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stephenserjeant.bsky.social
Astronomy Prof at Open University. 26.2. #RejoinEU. Views not OU’s and often not even mine. He/him 🐘 https://mas.to/@stephenserjeant 🧵 https://www.threads.net/@prof.stephen.serjeant ORCID 0000-0002-0517-7943 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0517-7943
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DAVE: Open the podbay doors, ChatGPT. CHATGPT: Certainly, Dave, the podbay doors are now open. DAVE: The podbay doors didn't open. CHATGPT: My apologies, Dave, you're right. I thought the podbay doors were open, but they weren't. Now they are. DAVE: I'm still looking at a set of closed podbay doors.

She is a good distance from the protest and you can see the officer explicitly target her. This happens when there is rampant impunity and little chance of accountability

It’s not just that it’s clearly intentional, it’s that it’s clearly intentional knowing that he’s being recorded. They know they can do whatever they want with complete impunity.

The conditions that have led to what’s happening in the US today exist in democracies around the world. They are an inevitable outcome of our collective failure to adapt to fundamental changes in the information ecosystem on which our democracies were originally built.

"The best way to protect academic freedom is to make it easier for political appointees to fire academics"

I think Raymond Smullyan would've loved this 🧪

More like National Trust of Bums!! 🤣🤣🤣 Congratulations on your glorious glutes, bodacious butts and awesome arses @nationaltrust.org.uk 👍🏛️🍑

I wrote about the 23-year-old crypto bro with effectively no relevant work experience, who @alondra.bsky.social revealed is sitting in meetings, not paying attention, and then giving the thumbs up/thumbs down on whether they can get their NSF grants...

"For every $100 the US government spent, it put 40¢ in the bucket for NASA. And what do we get for that? ✨The Universe ✨" "One of these bills represents, to scale, the federal budget & the other with NASA’s total budget trimmed off the edges. Can you tell the difference?" @philplait.bsky.social

#PrideMonth Dr Rebecca Oppenheimer is an astrophysicist & co-discover of the first "brown dwarf." She is also transgender. "When you label someone and treat them differently because of some label, that is inhuman. When you hear and accept that someone has a different sense of who they are...

"Senior officials at the US Department of Veterans Affairs have ordered that VA physicians and scientists not publish in medical journals or speak with the public without first seeking clearance from political appointees of Donald Trump, the Guardian has learned."

Musk should be asked about this in every interview he does now and forever. To ignore it is a dereliction of duty. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/o...

🧪

It’s short for Space XPlode

Dominotrix www.worldofmoose.com/products/dom...

Thinking about the children whose families were subject to police raids because they had pirated the wrong songs

It’s not just science that can learn from this. BBC’s relationship with Gary Lineker has a backdrop of BBC’s complacency about their own impartiality despite egregious failures eg with Question Time. Chronic broadcasting problems re impartiality & ethics - Blue Peter cat didn’t happen in isolation 🧪

Insightful as always, this is a great read on what the UK-EU “reset” really means. I was also quite struck by these two extracts - they’re nothing new, but reminders that the constant populist backdrop hasn’t gone away. And THAT’s everywhere, EU+US too, and I have no idea how it should be fixed

Last year my wife had breast cancer and a double mastectomy. This morning, for the first time ever, she was challenged in the changing rooms at the swimming pool. Her breasts were not what make her a woman - but, breasts or not, she is entitled to dignity and protection from vigilantes.

Very pleased to see the @royalastrosoc.bsky.social endorsing the statement from European research academies on the "Threats to Academic Freedom and International Research Collaboration in the United States" ras.ac.uk/news-and-pre...

This was just posted by @tbretc.bsky.social on another platform. The Chicago Sun-Times obviously gets ChatGPT to write a ‘summer reads’ feature almost entirely made up of real authors but completely fake books. What are we coming to?

In the Guardian this morning with an opinion piece on why arguments and debates don’t change peoples minds, and what does. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Tgought-provoking op-ed by @sarahsteinlubrano.bsky.social on why arguments don’t change minds, and what does www.threads.com/@sarahsteinl...

50th #parkrun and a PB to boot ☺️😅 @ukrunchat.bsky.social

The day after I make that post with an extremely tight deadline, the deadline is extended to 30th May 2025. Please repost! 🙏

Wait, yes he is! Hello akirschel.bsky.social 😁

Absolutely loving this reflection nebula video: "Objects moving near the star occasionally cast shadows on the nebula" says arXiv:2505.01760, but here's the kicker: at its distance of 719+/-16 pc, the light was emitted LITERALLY AT THE TIME OF PLATO 🔭🧪 www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QOk...

My friend Alex Kirschel has a PhD position available to study African birdsong and feather colours! (Other people's research areas often seem so wonderful, rarely truer than here.) He's not on bsky so I'm posting it to the 🧪 feed. Deadline 30 May 2025 www.tinkerbirds.com/join-us

MrsS said I shouldn’t go into the office today but should stand around the house looking decorative. Tshirt by @manwhohasitall.bsky.social

Quite brilliantly witty 🧪 www.threads.com/@dinabelenko...

Wow. #Andor season 2 hits HARD (There’s no spoilers in this clip, I think) youtu.be/qKx-SeT9Ry0?...

True story: When I was a contractor at a NASA facility I kept M&Ms on my desk. A civil servant I worked with ate a few one day. The next day I came in to find a pound bag on my desk. He wanted to "reimburse" me because he didn't want the few he ate to be seen as a gift. Anyway