Goat morning.

There's a competition to name a satellite that will remove debris from orbit. Good for making orbit safer, BUT it just chucks it into the atmosphere, making metal-vapour pollution or hitting the ground. Fediverse, you are so creatively sarcastic, I think many of you could have some very good submissions here!

(I'm not saying this is a bad idea, it's just that with better regulation and better engineering of satellites, we wouldn't have this problem in the first place)

https://mastodonapp.uk/@ianvisits/117562837562231749

Sound on for sandhill cranes!

Nice bike ride. The very muddy road that's really beautiful was mostly still frozen, so it wasn't so bad to ride on. There's a skim of ice on all the ponds, I saw a couple of V's of snow geese, a flock of partridges, and I'm pretty sure I saw a pileated woodpecker! I also met a neighbour I'd never chatted with before (he drove over when he saw me fiddling with my phone staring into his woods, trying to tell if it was actually a pileated woodpecker). And a bonus combine parade!

RE: https://fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/117558319416827293

Man I really hate the reentry gambling game. An injury or death from a reentry is a very low probability dice, but if you roll a low probability dice often enough bad things are guaranteed to happen.

And Swift is one of the good ones, they tried to boost it but the rescue mission by a private satellite company failed. Satellites larger than cubesats should be required to do controlled reentries.

And better yet, fewer satellites, each with longer operating lifetimes.

For my birthday tomorrow, I'd love fewer satellites in orbit!

Uh oops shit no not like that https://aerospace.org/reentries/28485

But the moon was GORGEOUS (especially through binoculars), with Jupiter and Mars hanging out right next door. The goats are healthy, I have lots of chickens who will start laying eggs very soon, I have lots of stored veggies for the winter, my family is doing well, and I generally love my job. There's lots to be grateful for.

That's focusing on the stars through the fog. I need to do that more.

I got incredibly bad medical news about a friend yesterday and I'm still reeling from it.

When I went out to do barn chores this morning, it was foggy but I could still see the stars directly overhead this morning if I looked up and focused. That's kind of what my brain feels like, waiting for more bad news on so many scales...

Very unfortunately, I did not get any of my astrophotography published in the Wall Street Journal (which would have been hilarious) but their article about orbital "AI data centres" is now published: https://www.wsj.com/science/space-astronomy/could-orbital-data-centers-ruin-the-night-sky-9462bf2d?st=TVyDmz&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Lots of points I would have loved to see them hit harder on, but I guess just having an article in the Wall Street Journal about how dangerous and damaging all this orbital development would be is going to reach a totally different audience, and that's good.

Sitting in on a meeting of radio astronomers and learning that the FCC is gradually auctioning off the radio frequency bands we need for weather forecasts. Fantastic.

Morning barn report: Alice, the loudest, bossiest goat, is in heat. Instead of happily walking to the stanchion like she usually does, she sprinted for the buck's pen and I had to go catch her (she is not limping anymore, yay!) Still a bit too early to breed them. Poor Alice.

Spook, the new barn cat, likes hanging out with me while I walk the milking goats back and forth to the stanchion. Today he hopped up on my lap during milking, which was sweet, but not very helpful.

A friend gave me her jack-o-lanterns.

Despite their best efforts, goats are not very helpful on farm projects (unless the project involves clearing brush)

Picked lots of rose hips in the woods. Makes delicious tea with lots of vitamin C

A Dakota elder taught me that one of the names for rose hips in Dakota translates to "itchy ass berries" - so do NOT eat them whole! Tea only!

Just waiting for the final version to download... everyone think happy thoughts at all the poor Canadian gov't computer sysadmins who are about to go home for the weekend and leave the portal in whatever state it's in for all the proposals that are due on Monday........

Boy I wasn't kidding when I said I should give up on the internet for today.... now the Canadian national research grant portal has apparently crashed. FANTASTIC.

Morning barn report: Alice, my oldest goat, was limping badly for no apparent reason, even though she was walking just fine when I put her in the barn last night. Spook the new barn cat enthusiastically followed me back and forth to the milk room, looking for kibbles everywhere. None of the goats like cats much, but Glory HAAAATES cats and let Spook know her feelings, though I don't think he was much bothered. Jack, the guardian dog, was happily sleeping in the middle of the goats' hay pile.

My kids are arguing with each other, but they're arguing in French!! I'm so weirdly proud about this. (I do not speak French at all, thank you French immersion public education!)

RE: https://fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/117515229068094233

New dwarf planet!

In other news, Reflect Orbital is still completely dangerous and useless, and everyone knows it (except the FCC, apparently): https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/astronomy-and-society/a-satellite-company-tested-sunlight-as-a-service-without-astronomers-knowledge/