE: https://mastodon.social/@space_environmentalism/115271334981541293
Is Starlink unable to provide many users with internet access? Yes.
Is Starlink enabling organized crime? Yes.
Is Starlink making a mess of low orbit? Also yes.
It remains way past time to shut down this scam.
#note1mz5…6c87

2025-09-25 15:49:03 UTC

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I learned this from my daughter's pediatricians, who explained their policies at intake - both to warn any vaccine denialists and to reassure everyone else that they are doing what they can to keep all the kids safe.

2025-09-25 15:37:37 UTC

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There are many pediatricians who will only take vaccinated kids as patients: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7492908/ .
They do not want someone coming in with measles and infecting a newborn in the waiting area.
Nor do they want an unvaccinated kid coming in and getting pertussis from another patient.
Some practices enact isolation protocols for unvaccinated kids instead - which the adults who are denying the kids their shots may complain about, but which is necessary for their protection.

2025-09-24 21:05:05 UTC

Yet again, USA:
Require that Congress affirm that the government will spend money as it has ordered.
And #ImpeachDuffy and #ImpeachTrump.
"Trump Cancels Trail, Bike-Lane Grants Deemed ‘Hostile’ to Cars"
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-22/trump-cancels-trail-bike-lane-grants-deemed-hostile-to-cars

2025-09-24 21:03:48 UTC

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Borosilicate glass is sometimes used for windshields.
But only when made as tempered laminate, specifically to avoid sharp fragments flying everywhere.

2025-09-23 14:36:39 UTC

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I am going to guess that there was no multiple-comparison correction when computing those confidence values?

2025-09-23 00:26:22 UTC

I am thinking again of Octavia Butler's "Parable" novels and how more people should have paid attention to them.
As has been the style for the last decade.

2025-09-22 21:03:35 UTC

Yet again, USA:
#ImpeachRFKJr and remove him & all of the lethal quacks with him from government.
Before they kill even more people than they already have.

2025-09-21 00:51:26 UTC

I have done my civics homework and voted in the local #SaintPaul, #Minnesota election.
Voting for school funding and ranking Melvin Carter & Kaohly Her for mayor.
It is nice to have multiple good candidates to choose.

2025-09-20 13:34:51 UTC

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I heard a discussion a while back about outdoor cats having less autoimmune disease than indoor cats.
Much of that is the outdoor cats dying before they develop whatever disease.
But another part of it is their being way more likely to be infected by worms which suppress their host's immune system.
So. Yeah.

2025-09-19 13:55:28 UTC

I was reminded today of the logo for ESA's Planetary Defence Office.
I think it wins over the NASA Planetary Defense Coordination Office and JAXA Planetary Defense logos.
https://files.mastodon.online/media_attachments/files/115/231/295/917/428/858/original/cff0aa3574d475f5.jpg

2025-09-18 21:54:03 UTC

Witnessed.
"Democratic New York Lawmakers Arrested for Demanding Access to Alleged ICE Detention Facility"
https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/democratic-new-york-lawmakers-arrested-for-demanding-access-to-alleged-ice-detention-facility/

2025-09-17 02:09:37 UTC

#ImpeachNoem, United States.
Before she personally gets someone killed for a propaganda stunt.

2025-09-15 03:32:51 UTC

Take your shots and wear your masks.
QT Waldo Jaquith @waldo.net‬
2025 September 14
Hey, so...Covid rates have gotten real high. Maybe change your behavior to fit this new risk profile? Stop eating indoors at restaurants, mask on mass transit, that kind of thing?
https://www.cdc.gov/nwss/rv/COVID19-national-data.html
https://bsky.app/profile/waldo.net/post/3lyttlnrpps2h

2025-09-12 19:15:25 UTC

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I have been thinking this week about the "Run, Hide, Fight" bit that was tacked onto a Community Emergency Response training I did some years ago.
The cop the trainers brought in for that portion was quite open about how police cannot stop mass shootings. He also explained how if someone has a long gun, all the regular cops will do is cover and call for SWAT (because their vests can't stop rifle rounds).
And yet we don't have gun control.
Today in the cyberpunk dystopia...

2025-09-09 19:20:54 UTC

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White supremacists and neo-Nazis trying to infiltrate martial arts groups has also been a thing for a long time - I even encountered a couple in California.
The better clubs know to kick them out before they start causing trouble.

2025-09-09 18:57:37 UTC

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Rahil Makadia's work here is similar to the concept of a "physical properties keyhole" that was talked about in the '00s.
An orbital keyhole is a position in orbital space that leads to a future Earth impact.
A physical properties keyhole is a combination of physical properties that leads to one.

2025-09-09 18:54:59 UTC

We have been given strict instructions to not make piles of rock fall from the sky.
QT Europlanet @europlanetmedia.bsky.social‬
2025 September 9
🗞️ #EPSCDPS2025: Study by Rahil Makadia ( @illinoispress.bsky.social ) et al. tries to understand how to Find the Safest Spots to Deflect a Hazardous Asteroid: https://www.europlanet.org/epsc-dps2025-look-out-for-the-keyhole-how-to-find-the-safest-spots-to-deflect-a-hazardous-asteroid/
https://bsky.app/profile/europlanetmedia.bsky.social/post/3lyfytdar3c2q

2025-09-08 06:15:46 UTC

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Current mission plans for #Apophis in 2029:
DESTINY+ pre-encounter flyby by JAXA.
RAMSES pre-encounter rendezvous by ESA.
OSIRIS-APEx post-encounter rendezvous by NASA.
We are admonished to encourage the relevant legislatures to affirm that the missions will take place as planned.
#EPSCDPS2025

2025-09-08 06:03:57 UTC

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Rick highlighted #TeamRadar radar astrometry of #Apophis and its role in ruling out any possibility of impact in the foreseeable future.
Per Brozovic et al. 2018 - https://echo.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroids/brozovic.etal.apophis.2018.pdf

2025-09-08 05:12:42 UTC

#EPSCDPS2025 will resume today with Rick Binzel giving a T-4 update on plans for the 2029 flyby of Earth by the asteroid Apophis: https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EPSC-DPS2025/session/55375
And, as always:
Apophis will miss the Earth.

2025-09-05 17:45:22 UTC

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Now I am reminded of Ursula Vernon's "Paladin" series of fantasy novels.
They feature an order of berserker paladin fighters; several of whom spend their spare time spinning thread and knitting socks, because they understandably do not want uncomfortable feet while chasing down demons.
Nobody dares to bother them about this.