iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 7h

(ok technically one was for The Conversation Australia and one was for The Conversation New Zealand, but same idea...)

Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 7h

YET ANOTHER article yelling about satellite pollution submitted to The Conversation Canada. That'll be my 6th one in 2026. I should really rewrite my stupid grant proposal now...SIGH.

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 8h

[SpaceX-related screaming into the void] So after reading through most of the paper, I can say that this figure is one of the least weird things in the document. WHAT did I just read?

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 8h

[SpaceX-related screaming into the void] @zrb I'm embarrassed to say I haven't yet read any of the Discworld books. Is this actually a Discworld reference??

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 8h

[SpaceX-related screaming into the void] Uhhhhh WOW one of Kardashev's own papers includes this completely unhinged figure...

An absolutely psychedelic pen and ink drawing showing a disk around a star (I think) with a rocket coming out? And there's a magnifying glass showing a cartoon alien driving a cart with a steering wheel on another alien's bum, some fanciful background buildings, some alien flying on a disk, and a bunch of concerned looking aliens looking out of the magnifying glass like they know we're looking at them. There's a handwritten "Type III" up in the corner of the drawing. The caption says "Figure 1. A general view of a Type III Supercivilization (cartoon by I. Maximov).

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 10h

[grumpy complaining] But at least I just got confirmation that the call I got from my partner while I was teaching was an accidental call and not some serious problem. Phew.

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 10h

[grumpy complaining] Teaching is hard. Helping my collaborators get along and be nice is also hard. Totally dropped the ball on multiple things for the second month running for a big important meeting tomorrow (and I'm not going to be able to fix any of that tonight). I have to completely […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13h

@chris @ZebKing Congrats! I lived in North Saanich for 3 years, Saanichton for a few months, Saanich for a year, and then North Saanich again for another year before getting priced out of BC entirely... I do miss living there a lot. (But I got my dream job in Saskatchewan and having a stable […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Christopher Kyba 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇪🇺 @skyglowberlin.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 19/10/2026

My copy of @SaraBPritchard's "Transforming #Night" just arrived 🎉 #LightPollution #History

Cover image of book, the title is at top and a glowing city below

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19h

After complainy/serious posts, barn cat drama: There's a new barn cat that I haven't yet gotten a close look at. Mostly white, seems to be very good at stealing the other cats' food. Was in the barn the whole time I was doing chores yesterday morning, but wouldn't let me get closer than ~10 […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19h

[AB pol] The separation question failing means that Danielle Smith will now slink off into obscurity* and Saskatchewan won't try to copycat. Right? RIGHT??! *ok fine she'll become a multimillionaire CEO of some awful resource extraction company like all conservative ex-politicians do.

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19h

[Mastodon 5.0 grumpy] Something about the slight change in text colour or brightness means I can't use the default dark mode anymore! Hurts my eyes. Weird. I guess it's light mode for me now. Don't like CW hiding up under settings either. Or the new post appearing on top of what I'm reading […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 20/10/2026

I made this plot to try to visualize how crowded these sun-synchronous terminator orbits are going to get with all the "orbital AI data centres" that companies want to launch. Diagram needs a bit of work still, but it's a start. These names are awful, huh? […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

A diagram showing altitude on the y-axis and "relative sun-synchronous terminator orbit density" on the x-axis. There are lots of dots, many of them in overlapping bands at different altitudes. The densest parts of orbit are where "Starcloud" and confusingly-named "Orbital" have asked for the exact same orbits. SpaceX's million satellite plan kind of dominates, with big wide bands of extremely high satellite density at 3 different altitudes.

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/10/2026

The first sentence of the physics department colloquium for this week should win some sort of award for understatement: "Fusion energy promises to produce clean and safe electricity on a large scale, but it still faces some challenges"

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/10/2026

@jpshoer Yes. I saw the exact same thing. So, how do I as an instructor head them off and get them to use a study strategy that's not so environmentally terrible?

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Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans @astroroyalscot.bsky.social · 19/10/2026

And Lift Off! A glorious launch of #MMX, the start of an amazingly awesome 5 yr round trip to Mars' moon Phobos. 1yr to get there, 3yrs exploration landing on the surface (twice), then 1yr to get home with the bounty (2tbls of Phobos dust), arriving in the Australian outback in 2031! 🥳🔭🧪🛰️🚀

The light of the rocket launch lights up the beach!

fire lights up beneath the rocket at the start of the launch

The dark sky is lit up by the fire of the rising rocket

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Jonathan McDowell @planet4589.bsky.social · 19/10/2026

LAUNCH at 1941 UTC Oct 19 of MMX from Tanegashima! Go MMX!

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Reposted by Prof. Sam Lawler

Jonathan McDowell @planet4589.bsky.social · 19/10/2026

After 2 days in close proximity (less than 5 km, possibly much less), Kosmos-2612 moved away from ICEYE X36 on Oct 18 and is now more than 100 km away, according to US Space Force tracking data

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/10/2026

Anyone who would like to know more about her talk, it's posted here: meganperram.com/genaifellowship/ind… The best part of the talk was of course the discussion. But she raises a lot of extremely thought-provoking (read: controversial, and based on real students) […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/10/2026

[SpaceX-related screaming into the void] Also HOLY SHIT there are a lot of totally fucking unhinged websites talking about the Kardashev scale...

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/10/2026

[SpaceX-related screaming into the void] Searching for sources while writing has now taught me that SpaceX sells a t-shirt with a fucking Kardashev scale diagram on it. It doesn't appear to be an April Fool's Day joke, and it's not even a nice looking t-shirt. UGH.

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/10/2026

I just listened in to a talk given by a colleague called "How your students are really using AI" and wow I have a lot to digest. Great talk, showed some of the ways that students are using genAI to learn stuff better (and a lot of ways they're using genAI to not learn stuff). Speaker made the […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

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Reposted by Prof. Sam Lawler

Andrew Knack @andrewknack.bsky.social · 19/10/2026

Let's show up, make our voices heard, and stand together for Canada. Polls are open from 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Find out where to vote here: www.elections.ab.ca/current-elec...

elections.ab.ca

Where Do I Vote? - Elections Alberta

Find where you can vote in the advance polls and on Election day - choose what works best for you from April 9-13 and April 16, 2019.

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/10/2026

Ooof I started grumpy posting way too early today. Let me start over and try again. Good morning.

A really nice sunrise above a flat horizon, with a nicely silhouetted spruce tree on one side. The sky is orange close to the horizon, fading to light blue above. There are bright pink clouds scattered pleasingly around the sky.

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/10/2026

Just trying to imagine how this conversation went. Someone finally convinces Musk that he should do a charity thing. "What do kids like?" asks the father of many children. "Stock shares! YES! Kids love the stock market! That's perfect!" mastodon.social/@PCMag/117467761132…

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/10/2026

@jfmezei It seems like there should be a term for that, but I don't know it off the top of my head (also haven't had tea yet this morning) A couple hours before sunrise and after sunset are the prime bright satellite times, but exactly how long they are sunlit depends on their altitude, your […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/10/2026

I was accused of being sensationalist or exaggerating when our 2022 research paper predicted one in 15 visible points in the sky would be a moving satellite. I think maybe we were actually too conservative. I hate this so very very much.

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/10/2026

There are quite a few stars visible while I'm out doing evening chores now, so I spend a lot of time glancing up while moving between tasks. Just now, I glanced up at Cassiopeia and there were so many satellites, I actually felt dizzy while my brain struggled to figure out what was stationary […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/10/2026

I also found a buck! Way more expensive than I wanted, but from a herd that's very unlikely to have diseases, and he's a fancy purebred Saanen. I actually bought a buck from this same woman 5 years ago and my best milkers are his offspring. I don't really […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

A large yellow barn covered with peeling paint, under the huge blue sky. In the foreground is a small grey cat who's happily rolling on the weedy ground. There are a couple of large compost piles between the cat and the barn.

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/10/2026

It took most of the day, but we finally took the rail off the barn, dug out all the rotten wood it was attached to, replaced it with new wood (well, nice wood that came with the farm), bought a new rail section to replace the one that was hopelessly warped […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

A view showing part of the front of a barn covered with peeling yellow paint. There's a big gap above the door where a bunch of rotten wood is visible.

Similar view, now the gap of rotten wood is filled by a nice new board. There's a ladder visible as well and the sky is absurdly blue above the barn.

Similar view, now with a shiny new metal rail above the door. The rail is hilariously shiny compared to the rusty metal and peeling paint on the barn.

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 18/10/2026

[animal husbandry, animal death] More immediately, I need to find a buck. It's just about breeding time so I can have milk next year. How worried should I be about introducing diseases to my herd? How careful should I be with the buck? Is anyone even selling a reasonable buck this year? Do I […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 18/10/2026

[animal husbandry, animal death] This has been a bad year overall for my goat herd. I don't talk about the sad parts of goat farming much, because who needs that when *waves hands around* is happening. I had 5 goats die from various bad things happening this year, by far the most I've ever […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 18/10/2026

[rambling follow-up] Good news: there's a special "invite only" reception beforehand and they will feed me! It scares me a bit how much those years of living way below the poverty line (with a baby) during grad school/early postdoc has made me ALWAYS seek out free food. Did experiencing that […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 18/10/2026

Got all the hay bales from the field. The downside of very large Saskatchewan farms is that I had to drive the tractor almost half a mile to get the farthest ones. Glad I only have to do this once a year! That's enough tractoring for me for a while...

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Jonathan McDowell @planet4589.bsky.social · 16/10/2026

Possible space debris in Minnesota, close to the path of the Zhuque-2E upper stage reentry on Sep 15.

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Reposted by Prof. Sam Lawler

Jonathan McDowell @planet4589.bsky.social · 17/10/2026

This afternoon's orbital data suggests - subject to confirmation - that Russia's Kosmos-2612 has carried out a rendezvous with the US ICEYE X36 radar sat, within a few km. To my knowledge this is the first LEO rendezvous of two active sats where the owner of one of the sats did not give approval.

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/10/2026

Lovely bike ride! We had a couple of very windy days, so most of the fall colour is already gone off the trees. Not too many animals out besides birds, and most of the birds have migrated away already. But I saw a grouse, and some good footprints (deer, moose […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

A view down a straight muddy dirt road, lined by trees that have mostly lost their leaves already. Just a few yellow leaves holding on. The sky above is mostly cloudy with some blue peeking through.

Looking down on a gloved hand holding several oat stalks, next to a very muddy bike wheel

A close up of badger footprints, kind of like cat footprints but with long claws. The prints are "walking" away from the camera down a long straight dirt road.

Another view of a long straight dirt road, this one less muddy, and with harvested fields full of stubble on both sides of the road. The sky is mostly cloudy.

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/10/2026

😬 😬 😬 "Why Canadian Starlink subscribers (probably) shouldn't worry about U.S interference" www.cbc.ca/news/world/satellite-us-… Ok time to go for a (cold but not windy) bike ride

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/10/2026

Hhahaaha and to those of you suggesting both, that is very tempting but you are overestimating both my stamina and how much time I have for fun things! (I've got a LOT of hay bales to get from the field today...)

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/10/2026

Do I want to go for a bike ride now while it's still a little frosty but not windy? Or wait until the afternoon when it will be windy but warm? Hmmm

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/10/2026

Woooo Friday night partaaayyyyy* *No auroras, so I'm heading to bed at 9pm to read some fluffy science fiction!! Wooo!!!

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026

This is showing the behaviour of the equation below with different values of m and n. This is using the measured orbital elements of a real TNO, showing how it's constrained by Neptune on long timescales. Mean-motion resonances are SO COOL and I'd much rather work on this than satellite pollution.

a silly equation with lots of subscripts and greek letters. phi subscript p, q, m, n equals p times lambda minus q times lambda subscript N minus m times varpi minus n time capital Omega. It's a combination of a bunch of angular orbital elements for a TNO and Neptune, and integers.

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026

Oh this is good too. You don't even need to know anything about what this is showing, it's just neat looking.

5 narrow horizontal plots stacked on top of each other, with cool diagonal wiggly lines made up of rapidly oscillating points. Each plot has a different diagonal slope.

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026

At least I finished a cool plot for the incredibly obscure mixed-mode resonant dynamics paper that maybe someday I'll actually get to finish writing.

3 scatterplots stacked on top of each other, showing cool diagonal patterns.

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026

Meeting delayed via email, people still didn't show up, sent apologetic email asking if I could still meet, no one showed up to my second zoom meeting, and now I'm playing email tag with the first people and severely regretting not blowing everything off and going for a bike ride instead. Which […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026

... or maybe the people who wanted to meet with me won't actually show up. That's cool too, I guess. I have lots of writing to do...

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Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026

2 more zoom meetings to go. Will I manage to stay awake? I think I've hit my Friday wall...

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