iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

incredibly my shit getting posted to arxiv today: arxiv.org/abs/2608.04064

arxiv posting of "the astronomy of halakhic nightfall: calculating tzeit hakokhavim and motzei shabbat" contributed by aster taylor

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

heat index is 108 so dinner is butterbean ceviche and a high life

a bowl of bean ceviche, in a bright red tomato chili sauce with diced avocado, sliced red onion, and cilantro

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

overheard an undergrad leaving a meeting with one of the professors who called out "canvas is back up, so don't forget to submit your assignment" as the kid walked out and he just dejectedly replied "yeah, I saw..." lmfao

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

stuff from last month's jews against ice demonstration outside hq in dc

a man wearing a tallit and sunglasses blows a shofar at the anti-ice rally

two women display a hand-painted sign featuring a woman blowing a shofar. the sign says "Jews against ICE", and the shofar is labeled with "this shofar blasts fascists"

a man in an overcoat and trilby blows a shofar, while another man behind him holds a sign that says "we've seen where this goes. jews against fascists"

a crowd of people at the anti-ice rally. somewhere in the crowd a bright sign featuring yellow stars is displayed, saying "Nuremberg is coming". another sign off to the side says "love the stranger, love your neighbor"

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

sizable public protest about this the other day while I caught my bus to work. lots of drivers-by honking in solidarity with demonstrators. heartening to see, but hard to know exactly what other pressures are needed to stop this

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

In addition to the concerns about community landmarks, the Hyattsville location is a shared office building with a community college, doctors offices, social services. There's a bus stop outside on a line taking mostly black and brown kids to school around the corner.

Screenshot of article text from "ICE is Expanding Across the US at Breakneck Speed". Text reads: The same pattern plays out in dozens of other cities across the US. ICE’s expansion includes not just its own preexisting space, or sharing an office with other government agencies, but also situates its agents near sensitive civilian locations.

That often includes places of worship. In Hyattsville, Maryland, ICE is expanding its offices at the Metro 1 building on 6505 Belcrest Road, which sits a few blocks from a Lutheran church. In Tennessee, OPLA is planning to move into the Nashville House office building, a business center in the city near multiple churches. The One City Center building in Portland, Maine, where ICE plans to expand its offices, is within walking distance to at least six churches, a mosque, one synagogue, and a Salvation Army adult rehab center.

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

pulled a stack of Reiner movies out of the library last month and I'm glad I waited to get around to this one last, after listening to the latest @jamellebouie.net and @lioneltrolling.bsky.social podcast

a letterboxed review of the Rob Reiner film "A Few Good Men", stating:

a first rate courtroom drama, drowning under a thick slime of american civic responsibility and military fetishism. thirty years and countless war crimes on, with the ascendance of a civilian military leadership that watches jack nicholson's scenes as an instruction manual, it's hard to imagine anything in real life resolving the way this does (as unsatisfying as the resolution actually is).

a nice nugget hidden in nicholson's tirade on the stand is the venom with which he spits out lieutenant weinberg (nearly as hateful as his remarks on tom cruise's navy whites). great writing, you have to hand it to early sorkin

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

are they still thanksgiving leftovers if you were flying all day thursday and deboned turkey legs on sale into steaks and cooked today instead

a plate with roasted sweet potatoes, greens, and sliced roasted turkey with gravy

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 28/11/2025

after two weeks in germany I have ventured out into the 1°C morning to get a bagel and coffee and groceries. also a copy of contact out of the LFL

yoni, a dark haired bearded man, walks though a neighborhood on a cold clear morning

yoni holds a copy of carl sagan's contact in front of the camera. the cover shows the night side of earth, with illuminated cities, framed against the disk of the Milky Way

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Reposted by Yoni Brande

Dr. Alysa Orbits (Obertas) @astroalysa.bsky.social · 23/11/2025

I want to post something happier today as well, so here are some scientists whom I recommend platforming and financially supporting! I'm a bit out of the loop, so I'm bound to miss people. Please reply with your own recommendations!

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

scenes from No Kings, deemed too "dangerous" to post on instagram by their automated content filtering

a black and white photograph from the no kings rally, showing a crowd of people in front of the US Capitol building. someone holds up a sign that says "Trans Rights are Human Rights". another sign reads "DC and America are NOT for sale. FIGHT PLUTOCRACY"

a black and white photograph from the no kings rally. a police officer speaks to a woman high above his head, crouched on top of an electrical box plastered in rally advertising flyers.

a black and white photograph from the no kings rally. three people, a black woman and two white men, are sitting on a concrete bench on the side of a government building. one of the men is holding a hand-painted sign that reads "Fascists feed on your fear, starve them!"

a black and white photograph from the no kings rally. An older woman, wearing knee-high boots, a scarf, and a "Queen RBG" shirt, walks among protesters, looking shockingly like RBG herself

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

there is an aroma of cookies in the office and I can't locate them

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

some campus views from the start of the semester and an abandoned synagogue in my neighborhood. kodak gold 200

a large, patinated bronze sundial showing the seal of the university of maryland, with a large brick porticoed library in the background, against the blue sky.

a view of mckeldin mall, centered on the terraced ODK fountain, which peaks with mckeldin library in the background

a red granite bench with bronze statues of jim henson speaking to kermit the frog, shaded under trees with the brick of the stamp student union behind

a large brick synagogue, with a decorative menorah candelabra on the exterior niche wall, framed between overgrown bushes and trees, with rusting handlebars along a cracked concrete walkway

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

one of the most incredibly cursed contributors lists I've ever seen in a collection. fully 10% of these people are (astro)physicist sex pests.

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 15/10/2025

13 total JWST proposals in (2 PI, 1 Co-PI), with 2014 submissions btw the earliest and latest. are we gonna break last year's record of 2377?

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 03/10/2025

someone mentioned passing around the snuff box at neilah yesterday and I feel like the contemporary equivalent would be a box of zyns can someone pasken whether they're fasting-appropriate or not since they're lip pouches

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

just got a 245 page PDF in my spam folder about ether theory I love having a physics phd

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 21/09/2025

pissed off because I wouldn't let him have my boba

a small brown fluffy bird perches on a blue painted metal chair

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 24/08/2025

I will never be able to afford a house

egg, cheese, avocado, and latke on an everything bagel with an iced coffee

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 23/08/2025

actually starting to live in a place now

a gray couch with striped throw pillows sitting on a dark blue rug

a TV stands on a console/bookshelf, holding cookbooks, fiction, nonfiction, and a nintendo switch

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

congrats to Dr. David Coria, who defended his dissertation with honors on stellar elemental abundance and isotopic ratios (and had an emergency appendectomy last week when he was supposed to originally defend!)

David speaking at a lectern, presenting some slides on stellar spectroscopy and elemental abundance measurements

celebratory whiteboard, with champagne and party hat

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

views from the alameda antique fair. canon ql17 giii, kentmere 400

a man in a flat cap, looking slightly downward, hangs out of the side of his van at a stall full of books and paintings. a distraught clown peeks out from behind a framed painting. shipping containers and loading cranes provide a skyline in the background

a man in a stall of furniture and wall art looks at an offscreen patron, while a painting of a glamorous woman in an early/mid-century style stares straight at the viewer

a woman orders from the Lockeford Sausage stand, advertising BIG OLE BRATS for $10

a man, sitting inside a large white sprinter van, wistfully stares out the door. another man, standing in front of the open van door with his back to the viewer is speaking to another unseen person inside the van, next to a large standee of santa claus

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

montréal is kind of nice I guess

large and majestic fireworks fill the sky over a bridge behind a ferris wheel

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 04/07/2025

accidentally poignant commentary by the local daycare kids

a tattered looking american flag made of toilet paper streamers hangs limply on a chain link fence

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 03/07/2025

feels like 95° if I don't eat cold noodles I will die

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

I'm going to get mission impossible 1'd in the malott elevator

a closed elevator door, with light shining through visible gap into the empty shaft in which there is no actual elevator

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

stirring a jalapeno limeade with a lime ice fruit bar

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 27/06/2025

mike lee go jump off one of the mountains you want to sell

yoni posing at a campsite up in the mountains

eliot, cassidy, connor, and anat posing for a picture on top of a mountain, with snowy peaks in the background

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

auction hunting for a watch, I find one I sort of like but get immediately outbid. decide to let it sit for a couple days and now the price is verifiably insane

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 07/06/2025

it was raining cats and dogs at pride

me holding a very tiny fluffy baby kitten

a white dog wearing a pride flag laying on the ground

a corndog slathered in ketchup and mustard

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

views from the lawrence busker festival the other week

two aerialists support each other hanging off the ground

an aerialist suspends herself from long, flowing, pink silks

an aerialist in an extended post, tangled in an orange silk

an aerialist kneels on a safety mat, after a performance

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

just signed off two HR emails as "Dr. Jonathan Brande" because apparently I don't have access to the hr/payment system a week after my summer temp position started lol

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

need a professional project manager to coordinate wedding gift planning amongst 4-6 college friends

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

jim (z"l) and marilyn simons are apparently major donors to yeshivat maharat and I feel like I might be the only person equipped to appreciate this information

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

it's ceremonially official, they can't revoke my doctorship now

yoni and his parents before the hooding ceremony

David, Alex, and yoni before the hooding

yoni, Alex, and David standing in front of a big sculpture

yoni, advisor ian, Alex, and Davis all posing with doctoral hoods and regalia

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

Happy to announce that I passed my PhD defense this morning (with honors)! It's been a wonderful five years with KU Physics and Astronomy, and I couldn't have asked for a better advisor in Ian Crossfield.

yoni, a dark haired, bearded man in a blue dress shirt and tie, shakes hands with PhD advisor Ian

yoni, holding a novelty "hot jewish doctor" tank top

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 03/05/2025

once a week or so someone makes a panicked post amounting to "I roasted my leftover chicken bones and let them simmer for six hours and after fridging overnight my broth is goopy and solid! did I ruin it?"

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 18/04/2025

unexpected @katewagner.bsky.social talking about mcmansions on local radio! unfortunately I can't make it to next week's lecture, but now I know what I'm missing!

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

dissertation draft sent to committee

Coraline's dad, sitting at a computer and looking exhausted

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 07/04/2025

direct to consumer viscose underwear company now sending daily ad emails with 40% off tariff coupon codes

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

45 out and the ice cream truck has been by twice today. i want in on this money laundering front

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

took vanguard like twelve hours to send this lol

Email from vanguard:

Vanguard is monitoring the unfolding trade situation

Stay the course. We'll be right there with you.

With the White House announcing new tariffs, the markets have become volatile, testing the resolve of even the most disciplined investor.

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

i fucking love crowding the pan

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

would you believe mr. noodle was no help at all with this dissertation

a latte in front of a laptop open to an overleaf document

a small, scruffy, grey and white dog, poking his head out from under a coffee shop bar

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 30/03/2025

spinach kale artichoke dip brunch tart

spinach, kale, and artichoke dip tart in a crispy puff pastry on a baking tray on a blue dish towel on a fake wood veneer Ikea table

very crispy corner of the tart, showing an artichoke heart and a scallion baked into the filling

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Yoni Brande @yonibrande.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

Beyond thrilled to announce that, after my dissertation defense, I'll be rejoining the Department of Astronomy at the University of Maryland as a postdoc with Prof. Megan Weiner Mansfield working on even more JWST observations of exoplanets!

a gray well-worn Maryland terrapins shirt lies on a table along with a new blue Kansas physics and astronomy hoodie

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