Bill Lukens

I found a pack of apple cider donuts in my car. They were about 5 days old. But it's been pretty cold out.

I ate one with a cup of coffee. It was a tad firm but fine.

Now my belly hurts. Being an adult means it's my fault, I guess.

The New Miami Gold Rush

This entire article and no mention of sea level rise? www.nytimes.com/2026/03/03/r...

The ‘conflict trap’ reduces economic growth in the shared socioeconomic pathways The ‘conflict trap’ reduces economic growth in the shared socioeconomic pathways, Petrova, Kristina, Olafsdottir, Gudlaug, Hegre, Håvard, Gilmore, Elisabeth A

Hey totally random but remember in the final season of Sopranos when Tony is all like "Hey Phil let's have a truce and just get rich" and Phil Leotardo's all like "Nah let's go to war" and it ends with Phil getting run over by his own SUV?

#climate #war #sopranos #currentevents
tinyurl.com/yeddrss2

HOME - Project Jupiter Together WHAT IS PROJECT JUPITER? Project Jupiter is a groundbreaking investment to bring an innovative infrastructure campus to Doña Ana County. […]

This here data center, planned for NM, would build a local "microgrid" for power. In reality, it'd use natural gas and emit 2x the CO2 as ABQ + Cruces combined, and it doubles the power production of NM.

Is 14 Mt CO2/yr worth it?

[no]

#AI #datacenter 🧪

projectjupitertogether.com

At least for academics, the right tail of falling productivity is probably due to service commitments after tenure. 🥴

We're all still in agreement that every bluesky user is exactly 39 y/o, right?

#AcademicSky

The 'individual LLM query scale' is distraction. Think at the systems scale. Climate scientists have been ringing alarm bells to decarbonize our economy for decades, and the tech industry is not only putting on the brakes, but forcing a buildout of gas-powered electricity.

The same question can be applied to many components of our modern systems.

Wasting vast sums of water and energy to run servers for crypto mining, which is mostly to support money laundering... is not worth the climate and environmental impacts.

I cannot take serious any conversation about LLMs that does not immediately weigh [insert benefit] with the massive climate and water use drawbacks.

Every time ask: "Is this worth it?"

I have yet to see cases where the answer is yes.

#climate #AI #water #environment #AcademicSky 🧪⚒️

My toddler (13 mo) has been fascinated with our refrigerator magnets. He recently discovered that the following objects are non-magnetic by holding them up to the fridge and letting go:
- Spatula
- Water bottle
- Green bean
- Another green bean
- Yet another green bean ok kid it's replicated jeez
🧪

After weeks and weeks of trying to hone a method that is new to us, thinking we're maybe the problem... only to discover that the data are great, but it's an utterly new and surprising result that we're looking at. That's a good day.

Should out to the random guy who made a YouTube short explaining how to fix the exact problem with my faucet in like 10 seconds. Didn't even say anything, just showed the fix, and the title was accurate as heck.

Legend.

#DIY #plumbinghell

An added bonus: turning old veggies into stock cuts down on the methane that is produced in landfills when food rots in an anoxic environment.

A large stainless steel pot filled with vegetables in boiling water

Closeup picture of onions, celery, carrots, and steam

#Lifehack: Homemade stock. It's delicious, cheap, and smells lovely on a winter day.

Two ziplock bags live in our freezer. We throw in any nearly-bad or off-cut veggies (and bones). Once the bags are full, boil it all up, strain and store in yogurt containers in the freezer.

#cooking #foodprep

And lest we forget, Online Supplemental Materials Man
(aka @jcsalterego.bsky.social)

I do prefer to use wooden stirrers, but the plastic doesn't even soften. I assume it's HDPE but who knows. Try it out, mileage may vary.

Lol, it's in a microwave for about 1 minute and has no water content; it really doesn't heat up. But when I can, I do use wooden stirrers as the tent poles, just to be safe!

lol necessity is the mother of invention. For example, I need pizza and lack a toaster oven.

Two slices of meat lover's pizza on a white plate. The slices are supporting a black plastic coffee stirrer bent in half and poking into each slice.

A brown paper towel draped over the black coffee stirrer (not visible) to prevent cheese from the pizza from sticking to the paper towel.

My personal favorite life-hack: when I need to microwave pizza at work, I use a coffee stirrer to prevent the paper towel from adhering to the melted cheese.

I'll look forward to accepting next year's Nobel Prize in physics for this innovation.

🧪 #AcademicSky #pizza #lifehack

Maybe I'm the crazy one, but I love wrestling with coding problems. I was just in a state of cognitive flow and thought, hmm I wonder if abs() is the base R function for absolute value? Turns out it is. Turns out lots of coding is logical and just requires time and effort.

#R #coding #AcademicSky

I saw the new #Dracula movie on Friday. It was profoundly bad.

By this I mean I keep thinking of more reasons why it didn't work, even days later. I'm not sure I've ever seen so many green screen shots that lacked any sense of depth or composition. Stunningly bad.

#movie #photography

It is a standard, and also caffeine! :)

A two panel meme of the Bilbo Baggins "Why not" variety. Text at top: "late night in the stable isotope lab..." Panel 1: Bilbo stares at his hands. "After all, why not" Panel 2: "Why shouldn't I try a little taste" is shown next to a vial of the USGS61 caffeine reference material.

At long last, after parental leave last spring and teaching a new prep last fall, I'm back in the IRMS lab. The memes are returning, nerds! :)

🧪⚒️ #isotope #geochemistry #sciencememes

A screenshot of a pop-up box saying "Location is turned off in system settings" A red x in a circle next to "Location Turned off" A blue button labeled System Settings is in the right lower corner

Microsoft Word seems to have replaced our old friend Clippy with a new pop-up message. I find this one to be lacking in personality, though.

(It appears every time I open Word. Why.)

Incredible. Now that I reflect on it, he does kind of look like a Brian.

Your dog's name is Brian??

Google with AI buttons

Google without AI buttons

I made a filterlist for uBlock Origin to remove Generative AI features on websites. Includes blocks for
* Google AI Summaries
* YouTube Ask button & chat summaries
* GitHub Copilot
* Facebook AI chat
* X's Grok buttons
* Deviantart DreamUp
* Booru AI images
* And more

github.com/Stevoisiak/S...

⚒️Poll: Say you measure some strat sections in the field, with numbered units & samples. Next year you return and find more strata below the original sections.

Do you:
1: rename the units/samples to set 0 m at the new base?
2: give the new units a different code?
3: use negative meter levels?
4: ??

98% of the job of the fourth associate dean is to forward you the email that you already received 2 weeks ago.

the other 2% is to run weekly committee meetings that stretch out a 2-minute decision into 8 months of excruciating small talk.

Cal Newport discusses this in his book Deep Work. It works for some folks, not for others. It would really depend on which classes are in the docket in that loaded-up semester. All Gen Ed? Fine. Gen Ed, upper level core, and upper level or grad-level elective? Whoa... not enough time in the day.

Shout out to Pierre C. Shadeaux, the swamp rat (nutria) who offers meteorological insight to Acadiana but once a year.

This was one of many Cajun traditions that I adored while living in Lafayette.

www.thenewsstar.com/story/news/2...