Octavia Butler, mid-1990s:
"Imagine a future where food prices are high because of climate change and war, while grocery store shoppers are subjected to invasive surveillance."
Me, shopping in the mid-2020s and being told I have to wait for someone to unlock the toothpaste:
"Wait a minute."
It also remains way past time to make any US government contracts with Elon Musk's companies contingent on his not having any further role with them.
Make the majority shareholders in SpaceX choose between Musk and their money.
I am reminded again how in 1935, the US Congress passed a tax law that created a new top tax bracket of nearly 80%.
That tax bracket contained exactly one person, John D. Rockefeller, and was designed to stop him from causing so much trouble.
In case anyone needs the precedent.
Check your sources. Even if you like what they are saying.
QT Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social
2026 October 13
Y’all, I hate to rain on the dead bot parade, but the Yandex data center destruction doesn’t seem to have significantly impacted social media bots. I made temporal graphs of X posts about AfD around the time of the attack and there’s no sign of a sudden dip or residual impact on that conversation.
https://bsky.app/profile/katestarbird.bsky.social/post/3mxrjoq7cqs2b
Margaret Hamilton is rightly remembered for her work programming the flight computers for Apollo.
But she should also be remembered for her work on early weather prediction software, which informed the realization that weather is chaotic and the limits to predicting it.
https://news.mit.edu/2026/margaret-hamilton-computing-pioneer-dies-1007
Mastodon.online moderators: "Here is an option to report posts that share information widely-known to be false or misleading."
I am glad for this. But I have a question:
What counts as "widely-known"?
Since we have a great many things right now that all relevant experts have explained are false or misleading; but the general public may not understand as such.
For example:
Commercial fusion power will not be a thing any time soon and anyone claiming it will is lying.
When the science outreach organization outlasts the software it was named after.
I am reminded that K-12 teachers are setting up their schedules for fall classes.
If you should want a scientist to talk with your students, Skype A Scientist can help arrange that:
The most likely outcome here is that Reflect Orbital folds as soon as the venture capital it has gotten runs out.
But while any eyesore it should launch will eventually fall out of the sky; in the meantime it will be a navigation hazard and risk random eye damage to amateur astronomers.
It remains way past time to stop letting corporations unilaterally make a mess of the sky.
Require regulators that actually do that, United States. Instead of regulators that let dangerous scams like this go forwards on the basis of blatant nonsense.
Refer also to commentary on Bluesky by Alejandro Borlaff:
https://bsky.app/profile/asborlaff.bsky.social/post/3mmwocefycc2w
With "et al." including @planet4589 .
It remains way past time to stop letting corporations unilaterally make a mess of the sky.
And, no, we cannot avoid the problem by putting telescopes in space.
Borlaff et al. 2026, "SPHEREx confirms predictions for artificial satellite trail pollution in Low Earth Orbit" - https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.27501
Meanwhile; Elon Musk fans are apparently cheering at a rocket exploding.
And this is just one reason why I block them on sight.
In which SpaceX admits that it can only claim that the Starlinks make money by not counting the cost of launching the things.
While also ignoring all collision risks and environmental impacts.
QT Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social
2026 May 21
Starlink's figures don't count the cost of satellite launches. Instead, SpaceX capitalizes those costs as PP&E ... SpaceX doesn't account for any costs of deorbiting. They'll just leave them up there as space junk.
https://bsky.app/profile/maxkennerly.bsky.social/post/3mmeb36nnac2o
Yet again, USA:
Make any further government contracts with SpaceX conditional on Musk being removed from any role with the company.
Make the majority shareholders decide between Musk and their money.
(Yes, I did read the reporting about how Musk has tried to structure SpaceX to avoid that.)
SpaceX was making money from launching rockets.
Then Elon Musk decided to waste it by littering the sky with Starlinks and blowing up Starships; when he was not off causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people by interfering with USAID.
Yet again, USA:
Do not permit this or anything like it.
Require that your Senators block it and if your Representative voted for it, do not let them remain in Congress.
QT ACLU @aclu.org
2026 May 20
The House of Representatives just voted to require teachers to forcibly out transgender youth ...
Censoring "gender ideology" does nothing to advance the basic promise that every child deserves the same opportunity to thrive, and that includes transgender students.
https://bsky.app/profile/aclu.org/post/3mmcu5vjmcc26
Starlink continues to have been designed to sell a small number of users lower-latency links at a steep premium.
And it remains way past time to stop letting corporations make a mess of the sky.
https://www.fastcompany.com/91532281/spacex-starlink-fcc-complaints
Today on the #arXiv :
@elizabethtasker et al. 2026, "The science from asteroid sample return missions" - https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.22182
Reviewing what has been learned from bringing samples from Itokawa, Ryugu, and Bennu back to Earth.