John Young @jsy1001@qoto.org

The best time to learn #emacs and #orgmode is ten years ago. The second best time is today. I use #orgmode as my calendar and organiser, and each year I discover something more awesome in it. I didn't realise how good the exporter is and how well formed the HTML is, so now I'll keep my notes on astronomy literature in a new org file. Future proofing through flat text files FTW.

The ASTOUNDING huge big news out of COP28 "so far" is Biden's comitment to not just build NO MORE, not one, coal plant ever again, but the cycle down and Replace ALL COAL PLANTS NOW within 12 years.

US TO REPLACE COAL PLANTS

Coal is 20% of the US power system. That is construction of massive size. Terawats of renewable construction. Funding for remefiation for energy industry jobs, protecting former coal communities.

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2023/12/biden-cop28-coal/

#COP28 #climate #klima #climat #coal

Wow, this @xkcd is really excellent.

#Space tip: if you’re ever lost in the inner #solar system, you can just type out the phrase “Optimistic #Aliens measure space typographically” in times new roman and use the dots as a #map

😅

from: https://xkcd.com/2863/

#Astronomy #Meme #Mastodon

Aaaah, the satisfaction of seeing the green check mark appear on a build with #ShowYourWork https://show-your.work/en/latest/ means that my paper's scientific workflow is reproducible! h/t @dfm #ReproducibleScience

For my outreach account on instagram, I am running an advent calendar introducing an #exoplanet a day. I call this calendar #ExoAdvent and figured I could share it here too! ⭐️ 🌎 🪐

A thread 🧵

I rented a car to go to a Christmas market this weekend and yesterday morning the car was covered in the most beautiful frost patterns, utterly breathtaking. There is beauty in so many things.

For those who are members in the church of #emacs 🤓

Saturday and Sunday: #emacsconf 2023

🔎 Have a look at:
https://emacsconf.org/2023/talks/

#foss #opensource #freesoftware #gnu

COOL! The spicy article I wrote about satellite pollution is FINALLY published! "Bright satellites are disrupting astronomy research worldwide" in Nature News & Views.

This article required weeks of back-and-forth with the editor, the editor-in-chief, and Nature's lawyers, so I hope that means it's a good one.

During this process, I learned that satellite companies are so powerful and litigious that even giant publishers like Nature are terrified of getting sued. Which is...rather worrying.

Earthtunes app lets you listen to Iceland’s intensifying earthquake activity

"The activity is formidable, exciting, and scary."

https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/11/earthtunes-app-lets-you-listen-to-icelands-intensifying-earthquake-activity/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

How are elected MPs to directly question a Foreign Sec who can’t stand at Commons dispatch box? Are major foreign policy statements to be made in unelected House of Lords now? This is unacceptable degrading of key office of state & Commons must have primacy
https://nitter.cz/search?q=%23GeneralElectionNow

🐦🔗: https://nitter.cz/CarolineLucas/status/1724039518444024065#m

[2023-11-13 12:20 UTC]

Such a cool summary of

"- Why is Fortran still used in so many places?
- How is that relevant to Python?
- Past struggles of NumPy/SciPy with vanilla Python packaging.
- What role conda-forge plays in this context."

https://labs.quansight.org/blog/building-scipy-with-flang

Throwback to the greatest Venn Diagram ever created to celebrate #NoVENNber

There are tunnels, and there is this...

For many years, anyone associated with physics on tv or radio (including me) got regular e-mails/letters from people convinced they’d disproved Einstein’s theory of relativity, rewritten quantum mechanics, or invented a perpetual motion machine. They always involved crazy assumptions, (sometimes spectacularly) incorrect maths & an unwillingness to learn the basics.

Now there’s a whole new class of these e-mails from people claiming to have “solutions” to climate change, with all the same flaws.

#Zoom just changed their terms and conditions to include using anyone's video and audio for training #AI with no option for opting out. You too can help train #deepfake s!

Living with a disabled spouse, I used Zoom a lot to get through the ongoing global pandemic.

What alternatives are out there for remote teaching/meetings?
#BoycottZoom

This is an extremely high-quality discussion explaining why Oumuamua (an interstellar object that buzzed through the solar system in 2017) is generally considered by astronomers to be of natural origin, even though there is one particularly loud astronomer declaring it to definitely be aliens. Worth a read:

https://medium.com/@astrowright/oumuamua-natural-or-artificial-f744b70f40d5

In the mid 10's I spent a lot of time photographing insects. (That eventually resulted in a movie about the "insect creation myth".) Here's a nice wizard moth: #insects #photography

Nature Astronomy covers appreciation post

Recording solar cycles (2019)

https://nature.com/natastron/volumes/3/issues/3

Image: World History Archive / Alamy Stock Photo (top); NASA/SDO, AIA, EVE, HMI science teams (bottom)
Cover Design: A. Beattie, A. Muñoz-Jaramillo, J.M. Vaquero

Feature article on the long-term sunspot number record: https://rdcu.be/bYZkg

#sun #sunspot #sunspots #visualization #nasa #sdo #spacecraft #solarphysics #physics #astronomy #astrophysics #astrodon #universe #space #science #research

Sunak to force English universities to cap numbers of students on ‘low-value’ degrees | Students | The Guardian

—

This will deal a serious blow to widening participation efforts and effectively penalises students from less well off and minority ethnic backgrounds. It will also act as a massive disincentive for universities to admit such students. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jul/14/rishi-sunak-force-english-universities-cap-low-value-degrees