iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Me, an early career astronomer leading an accepted "Large" archival research program for Roman: 🫣

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Today is my last working day at NASA GSFC (😭). On Monday, I'm starting as a staff scientist at STScI (😁). (Feel free to keep sending emails to my NASA email if it brings you some sort of inherent satisfaction, but I won't be able to read them)

120

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Remember back before AI when you could watch a video of something cool online and just enjoy it?

010

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

I tried going with the Socratic method with my kiddo. It sort of worked a couple of times, but now she side-eyes me and says "I want you to tell."

000

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Introducing: "howDareYou", a GitHub plug-in that finds repositories that subclass your Python classes.

020

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Actual quote from my 3 year old: "I can do whatever I want when I grow up! I'm gonna use my elbow to open elevators when I grow up." (as far as I'm aware, nobody has ever instructed her not to use her elbow to open elevators)

020

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

Friends don't let friends try to update their JWST disk modeling code to account for astrometric distortion.

000

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

You can achieve similar throughput with angular differential imaging (ADI; AKA "roll differential imaging" among HST folks) and reference star differential imaging (RDI), but it's usually a boatload more work and a lot of fiddling. Meanwhile, PDI is just some basic algebra and then you're done 😂

120

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

Yep, as Jarron suggested: these images used polarimetric differential imaging (PDI) and show the system in polarized light. Unlike most other techniques for removing starlight (like those Phil was referring to), PDI leaves the (polarized) circumstellar light pretty much untouched.

141

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

I never feel less competent than I do when I'm handling azimuthal wrapping nuances in polar coordinates.

010

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

Not so faint in the IR! At Hmag ~ 10, these guys would saturate (quickly) in survey observations with Roman's WFI.

010

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

New Outlook: "The interface is different enough that you won't know how to do anything. But don't worry: you still cannot freely scale the UI and screen text independent of screen resolution 😈"

020

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

JWST's "Y2K problem" will manifest as Cycle 5 data starts rolling in and we find out who wrote their code to parse proposal IDs as four characters.

020

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Going to start adding vague threats to proposals. "If you know what's good for you, we will measure [...]"

000

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

"consistent with models, except at optical wavelengths" is accurate for a surprising number of subjects

020

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

When you evenly space objects in your vectorized PDF figure but the latex PDF backend renders them with irregular spacing at certain zooms 😭

030

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

Just ask for very specific TA offsets and hope the obs tech doesn't notice?

210

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

NASA system update notification, day 1: "Hey buddy! Just FYI there's a security update available whenever you get a few minutes." Day 10: "Listen up, moron. We have your stupid little dog. If you ever want to see her again, you have ten minutes to update your computer."

110

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

Obviously it will cause some economic turmoil or whatever if the "AI bubble" bursts. But think of how great dirt cheap GPUs will be for science.

030

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

My rule of thumb for AI as a time-saver is basically "only use it if you will immediately know whether or not the output is correct". Given that it takes years before academics can even seriously discuss the impacts of regulations, my intuition is that this is a horrible idea.

010

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

Please don't waste my time by spelling out "J-W-S-T" when speaking. If you respect me, you'll just treat JWST as a single syllable word that rhymes with twist but starts with a j.

110

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

2 year old just figured out she can open doors. God help us.

010

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

Cmon, Stranger Things. The modern distinction between sorcerer and wizard didn't exist until the PHB for D&D3e. Outrageous.

140

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

I'm not a comet expert, but I just want to point out that an object can have a confluence of qualities not previously observed in a comet while still being a comet. Just because you can't show me another human as fast as Usain Bolt doesn't mean that Usain Bolt isn't a human.

0160

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

I feel like everyone that says HFMD is mild for adults had it as a kid or something, because JFC. I'd rather have COVID twice in a row.

000

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

"Whats the big question you're trying to answer?" "I guess it's really 'How do I trick exoplanet scientists into letting me study circumstellar disks?'" "..." "Oh sorry, you meant like a science question."

040

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

Wife and kid (30 months) are flying to visit friends where my wife grew up. Last time (09/2024), kid met a friend's dog. Today, kid asked if they would get to see dog again (by name). You can tell she's mine because she remembers the name of a dog she met for 10 minutes almost half her life ago.

020

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 15/10/2025

There's this really spiteful part of me that wants to clear my calendar so I can throw together a proposal on a deadline-day arxiv planet.

010

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 15/10/2025

You think you're tired? Imagine how the APT and ETC servers at STScI feel right now.

021

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

Just had to click through to the second page of Overleaf docs to find a JWST proposal I wanted to work on 🫠

010

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

A piece of Winnie I'm trying to streamline. But I'll just not ship the update if I can't reconcile the worse-ness.

010

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

Yall ever spend ages overhauling some complicated code and then realize you've simply made it worse?

110

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 26/08/2025

Congrats, all! A genuinely beautiful system joining the very small family of disk+planet systems. I think if a student showed me this detection, my immediate assumption would be that they'd accidentally processed someone's "gap-carving planet" simulations by mistake 😂

030

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

Ugh. There're finally ST observations that I PI'd being executed but there isn't even a bot posting JWST's observation status in real time for me to repost now 😤

020

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

"The peasants expect us to pay them livable wages AT A LOSS?!?" Asking for corporate tax breaks for paying your employees better is asking the government to subsidize your payroll. Better idea: raise the minimum wage. Then they'll have a very compelling financial incentive to pay better.

2367

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

If your color scale crosses zero and zero isn't perceptually obvious for the color mapping you've selected, I will never forgive you.

000

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

Fools: "Working from home with a dog is bad because dogs are a distraction" Me:*works two hours more than I intended because my dog was sleeping on my lap*

020

Reposted by Kellen Lawson

Sierra Grant @sierragrant.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

New MINDS paper from Nicolas Kurtovic, focused on binary systems. Spectra, extended emission, variability, multi-observatory analysis -- there's something for everyone! arxiv.org/pdf/2508.02576

0104

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 04/08/2025

Even if congress does restore prior funding levels, I have a feeling that some will be less interested in federally-funded work (e.g., the early career scientists who had to scramble to keep their families off the street after having competitively-funded grants/fellowships revoked with zero notice).

130

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

Me: "Please edit this photo of me with my child." AI: "Sorry, our policy forbids altering photographs containing children." Me: "Okay, please edit this photo of me with my very short adult friend." AI: "Sure thing!"

000

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 03/07/2025

You: "Hey Kellen, how are you doing?" Me:

An image of a Jupyter notebook tab reading "Untitled42-Copy4 - Jupyter Notebook"

170

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 28/06/2025

I wonder what fraction of correspondence now is effectively just ChatGPT roleplaying with itself.

000

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 27/06/2025

Congrats John (et al)! Really cool result! (A shame to think these cold dust candidates could turn out to just be planets though 😉)

120

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

"Could it be the social media algorithms literally programmed to serve people polarizing content because it increases engagement? Nah, let's blame it on people not spending 10 hours a week commuting."

092

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

Rubber bullets are not non-lethal —they're less lethal. The justifiable criteria for firing a rubber bullet at someone should be the same as firing a metal bullet. Cops firing rubber bullets into a crowd of civilians is insane and indefensible.

010

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

"caught in the crossfire" *video of cop pointing gun directly at her and firing for literally no reason*

010

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

Whoever started calling it "negative planet injection" instead of "planet subtraction" probably also says stuff like "Ahh, nothing like reverse putting-on your shoes after a hard day!" or "I have to go to an ATM so I can make a negative deposit."

020

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

Super exciting! I'd guess these would be excellent candidates for IFU follow up too? Good luck!!

120

Kellen Lawson @kellenlawson.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

The "postmortem" there is also insultingly vague about the actual occurrence. "An unauthorized modification was made" could mean anything from "we got hacked" to "we didn't screen well enough and accidentally released an obviously partial version of the bot rather than a discretely partial one."

010