Nietzsche said when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss gazes back into you. He just couldn't predict that the abyss would be five inches wide, made of glass, and refreshing every three seconds.

My logic professor told us that if we affirmed the consequent, we'd fail the test. And I did fail the test. So I guess I affirmed the consequent.

I can hardly imagine the amount of grunt work needed to have gone through all of those photos and identify variables in the Andromeda Galaxy. Even using a blink comparator, it must have been tedious work.

👀🐦‍⬛ A SR-71 Blackbird Has Vanished The head of NASA just cryptically teased a new X-plane with an image that looked a lot like the iconic Blackbird. Now a very particular SR-71 is missing. twz.com/air/a-sr-71-blackbir…

Ever tape up a pair of broken glasses? Today I taped up my tie. The label has come loose on one side and wouldn’t let me slip the other end of the tie neatly into place…so I used Scotch tape. I’m feeling very fashion-forward.

Ever tape up a pair of broken glasses? Today I taped up my tie. The label has come loose on one side and wouldn’t let me slip the other end of the tie neatly into place…so I used Scotch tape.

"But Jimmy has fancy plans...and pants to match." "I knew that someday soon, the super karate monkey death car would park in my spot." My favorite News Radio episode, hands down. Still cracks me up to no end.

"Computer <whispers> Zima."

On a flight to London in 1986, they played “Robin Hood” for the movie. Audio was one particular channel on the armrest selector, and I got the wrong one. Watched the opening credits with contemporary rock playing in my ears, thinking it was a weird choice for the soundtrack.

We hold a flat glass portal containing the entirety of recorded human wisdom, and we lie in pitch black at 1:15 AM letting an algorithm guess which specific flavor of inadequacy we want to feel.

We've got them in the Smokies in Tennessee. I hadn't seen any as a kid, but Dad found some occasionally while I was in college. Small, about an inch long, and black.

More of Nancy breaking the fourth wall.

I'm scanning my astronomy lecture notes to make a PowerPoint presentation, and I'll have to admit to being a bit proud of some of my lecture diagrams. The problem is that I can't draw them this well on the chalkboard in class with enough time to finish everything in the lecture.

everyone so busy yapping about AI no one noticed room-temperature superconductor claims are back arxiv.org/abs/2609.15712

Thx for the prayers — Turns out cutting out chunks of yer liver is no joke, man. Good news, bad news, and next steps… Good: big liver surgery last week successfully cleared out a bunch o cancer. (Pretty darn great — considering 9 mons ago, when told I had 3-4 months to live, surgery wasn't even an option.) Bad: Tests on the tumors show they were more advanced than we thought — meaning always-mutating tumors have developed some resistance tricks to our former treatment protocol. Bummer but that's life, and was eventually expected. Next: We're gunna change up treatment to carpet-bomb-chemo as much of the rest of the cancer as we can for a bit. Send chemo tips -- do NOT send more Nickelback promotional materials (am painfully aware they’ll be performing at the Hondo Rodeo Fest in Febr). Grateful to God for this extra time — both time w/ fam and time to fight. Can't say enough good things about… - daraxonrasib - ⁠MD Anderson’s incredible team of docs, nurses, techs, & researchers - ⁠my wife: Melissa rocks. She’s laughing-crying-fighting-prayin with me every day. Best human I know. - ⁠Corrie, Alex, and Breck are beyond awesome.

Romeo! Romeo! Hwȳ eart ðū Romeo ġehāten? Wiðsac þīnne fæder and forwiern þīnne naman!

As far as I have seen, these spoke features were entirely unknown before 1980 and the Voyager flybys. But now skilled astrophotographers are observing them from Earth. The advance of digital photography has been fantastic for astronomy.

British occupation forces in New York City hang convicted spy Nathan Hale. He behaves with great composure, and on the gallows he declares: “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”

Its that time of year (every year) to talk about this image which does the rounds on Linkedin about once a week. What is it ? Well the image itself, is something which is inferred was drawn by the statistician Abraham Wald. But in fact its something someone drew at some point in MS Paint or something, to talk about "survivor bias". THE INTERNET wrote of this image and Walds work: "The US military’s conclusion was simple: the wings and tail are obviously vulnerable to receiving bullets. We need to increase armour to these areas. Wald stepped in. His conclusion was surprising: don’t armour the wings and tail. Armour the engine." The trouble, is this is all basically nonsense. Wald published his early work in 1943, the conclusions after 100 pages of equiations, are not exactly staggeringly profound: =========================== "This analysis of the hypothetical data would lead to the conclusion that the plane is most vulnerable to a hit on the engine area if the type of bullet is not specified, and is most vulnerable to a hit by a 20-mm cannon shell if the part hit is not specified. The greatest probability of being destroyed is .534, and occurs when a plane is hit by a 20-mm cannon shell on the engine area. The next most vulnerable event is a hit by a 7.9-mm machine gun bullet on the cockpit. These, and other conclusions that can be made from the table of vulnerabilities derived by the method of analysis of part VIII, can be used as guides for locating protective armor and can be used to make a prediction of the estimated loss of a future mission." =============================== Aircraft are extremely weight sensetive, and by 1943, all aircraft designers the world over already knew perfectly well which part of an aircraft to armour. They put armour on the pilots cabin and the engine systems. You cant put any where else as then the plane becomes so heavy its useless and so slow its probability of being shot down skyrockets as its performance goes down. All Allied aircraft followed this doctrine from early on in WW2. There was never an attempt by aircraft constructors to put armor all over tails, and wingtips. USAAF aircraft were also about as heavily armoured as they could be, this is (along with defensive armament) the main reason why a B-17 has so much less bombload capability than a British Lancaster, the British believed that fewer bombers meant the best tactical results and so the Lancaster had a lot less armour and armament than a B-17. This was offset by its massive bombcarrying capability. So what WAS Abraham Walds work ? What it really comes down to is the first major attempt to define a statistical probability based estimate of the proportions of a batch of aircraft on a mission which would be likely to be shot down, based on data gathered experimentally. Although Wald did state (see quote above) that it could also guide armor placement, this aspect of his work was already perfectly obvious to anyone who made aeroplanes and was already in effect being followed to the letter. So yes, Abraham Wald was a clever statistician, whose work is likely important piece of early matematical history to anyone studying the topic at University today, but NO - none of this resulted in aircraft manufacturers in WW2 changing the position of any armour plate, because everything of critical value which could be armoured, already was.

I’m reminded of the scenario in Tom Clancy’s Red Storm Rising, where the Soviets first work to split NATO before launching their invasion.