astronomy
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WaningCrescentMoonday
That’s what it says at MoonPhase.today Specifically, 26%. I’ll consider them unreal if they’re not at IIW. The UOR Foundation has plans to… Well, I can’t copy and paste the text, so here’s a screengrab: I’ll say not. Quite. AM I? | A Documentary About AI Consciousness. Ever notice the groovy ditches in tidal swampland?… Continue reading
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Moonday
Ilmoonination Actually, we have a waning gibbous moon tonight. It was full two nights ago. But I need to a headline, so there ya go. How's fishing? Mainstream media continues to get sidestreamed. That's what I take from Ad Market Resumes Tepid Growth In August, 'Traditional' Media's Share Falls Below 20%, by Joe Mandese in today's MediaPost.… Continue reading
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Splatterday
They need more. Smithsonian Magazine: An Amateur Astronomer Using Google Maps Spotted a Strange Indentation. It Turned Out to Be a Meteorite Crater From 390 Million Years Ago. That one has been added to the excellent Impact Earth crater map. I’ve shot three of those: Manicougan, Upheaval Dome, and Meteor Crater. No doom, no utopia In Jeff Jarvis’ They’re covering… Continue reading
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A Wham on the Moon
The Moon has a new crater, called McGetchin. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera people have the story here. (That’s their before and after view.) NASA calls it a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Specifically, Officially named McGetchin after pioneering lunar scientist Tom McGetchin, the crater formed on the Moon’s eastern edge sometime between April 11 and May 22, 2024, after… Continue reading
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Everday
Time/Place capsule My shots of Delhi in 2018. CSAT journalism! Karl Bode, via Gary Marcus: “CEO said a thing!” Karl: “‘CEO said a thing!’ journalism involves parroting the claims of a business leader or executive with absolutely no context, correction, or challenge whatsoever, no matter how elaborate the delusion.” His examples—from Altman, Musk, Zuckerberg—are spot-on. Reminds me of… Continue reading
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HI Day
They’re watching us too Hundreds gather to watch turtles on Poipu Beach in Kauai. Overheard. In Hawaii: “I was only following odors.” “I didn’t catch his name. I think he said “Mahalo.” Your next Aurora From Spaceweather.com (slightly edited to explain stuff): A NASA model predicts a CME (Coronal Mass Ejection from the Sun) will arrive… Continue reading
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Sun Daisies
Some reading for today::: War is a dirty business, by Scott Bateman MBE, on X. HT to Tanya Weiman for her comment here. Catch the lunar eclipse on Tuesday. In case I don’t remind you. Or me. A thank you to Brian Linse for his kind words on Bluesky. Fact: one of the best parties I’ve ever… Continue reading
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Watts Up
Redraw your conclusions The GDPR Enforcement Tracker "is an overview of fines and penalties which data protection authorities within the EU have imposed under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR, DSGVO)." And extremely interesting. Dig around. You'll see fines against dentists, cops, a password management company, finaincial institutions, municipalities, website operators, a coin dealer, a YMCA,… Continue reading
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Wedmessday
Be ready the next time the Sun burps It was overcast here in Indiana, but there is a good chance that auroras were visible the last couple of nights where you live, thanks to a big coronal mass ejection. Examples: Arizona, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Long Island, Texas, Brazil (see the “south Atlantic anomaly,” here). Your… Continue reading
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Go out and look up
There is a huge geomagnetic storm going on right now, producing auroras visible far south into the lower, um, maybe, twenty states, of the US. Note that auroras are a thousand miles high or so, so they can be seen far south of where they’re happening overhead. It’s overcast in Indiana right now, so I… Continue reading
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Our Chive
You start with a crater That’s how you make a town like this. Or, if you’re Canada, a reservoir. And exactly which one were you looking for? Anna’s Blog says Anna’s Archive has backed up Spotify’s entire music library: “This release includes the largest publicly available music metadata database with 256 million tracks and 186 million unique… Continue reading
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Cerebrations
Can you guess the two voices? Mr. Rogers meets the bass player. Still funny 50 years later. It burped in our direction How and why the Sun grounded 6000 planes last month. Watch out above As of 7pm ET, a solar storm is starting, causing auroras that may be visible in North America across many… Continue reading
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Hey look
Cluetrain is in an Epstein file, as are the names of its authors, mine misspelled. A cool space launch from Vandenberg is scheduled for Sunday at 9:02pm. That's an hour when it's likely to leave a "jellyfish" exhaust where sunlight hits it while it's night below. I just appended an update what I wrote about… Continue reading
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Look Up!
Surf’s up. North. Here is the auroral oval, right now: And here is the K Index, also via NOAA: Remember that the aurora’s curtains of light stand up to 800 miles above their base, about 100 miles up. So they are visible hundreds of miles away. Such as here, in Southern Indiana. So go find… Continue reading
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Monday 14 July 2025
Nor did I. And mine is #5. Did you know there were 20 top identity podcasts? Anyone listening? Q: How far has our first radio broadcast spread into space? A: Eighty-nine light years. Continue reading
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Monday, 7 July 2025
Entrails. This vs. this. Bonus link. Earth is a tiny blue exception to it. Here is why space matters. Bargains. Amazon currently has the Airpods 4 for $89 and the Airpods Pro 2 for $149. They are [$179 and $249 at Apple](Amazon currently has the Airpods 4 for $89 and the Airpods Pro 2 for $149.… Continue reading
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Monday, 16 June 2025
Trying on times. I like shoes I can slip on, because bending over to use my crooked arthritic fingers as shoe horns is painful. So is tying laces. (Oddly, typing on a keyboard isn’t painful, so that’s a counted blessing.) The shoes I’m wearing now are beat-up Sketchers that I bought at Nordstrom for about… Continue reading
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Saturday
Blogging will be light. Big Granfalloon day. Everything, just not all at once. Ted Gioia gives ten warning signs that the "knowledge system" is collapsing. I'm in that system, as are all serious journalists and academics (I work in both worlds). So are all technologists. (I'm kinda that too.) What will replace it? Don't be… Continue reading
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Tonight’s Lunar Eclipse
They call it a blood moon, because it looks like this: But that came later. Right now still in the evening of March 13th in the Eastern time zone, the Moon is as full as it can get without moving into the shadow of Earth . Which it will. Shortly. Here is where Earth’s shadow… Continue reading
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Comet, second try
I shot the comet this time with a real camera: my Sony a7iv with a FE 70-200 mm F2.8 GM OSS II lens set at f3.5 at 135mm for 10 seconds on a shitty tripod I got at a thrift shop for $5. (I have good ones elsewhere.) This was at 8:40pm, just as the… Continue reading