Now peel as the wrapper sticks to your hands. Finally, find a knife sharp enough to cut through the tapey thing still holding the cracked case closed and cut into your last intact finger and bleed on the disc that won’t come off the little circular spring-thing holding it in the case. 2/2
I remember! First you pick at it with every fingernail as they break, one by one, and then when you have a small bit torn off you squeeze to make that opening bigger until you crack the case. 1/2
Too obvious and easy (and mainstream): “Raiders of the Lost Ark”.
I’m not a Johnson cultist (he’s in the pantheon, obviously, but there’s no One True Blues God IMO). That said: Wow and Whoa and thank you for this gift!
I can't be the only one to think that Vance's criticisms of the Pope are insincere — "Bad Faith Argument Suck Up" should be his middle names instead of whatever "D" stands for, after all — and that he says this stuff mostly because it plays well with evangelicals and Christian Nationalists, can I?
This metaphor needs more work, so I welcome improvements: Trump is the white noise generator that's always on and ruins your sleep.
I maintain that among the media's biggest mistakes has been continuing to ask Trump questions as if he's a normal guy instead of asking things like "Can you explain who Jesus is" or "Describe the process of pumping gas"
We're on track to use much less than 100 gallons of gas over the last 12 months. Yes, I keep track, and yes, we're happy to have gotten a plug-in hybrid last year. (Also lucky to have gotten one, since they're hard to find for reasons I can't wrap my head around.)
I struggle with this too, and here's how I've come to think about it. Efficient tool use is good, but treating people as tools is at best rude, and at worst evil.
And you don't, which is why your example didn't take the phrasing to the limiting case: "Can you please…" vs. "Send me…"!
xkcd.com/149/
Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dog, drink, vintage Apollo 11 glass, and the approach of Artemis II!
Dog, vintage Apollo 11 glass, and the homecoming of Artemis II!
Artemis II approaching Earth.
Watching the Earth get bigger for Artemis II throughout the day is a gift to us all.
Thank you…I’m grateful!
T-Minus: The Race to the Moon cover
I did another book, with @zandercannon.bsky.social and @kevincannon.bsky.social, about the first time(s) we went to the moon. Apollo 8 — Artemis II's proud parent — is a focus of "T-Minus", because people looking at Earth from space is always beautiful.
www.simonandschuster.com/books/T-Minu...
We’re proud of this one, and proud of our space science and exploration programs too!
Agreed. And speaking big hard to understand, sorry for the ridiculous typo/autocorrect failure above!
As an aside, it’s probably better to read these than to listen, especially where Bohr is concerned. Haconf done so he’s really (really really) hard to understand.
I look forward to your book!
Just hit the 14th* language in translation for books I've written. Hard to wrap my head around such weird+wonderful things. Most of this is thanks to the great folks at @01firstsecond.bsky.social.
(*16th, if you count the countries that use different forms of Chinese and Portuguese as separate…)
"Fresh water, clean air, pollinators for our crops, potential new undiscovered medicines for things that ail us, food on our tables. They're not things we can provide for ourselves." 2/2
Harrison Ford (in the April 26 National Geographic) on why he works for Conservation International: "We simply cannot provide for ourselves the things that nature gives us for free and that sustain our lives." 1/2
Good turnout at the No Kings rally in Ann Arbor today. Didn’t take any photos but joined in some chanting for once. (As a committed independent I refuse to rhyme, so I usually just say the final phrase.)
Finest and wickedest review ever?: “[T]he best book ever written by any man on the wrong side of a question of which he was profoundly ignorant.”
(Quoted in “Index, a History of” by Dennis Duncan, p. 149)
Day job throughout. (Lucky!) Definitely burned out off and on over those three decades, but now that I’ve retired (lucky twice over!) from the aforementioned day job I have less work on the freelance side. Irony or just age? (Both, probably.)
“The Complete Ellington Indigos” on CD
If I could only listen to one person’s oeuvre for the rest of my life it would be The Duke, and if I could only listen to one album it would be “The Complete Ellington Indigos”.
(FWIW, in second place would be Pete Townshend.)
(Also FWIW I’m glad there’s lots of other music out there too.)
Serious question: Given the amount of obvious garbage that still makes it into my inbox, I wonder why AI and LLMs are not used in (or, if used, not better at) spam filtering? The repetitive subject lines, and even sender-names, would seem trivial to detect and block.
2026 Solar System Ambassador badge and NASA calendar
Always a boost and a better day when you get a package from JPL.
I’ve had the Japanese version and it’s ethereal in both texture and flavor. So, a marvel but not a delight.
