TheTiGuR, aka Chris Simiskey

ECCC was fun and I had a wonderful time.

But there was a storm cloud. When I complained about Trump with my white straight cis friends, we were all sincere and concerned.

But I talked with many Trans friends, and it’s so much worse. They are in fear for their lives.

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A grove of tall pines on a snowy hill in the Uintah Mountains of Utah. Sirius and other stars at the beginning of the day shine through their branches. Photo: Bill Dunford

...please let me speak on behalf of the good dark.

— Maggie Smith

A leafless tree is pictured below a starry sky. In the sky behind the tree is an aurora glowing mostly green but with some purple. The shape of the aurora seems to follow the branches of the tree. Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

🔭 The Aurora Tree

Image Credit & Copyright: Alyn Wallace

ap260308

So many terrible things are happening in the US right now. Things like this remind every creative and scientist paying attention that the current administration might hurt guests to our nation. 🥺

I don't expect to see a GDC or Worldcon in the US again in my lifetime, which makes missing LA hard.

A bar chart showing the kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions per 1000 kilocalories. Shellfish, Beef and Lamb emit the most. Breads, legumes and nuts the least. From: https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/climate-issues/food

Just finished an audio clip for a kids podcast, sharing my top tip for "saving the planet". After double-checking they were sure they didn't want to hear about the planetary defence team's plans for diverting killer asteroids in space, I decided to go with this data from the UN. #EatVeggie #EatVegan

Ten Thousand

I do my best to not make people feel bad for not knowing a thing, whether I'm successful or not is debatable, but, always great for an XKCD: xkcd.com/1053/

"Many years ago, on this very spot, there was a beautiful city of fine houses and inviting spaces, and no one who lived here was ever in a hurry. The streets were full of wonderful things to see and the people would often stop to look at them." "Didn't they have any place to go?" asked Milo. "To be sure," continued Alec; "but, as you know, the most important reason for going from one place to another is to see what's in between, and they took great pleasure in doing just that. Then one day someone discovered that if you walked as fast as possible and looked at nothing but your shoes you would arrive at your destination much more quickly. Soon everyone was doing it. They all rushed down the avenues and hurried along the boulevards seeing nothing of the wonders and beauties of their city as they went." Milo remembered the many times he'd done the very same thing; and, as hard as he tried, there were even things on his own street that he couldn't remember.

"No one paid any attention to how things looked, and as they moved faster and faster everything grew uglier and dirtier, and as everything grew uglier and dirtier they moved faster and faster, and at last a very strange thing began to happen. Because nobody cared, the city slowly began to disappear. Day by day the buildings grew fainter and fainter, and the streets faded away, until at last it was entirely invisible. There was nothing to see at all." "What did they do?" the Humbug inquired, suddenly taking an interest in things. "Nothing at all," continued Alec. "They went right on living here just as they'd always done, in the houses they could no longer see and on the streets which had vanished, because nobody had noticed a thing. And that's the way they have lived to this very day." "Hasn't anyone told them?" asked Milo. "It doesn't do any good," Alec replied, "for they can never see what they're in too much of a hurry to look for."

The story of what happened to the city of Reason is too long to fit in a single post, but too good not to post. Feels like an apt metaphor.

Please read:

Very cool shot! Too bad it is shrinking so much and doesn't look to be turning that around any time soon

I can't count the number of times my wife has emailed a list of things she needs to her sales people only for them to have possibly read the subject and call or reply asking about things that would have been answered by reading. I don't tend to have that problem but I see it too much for sure.

Silly you expecting people to:
1. Read
2. Understand
3. Care

Very unreasonable of you to

I don't know if my parents got me the vaccine for measles. So, I went and got it last week. I recommend you do too if you aren't sure 💜

I guess it's a blanket dismissal

A brown penguin chick of some kind. It looks very much like a man in a suit. It is bedraggled and miserable

Made it to Friday but at what cost

So the thing about being trans is you go from barely existing to loving life and then everyone who isn’t trans wants us to be quiet and polite at best while we’re exploding with the first real joy we’ve ever experienced

So

Anyone who thinks we need to be civil and quiet can fuck all the way off

www.costco.com/p/-/shark-na...

Picked this up about 6 months ago to replace a similar model that was ~8-9 years old. Not quite your $150 mark, but it was 150 last week and I think it goes on sale relatively often as I picked mine up at 150.

And here I am wondering...

> whatami

spiral galaxy NGC 5314 Looks like the eye of Sauron. https://www.space.com/astronomy/james-webb-space-telescope/spectacular-spiral-galaxy-revealed-by-james-webb-space-telescope-space-photo-of-the-day-for-march-4-2026

JWST continues to kill it

Probably be differently annoying, but would be nice to some degree to have a ‘person would like to add you to starter pack, described as this, to you approve?’ And include a setting that is ‘allow to be added to starter packs’. I’m sure minds better than mine have reasons why not, but, maybe?

The only thing wrong with Iran is a bunch of religious assholes control everything

A bunch of religious American assholes are going to fix that

Thoughts & prayers to the EPA :(

Too bad many ‘coders’ also think that LLMs think and/or do things right the first time, every time.

I report every bit of that as spam and absolutely will have a hard time donating again with anything associated with my (actual) phone number.

Definitely exceptions, but yeah, 6+ hours is nuts. Good luck to you in them realizing that it's time to leave.

Yet is there hope. Time and tide flow wide. — Melville Aurora and a meteor over Woodruff Narrows Reservoir

Time and Tide - From Bill (ridingrobots.bsky.social) - https://flic.kr/p/2rFDmdm

NGL, I'm probably OK with NOT having any of the people he would have picked to succeed survive, given his record on competent decision making.

A line graph showing NSF grant awards made through 2/27/26 for fiscal year 2026 compared with grant awards for fiscal years 2021-2025.

NSF Update (Awards through 2/27/26)

Directorates to follow

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A jet coming out of a galaxy

Radio #galaxy (4C 00.58) with a black hole in the center spewing out an astrophysical jet of material. #JWST 🔭 NIRCam (F444W)

program: www.stsci.edu/jwst-program...

PI is Eileen Meyer @eileen-meyer-astro.bsky.social

#blackhole #jet #astronomy

It’s a good thing Congress isn’t alive to see this

You will never regret the post you didn't post.

Post a pic you took, no context, to bring some zen to the feed