iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

For the month of October, I commit to only using “bespook.”

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Ursela from The Little Mermaid. Tbh she is creepy though.

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

It’s AI agents all the way down. Makes me want to hide in my shell.

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I'm hoping it's a bit better excluding the AI-generated ones

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I was mere moments after the meltdown so waiting to try again in a bit (had a placeholder in so wasn't overly panicked).

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I’ve only used it in figures so I think I’m good? Although a Sept 29 late breaking update on this is breaking my late sanity.

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Congratulations @mmacgreg.bsky.social — excited for some far-IR science coming down the pipeline 🔭

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Kind of sounds like the Aspen center. Also not ideal in January though

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

So excited to see even these first test images from the Wide Field Instrument knowing our surveys are only months away — go #NASARoman 🔭 💫

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Now that's what I'd call a Picard manuver 😉

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

I've never used AI in my professional astronomy writing, but would have been classified as having "soft tells" based on Table 1.

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

I don’t use AI in my astronomy writing, but would be classified as having “soft tells.”

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

I'm just really hoping the American people choose to reject this anti-science agenda in the midterms, but the Canadians are right to question our collective judgement after electing that guy a second time...

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

It was such a fun privilege getting to work with Jaime et al. exploring the roles of repeated flaring and flare temperatures in young terrestrial atmospheres!

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Sounds like this game proceeds from neither the Father nor the Son in that case…

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Reposted by Ward Howard

Eric Bellm @ebellm.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

The Swift reboost mission failing is a huge loss for astronomy. The powerful, flexible operations model the Swift team demonstrated has unfortunately not yet influenced the design and selection of other 🔭 missions. www.nasa.gov/news-release...

urldefense.com

NASA Updates Next Steps for Commercial Swift Boost Mission - NASA

Due to an ongoing commercial spacecraft attitude control issue, NASA and Katalyst Space announced Wednesday the LINK spacecraft will not capture or boost an

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Many congratulations on the new book!! The story behind it is neat, and I bet it’d also be helpful for science communicators who’ve not seen the math in those classrooms for the last decade…

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

It’s crazy to me schools here (Boulder area) often start first week of august!

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Why would increased spatial resolution be detrimental to the field?

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

We ducked out of Colorado (99 F) to Cannon Beach this week too!

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

My worry on the astro job market is my perceived productivity on search committees as someone who doesn’t heavily rely on LLMs will simultaneously make me a better research mentor but lower my hireability relative to candidates pushing out lots of papers with Claude.

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

I feel you! Being a new-ish academic parent without a permanent position yet is so hard. Any you’re still showing up🙌🙌

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Not sure about $49, but it might be worth three strips of gold-pressed latinum

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Excited to be back on the Caltech campus this morning to share about infrared observations of stellar flares at the Shifting Landscapes in Astrophysics: New Frontiers to Explore with Roman” science conference! 🔭🧪 #Roman2026

Standing in front of the conference poster

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

So that’s why we replaced the Neanderthals…

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Oh I figured you were testing out your own LLM here 😂

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

I’m so sorry. We’ve unfortunately had to navigate crappy insurance changes, and I wondered if you’ve tried having your old or current GP submit “continuity of care” prior authorizations or appeals?

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Check out this amazing result by @distantworlds.space! 🔭🧪

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Reposted by Ward Howard

Emily Lakdawalla 🏳️‍⚧️ Uranus Expert @elakdawalla.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

To be clear, this isn’t an AI tool, it’s a form with prompts that breaks the process of composing a comment into smaller pieces with specific guidance on each piece on how to make it an effective comment. Useful!

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

Human civilization has already survived one or two of these. Modern technology is more brittle to them though.

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

My colleague Yuta curated a list of true solar analogs in Kepler data and found events 100X larger than the Carrington Event likely occur every ~2000 years! ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2019ApJ....

ui.adsabs.harvard.edu

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

No one informed me when our 10 month old started talking she’d sound exactly like Donald Duck

static.klipy.com

Donald Duck's Moment of Peace

Alt: Donald Duck's Moment of Peace

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

I recognize that question from the ADHD screening!

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

Important find! Will be seeing how this impacts our flare spectral extractions.

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Reposted by Ward Howard

Dr./Prof. Meredith MacGregor @mmacgreg.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Now seems like a great moment to share this awesome new paper explaining how the Early eVolution Explorer (EVE) - a NASA SMEX mission concept - will transform our understanding of young planets (<50 Myr old): arxiv.org/pdf/2606.04283

arxiv.org

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Excellent thread on multiple levels of absurdity impacting ECRs without citizenship. @gmduvvuri.bsky.social and others like him deserve better:

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Congratulations, and sounds like you’ve some exciting things ahead as a 51 Peg!!

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

I am so excited to get started on wide field time domain astronomy in the near-infrared. Just like TESS did in the optical, we’ll launch to find planets in the bulge and learn so much about stellar astrophysics along the way 🪐🔭💫

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

Thank you for pointing this out @johannateske.bsky.social -- Does my quote repost link work for you?

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

The link was somehow corrupted. The correct link is docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

docs.google.com

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

🚨🚨🚨 Now accepting 2026/2027 applications🔭 🪐🚨🚨🚨 AMP-UP provides mentorship to senior grad students/postdocs: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... Please forward to anyone who might be interested/share with institution listservs. The application deadline is *June 26*. -On behalf of the 2026 AMP-UP leads

docs.google.com

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Reposted by Ward Howard

Phil Plait @philplait.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

Whoa. The alleged fireball shock wave registered on seismometers!

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Reposted by Ward Howard

elizabethginexi.bsky.social @elizabethginexi.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Summary of Key Changes in OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule. Russell Vought is going destroy American Science. elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/summary-of...

elizabethginexi.substack.com

Summary of Key Changes in OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule

Russell Vought is going destroy American Science

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

It feels like it should be, but I get blessed with ads for it every time I try to watch Star Trek on Prime 😕

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

Because academia often rewards metrics representing quality rather than quality itself, I suspect those people play the game. This is just a more egregious version of minimum publishable units, etc

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Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

I've watched nearly all of and second the recommendations below, and add that if your student gets their local PBS Passport and sorts by category under PBS NOVA, there are dozens of recent high-quality astro documentaries. Many feature colleagues like @miquai.bsky.social

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