Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Joe Mason

Jerry Shannon @jerry-shannon.bsky.social · 2h

Great to see Margaret Pearce among this year's MacArthur Fellows! www.macfound.org/fellows/clas...

Foregrounding Indigenous understandings of land and place in maps that visualize Native Peoples’ knowledge, history, and stories.

www.macfound.org

1 6 10

Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 2h

So there is no confusion, it is NOT lake water today...

1

Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 3h

Stopped at Memorial Library and remembered that when I first arrived in Madison, bathrooms there and in Memorial Union had signs saying "Lake Water Do Not Drink." And then started imagining some UW administrator calculating how much they'd save by not buying that water from the city.

2 2

Reposted by Joe Mason

paulseesequasis @paulseesequasis.bsky.social · 3h

active in New York’s midcentury art scene and embraced by fellow Abstract Expressionists, yet he’s rarely in canonical histories today.’

‘The Magical City: George Morrison’s New York’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC, until May 31, 2026.

hyperallergic.com/1047487/geor...

George Morrison Painted a Different Picture of Abstract Expressionism

The Ojibwe artist was active in New York's midcentury art scene and embraced by fellow Abstract Expressionists, yet he’s rarely in canonical histories today.

hyperallergic.com

5 14

Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 4h

Don't get me started about Powell!

2

Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 4h

Old-school physiography disguised as cultural regions.

William Hazen @williamhazen.bsky.social · 1d

This is the most accurate depiction of the Midwest to date. Wichita has always felt like the last Midwest city while also being the first plains city.

1 2 9

Reposted by Joe Mason

Bethany Mannon @drbethany.bsky.social · 5h

After ~15 years of teaching my biggest realization has been this: students don’t need the professor to be cool, they need the professor to think THEY are cool

1 3 19

Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 4h

I've never gotten to the point of an actual offer, just insistent inquiries about whether we're interested. In Madison, home buyers often pay above the list price, or did until very recently, anyway, so they probably want to sound us out to see if we're aware of what it could sell for.

1 3

Reposted by Joe Mason

Tim Heidecker @timheidecker.bsky.social · 5h

6 130 750

Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 4h

I also think it's targeted, for example, a lot of long-time home owners in our neighborhood are retired or close to it, and they probably think we'll go for a lower price.

1 2

Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 5h

But projections for how long the aquifer could be used were well over 20 years for most of the irrigated area at that time, and the prospects for crop prices were not that bad either.

1

Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 5h

Okay, but we get those all the time for our house in Madison!

1 2

Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 5h

An underappreciated aspect of this is that farmland that comes with water, like irrigated cropland on the High Plains and increasingly in the Midwest, is a prime location for data centers. Or land on a priductive aquifer, even if not currently irrigated.

2 1 5

Reposted by Joe Mason

"Grave" Robert TOMBshany @robtomshany.bsky.social · 16h

Igor Stravinsky could have heard all the original Beatles albums. And he DID hear Charlie Parker live in a club once; Parker acknowledged his presence by quoting a melody from the Firebird (in some tellings, the Rite of Spring), causing Stravinsky to pound his table in laughter, spilling his drink.

2 10 50

Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 18h

Did he have Debra Winger with him?

1

Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 18h

wisconet.wisc.edu

Wisconet

Wisconet is a statewide network of weather and soil monitoring stations in Wisconsin, delivering high-quality data every 5 minutes to support research, agriculture, and public safety.

wisconet.wisc.edu

2

Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 18h

Now getting fascinated by wind data from Wisconsin Mesonet stations. The Arlington station is in a large low-relief area of cropland north of Madison.

A plot of wind speed, wind gusts, and wind direction at 5 minute intervals over the last six days at the Arlington Experiment Station north of Madison, Wisconsin. A strong diurnal cycle of wind speed is evident, along with two days of strong wind gusts with the passage of a cold front.

2 10

Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 18h

1997-2003

1

Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 18h

Smartphones are so useful. Just now I used mine to take a picture of the stupid switch for the icemaker we don't use, hidden inside the freezer part of our fridge, to make sure it hadn't accidentally gotten bumped to "on".

1 4

Reposted by Joe Mason

Jeff Munroe @jeffmunroe.bsky.social · 20h

Fall #foliage, #Nevada. #landscapephotography #drone #mountains

1 8

Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 19h

I think the last time I was inside there was an event where Governor Ben Nelson issued a proclamation related to geology (can't remember the details) and I went with the chair of the Geosciences department and some other faculty. Ancient times.

1 3

Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 20h

A scene at a supper club in the Wisconsin Holyland

2

Reposted by Joe Mason

Carlos Yu @carloshasanax.bsky.social · 22h

"An inventive thriller about early 1930s authoritarian threats set in the heavily German Midwest."

"the name is Gruetzmacher. Francis Xavier Gruetzmacher. they call me Fritz. it was a cold October day in Whitefish Bay, the wind whipping in from the lake, and still too warm for my winter coat."

1 1 5

Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 21h

Waubesa has always been one of my favorite streets on the east side of Madison. Never lived there but had friends who did. Back when it really was the Kupfer Ironworks and blue collar families lived in these houses and kept the grass mowed short.

Several wood-framed houses along a tree-lined street.

A brick factory building with a sign on one side saying "Theo. Kupfer Ironworks" and on the other side "Goodman Community Center".

3

Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 1d

Looking at the hydrographs on the right side more closely, the spike for both rivers (much larger for the S Loup) is the bomb cyclone rain-snowmelt event of spring, 2019. The largest peak in the N Loup record is May 2010, when extreme rainfall flooded roads and a rail line across the Sandhills.

Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 1d

A tale of two rivers, acting the way you would expect them to, based on their basins.

(not the full basin of each river, used the parts above gages at Taylor and St. Michael which are roughly the same area)

Heading says "Tale of two rivers: North and South Loup Rivers, Nebraska." Maps of the stream network within basins of the North Loup River upstream from Taylor, and the South Loup River upstream from St. Michael. The North Loup, in the Sandhills dune field, has a very sparse drainage network (low drainage density). The South Loup, in thick loess terrain, has a dense drainage network

Plot of daily discharge for the South and North Loup rivers, 1940s to 2024. The South Loup has large spikes of discharge separated by intervals of minimal flow. The North Loup has much steadier flow.

1