iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Emily Hunt @emily.space · 01/10/2026

Go to about:config and set browser.nova.enabled to False. I hate it too. This setting is the cure...

a screenshot of the about:config part of my browser.

Emily Hunt @emily.space · 01/10/2026

Great to see in this bumper review of the LMC & SMC ditch the pointlessly colonial language that we have for the Milky Way's two nearest neighbours. arxiv.org/abs/2609.38277 Magellan had *nothing* to do with discovering them, and they were known to indigenous communities for millennia. 🔭☄️

1.1 Historical context: the cranes of the southern night sky

The two nearest star forming galaxies to the Milky Way are readily observable to the naked eye in the southern hemisphere. Consequently, these two galaxies have been known to humans, since there have been humans in those regions of the planet. Just like today, the origin and purpose/meaning behind their presence have been the subject of discussion and conjecture, as reflected in the mythology of most civilizations in the Southern Hemisphere. For example, the Mapuche people of Chile referred to these objects as “water ponds” (Rüganko or Menoko). The Clouds also feature in the oral histories of most Aboriginal groups in Australia. For example, in the Lower Murray they are known as Prolggi, which has been translated as “Cranes”.

The earliest written records of the Clouds are possibly traced to the work of Persian astronomer Abd-al-Rahman al-Sufi (around 964 AD) in his treatise Kit¯ab suwar al-kaw¯akib (“The Book of Fixed Stars”). In western astronomy, these galaxies have been known collectively as the Magellanic Clouds, and individually as the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), for the larger of the two, and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), for the smaller. The term “Magellanic” for the Large and Small Cloud was not coined by Magellan himself or his chronicler, and Magellan did not directly refer to the LMC and SMC themselves in his writings (Dennefeld 2020).

In this review, we will refer to these two galaxies collectively as “the Clouds” and separately as the LMC and SMC. As a field, Astronomy must adopt naming conventions thoughtfully and be ready to modify historical precedent (de los Reyes M 2023). As with the story of our understanding of the dynamics of the Clouds themselves, conventional wisdom cannot dictate modern astrophysical discourse. If we wish to advance our physical understanding of the universe, we must build an inclusive community that can support and sustain a diversity of scholars who will…

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 30/09/2026

I wish that proton mail ACTUALLY came with a wizard, then I could get them to cast "DNS-speedupius" or something

proton mail domain name setup page, reading:
Connect your custom domain to Proton to set up custom email addresses (e.g., you@yourcompany.com). Our wizard will guide you through the process.

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 20/09/2026

I sometimes feel like a heretic for saying it, but I genuinely prefer small local art galleries to big famous ones Saw an exhibit in Crete today with art by Nikos Alexiou, an artist from Crete who plays with form and sculptures in such interesting ways

the piece "the labyrinth" (I think I remembered that right??), a collection of small square paper rooms stacked chaotically around each other. the rooms are different pastel shades of pink and yellow.

a very meta artwork by the artist, depicting many of the forms in his art but laid out intricately on a long workbench. thin paper sculptures hang and stand on the bench.

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 20/09/2026

just look at this lil guy, he waited for me to walk up to him and interact as if he is a Skyrim NPC and I am exploring some long-lost ruined fort

cat standing in the sun. there are arches in the ruins that cast interesting shadows from the light.

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 20/09/2026

con: I am an awful sleeper pro: I got the entire fortress of Rethymno almost to myself at 8:30am on a Sunday (except for a cat)

pic of a mosque in the middle of the fortress (presumably built after the ottomans took the city)

looking back out towards rethymno. there are mountains in the distance and lots of white villas in the foreground, built in the Mediterranean style

looking west out across the sea. the sky is almost completely blue and the sea is empty and inviting.

peering out of a window at the sea. the window is old, just a rectangle in the sandstone wall of the fortress

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 15/09/2026

new week, new fight with pylance

Some code with a funny error:

"This line is here to shut pylance up. Why does it think these can be an int???? what a piece of shit"

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 11/09/2026

oh you say you're a ux man? well then this is what you are to me, an astronomer

a screenshot of ux men (the star) in the dss2 survey

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 05/09/2026

Everyone on here saying that going viral is what makes this place good

The classic pic of a plane with lots of bullet holes, except for around critical parts. This is to illustrate survivorship bias

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 13/08/2026

Ping me in a week after my wedding this weekend (squeeee!!!!) and I could turn my site into a template! It's based on sveltekit and is password protected. The login part makes it not a static site (harder to host unfortunately) but does make it obviously a lot more secure. It has a cute design!

A screenshot of the wedding website. A lot of it is redacted because of 💫privacy💫 but I promise the design is cute

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 12/08/2026

budget eclipse setup, featuring the lightest-coloured book I could find to project onto

The book "The Lathe of Heaven" by Ursula K Le Guin with some eclipse moons projected onto it

A pic of the 'pinhole' aka an empty bit of hair clip packaging from Drogerie Markt (DM)

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 03/08/2026

Private data and communities will be an absolutely killer feature, and I'm super excited about what we could do with that for @astrosky.eco! 🔭 Also: we got a little mention 🥺

Article excerpt that goes: "People are already building communities on BlueSky actually because we have this functionality where people can make custom feeds. One of the huge differences in BlueSky is no algorithms. You get to make your own. You can plug in your own. People have made over 100,000 feeds. Some of those are really communities themselves. There are things like BookSky and AstroSky, where it’s just communities of people talking about a certain topic within a custom feed. People have taken what we have to bend it into a community shape."

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 31/07/2026

this post made me go on a small wikipedia adventure about avocados, and erm... what???

A pic of toothpicks in an avocado pit, captioned: "A common technique to germinate avocados at home is to use toothpicks poked into the avocado pit to suspend the pit partially in water."

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 28/07/2026

disgusting: the British right is only interested in LGBT rights when they can use them as a way to dunk on Muslims

A screenshot of the front page of The Spectator. The top article is called "We should politicise the Berlin Pride attack". The second one is "Germany is still in denial about the Berlin terror attack".

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 14/07/2026

the very first sentence repeats the racist conspiracy theory around Olympic boxer Imane Khelif, what a wonderful article

Screenshot of the first sentence of the article:

"In 2024, a Tunisian man defeated a Chinese woman for the Olympic women’s boxing gold medal. [sic]"

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 10/07/2026

Made my connection with 24 seconds to spare 😅 that's a new record!

A pic of a train departure board. The current time is 9:56:36, and the train leaves at 10:00. This photo was taken while I was running

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 06/07/2026

Allowing custom enclose.horse levels was a mistake, exhibit A: enclose.horse/play/ejUvUO

A picture of an enclose.horse level called "overstimulating". It is an absolute mess of apples, portals, bees, water, and grass.

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 01/07/2026

lying down, looking out of my little window

A picture of some Swiss countryside out of a small night train window. There are cows in the foreground. The sun is close to setting, and trees at the top of the hill outside the window are illuminated into a shade of yellow.

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 01/07/2026

lying down, looking out of my little window

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 29/06/2026

Lmao, attendance at EAS (Europe's biggest astronomy conference) costs over €700, and yet some of the computers running onsite don't have activated copies of Windows

An "activate windows" sign on one of the speaker preview laptops at the conference

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 28/06/2026

Aaaaand that's a wrap! I arrived in Zürich on time at 10:36, having travelled most of the length of the Alpine mountain range while I slept/chilled on the train.

A crappy pic of the train car pulling the nightjet carriages. It's crappy because I still get embarrassed taking pics of trains in public lmao

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 28/06/2026

Getting ready to go! Another thing I like: there's a door (locked on both sides) that can be used to link two cabins to each other, if you book as a couple. Otherwise, it makes a nice spot to keep your bag or other things. Also pictured: the little window in the capsule

A pic of the space at the side of the bed, which includes a door to join two cabins and some space for a bag.

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 28/06/2026

The table folds up and you have a little mirror too

A pic of the folded-up table, which has a mirror underneath

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 28/06/2026

Breakfast time! You get the choice between coffee, tea, or hot chocolate, and get a couple of bread rolls with margarine and jam. It's included in the price of the ticket!

A pic of my breakfast. Two white bread rolls and a coffee cup are on the fold-down table.

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 28/06/2026

Good morning from the other end of Austria! I actually slept pretty well. It was lot better than I expected! I'm a pretty light sleeper, so I'm impressed I slept at all

A crappy pic out of the window showing fields and mountains

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 27/06/2026

You can control it with these vents on the ceiling - which I currently have pointed right at me, because this cold air is BLISS. Vienna was 38°C (100°F) today, and we don't have air con at home 🫠

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 27/06/2026

One very neat feature is these little control panels for the lights. There's also a button to call for refreshments and status indicators for the bathroom and washroom so that you know if they're in use.

A pic of the control panel in my cabin. It indicates if the toilets are occupied and has controls for the lighting. There's an even a button to call refreshments.

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 27/06/2026

The cabin is more spacious than I expected! I'm tall, but I can still sit up ok. Also: it has RGB lighting! I thought it would be a gimmick, but it's actually really nice to have low lighting before bedtime

A pic of me sitting up. I still have headroom to the ceiling!

A pic of the cabin in blue mood lighting mode. I feel like I'm on the rocinante and it's battle time

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 27/06/2026

My first impression is that it is VERY well thought out. For starters: access into the cabin is controlled by a keycard. You also get a locked box to store a standard size suitcase in and another for your shoes.

A pic of the keycard holder for entering the capsule and opening the bag door.

A pic of my suitcase in the box. It locks with a keycard and is big enough to store a standard overhead bin suitcase.

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 27/06/2026

There are multiple options from full cabins to seats. The new intermediate price option are these little individual sleeping capsules - this one is my home for tonight!

A pic of the sleeper cabin. There's a blanket and a pillow in the foreground and my backpack towards the back. It's somewhat big

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 27/06/2026

IT'S ADVENTURE TIME! I'm taking a night train for the first time ever, from Vienna to Zürich to go to the @eas-meeting.bsky.social! I'm on one of the brand new ÖBB (Austrian train operator) night trains and have a mini cabin.

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 25/06/2026

I am INCREDIBLY lucky to get to be an astronomer as my day job - and if it has taught me anything, it is that 99.99999999999% of our Universe is an inhospitable shithole. This blue speck in a sea of darkness is the only place we have, and we should really start treating it like that.

a pic of the Earth, I think from NASA's DSCOVR satellite

literally the only habitable place we know of in the universe

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 25/06/2026

for all the Mars-bros: Mars has almost no atmosphere and no magnetic field. That means it is extremely unprotected from the Sun and from space, and the surface gets TONS of radiation. Death Valley - the hottest place on Earth - is literally more hospitable than Mars. It's a shit, airless desert

A photo of mars. Can you see the water? You can't, because there isn't any. 10/10 shithole

A pic of the surface of mars from the Curiosity rover. Looks like it's from Tatooine or something, except for the almost non-existent atmosphere. 10/10 shithole

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 25/06/2026

oh? you think we can cope??? Let me introduce you to Venus. Thanks to the greenhouse effect, it is an inhospitable hell-hole, with temperatures over 400°C (750°F). The probes we've sent usually lasted mere minutes on the surface due to the heat. Venus is why fucking with our climate is a bad idea

Radar imagery of venus. looks like a nice place for a holiday in the sun

the surface of venus, from the venera probes. the probes lasted less than an hour because it was so hot. the yellow atmosphere is because its a shithole

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 15/06/2026

The UK government is banning social media for under-16s to "protect the children." Regardless, adults can still access X, which as little as 4 months ago was able to generate CSAM and other abusive material. Ironically, X is where they put the announcement.

A screenshot of Keir Starmer announcing that social media access will be banned for under-16s, on X.

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 10/06/2026

I'm doing an outreach talk on Friday! I'm going to talk about my research and about how the ATProtcol can be used as a tool for science outreach, including with @astrosky.eco 🔭 If you're in Vienna 🇦🇹, you can come and watch it live AND get a free tour of our observatory! There's also a livestream.

First slide of my talk: A picture of the Milky Way on the left, with its star clusters on the right. The title of the talk is "groups of stars & groups of scientists".

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 09/06/2026

RAM prices are so so depressing right now (pic: DDR5-6000 2x32GB, average price tracked from pcpartpicker.com/trends/price...)

A graph of DDR5-6000 2x32GB RAM average price in the US in the last ~18 months. It has jumped from ~$200 to $1000+ since ~September.

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 06/06/2026

I highly recommend "The Story of Russia" by Orlando Figes for a recently published account of the last millennium of Russian history. It is not a country that we on the left should ever, ever, ever hold up as an idol

A photo of my copy of the book. The cover depicts a red flag and the title of the book.

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 05/06/2026

I am SO sick of headlines like this. The public sees "AI" as being LLMs/ChatGPT, not an ML algorithm - and articles like this mislead the public into thinking that LLMs are discovering novel things. It's a cool thing! I'm excited! But it is lazy reporting to suddenly use "AI" as such a broad term

Headline that reads 'World-first' vaccine designed by artificial intelligence

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 23/05/2026

The new Google search does not pass the "does not credit my own papers to a man" test! We live in great times!

A table on Google search's new AI mode containing my search result for "best open cluster catalogues to use". The second entry actually has all of the details of my paper, but ascribed to someone else in the field.

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 19/05/2026

peak 2004 wobbly table graphics (with music!!!)

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 09/05/2026

This is what Gaia looks like in space (artist's impression). It's like a little spinning top hat 🥺 except 5 metres across and spinning once every 5 hours

Artist's impression of Gaia. It's silver and like a top hat.

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 09/05/2026

This is an image of 1.7 billion stars observed with the European Space Agency's @esa.int Gaia mission, looking in all directions. Gaia has revolutionised our knowledge of our galaxy! Gaia took data from 2013 to 2025, and its next data release is out in December. 500 TB of data will be made public!

Gaia image of the sky. The Milky Way is a clear band across the center. Huge clouds of dust in our galaxy form black streaks. The center of the image looks towards the center of our galaxy, within which a supermassive black hole hides. The Milky Clouds - two famous small galaxies that orbit our own - are also visible in the bottom-right.

Credits: ESA/Gaia/DPAC, A. Moitinho / A. F. Silva / M. Barros / C. Barata, University of Lisbon, Portugal; H. Savietto, Fork Research, Portugal.

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 29/04/2026

Very cool new paper out from Marie Schölch et al. at @icc-ub.bsky.social! They use machine learning to construct a clean sample of young stars in-between the Large & Small Milky Clouds, two tiny galaxies orbiting our own. 🔭☄️ #galactic

Their Figure 4, with caption: density maps of the NN Bridge sample, plotted on two dimensional histograms of the Gaia DR3 sample in the region. The top (bottom) plot is in the LMC (SMC) orthographic reference frame, and shows the NN Bridge sample’s proper motions with respect to the LMC (SMC) systemic motion with white arrows, while the motion of the SMC (LMC) is indicated with the black arrow.

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 26/04/2026

I read this piece in earnest, wanting to read another perspective on AI at a time when there is a huge amount of change in our field. But I went away shocked that someone would seriously write something this pretentious, and I strongly urge you to reconsider what you've written.

Penultimate paragraph of the linked blog, which reads:

In general, I like to think that I can trust my colleagues, and should therefore extend this trust to encom-
pass their use of LLMs. On the other hand, I am currently privileged to be working at one of the best
seats of learning in the world, where I am surrounded by talented individuals who give careful thought
to all that they do. Is it fair to extrapolate my faith in their actions to the global population in current
higher education? I also have no contact with undergraduates, and little experience of teaching. I cannot
judge how LLM use will affect this sphere; but the centring of critical thinking in the curriculum would
seem to be crucial.

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 24/04/2026

At the observatory in Währing, we have 20 stations where you can find out about the Universe, open from 5pm until 10:30pm! 🔭 I'm helping out with some of our music performances & giving a talk about the history of star cluster observations at 6:30pm:

Screenshot of my title slide - "From the bronze age to today - What star clusters have taught us about the Universe"

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 18/04/2026

lmao this website confirms my biases, I like it

Scores in this geography game sorted by region of the world. North Americans are in last place ☠️

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