Nostr notes by Robert McNees

Friends! Suppose you were going to be in Paris for 8 days this ...

2026-03-21T18:09:27Z

Friends! Suppose you were going to be in Paris for 8 days this June, with a spouse and a 14yo. What are some lesser known or not obvious things you would plan to do? Any recommendations? I mean besides the standard stuff like the Louvre, Catacombs, etc.

This was posted in a shorter format as a thread on Bluesky and it ...

2026-02-23T01:36:33Z

This was posted in a shorter format as a thread on Bluesky and it worked marvelously. One of the most innovative uses of the form that I’ve seen.

https://www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/how-far-back-in-time-understand-english

Astronaut, author, professional football player, and STEM ...

2026-02-15T19:17:00Z

Astronaut, author, professional football player, and STEM educator Leland Melvin was born #OTD in 1964.

Here he is in the greatest photo ever produced by the US space program.

Image: NASA

"That's here. That's home. That's us. On it ...

2026-02-14T17:46:24Z

"That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering…every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."
— Carl Sagan

Voyager 1 captured the "Pale Blue Dot" image #OTD in 1990.

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Engineer and inventor Douglas Engelbart was born #OTD in 1925. ...

2026-01-30T15:37:16Z

Engineer and inventor Douglas Engelbart was born #OTD in 1925.

His team at SRI developed or contributed to the computer mouse, hypertext, networked computers, and graphical interfaces, all of which were presented in 1968 at what is referred to as the “Mother of All Demos."

Image: ARC Bootstrapper

If you can’t see the full headline in the preview card, here it ...

2026-01-08T22:15:25Z

In reply to nevent1q…jcnh
_________________________

If you can’t see the full headline in the preview card, here it is.

Calling this a recipe for disaster is unfair to disasters.

I cannot stress enough that you should not do this. ...

2026-01-08T22:13:14Z

I cannot stress enough that you should not do this.

https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/857640/openai-launches-chatgpt-health-connect-medical-records

Mac users: do you do the long-click on a word to pop up its ...

2026-01-08T16:54:11Z

Mac users: do you do the long-click on a word to pop up its definition? Do you also find the built-in dictionary to be a bit lackluster?

You can add your own dictionaries! Let me explain how to add the Webster's 1913 edition, which is one of my favorites.

This is incredible. An MTV simulator with almost 30,000 videos, ...

2026-01-06T17:07:07Z

This is incredible. An MTV simulator with almost 30,000 videos, organized by decade along with special sections for Headbanger's Ball and Yo! MTV Raps.

https://wantmymtv.vercel.app/

We can’t pay for USAid, scientific research, daycare, school ...

2026-01-03T18:26:52Z

We can’t pay for USAid, scientific research, daycare, school lunches, social security, unemployment benefits, or healthcare, but apparently there’s no problem launching an illegal war that will cost US taxpayers billions of dollars and enrich all the grifters, goons, and ghouls in this administration.

Accidentally typed “shatbot” instead of “chatbot” and ...

2026-01-02T19:37:46Z

Accidentally typed “shatbot” instead of “chatbot” and decided to cancel the autocorrect and just let that one escape into the wild.

It is pretty wild that a news org (a “news” org) is running a ...

2026-01-02T19:28:37Z

It is pretty wild that a news org (a “news” org) is running a piece that quotes loads of grok output but has no quotes from humans, other than a combative auto-reply to an email.

Even the language here — “grok said” — is so wildly irresponsible. Grok didn’t “say” anything. It output a string of words that met a complicated set of likelihood criteria for the question “what would a reply sound like?”

*People* made this and allowed it to be used this way.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/grok-says-safeguard-lapses-led-images-minors-minimal-clothing-x-2026-01-02/

I’m not sure what you mean? On my end, each one of these is a ...

2026-01-02T14:36:20Z

In reply to nevent1q…d6gn
_________________________

I’m not sure what you mean? On my end, each one of these is a reply to the previous post. Does it look different to you, or am I misunderstanding?

Astronomers were divided on the issue; many still subscribed to ...

2026-01-02T02:19:27Z

In reply to nevent1q…3ta8
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Astronomers were divided on the issue; many still subscribed to the idea that everything they saw was within our Milky Way.

Hubble built on observations by Vesto Slipher, collaborated with Milton Humason, and relied on Henrietta Swan Leavitt’s Cepheid variable work to make his case. (2/n)

101 years ago, #OTD in 1925, Edwin Hubble announced that ...

2026-01-02T02:14:20Z

101 years ago, #OTD in 1925, Edwin Hubble announced that Andromeda and other spiral nebulae were definitely separate galaxies outside the Milky Way, in a paper read to an AAS meeting by H.N. Russell.

There was no doubt that the Universe was more than just our little island of stars.

The transition from classical to quantum physics went about as ...

2025-12-14T20:22:13Z

In reply to nevent1q…jaws
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The transition from classical to quantum physics went about as smoothly as you would expect. Happy #QuantumDay!

(Unfortunately, I have no idea who made this classic physics meme. It has been around forever. If you know, please tell me!)

That’s right, the factor of “k” that appears in the formula ...

2025-12-14T20:20:19Z

In reply to nevent1q…z735
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That’s right, the factor of “k” that appears in the formula “S = k log W” — the formula engraved on Boltzmann’s memorial! — was actually introduced by Max Planck. Boltzmann expressed his results in terms of the ideal gas constant R.

Image: user Daderot on Wikipedia

Something that isn’t as widely known is that “h” is not the ...

2025-12-14T20:19:38Z

In reply to nevent1q…p56f
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Something that isn’t as widely known is that “h” is not the only fundamental constant that was introduced during Planck’s presentation to the German Physical Society #OTD in 1900!

Planck was investigating emission and absorption by blackbodies, so he needed a way to relate energies and temperatures. Thus, he had to introduce what we now refer to as “Boltzmann’s constant.”

The results of Planck’s December 14th lecture were submitted to ...

2025-12-14T20:18:39Z

In reply to nevent1q…zevt
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The results of Planck’s December 14th lecture were submitted to Annalen der Physik a few weeks later, on January 7th, and published not long after that.

You can see the original (in German) here:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/andp.19013090310

An English translation of Planck’s paper, taken from Dirk ter Haar’s “The Old Quantum Theory,” is available here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230529024105/http://hermes.ffn.ub.es/luisnavarro/nuevo_maletin/Planck%20(1900),%20Distribution%20Law.pdf

Planck’s hypothesis was in fact a deep statement about the ...

2025-12-14T20:16:00Z

In reply to nevent1q…gjf0
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Planck’s hypothesis was in fact a deep statement about the nature of Nature. Electromagnetic adiation of frequency f comes in discrete chunks of energy E=hf. It's not an artifact of a complicated interaction with matter.

Nowadays we refer to the proportionality constant h as "Planck's constant." In the SI system it takes the value h=6.626 x 10⁻³⁴ kg*m²/s, or 4.136 x 10⁻¹⁵ eV*s.

As far as we can tell, h is a fundamental constant that is hardwired into our Universe.

This sequence of events was a not uncommon narrative in the ...

2025-12-14T20:14:58Z

In reply to nevent1q…p3xk
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This sequence of events was a not uncommon narrative in the transformative years of late 19th and early 20th century physics. It would go something like this:

1. An experimental result doesn’t make sense

2. A physicist proposes a radical solution.

3. The solution seems too weird to be real. Everyone assumes it must be a convenient "trick."

4. Eventually, everyone realizes it wasn't a trick, and reality is in fact weirder than they expected.

Here's a great APS Landmarks entry where you can read more ...

2025-12-14T20:13:20Z

In reply to nevent1q…yf2e
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Here's a great APS Landmarks entry where you can read more about Compton Scattering and the reality of photons.

https://physics.aps.org/story/v13/st8

Many physicists remained skeptical. But Arthur Compton’s 1923 ...

2025-12-14T20:12:52Z

In reply to nevent1q…ap9f
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Many physicists remained skeptical. But Arthur Compton’s 1923 explanation of X-rays scattering off electrons was near-incontrovertible evidence that quanta were real.

If so, it was a trick that worked. Previous efforts to derive ...

2025-12-14T20:11:22Z

In reply to nevent1q…lyxz
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If so, it was a trick that *worked*.

Previous efforts to derive the blackbody emission spectrum using classical physics gave nonsensical results at high frequencies. Replace continuous emission with discrete quanta and things work out perfectly.

Evidence for the reality of quanta began with Einstein’s explanation of the photoelectric effect in 1905. The proposal that radiation of frequency f exists only in discrete chunks of energy E=hf was the first result of Einstein’s “Miracle Year.”

Planck’s quantum hypothesis would revolutionize physics, but he ...

2025-12-14T20:10:01Z

In reply to nevent1q…5qxe
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Planck’s quantum hypothesis would revolutionize physics, but he initially thought it wasn’t real.

He suspected that the interaction of matter and radiation was tremendously complicated but still governed by the physics known at the time — what we now call “classical physics.”

Invoking quanta of radiation to derive the blackbody emission spectrum was, it seemed to Planck, just a mathematical trick that somehow encapsulated all that complication.

Happy #QuantumDay to all who celebrate! Max Planck presented work ...

2025-12-14T20:08:26Z

Happy #QuantumDay to all who celebrate!

Max Planck presented work on blackbody radiation to the German Physical Society #OTD in 1900.

His novel “quantum hypothesis” suggested that matter should be treated as it it emits and absorbs light with frequency f only in discrete chunks of energy E=hf.

Image: AIP

If you think you recognize this woman, no you don't. ...

2025-12-06T03:51:37Z

If you think you recognize this woman, no you don't.

https://futurism.com/future-society/woman-hero-smashing-meta-smart-glasses-subway

"I, at any rate, am convinced that He is not playing at ...

2025-12-04T15:43:34Z

"I, at any rate, am convinced that He is not playing at dice."

Einstein sent a letter to Max Born #OTD in 1926, in which he gave his oft-quoted objection to the probabilistic interpretation of the wavefunction in quantum mechanics.

You may be surprised by where this is headed. (1/n)

https://physicstoday.aip.org/letters/albert-einstein-to-max-born-1

I’m not an expert, but I’ve seen this paper described as an ...

2025-12-02T05:50:33Z

I’m not an expert, but I’ve seen this paper described as an important justification for claims about the safety of Roundup.

And now it has been retracted by the journal it appeared in over 25 years ago.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0273230099913715

Lumping them together as “AI” gives readers the impression ...

2025-11-22T17:30:41Z

In reply to nevent1q…52ck
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Lumping them together as “AI” gives readers the impression that a single class of tool is discerning novel protein structures, teasing subtle patterns out of mountains of LHC data, writing a student’s History 101 paper for them, and arguing that a ketamine-addled billionaire could post up Shaq in his prime. No.

Machine learning (umbrella term, I know) is a useful, sometimes ...

2025-11-22T17:29:42Z

In reply to nevent1q…9ke7
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Machine learning (umbrella term, I know) is a useful, sometimes transformative tool in the hands of trained researchers who understand how to deploy it and critically assess the results.

A chatbot is not useful in the same ways (though underlying technologies may be, in other contexts).

Journalist challenge: Use “Machine Learning” when you mean ...

2025-11-22T16:54:05Z

Journalist challenge: Use “Machine Learning” when you mean machine learning and “LLM” when you mean LLM. Ditch “AI” as a catch-all term, it’s not useful for readers and it helps companies trying to confuse the public by obscuring the roles played by different technologies.

“But I am a hater, which is a kind of integrity. It means I am ...

2025-11-19T15:58:53Z

“But I am a hater, which is a kind of integrity. It means I am willing to disagree with anyone, even if it is rude. “But I only use it to–” “Actually if you just—” “The new models–” “I was making fun–” Stop. You’re embarrassing yourself. I am embarrassed for you.”

This is so good.

https://anthonymoser.github.io/writing/ai/haterdom/2025/08/26/i-am-an-ai-hater.html

There is no scientific basis for this claim. This is hype cycle ...

2025-10-26T22:36:37Z

There is no scientific basis for this claim. This is hype cycle escalation and rhetorical sleight of hand.

There are many tools that a *marketer* might lump into a category they call “AI,” that are useful when deployed by trained researchers.

But will an LLM cure cancer? No. Get serious. Something like AlphaFold has nothing in common with the sorts of “AI” chatbots and half-baked technologies these companies are pushing right now.

https://fortune.com/2025/10/26/google-ruth-porat-cure-cancer-in-our-lifetime-with-ai/

Good evening. ...

2025-10-25T01:13:32Z

Good evening.

I commonly use an owl with my keyboard so needless to say I was ...

2025-10-16T15:27:39Z

I commonly use an owl with my keyboard so needless to say I was both hurt and offended when the captcha denied my response.

Take all that energy use projected for “AI” data centers in ...

2025-10-09T00:47:41Z

Take all that energy use projected for “AI” data centers in the US next year, and that’s about how much work you’d have to do to accelerate a 100kg space probe up to 1/3 the speed of light.

Now, we don’t yet have the technology to do that. But to be fair, we don’t have AI, either.

Astronomer Ejnar Hertzsprung was born #OTD in 1873. Emoji ...

2025-10-08T21:58:51Z

Astronomer Ejnar Hertzsprung was born #OTD in 1873.

Emoji Hertzsprung-Russell diagram:

🔵 🟦 🟥
🔵 🟧
⚪️ 🟨
⚪️
🟡🟡
⚬ ⚬ 🟠🟠
⚬ ⚬ ⚬ 🔴
⚬ 🔴
⚫️

There’s a big story in Science News on the 100th anniversary of ...

2025-09-25T03:06:34Z

There’s a big story in Science News on the 100th anniversary of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin’s remarkable dissertation. Here’s a thread about her that I wrote a few years ago!
https://mastodon.social/@mcnees/110345032849810344

This morning, during some chaos, this zipped by on one of my ...

2025-09-23T20:37:09Z

This morning, during some chaos, this zipped by on one of my feeds. Maybe it was here? Maybe it was BlueSky? Hard to overstate how much this made my day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver-engineered_dam_in_the_Czech_Republic

Lolll. Lmao, even. ...

2025-09-19T03:51:01Z

Lolll. Lmao, even.

https://futurism.com/mark-zuckerberg-ai-glasses-demo-fails

Nostr event nevent1qqsxttnh7mamu3fr8dwmw8kqwsnerya65nwlaqrnd4kta3l524wjt8qzyquacwm07tt5sm7asj5zgcsadsg6e7jx0kk98np28uyahefh6urpsp60t7x

2025-09-12T22:54:34Z

Slaughterhouse-Two-point-Five
https://mas.to/@kims/115193241803168717

I mean, come on. ...

2025-09-12T18:32:35Z

I mean, come on.

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/09/education-report-calling-for-ethical-ai-use-contains-over-15-fake-sources/

For everyone who asked, here’s the full section from the ...

2025-09-10T04:49:03Z

In reply to nevent1q…a3u8
_________________________

For everyone who asked, here’s the full section from the syllabus.

Welp, posted this late last night then logged in and found it’d ...

2025-09-10T00:49:48Z

In reply to nevent1q…r6y2
_________________________

Welp, posted this late last night then logged in and found it’d been around the world and back.

My students are often surprised to learn that LLMs aren’t ...

2025-09-09T04:54:47Z

My students are often surprised to learn that LLMs aren’t answering their questions. Rather, an LLM answers the question “what would a reply to this look like?” It’s one of the first things I explain in the “Should I use LLMs?” portion of my syllabus.

Anyway, I’m back in Tennessee this weekend. Was planning on ...

2025-08-16T20:16:51Z

In reply to nevent1q…vr0j
_________________________

Anyway, I’m back in Tennessee this weekend. Was planning on pulling a few more records to take back — there are so many I’d love to give a good home to — when I realized I had *missed* a closet last time I was down here. At least another 300 records to sort through.

I just pulled a fraction of really good ones from the six or ...

2025-08-16T20:12:33Z

In reply to nevent1q…awuq
_________________________

I just pulled a fraction of really good ones from the six or seven hundred I sorted through. It’s an exquisite collection. They aren’t audiophiles, just music lovers. (To be fair, they always had a great hi-fi.)

A few months ago, while visiting family in Tennessee, I started ...

2025-08-16T20:10:07Z

A few months ago, while visiting family in Tennessee, I started digging through my parents’ substantial vinyl collection. They do not listen to them — the records were just sitting in closets and a spare room, in record crates. I pulled a bunch of records to take back to Chicago. It was quite a haul.

This meeting could have been an email hacked by the Russians and ...

2025-08-15T23:18:25Z

This meeting could have been an email hacked by the Russians and leaked before a big election

Yesterday morning I was explaining Ozzy Osbourne to the kids in ...

2025-07-24T14:41:10Z

Yesterday morning I was explaining Ozzy Osbourne to the kids in my daughter’s carpool, doing the whole RIP tour of Black Sabbath and his solo stuff, and one of them nodded solemnly and said “Fly high, metal grandpa.”

Look, speaking as a physicist, it is hard for me to put into ...

2025-07-16T04:38:45Z

Look, speaking as a physicist, it is hard for me to put into words how batshit crazy this is.

https://gizmodo.com/billionaires-convince-themselves-ai-is-close-to-making-new-scientific-discoveries-2000629060

[Arby’s CEO pointing to the bottom layer on a chart of ...

2025-07-16T04:33:58Z

[Arby’s CEO pointing to the bottom layer on a chart of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs]

Our beef sandwiches go here

My brother in Christ, the guy was not “deeply religious,” he ...

2025-06-16T04:03:40Z

In reply to nevent1q…3hfe
_________________________

My brother in Christ, the guy was not “deeply religious,” he was in a cult that teaches demons are real and constantly physically attacking people like in an episode of Buffy.

But like, not religious enough to not murder people. ...

2025-06-16T03:52:13Z

But like, not religious enough to not murder people.
https://www.threads.com/@phil_williams_nc5/post/DK8kVsYOdjt

Caught the dog reading again. ...

2025-06-16T03:51:19Z

Caught the dog reading again.

[random, interesting to me] I grew up in East Tennessee, so I was ...

2024-11-25T05:51:16Z

[random, interesting to me]
I grew up in East Tennessee, so I was aware of how the TVA disrupted some communities. But I had no idea there was a thriving freshwater pearl industry nearby, that dried up once the dams were in place.

https://www.appalachianhistory.net/2018/05/a-pearl-rush-grips-clinch-river.html

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was born #OTD in 1910. He established ...

2024-10-19T16:42:10Z

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was born #OTD in 1910. He established an upper limit on the mass of stable white dwarf stars, and made numerous contributions to astrophysics and relativity.

Above the Chandrasekhar Limit – about 1.44 solar masses – electron degeneracy pressure cannot prevent a stellar remnant’s gravitational collapse into a neutron star or black hole.

Photo: Stephen Lewellyn / AIP

100k new users is nothing compared to all the Brazil signups a ...

2024-10-17T12:12:32Z

100k new users is nothing compared to all the Brazil signups a few months ago. This sounds more like a denial of service attack. (Which Elon would definitely do.)
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/bluesky-x-twitter-elon-musk-block-b2630894.html

One minute your kid is four and they are handing you a plate of ...

2024-10-15T01:20:55Z

One minute your kid is four and they are handing you a plate of batter with a candle in it saying “I made pancakes,” and the next thing you know they are twelve and they found a recipe on an Italian cooking blog and that’s the third course of the anniversary meal they made for you and your spouse.

And it’s good.

Absolutely wild that my mom is getting these in East Tennessee. ...

2024-10-11T04:05:11Z

In reply to nevent1q…2jwh
_________________________

Absolutely wild that my mom is getting these in East Tennessee.

Meanwhile, my mom is getting pictures down in East Tennessee ...

2024-10-11T02:46:33Z

In reply to nevent1q…xtm6
_________________________

Meanwhile, my mom is getting pictures down in *East Tennessee*

Chicago! There’s aurora! Even through all the light pollution! ...

2024-10-11T02:44:28Z

Chicago! There’s aurora! Even through all the light pollution!

Oh nice, I was hoping for some math that went a little beyond the ...

2024-10-04T20:05:27Z

In reply to nevent1q…kz3c
_________________________

Oh nice, I was hoping for some math that went a little beyond the typical pop fare. This looks great.

Science friends! If you were stocking the science section of a ...

2024-10-04T19:40:58Z

Science friends! If you were stocking the science section of a book store, what popular (as opposed to academic) titles would you put on the shelves? What books, in your opinion, are absolute essentials?

(To keep things manageable, let's say from the last ten years.)

Oh, very neat: a library of open access academic books. The ...

2024-09-27T14:22:19Z

Oh, very neat: a library of open access academic books. The section on Physics has a few classics, as well as some nice new books.

https://library.oapen.org/browse?type=classification_text&value=Physics

In the interest of fairness (but against my better judgement) I ...

2024-09-24T23:26:29Z

In the interest of fairness (but against my better judgement) I read Altman's "essay" linked in the article.

You will not be surprised to learn that he never actually explains how everyone will be more prosperous in this future that he's trying to sell us.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/09/ai-superintelligence-looms-in-sam-altmans-new-essay-on-the-intelligence-age/

If you are okay installing a script manager for your browser, and ...

2024-09-24T16:49:10Z

If you are okay installing a script manager for your browser, and you use the gmail web interface, here is a userscript that renders TeX in your emails. Anything supported by KaTeX works, apparently.

https://github.com/LoganJFisher/LaTeX-for-Gmail

Hard to believe the tech companies weren’t being completely ...

2024-09-22T03:55:38Z

Hard to believe the tech companies weren’t being completely honest with us.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-datacenters-worse

It's not like we (society) talked about this and decided ...

2024-09-18T17:27:22Z

In reply to nevent1q…qmg4
_________________________

It's not like we (society) talked about this and decided we'd sacrifice ground-based astronomy in exchange for internet access in remote areas.

Musk and a few others did this unilaterally. It wasn't to help anyone. They did it to make a profit and consolidate control over critical infrastructure.

But I was assured that this was a v0.1 problem that would be ...

2024-09-18T17:09:27Z

But I was assured that this was a v0.1 problem that would be fixed before more satellites were sent into orbit 🙄

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy4dnr8zemgo

TIL that the bass and falsetto parts in the second verse of ...

2024-09-17T15:01:38Z

TIL that the bass and falsetto parts in the second verse of "Tempted" by The Squeeze, are sung by Elvis Costello.

Make him sell off SpaceX and Starlink, he can plug the Twitter ...

2024-09-17T13:46:53Z

In reply to nevent1q…59u4
_________________________

Make him sell off SpaceX and Starlink, he can plug the Twitter hole with the proceeds.

We all dodge a massive national security risk, and he gets to keep his weird incel fiefdom.
https://fortune.com/2024/08/15/elon-musk-tesla-stock-sale-twitter-x-advertiser-boycott-finances-bradford-ferguson/

Some people will complain that a magazine or journal or ...

2024-09-17T02:13:01Z

Some people will complain that a magazine or journal or professional society shouldn't endorse a candidate.

But if an arsonist was running for office, campaigning on the promise of bigger and more dangerous fires, those people wouldn't scold firefighters for endorsing the opponent.
https://mastodon.social/@laurahelmuth/113148160165144956

Sign this Resistbot petition demanding that elected leaders do ...

2024-09-16T13:56:05Z

In reply to nevent1q…pyqa
_________________________

Sign this Resistbot petition demanding that elected leaders do something about US reliance on space and telecom infrastructure controlled by Elon Musk.

https://resist.bot/petitions/PKVISI

He has near total control over essential infrastructure, he has ...

2024-09-16T04:25:47Z

In reply to nevent1q…ll0g
_________________________

He has near total control over essential infrastructure, he has already used it to interfere in foreign policy, and he is stuck in the same right wing intel radicalization spiral as every gamer gather who ever tried to live out a revenge fantasy.

Letting this guy be in charge of starlink and spacex is a ...

2024-09-16T04:17:32Z

Letting this guy be in charge of starlink and spacex is a national security risk. He’s radicalized, erratic, and dangerous. Nationalize both companies and boot him.

For fans of Terry Pratchett, or the Pratchett-curious, ...

2024-09-15T21:42:25Z

For fans of Terry Pratchett, or the Pratchett-curious, there's a Humble Bundle right now with 35 Discworld books (epubs through Kobo) for around $20. Pay more to donate more to charity.

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/terry-pratchetts-discworld-harpercollins-encore-books

Good evening. ...

2024-09-05T00:34:03Z

Good evening.

Good morning. ...

2024-09-03T13:46:20Z

Good morning.

Well, it finally happened. One of the kid’s friends sent her a ...

2024-08-30T23:12:25Z

Well, it finally happened. One of the kid’s friends sent her a link to a YouTube video featuring this tweet and asked “Is that you??”
https://mastodon.social/@mcnees/110334058263166569

Physicist Ernest Rutherford was born in Brightwater, New Zealand ...

2024-08-30T16:41:49Z

Physicist Ernest Rutherford was born in Brightwater, New Zealand #OTD in 1871.

He discovered the nucleus, proton, and α and β particles; explained nuclear decay; and was the first person to successfully transmute one element into another.

Image: George Grantham Bain Collection, LOC

It’s not a free trial if you have to provide a credit card ...

2024-08-28T14:35:44Z

It’s not a free trial if you have to provide a credit card number.

In Texas, being paid to not mine bitcoin is more profitable than ...

2024-08-28T12:21:29Z

In Texas, being paid to not mine bitcoin is more profitable than mining bitcoin. This has moved from a simple grift to hostage-taking.

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/08/27/why-texas-republicans-are-souring-on-crypto

Good evening. ...

2024-08-27T01:11:56Z

Good evening.

🚨 Someone arranged for a Mariachi at our block party 🚨 ...

2024-08-25T01:48:19Z

🚨 Someone arranged for a Mariachi at our block party 🚨

Look at these beauties. Pulled from my parents’ garage last ...

2024-08-22T12:33:47Z

Look at these beauties. Pulled from my parents’ garage last year, belonged to my grandpa before that.

In retrospect, we probably needed to ask some follow up questions ...

2024-08-20T21:09:34Z

In retrospect, we probably needed to ask some follow up questions when the kid and her friend said they were “making a salad.”

Lesser known: Before NASA and the Apollo program, Margaret ...

2024-08-17T19:14:26Z

Lesser known: Before NASA and the Apollo program, Margaret Hamilton worked with mathematician and meteorologist Edward Lorenz.

From 1959-1961 she programmed weather simulations on his LGP-30 computer. Those projects were the precursors to his famous 1963 paper that marked the birth of chaos theory.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-hidden-heroines-of-chaos-20190520/
https://mastodon.social/@mcnees/110907153207130442

The guy who couldn’t run a livestream on Twitter last night, ...

2024-08-13T13:30:27Z

The guy who couldn’t run a livestream on Twitter last night, wants to be in charge of your oxygen on Mars.

Hmm, so these sophisticated hackers penetrate the campaign’s ...

2024-08-11T15:49:47Z

Hmm, so these sophisticated hackers penetrate the campaign’s systems, extract sensitive documents, and then… turn them over to a publication run by an ardent Trump supporter. Got it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/08/10/trump-hack-iran-vance-report/

Happy birthday to Henrietta Swan Leavitt, who gave us the means ...

2024-08-04T17:11:58Z

In reply to nevent1q…64qj
_________________________

Happy birthday to Henrietta Swan Leavitt, who gave us the means to measure our Universe.

Without her discovery there would be one fewer rung on the Cosmic Distance Ladder!

Image: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Harlow Shapley, director of the Harvard Observatory, wrote back ...

2024-08-04T17:10:48Z

In reply to nevent1q…wyur
_________________________

Harlow Shapley, director of the Harvard Observatory, wrote back to inform Mittag-Leffler that Henrietta had passed away.

But, he pointed out, didn’t HE really deserve the credit for interpreting her results? As far as I know, Mittag-Leffler ignored Shapely’s distasteful reply.

So no one received a Nobel for her revolutionary work. But it did factor into the Physics Prize in 2011, awarded to Perlmutter, Riess, and Schmidt for discovering the accelerating Hubble expansion of the Universe.

Henrietta Swan Leavitt passed away in 1921, at the age of 53. A ...

2024-08-04T17:09:24Z

In reply to nevent1q…c66w
_________________________

Henrietta Swan Leavitt passed away in 1921, at the age of 53.

A few years later, the Swedish mathematician Gösta Mittag-Leffler, unaware that she had passed, wrote her a letter praising her accomplishments. It read:

“Honoured Miss Leavitt, your admirable discovery ... has impressed me so deeply that I feel seriously inclined to nominate you to the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1926.”

Like her Harvard colleague Annie Jump Cannon, Henrietta Swan ...

2024-08-04T17:08:34Z

In reply to nevent1q…g2ue
_________________________

Like her Harvard colleague Annie Jump Cannon, Henrietta Swan Leavitt was deaf – the result of an illness she suffered after graduating from college but before she began her astronomy work.

Image: Annie Jump Cannon and Henrietta Swan Leavitt, 1913 (Harvard University Library)

Henrietta Swan Leavitt’s work allowed Harlow Shapley to ...

2024-08-04T17:07:46Z

In reply to nevent1q…ufpj
_________________________

Henrietta Swan Leavitt’s work allowed Harlow Shapley to conclude that our Sun is further from the Milky Way’s center than previously thought. Unfortunately, he gave her little credit.

The same was true for Edward Pickering, who published many of her findings under his own name.

And it was central to the distance-redshift result proposed by ...

2024-08-04T17:06:45Z

In reply to nevent1q…k2uj
_________________________

And it was central to the distance-redshift result proposed by Hubble and others (Robertson, Lemaître) before him, which eventually led to the conclusion that the Universe is expanding.

https://mastodon.social/@mcnees/109377812094733282

Henrietta Swan Leavitt’s period-luminosity relation for Cepheid ...

2024-08-04T17:05:46Z

In reply to nevent1q…9d63
_________________________

Henrietta Swan Leavitt’s period-luminosity relation for Cepheid variable stars allowed Edwin Hubble (building on work by Vesto Slipher, and relying on contributions by others) to establish that so-called “spiral nebulae” were in fact separate galaxies outside our Milky Way.

https://mastodon.social/@mcnees/111681499901380126

Cepheid variables were our first standard candles - phenomena ...

2024-08-04T17:04:20Z

In reply to nevent1q…txy7
_________________________

Cepheid variables were our first standard candles - phenomena that allow us to reliably determine galactic and extragalactic distances.

These stars brighten and dim with a regular period that correlates with their maximum brightness. Measure the former and you know the latter. Compare that brightness, inferred from period, with how bright they appear to be, and you how far away they are.

Basically, a light bulb looks dimmer from further away. Quantify that and you can judge the distance.

Astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt was born #OTD in 1868. She ...

2024-08-04T16:59:24Z

Astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt was born #OTD in 1868.

She established the period-luminosity relation for Cepheid variable stars, an essential tool for understanding the scale of our Universe. It's one of the most important results in all of astronomy.

Image: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Nostr notes by Robert McNees

Friends! Suppose you were going to be in Paris for 8 days this ...

This was posted in a shorter format as a thread on Bluesky and it ...

Astronaut, author, professional football player, and STEM ...

"That's here. That's home. That's us. On it ...

Engineer and inventor Douglas Engelbart was born #OTD in 1925. ...

If you can’t see the full headline in the preview card, here it ...

I cannot stress enough that you should not do this. ...

Mac users: do you do the long-click on a word to pop up its ...

This is incredible. An MTV simulator with almost 30,000 videos, ...

We can’t pay for USAid, scientific research, daycare, school ...

Accidentally typed “shatbot” instead of “chatbot” and ...

It is pretty wild that a news org (a “news” org) is running a ...

I’m not sure what you mean? On my end, each one of these is a ...

Astronomers were divided on the issue; many still subscribed to ...

101 years ago, #OTD in 1925, Edwin Hubble announced that ...

The transition from classical to quantum physics went about as ...

That’s right, the factor of “k” that appears in the formula ...

Something that isn’t as widely known is that “h” is not the ...

The results of Planck’s December 14th lecture were submitted to ...

Planck’s hypothesis was in fact a deep statement about the ...

This sequence of events was a not uncommon narrative in the ...

Here's a great APS Landmarks entry where you can read more ...

Many physicists remained skeptical. But Arthur Compton’s 1923 ...

If so, it was a trick that *worked*. Previous efforts to derive ...

Planck’s quantum hypothesis would revolutionize physics, but he ...

Happy #QuantumDay to all who celebrate! Max Planck presented work ...

If you think you recognize this woman, no you don't. ...

"I, at any rate, am convinced that He is not playing at ...

I’m not an expert, but I’ve seen this paper described as an ...

Lumping them together as “AI” gives readers the impression ...

Machine learning (umbrella term, I know) is a useful, sometimes ...

Journalist challenge: Use “Machine Learning” when you mean ...

“But I am a hater, which is a kind of integrity. It means I am ...

There is no scientific basis for this claim. This is hype cycle ...

Good evening. ...

I commonly use an owl with my keyboard so needless to say I was ...

Take all that energy use projected for “AI” data centers in ...

Astronomer Ejnar Hertzsprung was born #OTD in 1873. Emoji ...

There’s a big story in Science News on the 100th anniversary of ...

This morning, during some chaos, this zipped by on one of my ...

Lolll. Lmao, even. ...

Nostr event nevent1qqsxttnh7mamu3fr8dwmw8kqwsnerya65nwlaqrnd4kta3l524wjt8qzyquacwm07tt5sm7asj5zgcsadsg6e7jx0kk98np28uyahefh6urpsp60t7x

I mean, come on. ...

For everyone who asked, here’s the full section from the ...

Welp, posted this late last night then logged in and found it’d ...

My students are often surprised to learn that LLMs aren’t ...

Anyway, I’m back in Tennessee this weekend. Was planning on ...

I just pulled a fraction of really good ones from the six or ...

A few months ago, while visiting family in Tennessee, I started ...

This meeting could have been an email hacked by the Russians and ...

Yesterday morning I was explaining Ozzy Osbourne to the kids in ...

Look, speaking as a physicist, it is hard for me to put into ...

[Arby’s CEO pointing to the bottom layer on a chart of ...

My brother in Christ, the guy was not “deeply religious,” he ...

But like, not religious enough to not murder people. ...

Caught the dog reading again. ...

[random, interesting to me] I grew up in East Tennessee, so I was ...

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was born #OTD in 1910. He established ...

100k new users is nothing compared to all the Brazil signups a ...

One minute your kid is four and they are handing you a plate of ...

Absolutely wild that my mom is getting these in East Tennessee. ...

Meanwhile, my mom is getting pictures down in *East Tennessee* ...

Chicago! There’s aurora! Even through all the light pollution! ...

Oh nice, I was hoping for some math that went a little beyond the ...

Science friends! If you were stocking the science section of a ...

Oh, very neat: a library of open access academic books. The ...

In the interest of fairness (but against my better judgement) I ...

If you are okay installing a script manager for your browser, and ...

Hard to believe the tech companies weren’t being completely ...

It's not like we (society) talked about this and decided ...

But I was assured that this was a v0.1 problem that would be ...

TIL that the bass and falsetto parts in the second verse of ...

Make him sell off SpaceX and Starlink, he can plug the Twitter ...

Some people will complain that a magazine or journal or ...

Sign this Resistbot petition demanding that elected leaders do ...

He has near total control over essential infrastructure, he has ...

Letting this guy be in charge of starlink and spacex is a ...

For fans of Terry Pratchett, or the Pratchett-curious, ...

Good evening. ...

If so, it was a trick that worked. Previous efforts to derive ...

Meanwhile, my mom is getting pictures down in East Tennessee ...