Michael Brown

This reminds me of something important.

The widespread availability of colour balanced digital images of nearby galaxies is so very very useful.

Because “looking at images, not catalogs” is a dying pastime, the paper includes a tutorial on -how- to interpret images of galaxies. Qualitative information alone can get you a surprisingly long way towards a reasonable model, if you’re thinking through the links between morphology and physics.

A meteorite hit a house in Germany yesterday.

The Discourse has become sort of numb to the fact that the richest guy on earth and owner of a major social media platform just routinely spits out the kind of nakedly white supremacist shit that until a decade ago you rarely saw outside of places like Stormfront.

Yesterday, in a cab here in Paris, we were sitting in traffic.

Driver started becoming very excited and pointed towards something in the sky.

We all looked up, and it was a very bright fireball, entering the atmosphere and moving relatively slowly.

~18:50, North East direction, ~ 30-deg elevation

ESA analysing fireball over Europe on 8 March 2026 At approximately 18:55 CET (17:55 UTC) on Sunday 8 March 2026, a very bright fireball moving from the southwest to the northeast was observed by many people in Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, an...

🔍 What we know so far

Fragments are reported to have reached the ground in Koblenz‑Güls (Germany). There are no injuries reported.
Due to its timing and direction, the object was likely not detectable by current large-scale sky surveys.

🔗 www.esa.int/Space_Safety...

One gets the impression the DOGE dudes and their ilk were the students who never studied and tried to copy or cheat on assessments.

My pet theory is they used “DEI” as cover for their gross failings and to get ahead in reactionary circles.

Family says Evanston-born U.S. citizen detained for hours after returning to O’Hare: "her phone turned back on and pinged from an ICE facility in Wisconsin... she had been released and walked from the ICE facility to a nearby gas station around 5 a.m." wgntv.com/news/chicago...

Saw an odd flash near Achernar at 9:10pm this evening - while I’d hope it’s something astronomical I suspect a curious short satellite flare is vastly more likely.

Tabloid opinion writers who campaigned against electrification and for war in the Middle East are very upset by spike in fossil fuel prices.

Unlike AI free healthcare, leaches didn’t raise electricity prices.

Twitter user eoghan: How dare poor people get free medical advice <quote tweet from Twitter user Polymarket: BREAKING: New York bill would ban AI from answering questions related to medicine, law, dentistry, nursing, psychology, social work, engineering, & more.> Twitter user YBrogard79094: JUST MAKE HEALTHCARE ACCESSIBLE Twitter user eoghan: AI is literally free healthcare. Being a communist must be exhausting

Dozens killed as Israeli special forces raid Lebanese village in search of 40-year-old remains Overnight, one Israeli operation saw at least 41 people killed and 40 injured, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

Pretty serious allegation here. "Witnesses told the BBC that the Israeli soldiers had arrived disguised in Lebanese military fatigues and used ambulances with signs of Hezbollah's Islamic Health Organization."
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

America and Israel raining down darkness on Tehran?

What terrible news. Sincere condolences to you and your loved ones.

The naive use of ChatGPT is getting attention but career senior staff just rolling over is another aspect.

Wonder how many meetings they presented at where they made various (clearly empty) statements about the value of humanities.

🤬 this 🤬

“A documentary about Jewish women’s slave labor during the Holocaust? [CharGPT said to axe the NEH grant cuz] The focus on gender risked “contributing to D.E.I. by amplifying marginalized voices.” ☠️☠️☠️ 🗃️

An excellent explanation of why a million data centres in space is a terrible idea and probably cannot work. The number of launches and reentries each day is absurd and the pollution vast.

Israel kills dozens in Lebanon after failed mission to find pilot’s remains Commandos started digging up grave thought to be of famous IDF pilot, leading to gunfight followed by airstrikes

Killing dozens in a search for the remains of someone who has been dead for 3 decades?

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

Is the poster taking about “good faith questions” that can or cannot be addressed by polite and informed good faith answers?

A bunch of intricate tiny chairs and a beer can

The winning chair and the can type it was crafted from

My favourite tiney chair with tiny woven metal straps

As seen in the Nelson airport, a contest to make the best tiny chair out of a beercan. My cold hard heart softens

RE: https://mastodon.social/@sundogplanets/116053742685475452

Deadline for comments on a million SpaceX "AI data centers" and a company that wants to deliver "sunlight as a service." If you have time and energy, please write a comment! Instructions below.

(I heard a rumour that Reflect Orbital […]

Exclusive: US investigation points to likely US responsibility in Iran school strike, sources say Military investigators believe it is likely that U.S. forces were responsible for an apparent strike on an Iranian girls' school that killed scores of children on Saturday, two U.S. officials told Reu...

Exclusive: US investigation points to likely US responsibility in Iran school strike, sources say
www.reuters.com/world/middle...

This research group’s key metrics are publicity and retractions.

A few years back I found one of their papers had a photograph with a bogus north label - the shadows were all wrong.

Depends if you do or don’t classify F-35s as airliners.

Chart showing in many countries, people see their fellow citizens as morally good.

We asked people around the world to rate the morality and ethics of others in their country.

The U.S. is the only place we surveyed where more adults describe the morality and ethics of others living in the country as bad than good. See our full morality report here: www.pewresearch.org/...

If the government gets to decide if you have them, they're not human rights.

Woolworths shoppers concerned new anti-theft gates may trap them and hit their children At one store trialling the gates, a customer said ‘if you wanted to enter without hitting your child, you’d have to go in backwards’

Working their way towards rotating knives…

www.theguardian.com/business/202...

The Albanese Government's case for crackdown on FOI fell apart when it became clear that there is no "flood" of FOI requests.

Case load is about the same as 20 years ago. The extra costs and delays are a result of FOI officers spending their time trying to block access and censor documents.

Most painted bike lanes are so narrow that they become useless when cars park in them as the entire lane is in the “car door zone.”

Wider lanes are ok but occasionally one gets cars using them to undertake slow/stopped traffic.