@TheMartianLife@aus.social
@TheMartianLife@aus.social avatar

TheMartianLife

@TheMartianLife@aus.social

🛰 Space junk tracker, telescope programmer, STEM communicator 📡 part of University of Tasmania, CSIRO, O'Reilly Media, AUC, #YarnSpinner, #SuperstarsOfSTEM, more 🌱🖖

Equal parts angry dev and stressed academic. This is my very not work account.

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chestas, to Tasmania
@chestas@aus.social avatar

OMG, Hobart has a Nepalese Pub and it is so cool 🙂.

It is called the Chowk. Staff are really friendly

#tasmania #lutruwita #Hobart #pub #Nepal

TheMartianLife,
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@chestas and if you’re there at 6pm everyone stands and sings both the Australian and Nepalese national anthems. A charming place.

TheMartianLife, to random
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A few months ago, @parisba and I adopted a little dog, Ruby. She is our best little friend and a truly beloved addition to our home. She came from a litter of three. Her brother went to a young penpal of mine on a Bass Strait island.

Yesterday we saw a familiar face in a post from a local dog’s home. Ruby’s third littermate Rosie has been surrendered at just four months of age. I can’t help but think of all the love we have for Ruby in our home and how Rosie didn’t get to have the same. Feel guilty for not picking her, all sorts. Heartbreaking 💔

TheMartianLife, to animals
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And, just like that, her ears are up today 🔺🔺

#chihuahua #puppy #pupdate #DogsOfMastodon

Elwell, to random
@Elwell@mast.hpc.social avatar

Ok, I think I'm definitely going to try and start my next spare time project (despite a @jonty style stack overload already).

https://github.com/Elwell/telescope-tracker

No, I've never done model building before. No, I've never built a robot before. No, I don't have enough time for this. Nope I don't really have the space either.

Right, lets go!

TheMartianLife,
@TheMartianLife@aus.social avatar

@Elwell this sounds like a super fun idea! I’m not sure if the modelling it from scratch is the point, but if you were open to a shortcut: Microsoft Flight Simulator has a global network of nerds who make update models for regions that the base game didn’t do well, and then sell them as DLC. They have made a pretty good model of Hb: https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/release-hobarts-radio-telescope-at-mt-pleasant-tasmania-avalonweb-scenery/505641

TheMartianLife, to animals
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She’s a photogenic little critter.

TheMartianLife, to animals
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Lil’ lap friend ❤️

TheMartianLife, to random
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Earlier this year, I was invited to speak at ABC’s Ockham’s Razor LIVE. The guidance was to speak on a topic you’re passionate about, but ideally focus on problems that people can do something about. So I spoke about aspects of #SpaceJunk I don’t often get to: the contributions of (and further potential for) citizen science 🛰️

The recording is up now if you want to listen: https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/ockhamsrazor/satellites-citizen-science-space-junk/103222734

TheMartianLife, to random
@TheMartianLife@aus.social avatar

While devising my masterplan for the OOO part of the year, I decided maybe auto-response asking important queries to be directed to a single email address (like some.ooo.prefix@domain…) that allowed breakthrough to SMS forward would be the ultimate in not having to open my inbox at all over the holidays.

But it looks like email-to-SMS gateways are just not a thing that Australian carriers do anymore. I thought maybe my Fastmail plan might have some functionality for it on their side? Nope. Maybe I can just email to my iMessage address? Nope.

Surely there is an option for this that is not “pay some unrecognisable middleman company to provide completely un-auth-ed forwarding”?

TheMartianLife,
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@chrisjrn the thought of paying by message to something publicly accessible is a bit scary - the two halves of the equation, email and SMS, are products I pay high but fixed rates for having unlimited amounts of - but it does look possible.

I’ll have a read what their protections are for people just spamming you to cost you money. Thanks!

TheMartianLife, to Astronomy
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First first-author paper / first solo paper ✨

In which I identify ways adoptees are mis-using a radio astronomy data format standard through either misunderstanding of the spec or inconsistencies in related software. Recommendations highlight how consistency doesn’t come from clear specifications alone—it must sit alongside support and continuous communication about the purpose and correct use of the format as it evolves.

#VLBI #VDIF #Astronomy #RadioAstronomy #SpaceScience #AcademicChatter

TheMartianLife, to ArtificialIntelligence
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> “Apple joins AI fray with release of model framework”—The Verge

Given that four years ago I managed to write a 500-page book on all the tools Apple had made and all the things you could do with AI on Apple Platforms (and had to cut content to even fit that), these headlines about MLX feel a bit unkind to all the efforts made up until now… 🤔

https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/6/23990678/apple-foundation-models-generative-ai-mlx

TheMartianLife, to Geology
@TheMartianLife@aus.social avatar

lutruwita/Tasmania is home to some amazing geology, and being a space nerd it’s easy to have a favourite rock here: Darwin Glass. This tektite was formed by a melted mix of terrestrial and extra-terrestrial materials, as a result of the heat and pressure of a large meteorite impact.

It’s part of the unique and beautiful landscape of the west coast, formed an important tool-making material for the Tasmanian Aboriginal peoples of the region, and requires a treacherous hike into dense snake-filled rainforest—that has long gone undisturbed—to acquire.

Today, some arrived from one of the only retailers able to sell the material in Tas. It is intended to become part of an exhibit on the geological record at our planned space-themed community science centre 🪨☄️💎

jimbob, to random
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Weird scrolling through the weirdest most debased shit on Tumblr and every 3 posts an ad for my employer goes past.

TheMartianLife,
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@jimbob weird scrolling through Launceston Memes on Facebook a few months back and being served this ad, which turned out to be a) super wrong and b) about specifically my work that isn’t even done yet 🤔

TheMartianLife, to Tasmania
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Brand Tasmania’s “Little Tasmanian” campaign looks at childhood in Tassie. They gather info, provide services, and wrote a children’s book about Tasmanians. They also do spotlights on locals who do youth-facing work, and I was one of them.

From all my rambling interviews about science, the writers extracted a thoughtful story about small gestures that meant the most to me as a child, and what I want to share onward to others as a science communicator 🪐

https://littletasmanian.com.au/stories/mars-buttfield-addison/

#lutruwita #Tasmania #Tasmanian #Tasmanians #nipaluna #Hobart #SciComm #WestCoastTas

shanselman, to random
@shanselman@hachyderm.io avatar

This whole conference debacle is so disappointing. Speakers, when invited to a conf will say “who alls gonna be there?” I’ve my rules for participation posted on my site - including an inclusive lineup - for years. I was duped by the fake speakers also.

I remind all conf organizers that there are THOUSANDS of speakers of all walks of life, genders, ages, backgrounds. I offer 920 for you to invite to your confs http://hanselminutes.com/episodes inclusion means doing the work. So, do the work, friends.

TheMartianLife,
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@shanselman I’m curious to see what happens, whether
a) the event will go ahead and pretend this didn’t happen and try to explain away that half their speakers dropped out, or
b) the organisers will just ghost with all the ticket money.

Either way, that organiser is so screwed right now.

TheMartianLife, to Tasmania
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Surprising no-one, paying academics less for more insecure jobs teaching dumber material to increasingly checked-out students makes them no longer able or willing to properly quality control their output.

> “Academics consider using ChatGPT to generate feedback, with marking time at University of Tasmania college slashed” via ABC Hobart

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-21/tas-utas-marking-time-cuts-chatgpt-assignments-students/103125634

TheMartianLife, to random
@TheMartianLife@aus.social avatar

oh good, now they’re coming for autistic people’s right to drive, saying we have unique tendencies that make us worse at tasks and a danger to others. nobody could have seen that coming…

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-20/autism-driving-licences-new-standards/103108100

TheMartianLife,
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@mattcen I was living (and driving) in Queensland when they first made this law, but at least it was vague and unenforced.

Looks like rather than stepping up driver fitness regulations overall (e.g. re-test and -license everyone every few years), they’re just going down the list of people they can pick on without consequences—so they look like they’re doing something about road safety.

TheMartianLife, to python
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Over time, I use more and more programming languages in my work. Most contracts I do require two or three, every so often I get to try one I haven’t used before. Most days lately I work across four or five in the same day. And yet, one of them is always Python.

Like sand, #Python really does get everywhere... 🐍💪

TheMartianLife,
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Working on radar monitoring systems? JavaScript [and Python].

…telescope control systems? Perl, Java, FORTRAN [and Python].

…GPU-based signal processing? C, C++, CUDA [orchestrated via Python, then post-processed in Python].

…astrodynamics simulations? They’ll try to convince you to make it in IDL or something [but ignore them and just do it in Python].

…a nice document? LaTeX [with Python build steps].

…updating old MATLAB code? Well, nobody has licenses anymore [so you should probably port it to Python].

…a basic shell utility? ___ [Might as well make it Python, since anyone who uses it will have Python installed anyway and then at least they’ll know how to modify it for their needs].

TheMartianLife,
@TheMartianLife@aus.social avatar

@juandesant because there was a point where macOS has a breaking change from Bash to ZSH default shell so for a while there anything I would write a tiny shell script for I just did in Python, and I wanted to automate the creation of invoices for clients but I was too lazy to genericise a document class properly so I just inject arguments into the a template document and run the build.

But it ain’t broke, so…

TheMartianLife, to Astronomy
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🛰️ I have a job where I work with systems and data from radio telescopes to track satellites.

📡 I have another job where I operate radio telescopes to collect data for geodesy, astronomy, etc.

Today, for the first time, I operated a radio telescope to collect my own data for my own experiments. It’s such a small thing but… it’s weirdly exciting to have done the whole process myself?

Like farm to table, but for data.

📸 Mopra Radio Telescope - CSIRO

appassionato, to books
@appassionato@mastodon.social avatar

Nature's Warnings: Classic Stories of Eco-Science Fiction

This volume explores a range of prescient and thoughtful stories from SF’s classic period, from accounts of exhausted resources and ecocatastrophe to pertinent warnings of ecosystems thrown off balance and puzzles of adaptation and responsibility as humanity ventures into the new environments of the future.

@bookstodon



TheMartianLife,
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@appassionato @bookstodon 'The Man Who Awoke' remains one of my all-time favourite books. To think, Manning foresaw all these revolutions so long in the past.

And funny that it could fit just as easily in your previous toot, Menace of the Machine.

TheMartianLife, to ai
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> "Just as GitHub was founded on Git, today we are re-founded on Copilot."

Look, I respect the heck out of the technical implementation of LLMs, but let's be honest: statistically they produce average code at best and misunderstood/invalid code most often. They re-implement old bugs and obfuscate programmer intent and anyone who is leaning on them for more than a pair assist is making software harder for the rest of us.


🔗 https://github.blog/2023-11-08-universe-2023-copilot-transforms-github-into-the-ai-powered-developer-platform/

TheMartianLife,
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The problem is even worse for niche or domain-specific tools, because Copilot acts like it knows what they are - even when it has little to no examples to draw from.

The amount of people showing up in the Discord and similar spaces, trying to get other people to spend their free time debugging code the "author" themselves don't understand and couldn't be bothered writing has already exceeded my quota for giving a f*ck about this whole debacle.

mekkaokereke, to random
@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io avatar

There's lots of noise in SF about homeless people "refusing shelter" and "They want to live in tents!" And that we should force them to accept the shelter against their own will, "for their own good!" Many SF folks rationalize their desire to not see homeless people, by convincing ourselves that refusing shelter is an irrational behaviour, and that we know better.

We don't consider the fact that people might be refusing shelter when that shelter is worse than a tent.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2023/sf-sro-empty/

TheMartianLife,
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@mekkaokereke this is very true. There is also an added level of complexity: even a good shelter is not theirs.

If you are sleeping rough on the streets, or even in a tent city, you have things that are yours. Not much, but some. Your scarcity makes you protective of your things, and the hostility of the general public makes you fearful of others. Homeless communities are rife with substance abuse, mental and physical health issues, and occasional interpersonal politics among those who have been there the longest.

Many shelters also come with weird assumptions—strict religious values, personality judgements, little health support, arbitrary rules that infantilise you—and most reach capacity or shut down or kick you out at some point. So if you leave your spot (or swag, or tent, or trolley) to go a shelter, you feel like it will just be taken from you soon and then you’ll be back here but without your spot/stuff. And maybe having rubbed others in your community the wrong way.

Starving and exposure and scarcity and fear changes you in a way that makes it more difficult to re-integrate than simply being given things or opportunities or aid.

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