WIRetiredGuy

@jsgjames.bsky.social

118

Followers

804

Following

181

Posts

Retired 30-year IT guy (at two large public universities). Living my best life with two cats, family, and friends. Yes, I took these eclipse photos.
#Wisconsin #Astronomy #Cosmology #Hiking #Music #Opera #Cats #LiberalAF #Photography

Posts Replies Media Lists

Reposted by

WIRetiredGuy

Look how fun shutting down fascists is. I want this for us, too

Reposted by

WIRetiredGuy

Reply to

Emissary Of Night | ليلى

Something I noticed a lot during Trump is that the news read like a fantasy novel where Trump was the protagonist and everything that happened mattered only as story beats in his ultimately sympathetic and triumphant character arc.

Reposted by

WIRetiredGuy

Reply to

Emissary Of Night | ليلى

There is no culturally acceptable narrative where the left has a deserved, decisive & expected win So when any of those things happen in the world, the ONLY acceptable narrative is the disappointment of the right, it MUST start and end with that as surely as "once upon a time....happily ever after"

Reposted by

WIRetiredGuy

So for all the narrative about the inevitable slide into anti-immigrant populism, four of Western Europe's five largest countries now have left or center left governments?

Reposted by

WIRetiredGuy

Reply to

Emily Gorcenski

I think we’re on the backside of the fascist wave. I might be wrong, but when Erdoğan is losing and Modi is failing to secure a majority and Poland is booting PiS and the Tories are getting creamed…

Reposted by

WIRetiredGuy

journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/... "Interestingly, several antihistamine drugs, including clemastine, astemizole, azelastine, brompheniramine, and ebastine, which have been approved for treating allergy symptoms without side effects for decades, have been found to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection..."

The histamine receptor H1 acts as an alternative receptor for SARS-CoV-2 | mBiojournals.asm.org In addition to human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) can utilize alternative cofactors to facilitate viral entry. In this study, we discov...

"Based on our studies here and previous reports by others, antihistamine drugs could be utilized both as early prophylactic interventions to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection and as late therapeutic countermeasures to mitigate long-term COVID-19 symptoms."

Reposted by

WIRetiredGuy

University presidencies and governing boards increasingly select for all the worst possible qualities. Good at quashing dissent, securing defense funding, upping sports rankings, enhancing exclusivity, attracting strings-attached dirty-money-laundering donations from alums? You're in!

"In her 4 yrs @ StonyBrook, McInnis’s admin repudiated a professor who had criticized the local police. And she created an expanded safety dept" — an office of "enterprise risk management" — "complete with intelligence capabilities," "sweeping authority" + a Sliwa/Giuliani-backed former-NYPD leader

Yale’s New President Pushed Policing as Head of Stony Brook Universitywww.nytimes.com In her four years at the state university, Maurie McInnis drew criticism from faculty members who said some of her decisions violated academic freedom.

Reposted by

WIRetiredGuy

Stephen Miller now following Trump's lead and saying he has nothing to do with Project 2025. 1. His organization is on the Project 2025 advisory board. 2. He recorded a video as part of Project 2025 training tools 3. You can see Mandate for Leadership, the Project 2025 publication in the background

Reposted by

WIRetiredGuy

Never forget who did this to us. It was corporations and institutions.

Remember when some of y'all got real mad at me for doing some back-of-the-napkin math about how much water "AI" likely uses, in light of the fact that they refuse to release their actual numbers? Anyway.

Reposted by

WIRetiredGuy

I had watched a few recent appointments with amazement and wondered how some people continually fail up. And then I realized that it was the institutions failing down.

Reposted by

WIRetiredGuy

Crows are such amazing ecological generalists. For several years I've watched various birds in the Seattle area that have learned to pluck fish from the water, sometimes swooping and scooping, other times, hovering almost like a tern. Below, some very jerky video (hand-held 800mm lens). 🪶

crow fishingyoutu.be This American crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos) has learned to pluck fish from the water of Seattle's Lake Washington.This is very shaky video, because it's hand-...

Reposted by

WIRetiredGuy

I will bang this drum forever: in THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE FREE: THE GERMANS, 1933-45 Milton Mayer interviewed 10 ordinary Germans after WW2 to learn how fascism took hold. There was never a moment when everyone woke up:

if you’re waiting for everyone around you to wake up, you’ll wait forever. this is how the people grinding our bones to make their bread WANT you to be. paralyzed, alienated & purposeless

Reposted by

WIRetiredGuy

Earlier this year, the ROLSES experiment took a unique radio "selfie" of Earth. It shows all the radio emissions from our planet at once -- including narrow-band, pulsed signals indicating the presence of intelligent life. www.inverse.com/science/firs... 🧪

Reposted by

WIRetiredGuy

Alright, I've had it with the NexDome. I've fought it every day since I bought it and I'm done. I'm just going to build and automate a roll-off. Send me your favorite roll-off observatory designs and extra points if it has automation instructions / options / parts lists. halp #astrophotography

Reposted by

WIRetiredGuy

If you like to learn about the universe in ~5 minute videos, check out my new series!

The first episode of my new video series, Cosmology 101, is out now! This one is about cosmic expansion. Check it out and subscribe to the Perimeter Institute’s YouTube channel to get the whole series! youtu.be/7GC8XOKwRpM?... #Cosmology101

Expansion of the Universe Explained | Cosmology 101 Episode 1youtu.be In this episode of Cosmology 101, we dive into the concept of an expanding universe. From the first moments of the Big Bang, our cosmos has been stretching i...

Reposted by

WIRetiredGuy

Hello social medias... You may not be aware a major Cat 5 hurricane struck an area that normally doesn't get them. The eye passed directly over Carriacou and Petit Martinique. The devastation is tremendous. The need is great. You can help and make a difference: www.gofundme.com/f/the-people...

Help the people of Carriacou and Petite Martinique recover, organized by Marine and Yachting Association of Grenada MAYAGwww.gofundme.com On 1 July, the eye of Hurricane Beryl bore down on two tiny i… Marine and Yachting Association of Grenada MAYAG needs your support for Help the people of Carriacou and Petite Martinique recover

Reposted by

WIRetiredGuy

Fun fact: Back in 2022, the FOMC was widely derided for predicting only a small rise in unemployment with core inflation rapidly falling. Those projections turn out to have been almost exactly right. www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypoli...

Reposted by

WIRetiredGuy

Linda Greenhouse is a national treasure: "The opinion reads as an untamed excursion through Justice Alito’s id, with passages that are close to unhinged." www.nytimes.com/2024/07/03/o...

Opinion | A Dismissed Abortion Case Points to Internal Tensions and Dysfunction at the Supreme Courtwww.nytimes.com The court dismisses an abortion case it now says it should never have accepted, opening a window on internal tensions.

Reposted by

WIRetiredGuy

I like to panic as much as any Democrat, but my general view still holds: SCOTUS gave Dems a tailwind with Dobbs. We haven't even started the wall-to-wall attack ads of Trump bragging about ending Roe v. Wade. When that happens in September and October, there will be a big movement away from Trump.

NEW: Biden has narrowed Trump’s lead in swing states despite a widely panned presidential debate performance, the Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll finds

Biden Narrows Gap With Trump in Swing States Despite Debate Losswww.bloomberg.com The incumbent trails his GOP rival by just 2 points across key states, a Bloomberg News/Morning Consult shows, even as three in 10 Democrats say he should leave the race.

Reposted by

WIRetiredGuy

lol

Reposted by

WIRetiredGuy

Reposted by

WIRetiredGuy

news.cornell.edu/media-relati... I'm looking for one of the 500 New York Times articles that must cover this issue, but can't find any.

Cornell expert says Trump’s frequent phonemic paraphasia ‘are signs of early dementia’ | Cornell Chroniclenews.cornell.edu As the 2024 U.S. presidential campaigns heat up, both camps are watching closely for gaffes from the two presidential frontrunners, in an effort to discredit the other over age and psychological capac...

Reposted by

WIRetiredGuy

Reply to

Matt Novak

Today is July 6. The debate was June 27. What's the shelf life on this theory? I realize Biden, like all of us, gets older each day. Trump gets older and espouses more vile ideas each day. Both are running for the presidency. Both aren't news?

Reposted by

WIRetiredGuy

Trump said “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it.” But Project 2025 is run by Trump's closest aides, raising concerns about cognitive fitness for a candidate who seems unable to recall those around him. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/troubling-...

Troubling Signs of Cognitive Decline as Trump Struggles to Recognize Closest Aidesdonmoynihan.substack.com "I know nothing about Project 2025" statement triggers new concerns about his fitness to serve

Reposted by

WIRetiredGuy

My guess is that Trump knows very little about P25 *and* it will be the blueprint for his administration. He’s famously bored by policy. He’ll appoint these people because they’re loyal. They’ll then go to work on the plan while he grifts, golfs, and gives two-hour speeches at rallies.

Trump: I don't know anything about Project 2025 Here is a list of all the Trump officials who authored the Project 2025 blueprint, Mandate for Leadership. 25 of 36 were part of the Trump administration. project2025istheocracy.substack.com/p/project-20...

Reposted by

WIRetiredGuy

Part of what’s happening with the Biden political media freakout is about power to act. Journalists have felt feeble and useless during the Trump era. They write their usual articles about Trump and it has little effect on his approval. Not so with Biden.

Reposted by

WIRetiredGuy

For NYT/WaPo/NBC political reporters, it appears to them as “wow I wrote this story about Biden, and look at all the attention it’s getting, and the White House is responding!” Which doesn’t happen for Trump stories. Which is another way of saying that it’s about their power to act.

Reposted by

WIRetiredGuy

Reply to

Kevin M. Kruse

Hard to believe that the woman who used to be this sharp and incisive has been reduced to her current state

Reposted by

WIRetiredGuy

Imagine paying someone to write these columns -- like, real money! -- on the assumption that there's an audience out there that not only *wants* to hear these pearls of wisdom but absolutely *needs* to hear them for the good of the nation. It's baffling.

what