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Michael Brown

@mjibrown.bsky.social
1.3K followers 250 following 2.6K posts

Astronomer, Monash academic, Conversation writer, cycling commuter or mamil. research.monash.edu/en/persons/mich…

PostsRepliesMedia
Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · 4h
Let’s be honest, an illegal e-bike would struggle to pull this off.
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Joseph Menn @joemenn.bsky.social · 9h
No, bombing Yandex has not impacted automated Russian trolling operations in the U.S.
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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 8h
The yellow line in this chart is AS13238 - YANDEX, the site that I think was hit. But I'm struggling to see how - it has significantly affected all Russian 'bot activity' - Whether this Cloudfare page measures disinfo / fake account sock puppets or something else (is it measuring crawlers?)
a chart showing russian bot activity
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👣Coco👣 🇺🇦 🇪🇺 @nortygirl.bsky.social · 15h
🇺🇦👇🏼
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NOELREPORTS @noelreports.com · 10/10/2026
One senior Ukrainian official responded with bitter humor: “I hope the Americans don’t give them Patriot to protect their oil refineries.” Another said the US move had effectively undermined the idea of an energy truce.
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depths of wikipedia @depthsofwikipedia.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
four years ago I posted this image of paleontologist Jan Smit looking at rocks and his son-in-law replied with something even better
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Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
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ABC News Australia @news.abc.net.au · 10/10/2026
Winner of Nikon's Small World In Motion competition was AI generated
abc.net.au
Winner of scientific imagery contest was AI generated
Nikon disqualifies the winner of its prestigious science competition for using AI after microscopy experts questioned the accuracy of the clip on social media.
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Robert Evans (the Only Robert Evans) @iwriteok.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Man, when BMW says "that's too fascist for us"
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Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
The Trump administration complaining about a “rogue court” has a certain irony given the American Supreme Court. And its anger is about who is investigated not process. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
theguardian.com
US imposes new sanctions on international criminal court
Trump administration says US ‘doesn’t need’ ICC after accusing court of unfairly targeting Americans for war crime charges
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Cool Bike Art @coolbikeart1.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Posters from the Dutch Stop de Kindermoord ("Stop the Child Murder") movement of the 1970s
Poster featuring an illustration of a car stylized into a monster with a gaping, toothy maw ready to chomp on a bicycle. The text, translated from Dutch, says, "The bike. Public food" (This is apparently a play on the Dutch term for public transport, "openbaar vervoer").
1973Poster featuring an illustration of a bicycle that looks like it's been in a collision, with books and papers that appears to have fallen off the back. The text, translated from Dutch, reads: "Small game hunting, all year round.  Stop killing children."
  The poster is from 1973 and the artist was Charles Boost.
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Mac It Look Like An Accident @macrogers.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Okay so we have a number now: the Onion is officially 6 months ahead of reality.
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Patrick Stokes @patrickstokes.com · 09/10/2026
Shocked - shocked! - to hear that something called the English Speaking Union might be involved with pro-colonial white nationalism
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Tim Lyons @picketer.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
"The paperwork" can be silly at times but is often "vital work." If you hear "we won't cut the frontline staff though" be afraid. It means stuff like "an RN will now spend most of her shift trying to get a lightbulb replaced and a medical gas tap fixed so the bed is open."
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Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
So many missed opportunities at the moment.
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Josh Taylor @joshtaylor.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Horrified obviously, but it has occurred to me that eSafety would require platforms hosting the footage to block it in Australia, I would think. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
theguardian.com
Pentagon says execution of Fort Hood shooter will be livestreamed
Nidal Hasan, army psychiatrist who killed 13 people, will be executed by firing squad on 3 December
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Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
I'm reminded that when politicians say they are going to make savings by reducing admin, if they are just firing admin staff then that's just shifting work to people who have other work to do. Do you want admin staff or surgeons doing paperwork? What could that do to surgery waiting lists?
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Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Based on a true story? www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/d...
smithsonianmag.com
Dolphins Are Finally Living and Breeding in the Potomac River Again
About 1,000 bottlenose dolphins have been recorded in the lower reaches of the recovering river, including one that gave birth in August
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Karen Attiah @karenattiah.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Shit. He really did say this. www.youtube.com/shorts/ca3C4...
youtube.com
Palmer Luckey on his idea for using oxytocin to help strengthen marriages
YouTube video by Peter H. Diamandis
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Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Australian governments and companies should be taking the opportunity to recruit the best scientists who are being driven away from the United States.
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Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
If the pictures are representative then on the plus side Jonathan doesn't have to assemble ~200 Ikea bookcases.
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Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
I wonder if anyone has crunched the numbers to see if LSST will detect Kuiper Belt occultations. Near quadrature when the velocity tangential to the line-of-sight is small one may get relatively long events.
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Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Didn’t take long to get to the public execution stage of American dystopia.
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Guardian Australia @australia.theguardian.com · 08/10/2026
Firmus pulls biggest ASX float since Telstra amid investor doubt about datacentre company
theguardian.com
Firmus pulls biggest ASX float since Telstra amid investor doubt about datacentre company
The offer would have been the biggest debut on the stock market since the telecommunication giant in 1997 Firmus Technologies has scrapped what was set to be Australia’s biggest company listing in decades after investor demand for its much-hyped AI data centre business failed to materialise. A Firmus spokesperson said the board decided that proceeding with the offer was no longer in the best interests of the company and its shareholders. Continue reading...
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Dave Andress @davidandress.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Tens of thousands fewer students is hundreds of millions of pounds of lost export earnings, solely and wholly to appease racists.
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Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Who has radicalised drivers to use vehicles as weapons?
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Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Probably made easier when stock market valuations and money raising are increasingly disconnected from products, revenue and profits.
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Astronomy Picture of the Day 🪐 @apod.shinyakato.dev · 05/10/2026
🔭 M104: The Sombrero Galaxy's Tidal Streams Credit & Copyright: Engelbert Vollmer ap261005
A starfield has an bright blobby mess in middle. Running vertically through the very middle is a dark streak. A diagonal ring of brightness surrounds the central blob.
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Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Cranks steering wheel right and goes straight into a ditch.
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Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
The “why” is missing. Israel said in September it would shut the consulate in retaliation for UK sanctions on [illegal] Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
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Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
"Just the place for a war! I have said it twice: That alone should encourage the crew. Just the place for a war! I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true."
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Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
"Just the place for a war!" the president cried, As he landed his crew without care; Supporting each man on the top of the tide By a finger entwined in his hair.
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Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
"Major political parties plan to cut university funding" should be the headline for recent party announcements on student visas. The international students subsidise the teaching of local students - the visa cuts (and delays) have local impacts. www.theage.com.au/national/int...
theage.com.au
International student cuts risk ‘very significant hole’, universities warn
Universities were already seeing the impact of rejected international students visas, but recent announcements to further curb migration have anxiety in the sector.
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max power 🌌 @sneptech.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
me, an immigrant, watching people who said immigrants are corrupting america engage in actual corrupt behavior
An Asian man looks out the window with binoculars. An Asian man smiling at the camera.
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Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Over-policing is quite a feature of American life. In 2000 I went to a semi-offical grad student welcome party in Tucson and the police helicopter and 3-4 squad cars turned up. The police left after a minute or two after a quick and polite word. However, overall, totally bonkers.
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Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
It was - and there were juniors in the group too.
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Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
A variant of this I once saw was a blind corner on a descent where the riders were doing 60 km/h. Driver pulled into the driveway a few hundred metres later.
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Greg Jericho @grogsgamut.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
“Documents circulated … said Firmus would generate $US5.8b in earnings before interest and taxes in around 12 months, including about a third from its nascent project in Batam in Indonesia. It ended the last financial year with revenues of $US50.8m.” Lulz www.afr.com/companies/fi...
afr.com
Firmus float meets reality as sceptical investors force IPO rewrite
The neocloud hopeful had been hurtling toward a blockbuster Australian sharemarket float that was expected to value the company at more than $43 billion.
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Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
The evolution of police uniforms over the past 50 years is some sort of indicator.
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Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
The high profile of police in America was quite confronting when I lived there 2000-2006 and ran counter to the American “Freedom” sales pitch.
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Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Saw it at Princeton, and thought that reflected Princeton having a small police force for a quiet town that didn’t have enough to keep them usefully occupied. I went to 3 parties shut down by the Princeton police in 2 years and they were not wild parties - I was already in my 30s.
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Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Interesting to see him continuing to branch out from being a pseudo-climate pro-nuclear guy.
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Maarten Schenk @mschenk.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
An example of FIMI (Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference) in action at the @disinfo.eu conference? Apparently someone in the U.S. did not agree with the topic of a session named "USA as a FIMI threat: acknowledge, adapt, push back" and applied pressure on the sponsors...
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David Zipper @davidzipper.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
This is nuts. @murray.senate.gov: “Tying funding for transit projects to marriage rates and how many babies a woman has is the sort of bizarre and dystopian idea you’d expect in a TV show, not actual policy put forth by the U.S. government — yet here we are."
politico.com
Trump administration unveils plan to tie high birth and marriage rates to transit funding
The federal government is seeking to revamp a national program that supports rail and bus rapid transit.
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Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Right, so perhaps such small entities shouldn't even exist.
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Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
That shows an instance where a university police force cooperates with a municipal police force, but is that always the case? Also, is there a net gain by having two police forces rather than just a city police station at/near a university with police familiar with the campus?
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Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
An odd feature of American universities is they have their own police forces, whereas in other countries the relevant police force is at the city, state or federal level. Along with the association with the relevant university, do such small police forces also struggle with access to expertise?
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Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Making legalised theft central to political and economic agendas probably ain’t going to have good consequences.
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Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Sorry about what happened with my knife throwing machine but surely you have to be impressed with how well it throws knives.
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