@sundogplanets I love goats! There's a farm across the street from my house, and they have about a dozen goats that I visit with my dog a few times a week. The babies are the cutest thing ever!
Today I listened to a bunch of talks on local Indigenous traditional knowledge, went for a hike during the conference lunch break with my partner, talked with an elder at a First Nation that might have SpaceX junk on it, answered a bazillion emails on car ride home, had a pre-interview for a local TV news filming tomorrow while I was simultaneously making dinner and making cheese, had a friend over for dinner+farm tour, helped another goat give birth.
@sundogplanets some say "truth is nation is a modern concept forced on the Indigenous inhabitance like ownership and the separation of man from the environment as its suppressor for gain "
i'm not that radical .
I just got back from a conference and I'm going straight into another one. But this one is hosted at my own university, it's about Indigenous science (so I'm not presenting, I'm just listening), and my partner is also going!
So as long as I don't have 15 interviews and make national news twice this week, I think it'll be a much more chill conference for me. Thank goodness.
Good morning from baby goat land. I got over a gallon of milk from 3 goats this morning, I started draining my second batch of chevre, there's beautiful grass for the goats to eat, and we're up to 12 baby goats this season. I am so grateful!
This is a great article, and I am 100% delighted by their description of me!! "Lawler has been an academic Chicken Little for years about the danger of freefalling space shit, especially in a time when space travel has been privatized and so many bored billionaires would rather spend their money playing Spaceman Spiff than, say, solving world hunger or the climate crisis"
Here comes a thread on light pollution from satellites, with a concrete action that you all can take to help push for regulation of satellites in orbit!
Astronomers have been worried about light pollution from satellites (if you've been following me for more than 24 hours, you've perhaps heard a bit about this). Astronomers spent SO much time and effort begging and pleading with Starlink to make their satellites fainter, with mixed results.
A group of concerned astronomers, artists, and policy experts have come together and formed Kessler Rebellion. Our goal is to educate the public about what's happening in orbit and advocate for regulatory changes that will avoid Kessler Syndrome, which would destroy our ability to use satellites in Low Earth Orbit for decades to centuries.
Right now the FCC has an official comment period open, until MAY 30. I have no idea if it will help for them to receive many letters from the general public, but we've written up instructions on how to do this here: https://www.kesslerrebellion.com/take-action
You can submit a comment even if you don't live in the US.
I know there are SO many things to fight against right now. But if you have any energy left, and you love the night sky, this is a relatively easy action. Thank you!
I had lunch (outdoors!) with a bunch of people from the conference, and because it's a bunch of planetary astronomers, everyone was comparing the properties of the asteroids named after them. Kinda cool.
I am definitely very very ready to go home and not be in a big city anymore. I know at least one person at the conference who has tested positive for covid, and I hope hope HOPE that my careful masking and eating outdoors has been enough to avoid catching it. Ugh I never want to go to a conference again.
I slept badly again. Time to venture out and find food and immune-boosting vitamins and coffee, then 3+ interviews and maybe I'll actually get to watch a few conference talks today...
@sundogplanets@WTL Just bad luck then. 😢 I suppose it’s all the others one has to worry about. And apparently the new variant can be infectious and asymptomatic for up to ten days before symptoms emerge, which is terrifying.
It's been a lovely conference, and I've managed to survive being in Toronto (staying in a dorm room, because holy crap hotels are expensive in Toronto). Ready to go back home now! ...Unfortunately I still have 3 more days of conference to go.
I'm up early because this dorm room bed really sucks and cities are loud. Guess I'm going to go for a walk and see if anywhere has good breakfast. Another live radio interview scheduled for later today, I wonder how many others will pop up?
Good interview and you made great points. I hope some government officials were listening and are now thinking "we can't have another country dumping their space junk on us!"
I have a live radio interview about the Saskatchewan space junk in the middle of a prize talk about black holes (which sounds very cool), so I guess I'll go to the beginning of it?
My public talk for tonight is ready (too long, but ready), and the satellite pollution advocacy website is almost ready to launch!
I am disappointed I did not see any raccoons yet today.
Oh dear lord is it actually still Monday? I had so many good conversations today with old friends and collaborators, and yelled about satellites to a room full of astronomers to try to encourage them to take action, and didn't completely melt down in a big city.
Almost have a public website ready to go with more satellite regulation advocacy info, hopefully will get it (at least bare bones version) before my public talk tomorrow!!
Mundane observation about Toronto: SO much falafel.
@johnefrancis@sundogplanets can confirm, this construction project took forever but its functional merging of the delivery and preparation stages is a strict improvement over its inspirational predecessor, the Alameda-Weehawken burrito tunnel¹.
@gnomon@sundogplanets that's an incredible system! Among the best food transport schemes since stratospheric balloons hauling pressurized containers of ice cream.