PlasmaNerd

This is amazing.

www.getyourfuckingmoneyback.com

Spring Break is right around the corner! Are you planning a beach trip?

Tides, winds, and waves can lead to dangerous conditions and impact your plans at the beach.

Find your surf forecast: weather.gov/safety/ripcurrent-forecasts

I continue to be fascinated by the phenomenon whereby an expert engages with any of the LLMs on their field of expertise and is instantly horrified by the wrong answers, and then goes on to use it for things they are not experts in as though it won’t be just as bad for those.

“The Captain is Dead” is perhaps the best co-operative board game out there - and perfect for overly competitive types since you need that to maybe survive and win the game.

Apollo vs. Artemis Spending Line chart showing inflation adjusted annual spending on NASA's Apollo and Artemis projects in years since project start.

From the planetary society here's a comparison of Apollo vs Artemis funding in 2025 dollars

share.google/ge8PTrmX48Qz...

Opinion | ‘We’re Going to the Moon and Mars’

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/26/o...

He compared NASA's current budget to the Manhattan project but not to the Apollo budget... Which Apollo wasn't as ambitious as Artemis is hoping to be... No moon base during Apollo, but working towards a sustained lunar presence with Artemis.

Kansas revokes driver’s licenses from trans residents in latest assault on rights Law demanding IDs match ‘sex at birth’ also includes bathroom ban provision for trans people in public buildings

Transgender Kansans are receiving letters saying their driver’s licenses must match sex at birth by Thursday

They can either

🔴Refuse & violate the law
🔴Change ID & out themselves everywhere they use it

They are being marked for discrimination. Sound familiar?

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Today marks 14 years since 17-year-old, unarmed Trayvon Martin was shot and killed while walking home.

14 years later, we’re still demanding a country where our children can walk home in peace — without being treated like a threat.

When you have new folks coming in continuously to "make their mark" & changing priorities. Yes, then none of these efforts will be able to take hold.

Space is a long term endeavor, something that needs continuous work. Not flipping from one priority, dropping others to then flip back a bit later

A culture reset at NASA is underway. Will it stick this time? | Federal News Network NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman wants to shift away from a heavy contractor workforce, and instead hire and train feds to deliver better outcomes.

I can't believe that they didn't address that one issue is that none of these initiatives have gotten more than 4-8 years (typical mission lifetime pre launch is about that).

A culture reset at NASA is underway. Will it stick this time? | Federal News Network share.google/i1Py9ti82cMh...

AI is turning research into a scientific monoculture - Communications Psychology The rush to study generative AI is producing a feedback loop of topical and methodological convergence, flattening scientific imagination and crowding out the pluralism needed to keep research adaptiv...

Interesting read

AI is turning research into a scientific monoculture | Communications Psychology share.google/Jyan4Tr4eqvX...

📞Calling early career researchers attending #OSM26!

Learn how to communicate your science effectively in your publications with editors from ASLO, TOS, and AGU.

Join this interactive session will also include tips for navigating the peer review process.

🌊https://buff.ly/2o6HCQx

I understand why chatbot cheating happens but every time I read about it I want to gently remind everyone that the point of schoolwork is not for the submission to exist. Teachers are not just greedy for more essays or solved equations. The point is to do the work WITH YOUR OWN BRAIN, FOR LEARNING.

In Defense of the "Mad Scientist" Odd Behaviors and Strange Experiments - a Farpoint Convention piece

Looking for something fun to do tonight instead of doom scrolling? Might I suggest reading up on some amazing scientists... Who were perhaps just a bit out there :).

open.substack.com/pub/plasmane...

Why America Fails Adults Who Struggle to Read The nation’s approach to adult education has so far neglected to connect the millions of people struggling to read with the programs set up to help them.

A Fifth of American Adults Struggle to Read. Why Are We Failing to Teach Them?

(Published Dec. 2022)

A baby chicken maybe, painted on the side of a wall. The left half is more realistic and uses browns and blacks mostly on a normal dirty white colored wall... but the right side is crazy colors on a pink wall

Reminds me of this piece in Coimbra Portugal.

Beautiful capture!

I believe the correct term is Cobra Chicken... And there is no amount of colorful feathers that you can give to cobra chickens with larger teeth that will make them any less scary.

Don’t. Privatize. Space.

A split-image portrait of Katherine Johnson, the pioneering Black NASA mathematician: On the left, a black-and-white historical photo from her NASA career in the 1960s shows a smiling middle-aged woman wearing cat-eye glasses and a light-colored dress with white collar and trim, seated at her desk with a globe and papers in the background. On the right, a color photo from 2015 depicts an elderly Katherine Johnson (in her late 90s) seated in a wheelchair during the Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony, wearing glasses, a dark suit jacket, an orange top, a blue ribbon with the medal, and holding a green item in her lap, as she looks directly at the viewer with a gentle expression. The side-by-side images contrast her youthful professional life with her honored later years.

Mathematician & NASA 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘶𝘵𝘦𝘳 Katherine Johnson died #OTD in 2020.

She was instrumental in the success of the first US manned spaceflights, calculating complex trajectories enabling humans to reach orbit & land on the moon. Her story was told in 𝘏𝘪𝘥𝘥𝘦𝘯 𝘍𝘪𝘨𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘴 (book/movie). #WomenInSTEM #BHM

Amazing, I love the reflection.

I'm not entirely sure how they did it, but they've completely cleared the streets around my office in Midtown #NYC.

They paid a lot of people good wages to do the job effectively, thank you for coming to my socialism talk

On the acceptability of parking policy: Replacing on-street parking with space for street life, cycling, and vegetation in central Copenhagen This study explores public acceptability of transforming on-street parking into space for street life, cycling, and vegetation, using a real-world int…

A study in Copenhagen finds that 70% of survey participants support removing parking spots to make room for street life, cycling, and vegetation. Sure, Copenhagen is not Los Angeles, but I think planners and electeds in the U.S. overestimate support for street parking

Absolutely. Most aurora is caused by magnetospheric phenomena called substorms. They don't have a strong solar cycle dependence and can occur even when the sun is not very active at all. Granted you are less likely to see the aurora at lower latitudes... For those you need large geomagnetic storms.

That photo is spectacular.

Mayor Mamdani before Suhoor

DSNY putting chains on a wheel

DOT works salting the sidewalk

Top photo: mayor Mamdani shaking a man’s hand Bottom photo: Mayor Mamdani with a group of DSNY and park workers

Grateful for the public workers who keep NYC running — especially in a blizzard.

 From 5am suhoor with @NYCSanitation to visits to @nycparks’ Randall's Island garage, DSNY’s Flushing plow shed & @nycdot’s salting operation ... it's working people who show up for NYC.

Mayor Mamdani with DCAS city workers at the storehouse

Thank you to Citywide Administrative Services for working around the clock during this historic blizzard.
 
I visited the Central Storehouse to see their 24/7 emergency operations, powered by workers making sure every neighborhood has what it needs.
 
Public service in action.

A man walking a cliff trail in Ireland. The trail is mostly rock lined by green green grass. Water spans to the horizon where a small island can be seen.

I mean... I didn't need more time to know that I love Dublin and more broadly, but apparently the fates have deemed that yet I must stay one more here.

Shift Generation & Transmission Costs to Data Centers; Force the Largest to Provide Energy Storage & Clean Energy The House killed bills that would have saved Virginians money on electricity bills and made it harder to build more dirty fossil fuel energy generation plants. Yet these same bills passed the Senate a...

We’re trying to send 1,000 letters to our members of the Virginia House of Delegates by the end of the day urging them to lower our energy costs, hold data centers accountable, and protect our environment.

PASS SB339 AND SB619!

Take Action ⬇️
actionnetwork.org/letters/shif...

A fallow deer in Phoenix park sitting in green grass looking to the right with some large antlers.

Wish granted... Sort of... First time I've had my flight canceled more than 24 hours in advance. So now I get to enjoy an extra day in this wonderful part of the world.