Just for fun. I added together all of the images I took of Comet Pons Brooks a few weeks ago. The session was just after astronomical twilight and every single frame I took (68) had at least one satellite trail. To really piss me off, a whole train of freshly launched Starlink satellites joined the "party". This, friends, is the price we pay for "progress". #notostarlink#savethesky
I linked to this earlier, but this is genuinely great: a new ways counting enormous quantities of data that will give you something statistically likely to be very close to the correct answer for potentially a vanishing fraction of the computation cost of the deterministically correct answer: https://www.quantamagazine.org/computer-scientists-invent-an-efficient-new-way-to-count-20240516/
"AI companies are worried that they're going to run out of data to train their LLMs and energy to power their data centers. This is a strange way to discuss a fundamental design flaw. It's not some quirk or fluke that a product is constrained by reality, but the core of all engineering and science, though this is considered so self-evident that it normally remains unsaid."
Smelting #Steel Without Fossil Fuels: #Solar Power Shatters the 1,000°C Barrier for Industrial Heating
"Swiss researchers have developed a solar energy method using synthetic quartz to achieve temperatures above 1,000°C for industrial processes, potentially replacing fossil fuels in the production of materials like steel and cement."
So now SpaceX, with no working spacesuit, and years behind on it's multi-billion dollar moon lander, is lobbying NASA to go to the Hubble Space Telescope.
"A successful private mission could improve Hubble's ability to point at celestial objects and, by boosting its orbit, extend its life by years... however, an accident could leave the multibillion-dollar telescope broken — or, even more tragically, tethered to the dead bodies of the astronauts sent to repair it."
Something about this plan to move Hubble, didn't make sense. If the space telescope still has 10 years of useful life, why this risky SpaceX mission to boost it's orbit now?
Well it turns out the main thing threatening the utility of Hubble is... wait for it... SpaceX Starlink satellites, which orbit just above Hubble constantly "photo-bombing" the images. Within a few years there will be so many Starlinks that Hubble will be useless.
You wont believe the number of stormtroopers theyre deploying against unarmed students unless you see it. This is just one side: at least 7 police departments with at least two layers at every point of egress, with several layers in back for rear control and rotation. They've got the army out against your kids for having the audacity to do whatever they can to stop a genocide
So, over in the astronomy world there is some consternation about a tweet from eminent satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell.
Apparently "Starlink Precipitation" is now a thing. And yes, you got that right, Starlink precipitation is pieces of Elon Musk's fucking internet satellites raining down from space.
Since 1970, humans have pumped so much groundwater, we’ve altered the Earth’s tilt. “It is, in a way, mind boggling,” the researchers who discovered the tilt, stated. Humans are causing so much polar ice to melt that we are changing time. We are slowing the Earth’s rotation and may have to subtract a leap second very soon.
Scoop: Solar storm is causing farmers' tractor GPS systems to go haywire. Many have shut down planting altogether during a critical period. A Deere dealer said accuracy is "extremely compromised"
This is a reminder of how much modern tractors rely on satellite and internet connections. Many farmers can't or won't plant right now bc tractors have been highly automated to increase yield. Rows are planted so tightly together that humans can't navigate them w/o killing crops
‘Hopeless and broken’: why the world’s top climate scientists are in despair
“The big difference…was that all of the scientists I worked with were incredibly frustrated. Everyone was at the end of their rope, asking: what the fuck do we have to do to get through to people how bad this really is?”
My latest for The Nation. "Universities Like Mine Are Providing an Authoritarian Blueprint for Trump: The potential next president and his allies are looking at the campus-led crackdown on free speech as a perfect dress rehearsal." https://www.thenation.com/article/society/campus-protests/
In an interview I just taped with Rashid Khalidi about #Columbia he said words to the effect of "this is the neoliberal dream of the university--no students, no professors, just administrators and cops on campus"
