What a beautiful moment.

It is amazing that we can follow this mission so closely #artemisII

Reid Wiseman on #Artemis II: "We have Earth out window 4 and Moon out window 3... the Moon is about 3-4 times the size of the Earth and it is almost full, and the Earth is just a small crescent out there... it's magnificent... such a majestic view out here"

Mission Control: "Amaze, amaze, amaze!"

Losing contact with the Earth for 40 minutes sounds ideal

(April 6, 2026) In this fully illuminated view of the Moon, the near side (the hemisphere we see from Earth), is visible on the right. It is identifiable by the dark splotches that cover its surface. These are ancient lava flows from a time early in the Moon’s history when it was volcanically active. The large crater west of the lava flows is Orientale basin, a nearly 600-mile-wide crater that straddles the Moon’s near and far sides. Orientale's left half is not visible from Earth, but in this image we have a full view of the crater. Everything to the left of the crater is the far side, the hemisphere we don’t get to see from Earth because the Moon rotates on its axis at the same rate that it orbits round us. Image Credit: NASA

👨‍🚀 The #Artemis II crew are now further from home than any humans ever, and European engines brought them there 🚀.
🌍 The record of 400 171 km was previously held by the Apollo 13 mission 🌕.

"i have two Microsoft Outlooks, and neither one of those are working."

The Astronauts truly representing us all up there.

Michael Collins, the chap who took this photograph, remains the only person on earth to have taken a photo that had everyone in shot aside himself.

If Artemis is going up then it gives me an excuse to once again post this photo, the only one to contain every human being in the universe but one.

Why are you still using X?

The sass of the person writing the minute by minute on England v Scotland is to be admired

Placing a layer of algorithmic recommendation on speech does not make speech less free, but it does pervert it.

Algorithmic mediation turns speech into a resource extracted from human behavior.

Platforms do not value speech because it is protected, they value the service it provides them.

Not sure why you quote tweeted me, but he could be talking about any social media platform after yesterday sadly. I was just giving advice about this one

Quite glad that the big story in British politics is whether Andy Burnham will apply to stand in a by-election and not people being gunned down by state militias.

Solidarity with Minnesotans resisting this barbarity.

I would recommend turning off auto play on videos, Bluesky gives you this option. It makes it a lot less stressful

Appears this is also true for fascism.

Frodo: I wish so much unbelievably stupid shit had not happened in my time Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times. This is all exceptionally stupid, though

Dear Sir Paul, Re: Royal Society Code of Conduct I am sure that many scientists have written to you about the specific question of Elon Musk’s Fellowship and whether, under the Royal Society’s Code of Conduct, his retaining that Fellowship is appropriate. I will not rehash these issues. Instead, as a female scientist with extensive experience of activities aiming to increase equality, diversity and inclusion in the engineering and physical sciences sector, I am writing to you (in a personal capacity) to ask you to reconsider the statements you have recently made in this context to the UK press about the Royal Society’s Code of Conduct and how it is applied. A 2018 report from the joint National Academies of the United States of America, concluded that “sexual harassment is common in academic science, engineering, and medicine” and that “greater than 50 percent of women faculty and staff and 20–50 percent of women students encounter or experience sexually harassing conduct in academia”. This report described codes of conduct that make clear that sexual harassment is unethical and will not be tolerated as a “powerful incentive for change”. The authors also noted that sexual harassment can have significant and damaging effects on the integrity of research. In my own praxis, I have found that clear and consistently-implemented codes of conduct that address these issues make female scientists and engineers safer, and allow them to focus more effectively on their research. For codes of conduct to have such a positive effect, it is vital that sanctions for actions which transgress the code are meaningful and substantial.

I was hence aghast to realise that in an interview with the Financial Times published on 9/1/26, you appear to have suggested that the Royal Society “should only expel fellows if their science proved “faulty or fraudulent or highly defective””. Moreover, in a further interview with the Guardian on 11/1/26 you suggested that the code “may need to be looked at again”, with the implication that your aim would be to remove the option of sanctions on Fellows for reasons not strictly related to faults or defects in their research. I suggest that changing the Royal Society’s code of conduct so that the likelihood of serious sanctions for sexual harassment is reduced, would directly endanger women who interact with the Royal Society at events or otherwise, and would provide a licence to harass to the already powerful people on whom the Society bestows fellowship. The implications of your words - that under your leadership the only infringements of the code which are likely to receive the sanction of the Fellowship being removed are those related to research misconduct - already risk empowering harassers. You stated, in the Financial Times interview, that “there’s many bad people around, but they have made scientific advances”. Given this awareness of the possibility of bad actors in our scientific community, it is wholly irresponsible to suggest that the Royal Society would not act to sanction these people if they harass more vulnerable scientists. I am hence writing to request that you retract any suggestion that the Society’s Code of Conduct should be changed so that the only reason a Fellow might be sanctioned by the removal of their Fellowship is “faulty or fraudulent or highly defective” research. This action is necessary to safeguard female scientists, a requirement placed on the Society by safeguarding legislation and UK statutory guidance. Yours sincerely, Professor Rachel A. Oliver.

Following coverage over the weekend of Sir Paul Nurse's comments that suggested that the only reason that a Fellow should be expelled from @royalsociety.org is scientific misconduct, I have written to him to explain the risks such an attitude poses of increasing sexual harassment in STEM.

A screenshot from Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give you up music video

A screenshot from Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give you up music video

A screenshot from Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give you up music video

A photograph of the seminary gym in knives out. It has the same window.

Just watched the new Knives Out and I think it's really important you know that the scene in the Seminary's Gym is filmed in the same place Rick Astley filmed the music video for Never Gonna Give You Up.

I saw the window tracery and immediately made my friends pause the film so I could tell them.

A real Good Samaritan One act of kindness that befell Leeds writer Bernard Hare in 1982 changed him profoundly. Here he tells his story.

i post this story every christmas, and will keep doing so until it stops making me cry

merry christmas xx

The family of mice singing “No cheeses for us meeces” in the opening song (“Scrooge”) of THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL (1992), a movie that I saw in the theater at age 10 and which immediately became a formative movie and deeply held family favorite, its annual viewing soon becoming a family tradition, and which has always been incredibly dear to me, even though I consider myself only an average enthusiast when it comes to the Muppets (I grew up with them and still love them with that warm childhood purity but I am not at Disney-Adult-levels of obsession or passionate opinion—but I will say that THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL is one of the best adaptations of Dickens’s story in the entire history of cinema, and no one since ’92 has come remotely close), and which I have always found incredibly moving and beautiful and tragic and redemptive, and which always makes me cry quietly during several key scenes; it is one of my strongest links to childhood memory.

When they ask me what radicalized me

Disney Developing Live-Action ‘Gaston’ Movie From Writer Dave Callaham And Producer Michelle Rejwan Disney is in early development on a new live-action pic centered on the Beauty and the Beast character Gaston.

I do not want Gaston backstory, I do not need Gaston backstory, I reject Gaston backstory

he is a fully formed oaf, consuming eggs by the dozen in one of the greatest villain songs ever written, and that is all we need of him

Sorry I haven't been active on social media today, I've been flat out making sure everything goes smoothly on my first day as website manager for the OBR.

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture.

They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

Thought I would hate The Ashes being in the winter, but turns out there’s nothing better than waking up early and enjoying it on a freezing morning

Stokes Stokes Stokes Stokes! #TheAshes

am reminded of the old joke: what did James Watson discover?

Rosalind Franklin’s notes.

If someone could put together a playlist of this background music, that would be great #TheTraitors

But also in either situation I don’t think David will win as Nick/Joe don’t trust him and he can’t win with traitors

Can’t remember the last time I got this hyped about something on television and it’s some celebs playing a version of a late night drinking game I played as a student #CelebrityTraitors

1 Nurse: It’s become a real problem in this area 2 Nurse: We’ve seen the whole community lost to addiction 3 Show a building sign posted: Westminster ‘X’ Addiction Clinic With various Westminster people or looking at their phones outside it Nurse: Ministers, Spads, Researchers… 4 Nurse: Most mornings we’ll get a call about someone acting strangely [Nurse on phone taking a call] Ok - we’ll be right over 5 Nurse: We just have a gentle chat [Nurses approach a minister –Robert Jenrick? - standing in the Palace of Westminster Minister: I understand your concerns… 6 Nurse: Are you OK love? Minister: Yes I’m just hearing legitimate concerns from real voters 7 Nurse: That’s a robot, a Nazi and a poorly-disguised Russian [Show that the people he is talking to are precisely these characters] Nurse 2: Give us your phone, love 8 Nurse: At the clinic we put them in a Grass-Touching Pod, with a real voter to talk to [We see them back at the clinic, holding the minister's head and pushing him into a glass isolation booth with a grass floor. And it is a baffled looking woman, on a chair, ready to talk to him.] 9 Minister: YOU MUST BE WORRIED ABOUT THE COMING CIVIL WAR [woman looks baffled] 10 woman: I just want a bus service Minister: LOOK AT MY FLAG [produces a St George's flag] [ends]

Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.