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Space Coast Talon

@brashtech.bsky.social
631 followers 823 following 2K posts

Born to love 🪐, forced to live on 🌎. Professor of physics, knitter of things, drawer of earnest pictures, planetary astronomer. Goal: Spiral back into control. My opinions are my own, and not my employer's.

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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 8h
It’s a little overly generous. Like, ope, looks like ya forgot a coupla letters there, let me fix that for ya…
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 8h
People keep telling me ring particles are the size of softballs… is this where they come from?
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I remain TOTALLY BEFUDDLED that these shitty tools are absolutely EVERYWHERE.
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
It's easy to miss if you look at the lower left, because it's at the lower right.
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Of course, to do the task with a compass, I'd need Google Maps to give me a scale bar. Cloud Sonnet 4.6 is now gaslighting me, telling me that there is ALWAYS a scale bar visible in the lower left corner of a Google Map but it's "easy to miss."
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
All told, I'd have done better with printout from Gmaps, a compass, and a pencil.
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Claude Sonnet 4.6 was the best in that it didn't give me false/misleading information, but it could neither make the map with the circles around the main location, nor give me easy instructions to do so.
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
In summary: most of the models were not able to find the location information that I already had obtained in 2-3 minutes of web-searching. Models that *could* make a map with the requested circles around the main location placed the three other locations more-or-less randomly.
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Claude Sonnet 4.6 gave neatly-formatted table with 4 CORRECT sets of lats and longs. It offered links to the main location in other map services, and said I could manually add the other lats and lons. Only one service could draw the circles but it did not support manual input of lat/lon points
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
GPT 5.6 Terra gave me a map with three of the locations completely wrong.
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Gemma told me it can't make a map, and volunteered coordinates for the one obvious location, and asked for more info on the others. (I, a mere human, was able to get the coordinates of those two locations on the first pages of google results for the names I gave Gemma.)
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Chat GPT-5.6 Luna got everything correct except for one of the locations. gpt-oss told me it can't make maps but offered to give me the coordinates of the locations. (Couldn't give me what I wanted so I did not proceed.)
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Chat GPT-5.4 mini requested more info a about two of the locations, then gave me this strange ASCII picture that did not have the locations placed in correct relation to each other, and drew one of the circles so that it did not include the location it was supposed to be centered on.
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Claude Haiku 4.5 said it can't make pictures, and gave a mix of right and wrong coordinates, and claimed it would be possible to do the circles in Google Maps or Open Maps. It offered more detailed instructions. I declined.
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Mistral Small 4 gave me a map of the region with 3 of the four the locations scattered about randomly.
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
So every once in a while I try AI so that I know what I'm missing out on. I asked the AIs in the Duck Duck Go browser to make me a map showing four different locations and circles of specified radius about one of the locations.
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Tim Carmody @tcarmody.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
This is the funniest thing I've seen today, possibly ever
A tweet by SarahStarberry that says "oh god read the vertical axis" on top of a chart measuring AI models' release dates and model numbers rather than any real capabilities
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Helen Alexander @bawley.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Happy Caturday southern hemisphere.🐈‍⬛❣️☮️
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
"Banks will fail, fail. Empires will crumble, crumble." "Except for yours, yours?"
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ebisback.bsky.social @ebisback.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Good on you Sister's 👏
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Oh, it's gorgeous now. I was just up there for a comedy show. madisonorpheum.com/about/
madisonorpheum.com
ABOUT US - The Orpheum
The Orpheum Theater opened its doors in 1927 and has been a notable landmark in downtown Madison since with its iconic sign towering over State Street. The building’s limestone Art Deco exterior and F...
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Ele Willoughby @minouette.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
For #spacetober_challenge day 2: galaxy - astronomer Vera Rubin (neé Cooper, ‘28-‘16) & her discovery that angular motion of galaxies deviates from predictions, 1st evidence for dark matter, now known as 5x as common as matter & the stuff which dictates dynamics of galaxies & 🧪🐡👩🏼‍🔬🔭 #histsci
My linocut portrait of astronomer Vera Rubin with short hair, glasses and resting her face in her hand in burgundy on a background of outer space with stars and galaxies in black with blue and pink splotches to mimic how dust bends light in space. At the base of the print is a large spiral galaxy with a plot of orbital velocity versus distance going out from its centre (so the distance axis is indeed distance from centre). There are two lines labelled “observed” which goes up from the origin and then is a pretty flat wavy line all the way across. This line marks the bottom of Rubin. Below it is a wide empty gap of visible white paper down to the second line labelled “predicted”. The Predicted line goes up from the origin to a peak where it diverges from the observed and falls smoothly back down in a gentle curve.
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Neugin @lostcitymagic.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Snake Conjuring - created and performed by Jeramy Neugin, no animals were harmed in filming
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
[hu]mankind
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Jess Fink🍉🌈 @jessfink.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
🎃
A 7 panel comic by the artist. First panel: The artist is running from a distance towards a group of people playing basketball in the park. The artist is holding a pumpkin above their head and screaming "AAAAAAAAA". Second panel: The artist has leapt up and is in position to slam dunk the pumpkin into the basketball hoop. Panel three: the pumpkin splatters violently against the backboard of the basketball hoop, sending orange pumpkin goop everywhere. Panel four: the players stand staring, covered in pumpkin goop and shocked. Panel five: the artist stares at them wide-eyed, also covered in the goop and says "it's October FIRST". Their hand reaches towards their face. Panel six: the artist rips off their own face like a rubber mask to reveal a skeleton beneath. Panel 7: the group of players stand shocked and horrified, watching as the skeleton falls to the ground in a pile of bones, the sound effects says "CLATTER".
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Matthew R Francis (backup account) @matthewrfrancis.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
October 1
panel from "Hellboy" by Mike Mignola, showing Hellboy holding a bottle of rum and saying angrily "Don't mess with me, lady. I've been drinking with skeletons."
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Another thing that apparently lives on this planet.
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
What I’m learning here is that dinosaurs would have liked to snuggle.
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
And the Colorado School of Mines: minesathletics.com/facilities/t...
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Which it has in common with New Mexico Tech:
nmt.edu
Paint The 'M': A History of A Socorro Landmark: New Mexico Tech
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
That’s why UW-Platteville has an M:
uwplatt.edu
The Platteville Mound or The "M" | UW-Platteville
An iconic symbol of the mining tradition and the history of UW-Platteville is the world's largest "M," located on the Platte Mound.
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Yes! We played it! I did not realize the "underdog" part and started a gunfight and got shot nearly to death in the first session. The players really enjoyed building out the neighborhood and NPCs.
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National Radio Astronomy Observatory - NSF NRAO @thenrao.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The Fiesta is quickly approaching! 🎉 Please join us for the VLA’s free Fall Open House on Saturday, October 10 as we celebrate 70 years of NRAO. 🗓️ Saturday, October 10 ⏰ 9 AM - 4 PM 📍 NRAO Very Large Array - Magdalena, NM Read more: public.nrao.edu/news/fall-open-hous…
Background: Photo of several large radio telescopes in a row, with a tour group in the foreground. Text: NSF NRAO Very Large Array to Host Fall Open House October 10.Promotional graphic for the NSF NRAO Very Large Array Fiesta Open House, in lime green and teal blue. The graphic features a photo of the VLA telescopes with balloons and party icons, as well as a logo for NRAO's 70th anniversary. Text: Fiesta Open House. Saturday, October 10, 9 AM to 4 PM.
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 29/09/2026
Warren: "This has been their argument every time -- they cut taxes and say, 'Ultimately it's really going to pay off for you.' What's happened every time? The academics study it very carefully and say, 'What really happened is the richest people got richer and everybody else got left behind.'"
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Ah, it's a keming problem. thisbugslife.com/2023/08/01/k...
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
We had a mirror positioned so that our cat could see her reflection only when she jumped onto a particular chair. Every time she saw her reflection, she'd run to the other side of the wall on which the mirror hung, trying to catch the cat that she saw so clearly through that strange indoor window.
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Good Guys sometimes get a cookie. A True Good Guy does not need a cookie. He stands up whenever it is required.
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Glonous.
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The Great Pumpkin Papers 🎃🎃🎃 @professormusgrave.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
As a professor, most of what I do is log in to things
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
*ugly laugh*
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
H-alpha, baby. 656 nanometers.
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The small moons, though, we all agree those evolve in pairs out of the main rings, right?
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Inspirational Skeletor @skeletorinspires.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Whatever it is youre seeking won't come in the form you're expecting. Says Skeletor always surprised by how correct it is that you don’t ways get what you want, you get what you need.
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
In the drive north through the Driftless, I'm always pleased to see the birches appear.
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
This is fantastic. My small college can't afford the extortionate subscription costs of many important journals. Having access to preprints is a lifesaver for my students and me.
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
youtube.com
Letterkenny - Sun Darts (Official Music Video)
YouTube video by Letterkenny Problems
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Juno got the best eyecandy.
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Space Coast Talon @brashtech.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The High Rama Lama, voiced by Wolfman Jack.
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S E Case @secase.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
the Rigsby WI book 3 kickstarter is $3.2K from getting an enhanced cover (like the other books). To get there, I need to sell...192 more books. Is this possible? I dont know, BUT you could add a custom commission to your pledge, which helps it get a little closer! www.kickstarter.com/projects/iro...
BethFrank the actual dog
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Sandy Parsons @zazzeaux.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
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