(2/2) I know that mental health has become main-stream for teens to hear and talk about: in music, in fashion, etc. I have seen this hoodie countless times. I wonder if teens will make it fashionable to wear self-harm bandages to take the stigma off of those who wear them out of necessity.

Follow-up.

(Also, I love the "As predicted", as though it were the scientist equivalent of "as per my previous email".)

"Tides are one of the weirdest and most sci-fi elements of living on earth". A new thought I cannot unthink.

(From @xkcd.com)

"The President’s budget request for NASA in fiscal year 2026 totals $18.8B. This represents a significant shift from the $24.8B enacted in 2025..."

In 2024, NASA got 0.37%.
In 2025, NASA got 0.34%
In 2026, NASA is slated to be further reduced to 0.27%.

www.planetary.org/space-policy...

We don’t *spend* money on space exploration. We invest in it. Funding the nerds is a service that pays dividends-- often in unexpected ways.

The comment in this screenshot couldn’t align more closely with my views re: spending on “useless” experiments and studies. Yes, please! #Penny4NASA @esa.int

I like how each category notes approximately which "geomagnetic latitude" is likely to experience aurora overhead. This is different from "regular" latitude because the earth's rotational axis isn't aligned with the magnetic field's axis. Because magnet fields cause auroras, we use its lats instead!

At this link can be found a description of the categories in the space weather scales. It's the same idea as the category scale we have for hurricanes, or the EF scale for tornadoes, or the magnitude scale for earthquakes. I like the rightmost column the most. (www.spaceweather.gov/noaa-scales-...)

I think this would go over their heads, and not just because it took place on a starship.

But for real: this is a moment in pop culture for adults to connect with teenagers about something cataclysmic happening in that space. Consider starting the year off with a bid for cross-cultural connection?

I love how little chill the wit on the internet has. I may just post this on the bulletin board in the corner of my classroom and see what happens. “Oh students, you know who Taylor Swift is, too?” #YouBelongWithMeme

I counted the leftmost column of five first upwards, then scanned the two downwards. Then the rightside almost looked like one block of 10. I scanned the rightmost column to verify that it had five in it (it felt more like, "I matched it to the length of the five that I had already measured"?)...

"Vibe coding [...] forgets the code even exists. You [vibe code] through English language text, not computer code. Then you just test it by running it to see if it does what you want. Then you iterate again through English discussion words and not code language." There's an XKCD for this. (3/n)

Hey, if you want to show something quirky to your advanced students: you can use _an entire matrix_ as an exponent!

Weird!

Since e^x (and other things like sine, etc) has a pretty power series expansion, and as square matrices can be raised to exponents, then this calculation is permitted! #MTBoS

I've only really had the wherewithal for one social media platform at a time; after all the nonsense on the other platforms, I think its time I try assimilation into Bluesky. I miss #MTBoS and Mathstodon didn't quite scratch the itch. Here's hoping @bsky.app doesn't get capitalism'd into the ground!