Chris Samuel

@kpdooty oh noes! They obviously didn't know where their towel was.

Happy would-have-been 74th Birthday Douglas Adams. Vale. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vDP28g97mc

@astrokiwi.bsky.social 💔 my heart goes out to you, I am so very sorry. Words are futile at times like this but do take good care of yourself. I hope you have good people around you if you need them.

NASA Satellites Show Where Outdoor Lights Worsen Allergy Season Plants exposed to artificial lighting burst into bloom earlier and flower longer than plants exposed exclusively to natural sunlight. A recent study that relies on NASA satellite data found that this effect raises pollen counts throughout much of the year, extending and intensifying allergy seasons in brightly lit communities. In a study in PNAS Nexus, […] The post NASA Satellites Show Where Outdoor Lights Worsen Allergy Season appeared first on NASA Science.

Light pollution causes longer pollen seasons and more allergies. https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/science-news/2026/02/24/nasa-sats-show-lights-worsen-allergyseason/

Historic 143-year-old lighthouse shines again after decades in darkness After standing idle for more than three decades, the first concrete lighthouse in Australia is glowing again on the NSW far south coast after being recommissioned.

Some nice news for once! I like how they’ve done this. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-07/green-cape-lighthouse-recommissioned-on-nsw-south-coast/106354308

Stars are disappearing before our eyes — and something in us is shifting For most of human history, the night sky has been a shared inheritance, a source of wonder. Now, more than a billion children see barely any stars in the night sky above their homes. So what does that mean for humanity?

The never-ending battle to save our starry skies from light pollution. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-04/light-pollution-causing-stars-to-vanish-in-urban-night-skies/106299584

A (very) slow clap for Experian, whose 6 digit code requested yesterday (and expiring after 10 minutes) finally arrived today, about 24 hours late.

Just tried again a few minutes ago and it's not looking promising this time either.. 🤦‍♂️

A photograph of stump sunlit daffodils against a blue sky.

A little late I know, but Happy St David’s Day (1st March, the Welsh National Day). 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

A large sculpture of a cupped pair of hands holding a large array of flowers.

Photo of a display of plants and flowers trained on and behind a pergola set over a sofa.

Photo of a crowd of people standing sand looking at (and photographing) the entrance display at the Philadelphia Flower Show. It’s a big such of flowers and foliage.

Friday we went to the Philadelphia Flower Show and immersed ourselves in the smells and sights.
#Bloomscrolling

Turns out despite Verizon's protestations they did indeed do the thing I asked them to. 🤦

A screenshot of a failure message from Verizon's website, it reads: Please try after sometime. Your request could not be processed at this time. Please try again later.

Yay Verizon. 😢

An adult and a baby mammoth go for a walk in the snow (OK, really the PBS Eons model mammoths, but you get the idea).

Had a mammoth amount of snow here recently.

I'll see myself out.

PS: thanks to PBS Eons for getting these mammoth figurines made! They are pretty fun. https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/complexly-and-creative-beasts-studios/prehistoric-elephants

@feorag I saw this video and thought of you - apologies if you've seen this already! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vca3EF4C5xU

curl logo, 30 years, 1996 - 2026

This year counts as #curl 30 years, counting from the first httpget 0.1 release in November 1996.

I'm thinking we could fly a special logo for the occasion on the #curl front page throughout the year.

Maybe *you* can make one that looks festive and still […]

[Original post on mastodon.social]

If you're ever thinking "oh my work will never come to anything" spare a thought for Robert Recorde of Tenby in Wales. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

He invented the equals sign (=) in 1557 (the year before he died) "to auoide the tediouſe repetition of theſe woordes : is equalle to" - and was promptly ignored for 61 […]

A photo of a car covered in about two feet of snow with a portion of it cleared to show how deep it is. There’s also a pair of windscreen wipers poking out in a comical fashion.

Yeah definitely a fair bit of snow last night. ☃️ #PAwx

A photo of a streetscape looking out into heavy snow with everything covered in snow.

I think it’s fair to say it’s snowing here in Philadelphia. #PAwx

@kpdooty how wonderful!

Screenshot of a segment of an article from The Guardian about Scotland playing England in rugby as part of the Six Nations. The text reads as follows: 3m ago 17.04 GMT TRY! Scotland 17-7 Scotland (Arundell, 22) It’s raining tries! Off the line-out it felt inevitable. England kept hammering the line and hammering the line and hammering the line. Scottish defenders were sucked in and then a slick dummy and pass from Ford made the space for Arundell to his right. An easy conversion makes it a 10 point game.

Strange things afoot in the world of rugby according the The Guardian. 😁 […]

[Original post on mastodon.acm.org]

Trying times for Welsh rugby | Letters Letters: Gareth Rees writes that money and size are now all important; John Marriott calls for the sport to be brought back into state schools; plus a letter from Steffan Parry

There's some letters in response, which make good points. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/feb/09/trying-times-for-welsh-rugby

When I was a kid back in Wales rugby was something we were so proud of. It wasn't that long after the golden age of the 70s where city teams could (and did) beat the mighty New Zealand All Blacks, and there were still grand slams to be had in the Five Nations. Now Welsh rugby is a sad shadow of […]

Humans - forever our own worst enemy. 😞 https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/09/the-first-signs-of-burnout-are-coming-from-the-people-who-embrace-ai-the-most/

Korean cryptocurrency exchange accidentally gives away $60b in bitcoin A South Korean cryptocurrency exchange apologises after mistakenly transferring more than $60 billion worth of bitcoin to users, which briefly prompted a sell-off on the platform.

That thing where you mean to give away 2000 won (~AU$2) to each user and you accidentally give them 2,000 bitcoins instead. 😅 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-08/korean-exchange-bithumb-accidentally-gives-away-60b-bitcoin/106318826

Open Source security in spite of AI The title of my ending keynote at FOSDEM February 1, 2026. As the last talk of the conference, at 17:00 on the Sunday lots of people had already left, and presumably a lot of the remaining people were quite tired and ready to call it a day. Still, the 1500 seats in Janson got occupied and there was even a group of more people outside wanting to get in that had to be refused entry. ## The video recording Thanks to the awesome FOSDEM video team, the recording was made available this quickly after the presentation. You can also get the video off FOSDEM servers. ## The slides The 59 slide PDF version.

Open Source security in spite of AI - the recording.

https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2026/02/03/open-source-security-in-spite-of-ai/

This BBC article gives a lot more details, inc:

> Whilst many thought the use of canaries in mines to be cruel, mistakenly believing that the bird had to die in order to provide an early warning, Prof Haldane was extremely concerned for the welfare of the animals on whom he experimented.
>
> […]

Yesterday (27th January) was the 130th anniversary of the Tylorstown Colliery Disaster in the Rhondda Valley in South Wales. It was here on the 28th that Prof Haldane visited as soon as it was possible and learned not only was his theory that most miners died by suffocation in these accidents […]

Screenshot of Glossika trying to teach me Welsh. English: When you play tennis, you should always watch the ball. Welsh: Pan fyddi di'n chwarae tennis, dylet ti wastad wylio'r bêl.

Glossika with some well timed advice for competitors at the Australian Open. 🎾 🇦🇺 #Welsh #Cymraeg

Photo of snow converted main street with bare trees and buildings. There’s overhead wires from the old tram system which no longer runs here.

An almost #SilentSunday, Germantown Avenue in Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia. Snow emergency route so the occasional car.

Rail over the Derwent a distant memory as final pieces removed As the old Bridgewater Bridge is removed piece by piece, so too is the opportunity for passenger and heritage rail connections to some of southern Tasmania's fastest-growing residential areas.

Sad to see that Hobart is disconnecting itself from the rail links to the rest of the state of Tasmania. 😞 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-26/rail-over-the-derwent-a-distant-memory-as-final-pieces-removed/106266736

The joys of weather forecasting (from the Mount Holly NWS forecast discussion at the moment):

> The track of this secondary low looks to be inside the benchmark (40 N, 70 W), which usually results in a mixed precipitation storm for our area and a forecasting headache.
[...]
> It will be very […]