iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

John Picacio @johnpicacio.bsky.social · 5h

🧵 Attention, Fellow SFF Artists and Authors -- here is my response to Must Read Magazines, after they presented an Asimov's art contract expecting me to waive all Moral Rights and Copyright to my art. And, I would strongly advise the following to my fellow pros…. 1/

John Picacio’s response to Must Read Magazine’s request for his waiver of all Moral Rights and Copyright of his commissioned art for an ASIMOV’S assignment. Short version — Picacio says a resounding NOPE.

36784369

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

John Scalzi @scalzi.com · 6h

Asimov's trying to grab all the rights to @donatoarts.bsky.social's work is egregious but it's not in isolation, either. Other publishers are attempting other rights grabs and restrictions that they weren't doing a couple of years ago. Why? Because fuck you, that's why. Remember the power of "no."

1428678

Steuard Jensen @steuard.bsky.social · 20h

This is really cool! It's amazing how much detail you've already added (and I can imagine it absorbing infinite time if you wanted it to). Getting to Erebor was a real challenge! And, hmm, why are The Cross-roads not where the roads cross? But nitpicks are silly and awesomeness counts for more. :)

110

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

bryan newbold @bnewbold.net · 23h

ah damn, RIP Margaret Hamilton. she took safety-critical software engineering seriously, and got people to the moon and back. news.mit.edu/2026/margare...

old photos of a woman (Margaret Hamilton) standing next to a tall stack of books (printouts of Apollo space mission software source code)

98137534578

Steuard Jensen @steuard.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I'm not actively using tools like this for formal study, so maybe my opinion shouldn't carry much weight. But: 1) I have trouble imagining anyone ever wanting that "p.NNN" in their data; 2) I could imagine someone trying to look for cross-references like this by searching for "See".

010

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

Andromeda Yelton @thatandromeda.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Also it is WILD to me that actually zero of the people of unknown gender were admitted. Just thinking about Mx19's college application process and uhhhhhhhhhh nonbinary people are not exactly UNREPRESENTED. Particularly at nerdy/neurodivergent colleges which, historically, was very much Chicago??

141

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

Andromeda Yelton @thatandromeda.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

“In short, the degrees of male students are enhanced by the luster of a selective process to which they were not equally exposed.” 🔥

262

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

Nicole Rust @nicolecrust.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Just like that: poof & gone. RIP *all* of NSF social, behavioral and economic research (including psyc & cogneuro). I’m speechless.

814263

Steuard Jensen @steuard.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

We decided last minute to use new equipment for this week's physics lab. I took some sample data and wrote up the manual this morning. Frantic text from the prof teaching lab tonight: I didn't think to make sure the lab balance could measure the big new masses! My kitchen scale is now in the lab.

070

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

Eugene Vinitsky 🍒 @eugenevinitsky.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Reach out to your math friends and offer to get coffee. For real

618816

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

One thing I find endlessly funny about the rise of AI is that it has revealed that there is a large number of people who believe that the reason they wrote essays at school or university is their teachers were desperately waiting for them to provide a definite answer to “Lear: what’s up with him?”

6757501243

Steuard Jensen @steuard.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Is it the nukes? I feel like maybe it's the nukes. (That is, the European nations mostly either had nuclear weapons, or had firm allies with them. When the costs of war become "human annihilation", you try *really* hard to get along.)

030

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 06/10/2026

A fun fact about neutrinos is that they come in three “flavors” (types) and also in three masses and you would think that this means each flavor has its own mass and you would be absolutely wrong about that.

1763468

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

Dan Miller @dan--miller.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Notice how the headline frames Cuba as the potential lawbreaker: a ship is “intercepted” while “smuggling” oil into the country. What the headline obscures is that the U.S. is the one violating international law by imposing an oil blockade on Cuba and hijacking oil shipments bound for the island.

10356164

Steuard Jensen @steuard.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

The thing that always gets me about this "if human hackers had taken these actions" framing is that a human *did* take these actions, with a tool. I can't hack into a site and then claim innocence because "look what this nasty telnet program did!" (The linked article does say a bit about this.)

010

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 06/10/2026

This prize was awarded because the Ice Cube observatory has been fantastically successful at detecting neutrinos from the cosmos (especially really intriguing high-energy ones) and also because “instead of building a big tank of water, why don’t we just kit out a whole ice cap” is a really neat idea

663346

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 06/10/2026

What is the IceCube neutrino observatory? Neutrinos are elusive particles that rarely interact, but can create flashes of light when they do. Most neutrino detectors are giant water tanks surrounded by light detectors. IceCube is kilometer-long strings of detectors embedded in the Antarctic ice.

16904243

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I claim best quote from Nobel prize winner Francis Halzen in this 2015 story: “We are in the happy situation that there are not enough Muppets,” he says. “We’ve run out of Muppets." www.newscientist.com/article/2053...

newscientist.com

Neutrinos from inside Earth and deep space illuminate the cosmos | New Scientist

A batch of ghostly, chargeless particles have been caught coming from inside Earth and from deep space

414419

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

Sean Carroll @seanmcarroll.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Such a good Nobel Prize! Francis Halzen is a great person, and “let’s turn the Antarctic ice sheet into a neutrino detector” is the kind of idea that deserves a Prize if you can pull it off.

217829

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 05/10/2026

Astronomy news for spooky season: a zombie planet orbiting a dead (but still hostile) star. Evidence suggests the following: Star dies, expels outer layers, becomes white dwarf. Gas giant forms from the debris. White dwarf is now blasting planet with radiation, shearing off some of its atmosphere.

science.nasa.gov

Suspected Second-generation Planet Solves NASA Hubble Cold Case - NASA Science

New analysis of archival Hubble data points to the possibility of "dead" white dwarf stars hosting second-generation planetary systems.

28695156

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

Doctora Malka Older @older.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

we fucking loved it, even when there was basically nothing on it, and let me tell you something else: we loved it because of human connection, human diversity, human creativity. WE DON'T NEED A SINGLE THING ANY OF THESE COMEMIERDAS HAVE MADE AND TRIED TO SELL US IN ORDER TO HAVE A GREAT INTERNET.

392740668

Steuard Jensen @steuard.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Oh, good! I'm genuinely delighted with this art, and it's wonderful to see other people recognizing what it is.

010

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

Gail Simone @gailsimone.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

You guys want to hear a short but adorable story that happened right in front of me at the baggage claim in NYC yesterday? I wasn't part of it and there are bits I didn't catch but holy crap, I can't stop thinking about it.

5440441211

Steuard Jensen @steuard.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

"By the starlit mere of Cuiviénen, Water of Awakening, they rose from the sleep of Ilúvatar; and while they dwelt yet silent by Cuiviénen their eyes beheld first of all things the stars of heaven." — JRR Tolkien, *The Silmarillion*, Chapter 3: "Of the Coming of the Elves"

1336

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

alix e. harrow @alixeharrow.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

10yo asked what i did at the festival and i said oh it's a book festival, so i just talked about my books, and he said "yikes" under his breath

272117134

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

Matt Hodges @matthodges.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

There's growing experimental evidence¹˒²˒³˒⁴ that LLMs are unusually good at talking people out of entrenched false beliefs and conspiracy theories. ¹ pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39264999/ ² pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41179846/ ³ sciety.org/articles/act... ⁴ connecticut.adl.org/resources/re...

36838216

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

Small Robots @smolrobots.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

JRR Tolkien: You paint that picture of the key scene from the Two Towers where Frodo and Sam fight Gollum? Donato Giancola: Sure did, Ron, real fuckin' sexy just like you asked. JRRT: What.

5486092708

Steuard Jensen @steuard.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

I'm pretty sure I get it right by asking, "Which one requires literacy?"

110

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 03/10/2026

"When we focus on polarization as the problem, the solution is for everyone to quiet down and be 'civil'—an outcome that benefits those who are willing to grab as much power as they can without concern for legality or civility."🔥

16829

Steuard Jensen @steuard.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

On some level, it's the missing detail on textual history that makes UT more approachable for folks who've only read LotR, even though it's frustrating for scholarship. (I guess Christopher had no idea when compiling UT that he'd one day give readers enough context to make those details relevant.)

040

Steuard Jensen @steuard.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

For a very substantial number of people, I recommend reading *Unfinished Tales* before *The Silmarillion*, even though they'll need to skip two of its best stories until later. It really is a fantastic book for filling in "lore" relevant to *The Lord of the Rings*.

1143

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

this would be an incredible film if you started it with all the normal serial killer hunting tropes

782815513

Steuard Jensen @steuard.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I assume physics majors will all get a solid basis in multivariable calculus, but I have a chapter or two on how to integrate lines/curves, areas, and volumes in different coordinate systems. (I've intentionally not tried to do vector calculus: "Div, Grad, Curl and All That" is hard to beat.)

010

Steuard Jensen @steuard.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Actually a "math tools for physics majors" supplemental book: it efficiently introduces basic skills in a bunch of essential math topics beyond the calculus sequence that come up over and over. Complex numbers, matrices and eigenvectors, approximation methods… also a chapter on basic error analysis.

1110

Steuard Jensen @steuard.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Multiple colleagues looked at my notes and said, "This is really good: why aren't you sharing it?" So I'm publishing a textbook, probably coming out next year.

1190

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 01/10/2026

Here’s the monthly data with a 12-month trailing average, so we don’t “look ahead” of the time series. We can see that visits from Canada are substantially down. Like, a *lot*. And if we looked at the French series by itself we’d see something too. But it’s not on the scale of Covid. Yet.

Smoothed monthly graph shows Canada has dropped in visits substantially, but not to the extent we saw in Covid

1129259

Steuard Jensen @steuard.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

(I never remember exactly how you're supposed to count genus... a little embarrassing.)

010

Steuard Jensen @steuard.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

It really is something to see this AI-driven shift in professional work from "demands creativity and critical thinking" to "demands vast ongoing supplies of executive function". I think I'm rather a lot better suited to the earlier version.

120

Steuard Jensen @steuard.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

At least genus three! Count those nostrils. :) (I *think* the eardrums are sufficiently sealed so the ear canals don't count as additional holes. Potentially the tear duct on each side should count, though. Anything else?)

130

Steuard Jensen @steuard.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Honestly, it sounds inspiring to me! I don't have the training or stamina to climb Everest, but I can take joy in other minds doing it and sharing the wonder. If humans went to Mars, it probably wouldn't be me on that ship, either.

010

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

maura quint @mauraquint.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Yes every woman has been harassed, many assaulted. But every woman has also experienced invisible loss from moments she avoided harassment. She felt a space becoming unsafe, so she left, while men stayed on. And in leaving, she lost: opportunities, experiences, learning, promotions, even simply fun.

168188054719

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

Naomi Kritzer @naomikritzer.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

"Executions don't just happen, you know, you have to manage them or else it's all very hurried and awkward and looks uncomfortably like a murder." --Daggerbound, T. Kingfisher

217934

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

There is a moment at the very very end of Abdul El-Sayed's podcast with Ezra Klein (book recommendation section) where he talks about the idea of "speaking truth to pain" and this will be staying with me for an extremely long time. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/o...

But there’s also something about truth to pain. We talk a lot about truth to power, but I think it’s actually a lot harder to speak truth to pain. I say that as someone who went to medical school, realizing that in a lot of our politics right now, we’ve got to get a lot better at speaking truth to pain if we’re going to get through some of these challenges that we have.

What does “truth to pain” mean?

It’s one thing to look power in the eye and say: You’re wrong about this. But there’s a way in which pain is very difficult to reason with. Because when somebody is in their pain, they’re in their trauma. They see that pain, and they may not see what’s causing it.

I remember just very explicitly being in a trauma ward with a gunshot wound patient and watching this big guy with his hand on his gunshot wound. All the folks are trying to pull his hand off his pain, that point of his gunshot wound, this clear vulnerability.

And this emergency room doctor had the presence of mind to be like: Everyone, stop. And she looks him in the eyes, and she’s like: I get that really hurts, and I’m so sorry that you’re here. You don’t want to be here. We don’t want you to be here. But if you don’t let us fix this, you could die. So I’m going to take your hand, and I’m going to move it off, OK? Because I need to get there so that you can live.

She was speaking truth to pain. He understands he’s at the hospital, he needs care, but he also doesn’t want anybody to touch the wound. Which is a natural thing. And I think it is a really great metaphor for how we think about a lot of these challenges we talked about today.

11571802058

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

Julian Sanchez @normative.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I’ve been saying for a while, someone needs to estimate the net cost of millions of people having to spend a chunk of every day worrying about what the insane president has done or will do.

7686158

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

uosdɯᴉS ɐuɐꓷ 🦄 @danacorn.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

All bigots make the same arguments, and insist that no, these are totally new arguments and this is a totally different situation, but they aren’t and it isn’t. The bigot side never turns out to have been the right one, folks.

35410

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

NE Ohio Regional Sewer District @neorsd.org · 29/09/2026

bold and wildly inexplicable photo choice here

241366248

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

Daniel Solis @danielsolis.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

This week's t-shirt is a very silly joke for fans of linguistics, Ghibli, and milky drinks. #WeeklyTshirt #Ghibli #Boba danielsolis.threadless.com/designs/kiki...

A black spikey shape wearing a red bow and riding a witch's broom.
A blobby shape filled with milk and tapioca balls, with a red spiral stripped straw.

312942

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

Physghoul 👻 🎃 @physgal.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

This makes me so, so angry. There is no excuse for behaviour like this. Cornell failed this young woman. #AcademicSky

0165

Reposted by Steuard Jensen

Stevis will try to keep people safe @stevis23.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

So this must have taken purchase orders, specific contracting actions... And I'm sorry, all of those little people need to be prosecuted for their Hatch act violations. Yes, they should be behind the big dogs, but we need to establish the consequences for following illegal orders.

041

Steuard Jensen @steuard.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I love Robin McKinley's "Sunshine" deeply (even though I'm usually not big on stories with vampires). At least some action! But also substantial baking of cinnamon rolls.

110