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astrodisastro.scicomm.xyz.ap.brid.gy
Francesca Bo.
@astrodisastro.scicomm.xyz.ap.brid.gy
37 followers 2 following 100 posts
Crazy old #physics of the #universe / #astrophysics MSc + #Science #Communication #SciComm diploma. Obsessed by #birds and #blazars. Unemployed with no future […]

🌉 bridged from ⁂ https://scicomm.xyz/@astrodisastro, follow @ap.brid.gy to interact
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Francesca Bo.
safest-integer.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
@hfalcke @ehtelescope On that fateful day in 2019 humanity collectively looked into the Orthanc stone and drew the attention of Sauron's Eye. Things went downhill from there.
December 16, 2025 at 3:57 PM
Reposted by Francesca Bo.
ricci.discuss.systems.ap.brid.gy
Did you know: you can avoid the need for backups by failing to do anything worth saving a copy of

Follow me for more computing lifehacks
December 16, 2025 at 3:49 AM
Reposted by Francesca Bo.
tante.tldr.nettime.org.ap.brid.gy
"Although Ecosia is a not-for-profit, they seem to be re-enacting the for-profit erosion of human knowledge and the active murder of the open web currently being orchestrated by Google and the other tech giants."

(Original title: Ecosia’s “Green AI”: false hope for corrosive tech) […]
Original post on tldr.nettime.org
tldr.nettime.org
December 15, 2025 at 5:02 PM
astrodisastro.scicomm.xyz.ap.brid.gy
iNaturalist published a couple surveys about their social media presence (Google Forms, obviously). I used them to tell them again what I think about the way they handled communication about their genAI demo. (I also forgot to mention their absence from the Fediverse, but the Google grant is a […]
Original post on scicomm.xyz
scicomm.xyz
December 13, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Reposted by Francesca Bo.
sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
I'll end with the last paragraph of the paper:

"In addition to the dangerously high collision risks calculated here, we are already experiencing disruption of astronomy, pollution in the upper atmosphere from increasingly frequent satellite ablation, and increased ground casualty risks. By […]
Original post on mastodon.social
mastodon.social
December 11, 2025 at 2:42 PM
astrodisastro.scicomm.xyz.ap.brid.gy
E anche stavolta, le mie foto preferite vincono la prossima volta... ma ce l'ha fatta il mio video preferito😎

And once again, my favorite photos will win next time... but my favorite video made it! 😎

#comedywildlife2025 #comedywildlifephoto #wildlife #animals #photography #fotografia #natura […]
Original post on scicomm.xyz
scicomm.xyz
December 10, 2025 at 9:12 AM
astrodisastro.scicomm.xyz.ap.brid.gy
#tramonto #sunset #veneto
Tramonto su un paesaggio di campagna in pianura. In primo piano in controluce si vedono tre grandi alberi senza foglie. Sunset on a flat countryside landscape. Three large, leafless trees can be seen in the foreground.
December 9, 2025 at 4:09 PM
Reposted by Francesca Bo.
mastodon.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Elon Musk and X are once again proving why institutions should never rely on corporate-owned, centrally-controlled social media platforms to reach their people.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0589g0dqq7o
December 9, 2025 at 10:57 AM
astrodisastro.scicomm.xyz.ap.brid.gy
Mai guardato le finali nazionali, ma credo che a febbraio darò un'occhiata a Benidorm, se lo trasmettono online, a costo di farmi sanguinare le orecchie 🙌🇪🇸 E in quella settimana di metà maggio si va a letto presto 😌
#eurovision #israele #palestina #spagna #paesibassi #irlanda #slovenia #EBU […]
Original post on scicomm.xyz
scicomm.xyz
December 5, 2025 at 12:03 PM
astrodisastro.scicomm.xyz.ap.brid.gy
The iNaturalist webinar allows questions, just saying

#inaturalist #genai
December 3, 2025 at 5:24 PM
astrodisastro.scicomm.xyz.ap.brid.gy
I signed up for the webinar about Google generative AI on iNaturalist just to write a ton of rhetorical questions in the form, but there was room for only two, of course (two questions, not two tons...).
Fellow disappointed iNatters, please sign up for the webinar (even if you can't make it […]
Original post on scicomm.xyz
scicomm.xyz
December 3, 2025 at 4:26 PM
Reposted by Francesca Bo.
tomgauld.bsky.social
#Rewilding One of the cartoons in my new book 'Physics for Cats'. Available now in good bookshops an online nowwww.tomgauld.com/comic-books-v2
A deep dark forest. A scientist leads a guest through the trees, saying: "The rewilding project has exceeded all of our expectations! Keep your eyes open for the species that have come back: Red deer, wild boar, Pine marten. Or perhaps even our proudest return: The great old one Yog-drath'll, eternal unsleeping evil of the primordial forest." (all these creatures are hidden in the image)
November 28, 2025 at 2:37 PM
Reposted by Francesca Bo.
tomgauld.bsky.social
My cartoon for this week's @newscientist.com
Panel 1. Scientist making a presentation to the board: "We have developed an exciting new technology that will allow the company to make a much better product at no extra cost!" Panel 2. Board member 1: "Could we use this tech to make our current product more cheaply?" Scientist: "In principle, yes.... And pass the savings on to consumers?" Board member 2: "Haha. No." Panel 3. Board member 2: "How about we make a worse product, with a higher profit margin and just use the tech to make it seem exciting and new?" Scientist: "Um..." Panel 4. Board members: "I'll take that as a yes!" "High five!!" Scientist: "Sob!"
November 26, 2025 at 1:01 PM
Reposted by Francesca Bo.
sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
And here are the current measurements of Starlink brightnesses by Mallama and Cole 2025: https://academic.oup.com/mnrasl/article/544/1/L15/8251664?login=false

Everybody is too bright. OneWeb manages to halfway make it below the recommended limit, but everybody else pretty much sucks.
A plot showing orbital altitude vs. apparent magnitude (brightness) for a bunch of different megaconstellations. The AST SpaceMobile Blue Bird satellites are the worst, but Starlink direct-to-cell are nearly as bad due to their large sizes and low altitudes. OneWeb is the only megaconstellation that is halfway below the recommended brightness limit.
November 25, 2025 at 6:11 PM
astrodisastro.scicomm.xyz.ap.brid.gy
Perks of having your bedroom window facing West

#sunset #tramonto
Very red and orange sunset behind some houses
November 22, 2025 at 5:35 PM
Reposted by Francesca Bo.
ajsteinmetz.com
I love #Quasars! This is 3C 273, brightest in the sky, by #HST #Hubble, 2.5 billion light-years away. The bottom blocks out the supermassive #BlackHole showing more detail. The "L" is a jet, possibly from a disrupted dwarf galaxy. #Science #Astronomy #Space.

See: esahubble.org/images/opo24...
A Hubble Space Telescope image of the core of quasar 3C 273. A coronagraph on Hubble blocks out the glare coming from the supermassive black hole at the heart of the quasar. This allows astronomers to see unprecedented details near the black hole such as weird filaments, lobes, and a mysterious L-shaped structure, probably caused by small galaxies being devoured by the black hole. Located 2.5 billion light-years away, 3C 273 is the first quasar (quasi-stellar object) ever discovered, in 1963. NASA, ESA, Bin Ren (Université Côte d’Azur/CNRS) John Bahcall (IAS)
November 21, 2025 at 11:24 PM
astrodisastro.scicomm.xyz.ap.brid.gy
First day attending the Shaw-IAU Workshop (remote) and it was hit by the Cloudflare down while I was having lunch...

#shawiau25 #cloudflare #cloudflaredown #IAU #astronomy #education #scicomm
November 18, 2025 at 1:18 PM
astrodisastro.scicomm.xyz.ap.brid.gy
#pignoleria Visti stamattina in un negozio di una famosa catena di carabattole danese. "Peluche pinguino con cucciolo". Saranno fratelli, uno molto grosso e uno molto piccolo, giusto?

#pedantryalert Saw them this morning at a store of a famous Danish knick-knack […]

[Original post on scicomm.xyz]
Peluche di pulcino di pinguino imperatore (ma col becco giallo) che abbraccia un pulcino più piccolo, come se fossero genitore e piccolo (ma entrambi hanno l'aspetto di pulcini) Plushie of an Emperor penguin chick (but with a yellow bill) hugging a smaller penguin chick, as if they were parent and baby (but they both look like chicks)
November 17, 2025 at 3:49 PM
Reposted by Francesca Bo.
echo-pbreyer.digitalcourage.social.ap.brid.gy
🇪🇺✅ SUCCESS: We've prevented mandatory #chatcontrol through the back door!🎉 A big win & THANKS to everyone! 🙏

But ⚠️: Anonymity-breaking age checks & "voluntary" mass scanning are still planned. The fight continues next year!

https://chatcontrol.eu
The image shows a short excerpt of text from the latest Council draft regulation on "Chat Control". The text reads: "(17a) Nothing in this Regulation should be understood as imposing any detection obligations on providers."
November 15, 2025 at 8:12 AM
astrodisastro.scicomm.xyz.ap.brid.gy
Ho appena inviato la mail consigliata da @chatcontrol (https://fightchatcontrol.eu/) contro il voto previsto per oggi in sede europea, che introdurrebbe il Chat Control con dei mezzucci nonostante il blocco del mese scorso. L'ho inviata usando un servizio di alias, per coerenza con la causa […]
Original post on scicomm.xyz
scicomm.xyz
November 12, 2025 at 9:32 AM
astrodisastro.scicomm.xyz.ap.brid.gy
#silentsunday #sunset #sky
Cloudless sky just after sunset, showing a perfect color gradient from red to blue. At the bottom of the photo, the profile of a line of houses and a tree in the center, almost dark against the sky.
November 9, 2025 at 4:32 PM
Reposted by Francesca Bo.
sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
The astrophotographer I worked with earlier this month, Jeanine Holowatiuk https://www.instagram.com/jeanine.holowatuik/ https://northernescapephotography.com/about/ sent me some horrifying (Halloween-levels of scary) time lapse movies she took of Comet Lemmon.

Why horrifying? Starlink.
October 31, 2025 at 6:56 PM
astrodisastro.scicomm.xyz.ap.brid.gy
I just tried to download the Observation and ObsIdentify apps as an alternative to iNaturalist after the latter team's decision to go on with their affair with Google generative AI. [Due to personal circumstances, I did not get the latest updates in the forum debate, so please correct me if […]
Original post on scicomm.xyz
scicomm.xyz
October 28, 2025 at 11:03 AM
astrodisastro.scicomm.xyz.ap.brid.gy
I finally saw the Comet C/2025 A6 Lemmon!!! And discovered that my old Lumix TZ57 (which I miserably broke) shot better evening/night sky photos that my current TZ82D... I hope I will get something decent from what I took tonight once I learn how to process RAW files.

#comet #lemmon […]
Original post on scicomm.xyz
scicomm.xyz
October 24, 2025 at 7:18 PM
Reposted by Francesca Bo.
gedankenstuecke.scholar.social.ap.brid.gy
I've expanded a bit on my reflections about #inaturalist's push for using LLMs to regurgitate user-generated insights - and why replacing human peer-to-peer learning is likely harmful to people's motivations.

Read it here: https://tzovar.as/motivations/

#citizenscience
Being Social: Motivations in Citizen Science
tl;dr: People’s motivations to engage with online citizen science are complex and change over time Apparently, last week iNaturalist released a blog post, demoing their mock-up of how they envision using LLMs to process user-contributed wildlife observation data. Back in June, when they (or rather their funder Google) announced this...
tzovar.as
October 20, 2025 at 6:14 PM