ProfT @ProfT@qoto.org

Day 11 #ArtAdventCalendar: Happy birthday to trailblazing US #astronomer Annie Jump Cannon (1863 – 1941), here with her stellar classification system which sorted stars based on spectral types, revealing their temperature from hot blue to cool red stars: O,B,A, F, G, K & M. Named the Harvard Classification after the university, her tremendous contribution was less visible.
🧵1/n

#printmaking #womenInSTEM #histsci #DisabledInSTEM #linocut #MastoArt

El Pentágono censurará las imágenes del observatorio Vera Rubin para borrar la posición de los satélites clasificados estadounidenses (ya se hace con los Pan-STARRS). Las imágenes no censuradas se publicarán 3 días y 8 horas después. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2024/12/vera-rubin-telescope-spy-satellite/680814/

"What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one."

#NeilPostman 1985
"Amusing Ourselves To Death"

If fundamental physics were making big progress, I'd be all over it - that's what I wanted to do ever since I was a kid. But it's stagnant: the action is elsewhere, like using category theory to design radical new kinds of software. So these days I get some of my physics fix by studying the *history* of physics.

After studying the hell out of particle physics and general relativity, I went back and dug into the history of electromagnetism, which is really just as fascinating. Now I'm going back to medieval physics - because the idea that everyone was an idiot until Galileo is just plain wrong.

"Natural philosophers" in the 1200s and 1300s developed key concepts, utterly necessary for modern physics, but almost invisible now because we're so used to them - except for students, who find physics really hard because we don't bother to CLEARLY EXPLAIN those concepts: we act like children are born knowing them.

I'm talking about concepts like "the speed of an object at a moment of time". What the hell does that even mean? How can you figure out how fast something is going in one instant of time, when doesn't have time to go anywhere?

Well, that was clarified by calculus, and we credit it to Newton and Leibniz. But they had to have the idea already, in order to clarify it! And the idea of "instantaneous velocity" was developed around 1340 by the Oxford Calculators, a school of thinkers like Heytesbury and Swineshead - geniuses we never hear about.

Now I'm going back further. Did you know that back in 420 AD Martianus Capella had a theory where Mercury and Venus revolved around the Sun? And this was known to thinkers in Charlemagne's day... and also Copernicus! Wow!

Hey. Ich bin Matthias und #neuhier. Ich lebe und arbeite mit meiner Familie auf einem Biohof mit solidarischer Landwirtschaft im nördlichen Emsland.

Neben der normalen Arbeit auf dem Bauernhof kümmere ich mich um unseren Social Media Auftritt, fühle mich auf Insta & Co. jedoch schon lange nicht mehr wirklich wohl.

Deshalb versuche ich nun (langsam) im #Fediverse Fuß zu fassen. Das passt eh viel besser zur Philosophie der solidarischen Landwirtschaft.

When you remember that mobility in cities is largely about space, & when you see the striking math involved, you understand that EVERY person walking, biking & taking public transit is helping cities succeed and helping EVERYONE move better, including drivers. #Vancouver’s Math via City of Vancouver

During humankind's long centuries societies have risen and fallen, all alike in this one fact which rules all history: the great are protected, the small are crushed.
-- Octave Mirbeau

#anarchism #quote #bot

“Dual-mode households (cars & ebikes) can reduce their car use by 19% compared to those solely reliant on cars, particularly affecting shorter trips. This supports households moving to one car and adopting a ‘car light’ lifestyle.” Via @momentummag 
https://momentummag.com/study-shows-how-e-bikes-are-shifting-the-transportation-landscape/

New Campaign Gist: FG finds the voters revolting

A viral moment catches fire because it reveals something the viewer feels already.

Which is just what Fine Gael didn’t need.

https://www.thegist.ie/campaign-gist-2/