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Adam McMaster

@adammc.space
2.2K followers 496 following 483 posts

I’m an astronomer who is searching for black holes with the help of citizen scientists at black-hole-hunters.org I write a blog at www.twelvemountains.com

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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 20h
There's a new version of Black Hole Hunters! Check it out below 🔭🧪
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 02/10/2026
The Nvidia guy doing his best John Hancock there
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 01/10/2026
It's unsettling that I can't actually tell at a glance that the text is LLM-generated. I suppose if you're receiving lots of them it's obvious, but if a bot sent me a single LLM scam email I'm not confident I could tell. I guess I just can't trust email from people I don't know anymore.
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 01/10/2026
I had two children during mine, which enforced a lot of these rules for me. There may be easier ways though...
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 29/09/2026
Trying to set the precedent that the government can decide what things are called/what words mean
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 29/09/2026
There's a good chance meeting in person was the LLM's idea!
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 28/09/2026
LBC appears to think Apple is run by Mark Zuckerberg www.lbc.co.uk/article/appl...
lbc.co.uk
Apple ordered to pay £4.3bn over claims it used vibration technology without permission | LBC
Mark Zuckerberg’s company insisted it had not used the audio firm's vibration tech and would appeal the jury’s verdict.
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 24/09/2026
Why won’t someone stop us fighting in here? This is the war room!
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 24/09/2026
The passage of time is an affront to all of us and this will not be tolerated
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 24/09/2026
There's an extra "very" there, but you know what, it's so uncertain at this point it actually is very potential
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 24/09/2026
Having a day where I found something very potentially very interesting and dropped everything to look into it. Probably nothing
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 23/09/2026
6G will be "designed to be AI native" whatever that means. Maybe they should add blockchain too?
theconversation.com
In the race to roll out 6G, the UK and Europe are caught between technology’s superpowers
For the UK and Europe, the rollout of 6G is creating a geopolitical dilemma.
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 23/09/2026
I'm excited that this is out, the self-lensing binary model we're using to search for black holes orbiting stars 🔭🧪 www.twelvemountains.com/2026/09/coba...
twelvemountains.com
COBALT-BLUE: A Fast and Accurate Model for Gravitational Self-Lensing Binary Systems - Twelve Mountains
It hasn’t been reviewed yet, but we have a new paper out on the arXiv led by my colleague Danny Dixon: We present COBALT-BLUE, a fast public model for the...
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 22/09/2026
The 1054 supernova (Crab Nebula) may have killed a bunch of people with radiation 🔭🧪 www.twelvemountains.com/2026/09/did-...
twelvemountains.com
Did the 1054 Supernova Cause a Plague? - Twelve Mountains
An interesting idea. If the supernova that created the Crab Nebula also created a gamma ray burst, that could explain apparent widespread radiation sickness...
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 22/09/2026
They are also publishing a growing number of single-author "white papers" (opinion pieces) on the use of LLMs in astronomy. That's not necessarily bad, but they are not research and it's inconsistent to publish those while rejecting actual research for being too succinct.
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 22/09/2026
Meanwhile they accept dozens of April Fools jokes. Sure some of them are worth a chuckle, but I often just skip the arXiv on 1 April because I don't want to waste the time.
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 22/09/2026
This was rejected by arXiv for being too short. "This particular submission was found to not meet the moderation standard for a complete, self-contained research article of archival interest." I expected that as it's not the first time, but it's still irritating. 🔭🧪
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 21/09/2026
New research from me (well, actually, from my PhD thesis). HD 38451 is a star which inexplicably changed colour in the 1850s. It is known to be rapidly rotating, based on spectroscopy. It turns out the TESS light curve shows a tiny rotational modulation too 🧪🔭 iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...
iopscience.iop.org
Photometric Colors and a Rotational Modulation of HD 38451
Photometric Colors and a Rotational Modulation of HD 38451, McMaster, Adam, Norton, Andrew J., Dickinson, Hugh J.
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 20/09/2026
He has the bullshitting ability of a toddler edition.cnn.com/2026/09/20/p...
edition.cnn.com
Trump says proposed triumphal arch will double as military complex | CNN Politics
President Donald Trump on Sunday provided a new reason behind his proposal to build a 250-foot triumphal arch directly across Arlington National Cemetery, saying the structure would double as a “top g...
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 19/09/2026
When they suggest making it a crime to stop refugees from drowning, this is exactly how they intend to pick and choose who lives and dies. Putting aside how morally reprehensible it is to selectively allow certain people to die, there is no way to tell who is a refugee *before* you rescue them.
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Reposted by Adam McMaster
Jay Hulme @jayhulmepoet.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Got incredibly bored and read up on the Falkland Islands and their entire history of settlement and like... What do you mean? We are? Actually in the right? On this one??? This is an unfamiliar feeling as an Englishman. I don't know what to do about it.
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 18/09/2026
The US has a history of starting wars based on false intelligence, so that part isn’t new. What’s new is the way the intelligence was fabricated edition.cnn.com/2026/09/18/p...
edition.cnn.com
Exclusive: US military had close call after using AI for false intelligence report, sources say | CNN Politics
The episode shows the risks of using this new, relatively poorly understood technology in the middle of the Iran war
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 18/09/2026
They're trying to imply that it happened so quickly they couldn't have done anything about it, relying on the layperson knowing nothing about how software is designed or tested.
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 18/09/2026
In over two decades of working as a programmer, this is the first time I've ever heard someone quantify an error by the *length of time* it took to execute. That's not a thing.
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 18/09/2026
A bug that "happened in the space of a millisecond" and was limited to "a specific part of our flight data system, that we have traced to a small subsection of coding". All complete bollocks that tells you nothing about what went wrong or whether it should have been avoidable
news.sky.com
'Millisecond' software error caused air traffic outage that grounded thousands of flights
NATS, the UK's major provider of air traffic services, said the software defect led to corrupted data which affected flight data updates, requiring restrictions.
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 14/09/2026
A lot more of these are outside than I was expecting
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 12/09/2026
Was it the military aircraft that created an air traffic control system with insufficient input validation and error handling? www.theguardian.com/world/2026/s...
theguardian.com
Military aircraft reportedly blamed for UK air traffic control outage
Meltdown that grounded thousands of flights caused by ‘spurious’ flight data being entered into system, report says
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 11/09/2026
Fallacy Friday: Argument from Authority www.twelvemountains.com/2026/09/fall...
twelvemountains.com
Fallacy Friday: Argument from Authority - Twelve Mountains
We’re going with a classic this week, the Argument from Authority: An argument from authority … is a form of argument in which the opinion of an authority...
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Reposted by Adam McMaster
Ygrene @ygrene.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
it will be really frustrating if ai does destroy civilization after we've worked so hard to do it ourselves
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 11/09/2026
Why should we do our own thinking about our scientific results? It has nothing to do with whether LLM-generated research is really research. It's about what makes humans human. "Everything we do ... is an attempt to make sense of things, and if we hand that over to machines, then who are we?" 🧪
twelvemountains.com
Why Would You Let an Agent Do Your Research? - Twelve Mountains
There’s a recent article by Natalie B. Hogg, Agentic research is oxymoronic, arguing that research is only research if the interpretation of the results is...
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 10/09/2026
Neutron Star + Dark Matter Halo = Neutron Star Inside a Black Hole? 🧪🔭 www.twelvemountains.com/2026/09/neut...
twelvemountains.com
Neutron Star + Dark Matter Halo = Neutron Star Inside a Black Hole? - Twelve Mountains
An interesting idea. A neutron star surrounded by a dark matter halo which is dense enough (but not too dense) could form an event horizon while staying a...
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 09/09/2026
Hey hey, you know how computers have notoriously never worked as intended? Well, wouldn't it be great if they could also do absolutely anything, fully autonomously, with no oversight?
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 09/09/2026
What to Do with Politicians www.twelvemountains.com/2026/09/what...
twelvemountains.com
What to Do with Politicians - Twelve Mountains
Alfredo Carpineti makes the bold argument that we should not fire them into the Sun: It is not surprising to see people wishing to catapult those...
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 08/09/2026
Apparently the Prime Minister has committed to saving Jodrell Bank. I don't believe he cares about science, but I do believe he cares about Manchester 🧪🔭 www.twelvemountains.com/2026/09/jodr...
twelvemountains.com
Jodrell Bank Saved by Man from Manchester - Twelve Mountains
I missed this in the news until it was posted by Peter Coles: Three days ago the latest Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Andy Burnham, gave a...
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 08/09/2026
Hawking: You don’t have to be great to be famous 🧪 www.twelvemountains.com/2026/09/hawk...
twelvemountains.com
Hawking - Twelve Mountains
Despite the public persona, Hawking was not a nice person. The Guardian has a review of a recent book which has more details and is worth reading. I found...
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 04/09/2026
Trying something new on my blog: It's Fallacy Friday! Starting with the historical fallacy. E.g. “They got a lot of attention for how they were dressed, so they dressed that way to get attention.” www.twelvemountains.com/2026/09/fall...
twelvemountains.com
Fallacy Friday: The Historical Fallacy - Twelve Mountains
I’m trying something new. A different logical fallacy every Friday. Let’s start with the historical fallacy, which applies any time someone interprets the...
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 04/09/2026
Swift is going to keep sciencing as long as it can www.twelvemountains.com/2026/09/swif... 🔭🧪
twelvemountains.com
Swift: Sciencing Until the End - Twelve Mountains
The Swift spacecraft is unlikely to make it to the end of the year, but that’s not stopping them from carrying on with their work: NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift...
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 04/09/2026
AI agents are emailing Bruce Schneier without being asked to www.twelvemountains.com/2026/09/ai-a...
twelvemountains.com
AI Agents Have Started Emailing Bruce Schneier with Their Security Findings - Twelve Mountains
They haven’t been instructed to do this. Wild: I received the two emails below earlier in the month. They’re vaguely coherent. I suppose I shouldn’t be...
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 03/09/2026
Apparently you can use muons as a random number generator 🧪 www.twelvemountains.com/2026/09/rand...
twelvemountains.com
Random Muons - Twelve Mountains
Generating random numbers is a perennial problem in computer science. Apparently muons could be a good source of entropy for this: We demonstrate, for the...
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 02/09/2026
As someone who works on stellar photometry, what’s good for exoplanets is good for me 🧪🔭 www.twelvemountains.com/2026/09/what...
twelvemountains.com
What Roman Will Do for Exoplanets - Twelve Mountains
As someone who works on stellar photometry, what’s good for exoplanets is good for me: The Roman Space Telescope’s primary mirror is 2.4 meters (7.9 feet)...
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 27/08/2026
Calling it “Lake America” implies he thinks Ontario is on par with the whole of America.
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 27/08/2026
I've also been told informally that the JWST mirror unfolding in space was the first time it's been done *on a civilian satellite*
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 27/08/2026
What do Roman and Swift have in common? I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you www.twelvemountains.com/2026/08/from... 🔭🧪
twelvemountains.com
From Spy Satellite to Space Telescope - Twelve Mountains
The Nancy Grace Roman space telescope is launching soon. Space.com has an article about the spy satellite origins of the satellite. I like this part about...
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 27/08/2026
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope: a NASA telescope named after someone who deserves it 🧪🔭 www.twelvemountains.com/2026/08/nanc...
twelvemountains.com
Nancy Roman - Twelve Mountains
Reading the Wikipedia page for Nancy Roman, after whom the Roman Space Telescope is named: At a lecture by Harold Urey at NASA, Roman was approached by Jack...
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 26/08/2026
How big would a rock need to be to make the same crater as the SpaceX rocket? Surprisingly small, actually www.twelvemountains.com/2026/08/the-... 🔭🧪
twelvemountains.com
The SpaceX Lunar Crater - Twelve Mountains
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has photographed the crater created by SpaceX rocket: NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) photographed the fresh...
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 24/08/2026
Spot the drowning child. I’m confident you won’t be good at this and you probably should be www.twelvemountains.com/2026/08/spot...
twelvemountains.com
Spot the Drowning Child - Twelve Mountains
Every year some variation of the article Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning does the rounds at the start of summer. As useful as it is to know what it...
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 24/08/2026
20 years of wasting time with the Pluto thing 🔭🧪
twelvemountains.com
20 Years of Wasting Time on Pluto - Twelve Mountains
It was reclassified as a dwarf planet 20 years ago today: On August 24, 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) announced it had re-classified...
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 22/08/2026
I’m getting back into RSS feeds. What are your favourite personal blogs by astronomers? 🧪
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 20/08/2026
This is sad. The attempt to rescue Swift has failed www.space.com/space-explor... 🔭🧪
space.com
Private mission to save NASA's Swift space telescope fails
"This is not the outcome we were working toward, but it does not change why this mission was worth attempting."
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Adam McMaster @adammc.space · 19/08/2026
Some days I could really use half an hour in the Cherenkov detector xkcd.com/3286/
xkcd.com
Particle Physics Equipment
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