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• Post #4502956

  3 more interview requests. What the fuck.

• Post #4502887

  COOL apparently the American Astronomical Society journals (the Astrophysical Journal/Astronomical Journal/Planetary Science Journal) have refused to even review our article on satellite brightnesses (already posted on arxiv https://arxiv.org/pdf/2608.02757) because it's outside the scope of astronomy. Time to go rage-scream out in the hayfield, I guess.

• Post #4473931

  RE: https://social.treehouse.systems/@ariadne/117063592703392163 Most city dwellers don't know how much of the night sky has already been stolen by billionaires, because poorly planned, wasteful city lights have already drowned out the stars for them.

• Post #4457348

  Sending peace

• Post #4449334

  The last purple martins have fledged (and are turning up in various silly places around the farm, like this guy just hanging out in the fence). The swallows, purple martins, and crows are gathering together into larger and larger flocks, and thinking about leaving. It's always so sad when the birds leave us for the winter, and mid-August always seems awfully early. But, well, it's Saskachewan. Winter is coming.

• Post #4406300

  I have NOTHING on my calendar for tomorrow! I need to do a shit-ton of writing! Will I actually get to do some writing, or will I have 17 interviews or some random farm disaster? Stay tuned...

• Post #4399509

  Second interview of the day about stuff in orbit is starting shortly, and I have a third interview request in my email, where they possibly want to send a camera person to my location...haha I need an interview with goats in the background. Maybe today's the day

• Post #4387016

  After submitting that stupid giant grant NOI, I have a 7:30pm research group meeting (stupid time zones) and I really want to try to watch SpaceX crash into the moon at 12:35 am, and then I have a live radio interview (on Zoom, so I even have to brush my hair and not be in my pajamas) at 6:45am tomorrow. Shit. Guess I better go outside for a bit now.

• Post #4385337

  Reminder: if you are inside the green or dark green area of this map, watch the ~10 o'clock position of the moon tonight at 2:35am EDT/11:35pm PDT. More info here: https://spaceweather.com/archive.php?day=28&month=07&year=2026&view=view You probably won't see anything. But maybe you'll see a little poof of dust within a few minutes as something the size of a bus crashes into the moon at more than 8,000 km/hr

• Post #4384433

  It's been hot and muggy every single day for a month now. And tonight it's below 10C. I normally have a cup of warm (non-caffeinated) evening tea, but tonight was the first time I've done that in a month. Nice. Trying not to stress too much about my totally-not-done grant NOI that's due in like... 20 hours. I always thought that by the time I was a tenured professor, I wouldn't procrastinate anymore. But it turns out that I'm now REALLY REALLY GOOD at procrastinating....

• Post #4377949

  Good morning

• Post #4366397

  I have now entered 50 research presentations I did in the last 6 years. And I haven't gotten to the public talks yet 😭 Still haven't figured out a clever way to enter 300+ media interviews. I'll just have to pick a few extra flashy ones, I guess.

• Post #4364228

  RE: https://raggedfeathers.com/@lilithsaintcrow/117020904859904785 The book contract I signed a few days ago has a "no genAI" clause. Neither I, the author, nor the editor/publisher are allowed to use genAI. I am extremely happy about having that written officially in the document!

• Post #4363891

  Ok... so... 95 talks in 6 years. Shit. No wonder I got an award, I've never actually counted that up before. Ok now to figure out how to cludge the media interviews section. Which is completely fucking arbitrarily divided into "oral interviews" and "text interviews". WHY.

• Post #4361031

  Well, I have procrastinated as long as I possibly can on this. Time to update my Canadian Common CV (that is actually only used by one thing and is the WORST INTERFACE I've ever experienced). I was sincerely hoping that 7 years ago was the last time that I'd have to do it, but although there is lots of language about "moving away from the Canadian Common CV" it's still required this year. Shit.

• Post #4359415

  RE: https://mastodon.social/@PCMag/117032184556223721 Unfortunately this doesn't mean fewer satellites in orbit.

• Post #4359103

  RE: https://zeroes.ca/@kimcrawley/117031966891509591 Great long post about a really important writing project that you can help make happen via the kickstarter campaign! (I just donated, I want to read this book) Also... guess who is the University of Regina astronomy professor who's referred to in the thread? (oh right there's only one. Hahaha.)

• Post #4358571

  Co-authored paper submitted dance! I'll do a thread about it once it's upon the arxiv. This one is... incredibly, horribly, fully 100% depressing. Apologies in advance.

• Post #4336635

  RE: https://scicomm.xyz/@JohnBarentine/117027711546764224 This is hideously depressing (here come the megabright satellites, screw you AST Spacemobile). But I am delighted that these authors (none of whom I've ever worked with before) use the word "megaconstellation" with no qualifiers! Did you know that satellite companies HATE the word megaconstellation and keep requesting astronomers not use that word? Did I mention that a significant fraction of my recently published papers...

• Post #4336596

  Chickies are still cute! And a couple more hatched! Pretty terrible hatch rate, though better than last time. Looking like it'll be something like 12 out of 45 rather than 7 out of 60 like the first round. Could be that fertility is just lower right now than in the spring (it's HOT and the day length is getting shorter). Or maybe I need to bump the temperature slightly lower next time. Who knows. Astrophysics is easy compared to biology. Too many variables!

• Post #4299351

  One chick has hatched in the second batch of eggs. Hm. Not sure if there is a bunch more coming, or if this incubator is not as good as I hoped, or if this is a terrible time of year for hatching eggs (the 3rd option is almost certainly true... I usually only hatch eggs in the spring. But I didn't get the fancy incubator until summer, so... oh well.)

• Post #4292186

  I was trying to find a visualization or figure or something to include in yet another article I wrote about Reflect Orbital, and I honestly got so depressed that I had to stop. This is not a plea for images. I don't want to see it. We'll all see it in our skies soon enough. Unless Reflect Orbital goes out of business. Doesn't seem likely, but I can dream. Fuck you, Reflect Orbital.

• Post #4281931

  RE: https://mastodon.social/@fullywoolly/117013241064815417 I didn't get interviewed for this article, but at least they briefly mentioned one of the two recent Saskatchewan debris falls, and used it to introduce this quote which is going to keep me awake for a few nights: "The company [SpaceX] now says that about 5 percent of the mass of some satellites may not disintegrate." There are almost 11,000 SpaceX satellites above our heads. I do not like this Russian roulette game.

• Post #4263465

  Goodnight. (And by that I mean, I will make some more stupid plots of stupid techbro megaconstellations and then see those stupid plots when I close my eyes to go to bed.)

• Post #4256096

  Well, there's a public website here where you can register to attend Reflect Orbital's ribbon cutting ceremony: https://luma.com/h6fva5ve It's in like an hour. Is there anybody in LA interested in politely expressing their opinions about orbital mirrors to the people building them?

• Post #4255375

  14yo just came into my office grinning and excitedly holding a duck (yes, it's one of our ducks, no, I don't know why, and yes, she took the duck back outside). Just another work-from-home afternoon on the farm...

• Post #4245662

  Cowboy Space (I hate their name so much) published their consolidated response a week ago but we just noticed it. We either have 3 days or 8 days to respond now. So... I guess I have to read this shit. Swearing a lot here will get me through it. A reminder: this is the 4th company that wants to launch fucking enormous "AI data center" satellites into sun-synchronous terminator orbits, giving Earth a ring. This particular company wants 20,000 satellites in one ring.

• Post #4242855

  RE: https://mastodon.social/@hannorein/116993738619160318 So... after naively asking @hannorein@mastodon.social earlier in the week for advice on someone for the first time asking me for vibe-coding review (because it relates to a paper we're working on that's *almost done*), I've now been asked two more times this week by two different people to provide an "expert scientist" review for AI-vibe-coded output. This future sucks.

• Post #4225266

  After evening chores, I picked raspberries, and then processed an entire crate of garlic scapes my family picked. I am become garlic. I put the finely chopped scapes mixed with salt into the dehydrator in the basement to make garlic scape salt (a staple in our house and a good present), so by morning the entire house will be permeated with garlic. Don't have to worry about vampires tonight! Mama hen and her chicks are still doing great.

• Post #4219425

  Remember my broken fridge saga? Boy I hate buying stuff. Anyway... after exhausting all diy-repair options, I bought a refurbished fridge that I probably paid too much for and will probably break too soon. It's finally going to be delivered sometime tomorrow. And still, the 75-year-old fridge in the barn keeps on working.