Stephen Shankland
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stshank.bsky.social
Stephen Shankland
@stshank.bsky.social
1.4K followers 820 following 2K posts
Head of Content at Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a company commercializing fusion energy: clean, safe, affordable, secure. Former science and technology journalist. Bird nerd. Assigned to the Conehead clique as a teenager.
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stshank.bsky.social
Woo hoo! JPEG XL image support is in the new Chrome v145: www.phoronix.com/news/Chrome-...

I had to enable via a flag: chrome://flags/#enable-jxl-image-format

You can test support here: jpegxl.info/resources/jp...

#JPEGXL #web #Chrome #photography
Screenshot of site to test JPEG XL image format support. Image sizes: JXL 359kB, WebP 435kB, JPEG 538kB, PNG 2275kB (though PNG has higher SSIM score; it's lossless)
February 11, 2026 at 4:19 AM
stshank.bsky.social
"Electricity demand growth in advanced economies is accelerating again after 15 years of stagnation... electricity is a major energy input to some of the most dynamic drivers of global economies, such as AI, data centres, and advanced manufacturing." www.iea.org/reports/elec...
Executive summary – Electricity 2026 – Analysis - IEA
Electricity 2026 - Analysis and key findings. A report by the International Energy Agency.
www.iea.org
February 9, 2026 at 11:43 PM
stshank.bsky.social
This jumped out at me, too, during the halftime show. It took me a few seconds to realize why there were linemen working on power poles.
costasamaras.com Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 3d
thank you bad bunny for highlighting the importance of critical power distribution infrastructure bsky.app/profile/cost...
costasamaras.com Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · Feb 25
It’s the weekend everyone, so you know what that means. Time to drink two polar seltzers and do a thread on the power transformer shortage. Without transformers, we don’t get a clean energy transition. And as energysky knows, there’s been a shortage due to covid, supply chain, & labor constraints 🔌🔋
February 9, 2026 at 2:14 PM
stshank.bsky.social
As if on cue just ahead of Superb Owl Sunday, a great horned owl hooted nearby just after sundown at the end of yesterday's hike in Wildcat Canyon Regional Park near Richmond, California. Took me a few minutes to find it in the trees. Quite a specimen! #superbowl #birds 🐦
A great-horned owl with mottled feathers, a black beak, yellow eyes, and prominent "ears" perches on a horizontal oak tree branch with out-of-focus green leaves behind it.
February 8, 2026 at 9:31 PM
stshank.bsky.social
A home battery company I had my eye on back in my journalism days. Lunar Energy raised $233M. www.lunarenergy.com/blog/news/lu...
Lunar Energy raises $232 million to scale home battery deployments and AI-powered VPP software to meet surging demand for affordable electricity
Oversubscribed Series D financing of $102 million led by B Capital and Prelude Ventures follows a previously unannounced $130 million Series C led by...
www.globenewswire.com
February 5, 2026 at 7:39 PM
stshank.bsky.social
Late Friday night / early Saturday morning in Boston, still with a lot of snow on the ground.
#photography #architecture #Boston
The pre-dawn yellow sky reflects on the upper part of a glass skyscraper. A pathway through the snow, lit yellow by streetlights, cuts between rows of snow-topped houses that are still dark before the sun rises. The tops of two skyscrapers at night, one thin and dark and the other broader, brighter, and topped with arched structures.
February 2, 2026 at 1:25 AM
stshank.bsky.social
Annoying when Zoom mobile app goes into safe driving mode while I'm out walking the dog. A lot of work has gone into turning phone/watch accelerometer data into activity tracking. Maybe Zoom can adopt some of that? #UI #algorithms
a screenshot of Zoom's mobile app in safe driving mode, which disables video
January 31, 2026 at 3:33 PM
stshank.bsky.social
I'm not as full of hatred for Liquid Glass as some folks, but I haven't encountered anything about it that fills me with delight, and I don't like this transparent UI one bit. Also, oversaturated MacOS app icons are garishly awful and I don't like faux blurring. Guess it's time to dig into settings.
A screenshot from MacOS shows a somewhat transparent System Settings search box on top of other user interface elements
January 29, 2026 at 11:37 PM
stshank.bsky.social
My late-night flight over the Midwest was particularly vivid — all those city streetlights reflecting off the snow. This is the Toronto area of Canada, with Lake Ontario to the right.
The grid layout of the Toronto area revealed by thousands of streetlights as viewed looking down from a plane, with rural areas and Lake Ontario much darker.
January 29, 2026 at 12:55 PM
stshank.bsky.social
30 hours of US history, highly recommended by a friend of mine for the USA's semiquincentennial. www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...
America at 250: A History - YouTube
This one-time-only course examines U.S. history from 1776 to the present, in advance of the nation's semiquincentennial (or 250th birthday) in 2026. Taught j...
www.youtube.com
January 27, 2026 at 4:20 AM
stshank.bsky.social
Looking forward to my flight on Monday. (Cool data from NOAA/NWS Probabilistic Precipitation Portal: www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/Prob_Precip/)
#Weather
Screenshot of a weather forecast showing 8 or more inches of snow expected across a huge swath of the USA in coming days
January 23, 2026 at 6:30 PM
stshank.bsky.social
TIL I have interior angle bias. Close, but no cigar.
angle.wtf
#geometry
Screenshot of an angle guessing game. The first guess of 60° utterly wrong but later guesses converging on the correct answer of 304°.
January 21, 2026 at 8:55 PM
stshank.bsky.social
A bellowing Bewick's wren near the San Francisco Bay shoreline, Baylands Nature Preserve, Palo Alto, California.
#Birds 🐦 #Singing for #BirdOfTheDay
A gray-brown bird with a white eyestripe perched among tree twigs, looking upward with its beak open as it sings.
January 21, 2026 at 8:16 PM
stshank.bsky.social
OpenAI: "Across all of our Stargate Community plans, we commit to paying our own way on energy, so that our operations don’t increase your electricity prices."
openai.com/index/starga...
#EnergySky #AI
Stargate Community
Stargate Community plans detail a community-first approach to AI infrastructure, using locally tailored plans shaped by community input, energy needs, and workforce priorities.
openai.com
January 21, 2026 at 1:52 PM
stshank.bsky.social
Ball Is Life. Dillon Beach, Marin County, California.
#dog #California
A German shepherd on a sandy beach with small waves, fur wet from playing fetch in the ocean. A German shepherd on a sandy beach shakes water from its fur. Behind, a yellow tennis ball sits, recently dropped on the sand. A German shepherd on a sandy beach with small waves, fur wet from playing fetch in the ocean. A German shepherd trots up a sandy beach carrying a yellow tennis ball across sand left wet by receding waves.
January 20, 2026 at 5:22 PM
stshank.bsky.social
An osprey at Dillon Beach in Marin County, California, today. No dramatic talon-first plunges into the water, but still pretty gnarly.
#birds #birding #NaturePhotography #Marin #California #telephoto
A black and white bird of prey with a yellow eye flying in front of a hazy blue sky.
January 17, 2026 at 11:50 PM
Reposted by Stephen Shankland
techmeme.com
Grid operator PJM plans to require large data centers to either bring their own power generation or curtail electricity use to prevent a large-scale outage (Reuters)

Main Link | Techmeme Permalink
January 17, 2026 at 2:30 AM
stshank.bsky.social
I did wonder where the name Nano Banana came from. blog.google/products-and...
How Nano Banana got its name
We’re peeling back the origin story of Nano Banana, one of Google DeepMind’s most popular models.
blog.google
January 16, 2026 at 2:15 AM
stshank.bsky.social
I'm happy that the Mimestream devs are constantly working on their email software, and I'm happy they offer such detailed notes on each update. Props.
January 15, 2026 at 4:04 PM
stshank.bsky.social
Sharing for the comments. I'd forgotten that XKCD.
drjoehanson.bsky.social Joe Hanson @drjoehanson.bsky.social · 29d
I am calling for a complete and total boycott of the Mercator projection in all news stories about Greenland until every member of the American public has seen this
January 15, 2026 at 4:32 AM
stshank.bsky.social
I am an unabashed minivan fan. Lighter and better handling than SUVs, often with more usable capacity, designed for hauling people instead of looking dominant. Many people squirm: "It'll make me look like a suburban parent!" To which I reply, how do you think your SUV makes you look?
January 14, 2026 at 2:57 PM
stshank.bsky.social
There's losing your remote control between the couch cushions and then there's this. www.thejournal.ie/sean-ocasey-...
The Celtic Tiger bridge that wouldn't open because of a lost remote control
The Sean O’Casey Bridge is operated via remote control – but officials apparently lost the device in an office move. It’s now operational again…
www.thejournal.ie
January 14, 2026 at 2:32 PM
stshank.bsky.social
Las Vegas sidewalks are the same as its casinos: a disorienting maze of escalators and passages that make you walk through lots of opportunities to spend your money. Here's the route I stumbled through while trying to walk north on the strip last night.
#CES2026 #MazeOfTwistyPassages
January 9, 2026 at 6:03 PM
Reposted by Stephen Shankland
zeldman.bsky.social
“If the web is Westeros, social platforms are the Seven Kingdoms, run by mad kings from their Iron Thrones, and the blogosphere is Beyond the Wall.”

cagrimmett.com/2026/01/08/b...
Blogging Beyond the Wall
Social networks are walled gardens. They are closed networks that restrict how users interact, what they see, and how data flows. Outside of the walls is the blogosphere. It is diverse and distribu…
cagrimmett.com
January 8, 2026 at 12:36 PM
stshank.bsky.social
Hey all, just saying you should watch our kickass video about our kickass fusion magnet. 24 tons, 4.3 meters tall, made with 300km of high-temperature superconducting tape, strong enough to lift an aircraft carrier.

youtu.be/4PItOlY6_xE
#CES2016 #FusionEnergy #magnets
Our first completed magnet for SPARC could lift an aircraft carrier
YouTube video by Commonwealth Fusion Systems
youtu.be
January 7, 2026 at 6:03 PM