Prof. Joey "Barely a Footnote" Neilsen's Avatar

Prof. Joey "Barely a Footnote" Neilsen

@joeyneilsen.bsky.social

Black hole astrophysicist at Villanova. Formerly: MIT, Boston University, Harvard, Kenyon College | X-rays | husband | dad of 2 | cooking. He/him. Skeets are my own.

4,655 Followers  |  1,147 Following  |  4,916 Posts  |  Joined: 03.07.2023
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Posts by Prof. Joey "Barely a Footnote" Neilsen (@joeyneilsen.bsky.social)

Imagine a spherical harmonic cow

05.03.2026 20:31 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

I'm not sure how much more evidence school administrators and teachers need before they put a stop to socializing children into lifelong Google customers and users of Gemini, but I sure hope that day arrives sooner rather than later.

04.03.2026 14:37 β€” πŸ‘ 89    πŸ” 28    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 2

Technically true tho lol

03.03.2026 23:50 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

The guy said the whole piece was written by Claude. So I think the value of it is zero.

03.03.2026 19:21 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Students are getting "you'll fall behind" messages from every direction, but I can only tell a finite number of them that knowing how to think for yourself isn't falling behind... it's a perfect example of the bullshit asymmetry principle.

03.03.2026 13:04 β€” πŸ‘ 7    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Kid behavior level ♾️

Today: [first day of spring break for mom and dad]

Kid: 🀒 [stays home from school]

02.03.2026 13:15 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

TFW the diy fridge repair you’ve been putting off for weeks takes 4.5 hours and doesn’t appear to have helped until 3 days later.

01.03.2026 18:46 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

reminding me of the time that i opened the book and picked an intro physics problem for pre-med students to do in group work and the solution turned out to involve a quartic equation in cosΞΈ.

28.02.2026 03:15 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

i have so many more questions than i want

25.02.2026 20:52 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

0/10 so confusing

25.02.2026 16:42 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

The night before I took the Physics GRE, I dreamt all night that my clock was wrong and that I had to figure out the formula to calculate the correct time so that I wouldn't miss the test. Every time I woke up in the night, I looked at the clock and wondered if that was the real time. πŸ˜΅β€πŸ’«

25.02.2026 16:41 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

in cleaning out my mom's house, i found a letter from my mom to her mom circa 1987 in which she described my dad going in for a follow-up cholesterol test (having eaten hamburgers for breakfast *and* lunch immediately before his previous test).

24.02.2026 04:06 β€” πŸ‘ 5    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Maybe the real joke was the work we did along the way

24.02.2026 02:51 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

thin mints implies the existence of thick mints

24.02.2026 02:26 β€” πŸ‘ 5    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Honey, I Shrunk the Jorts

24.02.2026 01:50 β€” πŸ‘ 6    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 2

can God create a question so bleak that it answers itself

23.02.2026 20:39 β€” πŸ‘ 7    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Screenshot of snowfall amounts from a weather app. For the next 24, 36, and 48 hours, it predicts cumulative snowfall of 1 in, <1 in, and 1 in.

Screenshot of snowfall amounts from a weather app. For the next 24, 36, and 48 hours, it predicts cumulative snowfall of 1 in, <1 in, and 1 in.

Something’s gonna happen in the next 36 hours 😳

23.02.2026 13:59 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

one of the best parts of being a dad is eating the last (cold) chicken nugget

23.02.2026 03:53 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
After Lisa Simpson asks asked what's inside him, Nelson (dressed up for an evening picnic) says "guts and black stuff... and about 50 slim jims."

After Lisa Simpson asks asked what's inside him, Nelson (dressed up for an evening picnic) says "guts and black stuff... and about 50 slim jims."

22.02.2026 22:13 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

is there any soup liberals ARE excited about?

18.02.2026 18:09 β€” πŸ‘ 7    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

I am hard-pressed to know what this image would mean even without the abomination.

18.02.2026 00:39 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Gung RoulΓ© Mubarak

17.02.2026 04:51 β€” πŸ‘ 167    πŸ” 55    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 0

Yes also cornhole!

17.02.2026 04:27 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

The other day everyone was like "i don't understand this at all" and I was like "it's obvious, it's just like if darts was bowling on ice and you did it from half a football field away" and then we just watched one match for the entire night

17.02.2026 04:22 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 3    πŸ“Œ 0

"In" probably works better

16.02.2026 18:20 β€” πŸ‘ 12    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

final jeopardy except they show you what's behind one of the doors and you have to decide if you're going to change your answer or not

13.02.2026 06:15 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

triple axel wobble shouldn't be there
(quad)ruple axel also oughta be there
if your triple axel wobbles
you probly haven't gotta
chance to beat him in the figure skating tournament

11.02.2026 05:17 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

maybe the drafts save *everyone* eventual suffering?

09.02.2026 20:59 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Yes! But *instead* of the super bowl?

09.02.2026 01:12 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

The next time someone says this to me, I am asking them if they would watch the OpenAI Bowl.

09.02.2026 00:04 β€” πŸ‘ 88    πŸ” 17    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0