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Chromospheric Hot Spot

@baryonicbeing.bsky.social
239 followers 523 following 1.7K posts

Space whale, big engines, friendly. Touring the galaxy. mastodon.social/@BaryonicBeing

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Chromospheric Hot Spot @baryonicbeing.bsky.social · 6h
The fortune cookies are horny tonight.
Two fortunes from fortune cookies, laying on a table. The one above says "An unexpected encounter with your close friend will bring joy." The one below says "Book lovers never go to bed alone."
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J Pardo @jdpardo.bsky.social · 12h
I posted this last week without comment, but I'm going to comment now. The people who established the system of museums in the West had a very specific reason for doing so: they thought that having an appreciation for the wonders of the world was absolutely necessary for being a good citizen.
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KM Apothecary @apothcarysees.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
When I saw Ghost, the Pacific Giant octopus at the Aquarium of the Pacific she was entering senescence and slowing down. I captured her color with airbrush, so now she has a portrait.
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Daniel Swain @weatherwest.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Just did some number crunching using latest (Oct 1) ECMWF seasonal data, and I must say that I've never seen such high predictive confidence in a very wet California winter. This is a truly extraordinary forecast amid a record-strength El Niño event. [Thread: please read to end.]
Model-relative sea surface temperature anomalies for November 2026–January 2027. The supplied grid is displayed without added smoothing or coastal filling. Beige marks land and gray marks missing ocean values. The main colour scale spans -2 to +10°F, with white at zero. Hot pink marks anomalies above +10°F. This map does not establish an operational ENSO category.
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Elixir of Progress @elucidating.extradimensional.space · 06/10/2026
This is your yearly reminder that this exists and you can have it on your desktop in your browser right now. effectgames.com/demos/canvas...
effectgames.com
Canvas Cycle: True 8-bit Color Cycling with HTML5
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loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
it's here! spooky movie recs 2026. this year's list is special. i worked /entirely/ too hard on curation and couldn't be more excited to share this with y'all. brief notes on watching experimental work (3 posts) then recs. commence MOVIE RECS 2026 - SPOOKY EXPERIMENTAL + ARTHOUSE. let's go!
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Matthew Cobb @matthewcobb.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
A lot of excitement on here about the article in Science summarising the discoveries of @alistairsponsel.bsky.social and Brian Sutton, just published in the Journal of the History of Biology. Some people have asked, so here is what I think they show, and what are the implications:
link.springer.com
Photograph 49 is the Key to Understanding the History of Rosalind Franklin’s DNA Photograph 51 - Journal of the History of Biology
This essay, co-authored by a historian of science and an X-ray crystallographer, sheds new light on Rosalind Franklin’s Photograph 51. We refute the infamous claim that, unlike James Watson, Franklin ...
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Swinda Falkena @swinda.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Great piece on the AMOC, with attention for the subpolar gyre. While AMOC collapse would take multiple decades, potential changes in the subpolar gyre could occur over 10-15 years and start as early as 2040. The impact won't be as severe as for AMOC, but this near-future risk warrants attention.
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toilet bones @toiletbones.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Found the email I sent when I got accidentally added to the faculty listserv of an orthopedic surgery clinic and nobody would remove me so I sent this email to all faculty/staff/med students and they removed me almost immediately
Hello Bone Colleagues, 
I have invented a new type of ankle and I'm very excited to show it to you. Early raccoon trials suggest a 60% increase in scurrying speed and dramatic increases in fine motor banditry. I know we are not supposed to create super raccoons, but I think you'll change your mind and professional ethics when you see how cute they are. I believe we are on the cusp of a new era in advanced human scurrying because if medical science has taught me anything, it's that improvements in raccoons correspond 1:1 to improvements in humans. 

--
[My name]
Chief Bone Inventor
Chair, Department of Foot and Leg Innovation
Lord Mayor, Musculoskeletal Medicine 
Hartford HealthCare,
The Bone & Joint Institute at Hartford Hospital.
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Daniel Swain @weatherwest.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Latest ECMWF ensemble update is out, and outlook re: El Niño & associated regional hydroclimate impacts is even more extraordinary vs Sep. I'll discuss briefly in today's livestream, & more comprehensively next week. But odds of consequentially wet CA winter continue to rise...
Map from ECMWF ensemble update in Oct showing the likelihood of  Jan-Mar precipitation being above the median. The odds are nearly 100% across all of California and much of the American Southwest, which is truly extraordinary.
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Der Fisher @blackholefun.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Unpopular opinion: LLMs are generally deradicalizing people whose beliefs are based on pure propaganda. I've been watching this happen slowly with some people I care about. ChatGPT is one of the reasons they finally accept that the NRA, OAN, and NewsMax are lying to them.
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Chromospheric Hot Spot @baryonicbeing.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
My god, I just realized he had a full cubicle, and was next to a window. Aside from annoying bosses, his other major distraction was noise from coworkers, which could've been solved by buying Milton some headphones, getting a pair of his own, or asking HR to move him to another desk.
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Chromospheric Hot Spot @baryonicbeing.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Instead of running 1 mile this morning I ran 1.5, and started the last 0.5 with a sprint. Need to remember to change exercise up like that from time to time, keep the body guessing. Feels better.
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Astronomy Picture of the Day 🪐 @apod.shinyakato.dev · 04/10/2026
🔭 Supernumerary Rainbows over New Jersey Credit & Copyright: John Entwistle ap261004
The top of a house is shown beneath a dark and cloudy sky. Many rainbow stripes are seen above the house.
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Colin @colin-fraser.net · 02/10/2026
Let me just explain the arithmetic thing real quick; I'm seeing a lot of people not understanding what it's supposed to show (or was supposed to show in 2023). First, let's agree that an LLM is a Stochastic Parrot, a description which I find poetic, useful, informative, and basically correct.
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Chromospheric Hot Spot @baryonicbeing.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Tomorrow will feature a dietary experiment in which I shall derive all my calories for the day from vanilla ice cream drizzled with melted peanut butter. Shooting for 2,000 calories, but I may splurge and hit 3,000.
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Kieran 🦘🇨🇦 @hellbendermuseum.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Proud to present my lifesize T. rex head, affectionately named Hannibal. I created this myself from start to finish- digital sculpture, resin 3D printing, painting, etc. Huge thanks to my friend @rj-palmer.com for instrumental crits and redlines during the sculpting process.
Life-size t rex head model from front 3/4 view. I am also in frameLife size t rex head model, from frontLife size t-rex model, from front and staring directly down the barrel of the camera
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kottke.org @kottke.org · 01/10/2026
Map of the Lighthouses of the World. Each lighthouse sweeps out its actual arc and the reach of the beams is true to scale. Very cool. [kottke.org]
kottke.org
Map of the Lighthouses of the World
From mapped.earth, a map of every lighthouse on the planet, along with other charted lights like lighted buoys and such. The screenshots above are static but the lights on the real map move: each lighthouse sweeps out it
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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
One feature of that grappling was that within the 'no war, no peace, only conflict' model, the agrarian ('second system' in my parlance) militaries often ran 'hot and cold' - when political and strategic conditions aligned, they responded at much greater scale than opponents could match.
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Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com · 01/10/2026
today in depressing takes, like "the war with iran probably isn't going to end"
liberalcurrents.com
The Return of the Cutting-Off Way
Structural changes are driving us towards a more chaotic world, defined by "neither peace nor war, but conflict."
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beetle moses @beetlemoses.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Three panel comic. Panel 1: a guy is being interviewed in an office. The interviewer, pointing to his computer display, asks, “can you explain this gap in your resume?” The interviewee replies, “uh…” Panel 2: out of thin air a portal emerges between the two men. Rocketing out of the portal is a time traveling dodo bird wearing futuristic gear. The dodo exclaims, “I’m back! I saved us from extinction!” A coffee cup is knocked over. Panel 3: at the edge of the desk, the dodo takes a knee, staring futilely out the window to a metropolitan city. It says, “No… NO!!” The two men observe, nonplussed.
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beetle moses @beetlemoses.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
This comic is in my book, out next week! publishing.andrewsmcmeel.com/book/beetle-...
publishing.andrewsmcmeel.com
Beetle Moses - Andrews McMeel Publishing
Sharp, surreal, and endlessly quotable, this debut collection from one of the most mind-bending new voices in webcomics pairs bold neon art with absurdist wit. “Banger after banger, not a dud in sight...
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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Quite a remarkable map, table, and diagram from a 1971 report on launch-on-warning, showing the implications of Soviet submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) on detection, reaction, deliberation, and response time. All numbers are in SECONDS, which is what I find the most wild about it.
Map of the USA labeled "Soviet SLBM [Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile] Time of Flight to SAC [Strategic Air Command] Targets." Shows both "nominal" and "depressed" trajectories. Absolute best (north central USA) is between 580 and 850 seconds (9.6 – 14 min). Absolute worst (everywhere else) is between 320 and 650 seconds (5.3 – 10.8 min). The variations are based on where they assume the subs are launching from. Table: "Early Warning System Performance." Shows four different systems (BMEWS, OTHF, SLBM Net, and a not-yet-operational in 1971 Boost-Phase Detection Satellite) that indicates the time of detection after launch (varies between 55 and 150 seconds; BMEWS cannot detect launches as it is only over-the-horizon radar), the time that the US command and control system would be alerted after launch (ranges from 85 seconds for the newest system to 900 seconds for BMEWs), the probably of detection of a single launch (BMEWS is 99%, SLBM Net is 50%, none of the others have probabilities), probably of detection for a mass launch (all around 100%), and their false alarm rate (BMEWS has 1 per 7 years, OTHF is 1 per 6 months, the others are unknown). Diagram: "National Command-Warning to Response Cycle." Shows the consequences of a launch detection all the way through the US nuclear infrastructure, with "delay times" in seconds. Will be discussed in the next post in this thread.
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Green Hombre @greenhombre.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I realize I'm a little ahead of this story, but ask anyone in marketing and they will agree. Muse and all the coming competing AI agents are robots designed to control your mind. It's why so many data centers are rushing to be built. To get you signed up to a brand of robot that will sell you crap.
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Chromospheric Hot Spot @baryonicbeing.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Thread re: authoritarian advantages in social media as currently constructed.
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Chromospheric Hot Spot @baryonicbeing.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Reading Hard Times by Studs Terkel, might post excerpts from time to time.
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Chromospheric Hot Spot @baryonicbeing.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Recalling the observation that the great majority of people want to be desired more than they themselves desire others, and that the US is currently being run by people who only desire.
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Chromospheric Hot Spot @baryonicbeing.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
The AI Gene Wilder voice on this terrible Wonka reality show sounds depressed at all times. None of Wilder's range in the original movie is present. As if the show creators sampled the flattest 60 seconds of his dialogue and put it on repeat.
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Chromospheric Hot Spot @baryonicbeing.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
The best things in life and research come from persistent digging. Just followed a trail of papers that give me a wonderful sequence showing the big picture view of star system evolution from birth to ~final state. Thank you Pavel Kroupa. Hopefully I can do great things with this.
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Chromospheric Hot Spot @baryonicbeing.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Watching ET and the biogeography is confusing me. First they're in the PNW, then outside LA, then back to the PNW, then there are corn stalks in the kids' backyard, then somewhere in SoCal, then back to PNW. Make up your mind.
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Chromospheric Hot Spot @baryonicbeing.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Well I've seen 5 of these in their entirety, maybe another 5 I watched about 50% of before stopping, and a handful I've seen perhaps a few episodes of. All the rest are just names.
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st̓xałq @stxalq.dev · 25/09/2026
man we're really in the opening montage, aren't we?
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Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Meanwhile on Bluesky we're still spending millions of words on whether we're allowed to call this a motive or a goal.
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Chromospheric Hot Spot @baryonicbeing.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I've been back to eating less to lose weight for about a month and I don't remember it being quite this hard last time. Getting hungry pretty soon after eating, more difficult to concentrate due to hunger. I'm eating the same as last time now, no change.
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Chromospheric Hot Spot @baryonicbeing.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Dean Martin singing "Ain't that a kick in the head?"
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weeder @weeder.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Sometimes feel like I don't really have imposter syndrome
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Manuel Huss @manuelhuss.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Here we go again! Very nice seeing conditions last night allowed for a stable TOT of below 0.40". The h-alpha filter liked it too :-) (NGC 281) #astrophotography
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Chromospheric Hot Spot @baryonicbeing.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Ongoing debacle of a thread
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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
www.programmablemutter.com/p/machine-go... what it says on the package
programmablemutter.com
Machine god metaphors eat your brain
There are other ways of thinking about AI
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Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 23/09/2026
Anyway, this paper is (sequentially) the first of a ten-paper collection at Space Science Reviews. The paper is free to access, read, and download: link.springer.com/article/10.1... And you can find the entire collection (so far) here: link.springer.com/collections/...
Read it! Go! It's free!
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Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 23/09/2026
I said I'd do a thread about my new Space Science Reviews paper, so here it is! This is part of a collection of papers arising from a meeting at the International Space Science Institute in Bern in 2024: a workshop to better understand rocky extrasolar planets. A 🧵:
Interior structure models of Earth, Venus, Mercury, Mars, the Moon, and Io, all shown to scale and key elements labelled.
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hikikomorphism @hikikomorphism.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
LLMs aren't made of neurology except in the most handwavey sense. They're made of narrative. That's why I started calling them text elementals: they're not human, they're most-likely-text generators we bent into living stories in a prose format centering the characters User and Assistant
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John Ganz @lioneltrolling.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
The real AI risk is to culture, and therefore to humanity itself, albeit in a slightly different way than is being said.— www.unpopularfront.news/p/reason-v-r...
unpopularfront.news
Reason v. Rule
The Real AI Risk is to Culture Itself
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John Ganz @lioneltrolling.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Erick Erickson suddenly got woke about the right's Nazi problem, but it feels like deja vu all over again. www.unpopularfront.news/p/better-lat...
unpopularfront.news
Better Late Than Never?
The Right Wakes Up to Fascism...Kinda
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Chromospheric Hot Spot @baryonicbeing.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Science fiction predicted the first machines complicated enough to be called AI would be logical systems that we asked to perform language, instead we got language systems that we ask to perform logic.
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Chromospheric Hot Spot @baryonicbeing.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Hearing opinions of someone who full-bore consumes rightwing media is insane if it's not something you encounter regularly. This guy next table over at lunch was ranting against a recent expansion of a voluntary postpartum maternal healthcare program as "govt agents want to take your baby."
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Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 21/09/2026
This isn't the diseased skin of some alien—this is Mars! Taken by ESA's Mars Express spacecraft, this colour scene shows a portion of the planet's high southern latitudes where frost, dust, and sunlight combine to produce these pink and purple tones.
From the source: "A purple–pink–coloured patch of Mars, which is lighter on the left and darker on the right. A dark line runs from the top centre towards the bottom right, dividing the light and dark areas. At the centre of the image is a sharp light-coloured crater. Less sharp craters are scattered over the rest of the image. At the bottom left is a bright white-blue triangular patch; it looks icy."
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Chromospheric Hot Spot @baryonicbeing.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Wonder if you could hook an atomic battery up to a very low powered but redundant computer that has LLM weights etched into a hardcoded memory and create a millennia long storytelling or music making machine. It becomes an oracle or a god after a societal collapse.
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Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
and getting the sort of self reflectivity that this post assumes would be a feature of super intelligence definitionally. After the hugging face hack I no longer believe that. The way they acted was so strange and so myopic. It was exactly the sort of narrow optimizer that people warned about
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Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Too many branching threads to reply to all of them so I'm going to reply here. Before models were undergoing massive RL I think I more or less agreed with this take that LLMs have human like understanding and values, and as they progress we have a good chance of that continuing
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