Joshua Tan
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joshuatan.bsky.social
Joshua Tan
@joshuatan.bsky.social
230 followers 370 following 160 posts
Astronomer, CUNY, AMNH
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Reposted by Joshua Tan
I always thought Ecuadoran would make more sense than the usual “Ecuadorean”. The country isn’t named “Ecuadorea” after all.
Ecuador suffers a similar fate.
Agreed. In a past dream, I had wanted to follow in the research footsteps of Davis and Lineweaver, but I couldn’t convince any cosmology mentors that this was a worthy direction to pursue. I had to settle for sprinkling references to their work liberally through Wikipedia.
Reposted by Joshua Tan
Someone should probably inform the White House's "AI & Crypto Czar" that no one is forcing AI companies to train their models on Wikipedia
Reposted by Joshua Tan
Suck it, RFK Jr!

I may have had to go to Connecticut, and I may have had to affirm having a condition that puts me at “high risk for severe outcomes from COVID-19 virus” which, if anyone asks, is “being alive”. In spite of the attempts of the antivax establishment to stop me, they could not!
I think that inconsequential debates where the stakes are low are good for science comm. People are often surprised when I say that I will take either side of the “Is Pluto a planet?” debate… but that is mostly because the stakes are so low.
It was Peacocke’s diatribe that convinced me that the expanding space view was misleading in part. David Hogg also once gave a great popular science lecture that explained the expanding universe starting from the Doppler effect, and that went so well that it is the approach I now take in Astro 101.
He may not live long enough to get it.
For sure extravagance is the whole point for Dyson, but it sometimes has knock off effects that I find uncomfortable to the point of being nearly disconfirming. It was not for nothing that Dyson was a climate change denier. I do see these as being related peccadillos.
I suspect he was speaking with hand waving gestures to the concept of “solar system”. Indeed “inner solar system” is the scale Dyson first envisioned in what *I*, for one, consider to be a hellish nightmare concept.
But I think he is, sadly, acting out of the technoutopian hyperbole that did happen envision reprocessing stellar output at a 1 AU bubble.
For sure, the guy is riffing on subjects which he thought about for almost no time, and putting junk in space is likely the goal, but it is a *classic* goal and likely not out of place from Dyson’s imagination, sadly.

Yeah, enveloping a star is a waste and unstable (thus swarms… even more scary).
I blame the Star Trek TNG episode which snatched this obscure also-ran concept and brought it into the mainstream… I kinda wish it would stay in science fiction since, like many of Dyson’s proposals, it sits in my uncanny valley of the imagination to extravagance progression.
I think Altman is referencing Dyson spheres (obscure technosignature fever dreams of Freeman Dyson popularized by a Star Trek episode) which envelope an inner solar system in what I would describe as a pretty hellish fashion. All for “Type II Kardashev” energy extraction. What is misunderstood?
Reposted by Joshua Tan
I NEED to tell you the story of Tae Heung “William” Kim.

He's a graduate student at Texas A&M where he's working on a vaccine for Lyme disease.

He's a *legal permanent resident* of the United States.

And he's been in ICE detention for 12 days & counting, transferred Tuesday to South Texas.
Reposted by Joshua Tan
The EPA has eliminated its research division, which for decades has provided the science behind regulations on clean air, clean water, and toxic chemicals.

The US can afford to monitor, research, and regulate the impacts of industries on human and environmental health. We are just choosing not to.
EPA eliminates research and development office, begins layoffs
The Environmental Protection Agency said Friday it is eliminating its research and development arm and reducing agency staff by thousands of employees.
apnews.com
The reality is that this proposal is meant to help *current renters* who are being priced out. But for some reason, the needs and concerns of those people are irrelevant to the principled market forces and rent-seeking class to which we must pay homage?
"Property owners will not be able to afford having a rent-stabilized portfolio if there is a freeze." But then wouldn't this be true of the unregulated market as well where prices drop due to increased supply? (4/n)
Then they say, "Well, the developers will have no incentive to make more housing if they can't make money because of under-market rates due to the rent control." But when I ask for details for how this disincentive functions considering the current lack of housing... another pivot...
E.g., a lot of them think that what will happen as supply is limited is that people will turn around to sublet their rent-controlled apartments to make money. When I point out that this is against the law, then the goalpost moves... (2/n)