Peter K. G. Williams

In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is not me.

Now there's a name I haven't heard in a long, long time

National Treasure time. every frame of this movie is perfect.

Dan McQuade, 1983–2026 | Defector Dan McQuade, our friend and colleague, died this week at the age of 43. He is survived by his wife and young son. At the end of 2024, Dan was diagnosed with neuroendocrine cancer. The news of his…

Dan McQuade, 1983–2026: defector.com/dan-mcquade-...

Go F**k Yourself, Pro Football Hall of Fame. Snubbing Bill Belichick was a dozen bridges too far.

Maybe you already know this but the voting mechanism at play turns out to be highly wack:

miketanier.substack.com/p/go-fk-your...

(Headline is aggressive but article is substantive)

Supporting the above are a number of in-depth guides giving advice on different aspects of writing documentation, liberally peppered with examples from the wild.

onegoodtutorial.org/in-depth/

Paired with the checklist is a "playbook": a suggested strategy for how to go from zero to a completed checklist. I present it as an HTML slideshow, and am curious what people think about that form-factor.

onegoodtutorial.org/playbook/

Anyway. One Good Tutorial is centered on a checklist: if your docs include all of the items, your docs are good enough. My hope is people will find it to be a nicely tangible target for an undertaking that’s often frustratingly open-ended.

Guess I'd better code up some HTML to give the site an actual social preview ...

This is what I've been working on for my Better Scientific Software Fellowship. I'm really happy with how it’s come together thus far. Blog post with a few more details: newton.cx/~peter/2026/...

I'm delighted to announce a beta-level release of One Good Tutorial, a resource aimed at people who are documenting scientific software: onegoodtutorial.org . Feedback most welcome!

Should be mandatory for all computery sci-fi movies to have Daft Punk do the soundtrack. Doesn't matter that they retired.

Not saying it's the best/only way to think about it, but I think a lot of these people suffer from a grievous lack of imagination. Just completely unable to look at something and say, "This could be different."

Radio astronomy is the best! 🤩

👀 sneak preview onegoodtutorial.org #science #software #documentation #scientificsoftwaredocumentation

We had a retirement party for several longtime Center for Astrophysics staff today: notably Bob Wilson (of Penzias-and-Wilson fame), seen here being introduced by John Kovac

The workshop is organized by Floor Broekgaarden, Javier Duarte, Sandra Gesing, Daniel S. Katz, Phil Van-Lane, Tom Wagg, myself, and Andrea Zonca, with funding from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

We are seeking participation from diverse perspectives and career stages to ensure that the community is properly represented, so we encourage anyone with an interest to apply. Expertise in astronomy or software citation is not required, and we specifically encourage early-career folks to apply!

There is (limited) funding available to support travel & accommodation! You can request it on the application form.

This workshop will bring together researchers, software developers, librarians, and scholarly communication professionals to address key challenges and opportunities in software citation — a foundational practice for reproducibility, attribution, and scholarly impact in computational research.

The long version: We are pleased to announce the Software Citation Workshop — an interactive, cross‑disciplinary event focused on advancing best practices, implementation strategies, and community engagement for software citation in astronomy research (and beyond).

Do you write, use, or publish scientific software? Then apply to attend the Software Citation Workshop, April 13-16 at UCSD! Deadline Monday, Feb 2nd. All the details:

softwarecitationworkshop.ucsd.edu

Anyone have a favorite example of a software tutorial that's really good and/or interesting? Preferably scientific software, but anything memorable would be of interest.

I haven't been following in detail but it looks like people are basically giving up on OpenSSL.

cryptography.io/en/latest/st...
www.haproxy.com/blog/state-o...

And therefore three cheers for Nantucket; and come a stove boat and stove body when they will, for stave my soul, Jove himself cannot.

Starlink terms of service getting a bit ahead of themselves ...

We are pleased to announce the 13 - 16 April 13, 2026 Software Citation Workshop in San Diego, California — an interactive, cross‑disciplinary event focused on advancing best practices, implementation strategies, and community engagement for software citation in astronomy research (and beyond).

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wikipedia turns 25 today! the last unenshittified major website! backbone of online info! triumph of humanity! powered by urge of unpaid randos to correct each other! somehow mostly reliable! "good thing wikipedia works in practice, because it sure doesn't work in theory" - old wiki adage

The Dynamic Sky | Fall/Winter 2025–2026 | Harvey Mudd College Magazine

This profile has been in the works for a while now — they interviewed me in Nov 2024, took photos Jan 2025, bumped me back an issue or two to feature more timely pieces (e.g. wildfire experts), added updates in fall 2025, and now — as @vrubinobs.bsky.social gets going in earnest — it's finally out 🔭

Interested in astronomy & data science? @stsci.edu is hiring an Astronomical Data Scientist - check out details here: recruiting2.ultipro.com/SPA1004AURA/... 🔭