Bill Higgins-- Retired Beam Jockey

@beamjockey.bsky.social

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Physicist. Writer. Mono-instrumentalist.

My posts are my opinions, and I do not speak for Fermilab. Nor NASA.

Avatar: Bill Heterodyne, smiling & tipping his boater, by Phil Foglio.
Banner: Me, infinitely reflected in mirrors.

Posts Replies Media

Pro tip: If you write "hone in on," your readers will recognize that you are not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

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Bill Higgins-- Retired Beam Jockey

Library funding is almost always justified through patron numbers. The more people a library serves, the more funding it gets. So even if you don't regularly use a public library, get a library card. It costs you nothing and helps everyone in your community.

today is my NINETEEN YEAR anniversary working at my local library In honor of that, I ask you to get a card to your local public library today! If you ALREADY have a card to your local public library, check out their digital resources! Their summer programs! And yeah, they have books too.

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Bill Higgins-- Retired Beam Jockey

It’s July 4, and the Brits are headed to the polls. On November 5, the Americans will head to the polls. The irony should be a whole new meme era but the world is too awful.

Happy birthday to the land of Beautiful Pilgrim Feet and also A Thoroughfare For Freedom Beat (a reference to Route 66). "America! America! God mend thine every flaw Confirm thy soul in self-control Thy liberty in law!" --Katharine Lee Bates Photo:Carol M. Highsmith

This #ScienceFiction history buff just watched Season 6, Episode 6, the finale of THE EXPANSE. And found, at 26m 06s, the collection of Easter Eggs, years after everyone else did. Three groups of soldiers prepare for an assault. Here's telemetry from their suits. A lot of familiar names here.

Could... could the President QUARTER TROOPS IN MY HOUSE and be immune from consequences?

1/ Let me explain one way that today's Trump immunity decision threatens the survival of the Republic. Under today's ruling, a President would be immune for any way in which he used the military (a "core function"), even to kill American citizens in America. Theoretically, the soldiers who . . .

Would an Emoluments Clause prosecution be a more attractive prospect now than it would have been, say, yesterday?

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Bill Higgins-- Retired Beam Jockey

Anyone here happen to know who Joanna Russ' literary executor is? Or better yet, is actually said executor?

That time I commemorated Andrew Plotkin's letter of comment to "PyroTechnics," sent 17 years after the fanzine was published, 17 years after Andrew sent the letter. (In the pages of @file770.bsky.social.)

Remembering Andrew Plotkin’s 17-year-delayed LOC to PyroTechnics #38file770.com By Bill Higgins: In August 1986, Jamie and Gail Hanrahan published PyroTechnics #38, a fanzine founded by Jeff Duntemann. It served as a club newsletter for General Technics, a loose organization …

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Bill Higgins-- Retired Beam Jockey

TODAY is the last day to pick up the ebook omnibus of all 3 volumes of the Arabella of Mars series for just $3.99 at all ebook stores! (US only, sorry.) https://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Arabella-Ashby-Battle-Traitor-ebook/dp/B0CPWDV735/

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Bill Higgins-- Retired Beam Jockey

Reminder for a rough day: bad news gets re-shared 100x as much as good news, creating the morale-eating doomscroll illusion in which it seems like all news is bad, while real victories don’t get reported. We need to see victories to remind us the fight is worth-it. Don’t forget to #ShareGoodNewsToo

Short thread by a historian of space exploration, @dsfpspacefl1ght.bsky.social, on the idea of returning samples from Mars as it’s changed over the years.

In the mid-1970s Mars mission planners assumed that a Mars Sample Return mission would return perhaps 200 grams of fines and pebbles collected within a few meters of the lander. A decade later they assumed a massive mission with a rover capable of collecting kilograms across tens of kilometers. 1/

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Bill Higgins-- Retired Beam Jockey

OSIRIS-REx phase 1 paper is now available doi.org/10.1111/maps...

Asteroid (101955) Bennu in the laboratory: Properties of the sample collected by OSIRIS‐RExdoi.org On September 24, 2023, NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission dropped a capsule to Earth containing ~120 g of pristine carbonaceous regolith from Bennu. We describe the delivery and initial allocation of this ast...

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Bill Higgins-- Retired Beam Jockey

Hi folks - I'm developing my first planetary science class this summer and looking for any examples/advice on active learning applied to planetary science topics. I've got resources for physics and geology and they're helpful, but anything more specific would be neat.

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Bill Higgins-- Retired Beam Jockey

Reply to

Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans

Skip re-entry phase: the first far-side lunar samples incoming

Coverage of Chang'e 6 recovery is now live!

The re-entry capsule carrying the lunar sample has successfully separated from the Chang'e-6 orbiter and is falling down to Earth! 🧪🔭🛰️ 🍿: English language live feed from the China Global Television Network: www.youtube.com/live/WLmKmo5...

Live: Special coverage of Chang'e-6 lunar probe’s returnwww.youtube.com The Chang’e-6 mission has entered the final stretch of its 53-day quest to collect samples from the far side of the moon. Join CGTN’s special live coverage o...

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Bill Higgins-- Retired Beam Jockey

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Bill Higgins-- Retired Beam Jockey

I sure hope we don't have another Hypnotized Monkey Paratrooper Scare.

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Bill Higgins-- Retired Beam Jockey

Excited about the Chang'e-6 lunar probe landing in Inner Mongolia in the coming hours? 🔭🧪🛰️ 👇fab paper on what they hope to learn: age of the largest impact crater on the moon, composition of the lunar mantle (does it match Earth?), evidence of volcanic activity....🤓 www.cell.com/the-innovati...

Geological context of Chang’e-6 landing area and implications for sample analysiswww.cell.com The research on the returned samples can provide ground truth for the study of the geological evolution history of the Moon. However, previous missions all collected samples from the nearside of the M...

"Quote skeet with one of your fav films that isn’t a huge hit let’s get to know each other a bit more 👀 📽️"

Quote skeet with one of your fav films that isn’t a huge hit let’s get to know each other a bit more 👀 📽️

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Bill Higgins-- Retired Beam Jockey

Forbidden Planet (1956)

My goodness! FILE 770 reports that Heritage Auctions is peddling a 20-inch-long banner drawn by Frank R Paul--who was Guest of Honor--for the first World Science Fiction Convention in 1939! Bidding has just passed $3000. The B&W drawings reprise elements from past Paul covers.

Pixel Scroll 6/19/24 No Scroll Comes Between Me And My Pixel file770.com/pixel-scroll...

Pixel Scroll 6/19/24 No Scroll Comes Between Me And My Pixelfile770.com (1) RELIC OF FIRST WORLDCON. You have one day left to bid on Frank R. Paul’s artwork for the first Worldcon program book (1939) at Heritage Auctions. It was going for $925 when I looked earlier. Fr…

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Bill Higgins-- Retired Beam Jockey

Today marks the release of my space opera heist novel THE KUIPER BELT JOB audiobook! With the voices of Andrew Kishino, Jaime Lincoln Smith, Christa Lewis, Si Chen, and Sneha Mathan! Buy it here! https://podiumentertainment.com/titles/28122/the-kuiper-belt-job #spaceopera #scifi #heist #audiobook

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Bill Higgins-- Retired Beam Jockey

#STS #HistSTM Job Alert: Curator of the Cultural + Social History of Aviation at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Position includes research + writing, giving academic and public talks, developing exhibits, and overseeing a collection: www.usajobs.gov/job/796109900

Museum Curatorwww.usajobs.gov <p>The Smithsonian Institution is the world’s largest museum, education, and research complex, with 21 museums and the National Zoo. This position is located in National Air and Space Museum (NA...

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Bill Higgins-- Retired Beam Jockey

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Bill Higgins-- Retired Beam Jockey

Ha! That's a PERFECT Shmoo!

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Bill Higgins-- Retired Beam Jockey

Reply to

Talia Lavin

I wish I could read 19 books in quick succession. Unfortunately, I still frequently buy 19 books in quick succession.

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Bill Higgins-- Retired Beam Jockey

This is great phrasing. Trump has always spewed nonsense in no passable sequence but even by those standards Trump 2024 is a tattered exoskeleton shed by Trump 2016.

I wish it was more widely discussed how diminished and confused he is. They’re trying to run a ben garrison cartoon version of him because the actual guy is just a mumbling wreck. The Republican ticket is basically the cry-laughing emoji and then whatever charmless sadist ends up taking the VP spot

At his inauguration in 2017, Donald Trump was the oldest person ever to become President: 70 years, 220 days. He was surpassed in 2021 by Joe Biden, who was 78 years, 61 days old upon becoming President. If, God forbid, Trump were to win the next election, he would be 78 years, 220 days old.

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Bill Higgins-- Retired Beam Jockey

Call for posters! Space Science in Context is back in October, for all things space and society, free & online. The theme is Justice in Action. More info & submit here: spacescienceincontext.com/ssic-2024/ca...

HT Scott Lowther for a remarkable set of films from ~1959, a time of wild ideas. The US Navy used an F4D jet fighter to launch a 5(!)-stage rocket intended to put a tiny payload into orbit: #NOTSNIK. More: satellite-killer derivatives 26:19 a soft-lander experiment 30:05 a nutation damper 37:38

China Lake, Around the World with No Moving Parts, NOTSNIK, CALEB, HiHoe, SIP, SLV . . .youtu.be Pictures of Us - Episode 7

Consider following this guy, or rather, these two alter egos.

The reprobate historian of science, The Renaissance Mathematicus and his alter-ego the HISTSCI_HULK turn 15 today #histsci thonyc.wordpress.com/2024/06/11/xv/