Mac McMullan
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macmcmullan.bsky.social
Mac McMullan
@macmcmullan.bsky.social
PhD Student in Dwarf Galaxies at Durham University
Reposted by Mac McMullan
I paid sixty dollars for No Man's Sky nine years ago and they refuse to stop making the video game. I've begged them to go home to their families but they won't stop adding new kinds of weird little guys and like, optimizing the gentle patter of rain on an alien ocean. Please let me pay for a DLC
January 29, 2025 at 4:56 PM
Reposted by Mac McMullan
My current best guess at what the Milky Way looks like, based in large part on Gaia Data.
See @esascience for more details! and @HdAstro for more Milky Way and other visualizations coming soon...
January 15, 2025 at 9:25 AM
The only thing giving me pause about deactivating my Facebook is the idea I would no-longer be able to see my old Supervisor's daily incomprehensible posts about Japanese cafes, weird birds, strange modern political stuff, etc. Andrew Blain move to Bluesky PLEASE
January 11, 2025 at 1:36 AM
Dom: *long-winded, extremely strange question about quantum fuzziness*
Me: Hmm, I don't know
Dom: *points to book* it says here it takes years to learn QM and decades to understand it.
Me: yeah I don't really understand quantum
Dom: *waves me out of the room* what is even the point of you then?
January 3, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Reposted by Mac McMullan
Maybe theyve got one of these for an Oakley-wearing holding-a-fish white guy as well but holy shit is it horrifying to make an AI queer woman of color. "This way we can make a cool black friend who can never make white people uncomfortable by having real beliefs"
Meta is testing, or has started to ship, its AI generated profiles, here on Instagram

www.instagram.com/himamaliv

#SocialWeb
January 3, 2025 at 12:54 PM
Reposted by Mac McMullan
So last night was perfect for a long star trails run, with clear sky for most of the night, so that's what I did. I beat my previous time for this type of shot too - this image represents 12 hours 30 minutes of star trails! 😀 #Astronomy #Astrophotography #SciArt #Space
January 3, 2025 at 12:21 PM
Being a redhead is officially a scam. You spend your childhood getting bullied for it, sticking out like a sore thumb, and everyone tells you "oh just wait until you're an adult, then people will love your hair!" Well guess what, IT TURNS BROWN WITH AGE!!!! I'M A BRUNETTE AT 25!!!
December 25, 2024 at 11:23 PM
Reposted by Mac McMullan
Think twice before gifting someone an M dwarf this holiday season
December 22, 2024 at 4:22 AM
@apontzen.bsky.social this year, my family WILL understand my PhD
December 8, 2024 at 2:15 PM
Reposted by Mac McMullan
For #cosmology fans: The most up-to-date gravitational-wave measurement of the Hubble constant is
🎆 H0 = (70+19−8) km s^−1 Mpc^−1 assuming spins matching the observing population of binary neutron stars
🎆 H0 = (70+13−7) km s^−1 Mpc^−1 with a more agnostic spin prior...
Two new @LIGO–@ego_virgo papers on #GW170817
💫 https://dir.lat/x3teMh is an updated analysis of the source properties (masses, location, tidal deformation)
📏 https://dir.lat/1sllmS looks at measuring the neutron star radius and equation of state
#GravitationalWaves
November 13, 2024 at 7:09 PM
i fucking HATE over-engineered podcast jingles. go back to hell where you belong.
November 30, 2024 at 12:10 AM
the ADS is so great. You're looking for the first paper in a series so you sort by oldest first, and you end up seeing papers like "Are Mules Fertile?" from 1910. Incredible experience.
October 25, 2024 at 11:22 AM
Favourite bits from the AI podcast feature:
- the male voice constantly interrupting
- voice says "my mind is a little fuzzy on the details" and then the same voice proceeds to explain the whole thing in detail
_ "slow down! It's like I'm drinking from a firehose of cosmic knowledge!"
🔭
October 22, 2024 at 7:52 PM
Heya astrosky users, does anyone else have a problem with the NASA/ADS site where it won't finish loading? I've cleared my cookies but it still only works on incognito mode 🔭 :(
September 5, 2024 at 3:21 PM
Reposted by Mac McMullan
Oh no I have started watching this and now I am obsessed. The sound is amazing — hoofsteps and zebras snorting and the sound of jackals lapping up water. Even the (subscriber-only) comment stream is wholesome
someone posted this earlier and it's AMAZING

Live cam of a watering hole at a reserve in Nambia. I've watched zebras, wart hogs, oryx and other critters

It's really active right now

www.youtube.com/live/ydYDqZQ...
Namibia: Live stream in the Namib Desert
YouTube video by NamibiaCam
www.youtube.com
August 18, 2024 at 3:10 PM