Author | Lightnews

Alec MacKinnon @alecmackinnon.bsky.social · 47m

Ha ha, I actually tried ° etc. but BlueSky doesn't respect those codes and I had to resort to copying and pasting it!

Alec MacKinnon @alecmackinnon.bsky.social · 5h

I was really sorry to see this news. What a great musician, a major factor in so many great records. www.theguardian.com/music/2025/o...

Jack DeJohnette, versatile jazz drummer known for Miles Davis fusion recordings, dies aged 83

Drummer played on Bitches Brew and other landmark recordings, as well as making numerous albums as a bandleader

www.theguardian.com

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Alec MacKinnon @alecmackinnon.bsky.social · 7h

"offensively faint" 😂

The StarXiv ✨ podcast @starxiv.bsky.social · 7h

In Michelle's second paper, she updates us all on the offensively faint Ursa Major III/UNIONS 1 stellar association. Is it a galaxy wtih dark matter or a star cluster? This new paper searches for signs of dark matter and/or binary stars to answer this question! arxiv.org/abs/2510.02431 🔭 ☄️

These two plots show the previous work on measuring the velocity dispersion in Ursa Major III/ UNIONS 1 on the left. Including all stars they measure a clear result that would indicate a dark matter halo (orange Gaussian at 3.7 km/s). But these authors noted if one star (a possible binary) was removed, they can no longer resolve this value (dot-dashed curve), making it consistent with no dark matter. Using follow up data, this paper confirms that star is a binary and revises the velocity dispersion (right panel). Now we see it is entirely consistent with no dark matter (gray vertical band). So, *probably* a star cluster!

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Alec MacKinnon @alecmackinnon.bsky.social · 8h

a beautiful 22° ice crystal halo round the Sun, and indeed the wind turbine, at Whitelee Windfarm this morning #whiteleewindfarm #icecrystalhalo #metorologicaltopics

$hazy sky with murky Sun behind thin cloud just above a wind turbine, with a halo of 22 degree radius around it, as formed by refraction of sunlight in hexagonal ice crystals at stratospheric altitude$

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Alec MacKinnon @alecmackinnon.bsky.social · 20h

Timely

Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 1d

For want o luve we live on hate,
For want o Heven praise the State,
For want o richts we worship rules,
For want o gods the glibbest fules…

—Sydney Goodsir Smith, “Prolegomenon: The Deevil’s Waltz”
#Scots #poem #poetry
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asls.org.uk/publications...

Sydney Goodsir Smith
Prolegomenon
The Deevil’s Waltz

Rin an rout, rin an rout,
Mahoun gars us birl about,
He skirls his pipes, he stamps his heel
The globe’s gane gyte in a haliket reel.

There, the statesman’s silken cheats,
Here, the bairnless mither greits,
There, a tyrant turns the screw,
Here, twa luvers’ broken vows.

Enemies out, enemies in,
Truth a hure wi the pox gane blinn,
Nou luvers’ lips deny luve’s name
An get for breid a chuckie-stane,

We kenna hert, we kenna heid,
The deevil’s thirled baith quick an deid,
Jehovah snores, and Christ himsel
Lowps in the airms o Jezebel.

The sweit that rins frae his thorned brou
Is black as the staunan teats o his cou
In the waltz o tears, an daith, an lies,
Juliet’s fyled wi harlotries.

O luve itsel at Hornie’s lauch
Skeers lik a caunel i the draucht,
The dance is on, the waltz o hell,
The wund frae its fleean skirts is snell.

It whups black storm frae lochan’s calm,
Sets banshees in the house o dwaum,
Gars black bluid spate the hert o me
—An watters guid-sirs’ barley bree!

A few damned feckless fanatics
Wad halt the borneheid dance o Styx,
Their cry o truth the whirlwind reaps,
For pity’s deid, and mercy sleeps.

Orpheus alane dow sauve frae deid
His ravished Bride gin but she’d heed—
Ay, truth an luve like Albyn’s life
Hing wi a threid, kissed be a knife.

Ilk derkenin owre some huddered toun
The pipes an fiddles screich an boom,
The cauldron’s steered by Maestro Nick
Wi a sanct’s shin-bane for parritch-stick.

He lauchs his lauch, the angels greit
Wi joy as they dine on carrion meat;
Ablow, bumbazed, dumfounered cods,
We seek the starns in dubs an bogs.

Oor ingyne’s deaved, oor mous are shut,
Oor saul contract like a runkled nut,
Een cannae see the trees for the wuid
An hert is cauld for want o bluid.

For want o luve we live on hate,
For want o Heven praise the State,
For want o richts we worship rules,
For want o gods the glibbest fules.

Obey, Obey; ye maunna spier!
(Libertie’s disjaskit lear!)
While Cloutie pipes it’s crime tae think,
—It’s taxed e’en higher nor the drink!

O, rin an rout, we birl about,
Tae the rhythm o the Deil’s jack-boot,
Black as auld widdie-fruit, Mahoun
Bestrides a kenless mappamound.

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Alec MacKinnon @alecmackinnon.bsky.social · 1d

Two shady characters #ducks #whitecart #pollokcountrypark #photography

Two ducks, heads raised, beaks extended, on the surface of the White Cart river in the shadow of a tree. Ripples and reflections on the surrounding water

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Reposted by Alec MacKinnon

Alec MacKinnon @alecmackinnon.bsky.social · 2d

big #cabbages

brick wall, lit by low autumn sun, with an autumnal tree above and behind, and tall cabbage plants in front

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Alec MacKinnon @alecmackinnon.bsky.social · 2d

big #cabbages

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Alec MacKinnon @alecmackinnon.bsky.social · 3d

I'm in the house on my own in a funny mood youtu.be/tWemvEmsulw?... #residents #jailhouserock #funnymood

The Residents - Jailhouse Rock (Live 1986)

YouTube video by DolphinPilot

youtu.be

Reposted by Alec MacKinnon

Bylines Network @bylinesnetwork.co.uk · 3d

Dark skies on the rise

Momentum for dark skies friendly communities builds as more residents flick the switch in North Yorkshire

By Louisa Merrick-White

@yorkshirebylines.co.uk

Dark skies on the rise

Momentum for dark skies friendly communities builds as more residents flick the switch in North Yorkshire

yorkshirebylines.co.uk

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Alec MacKinnon @alecmackinnon.bsky.social · 4d

"because you are a snail, you need to gnaw at the rose". Intense. As one would expect

Luke Turner @luketurner.bsky.social · 5d

The day we turned off comments on tQ was a happy day, though it was sad to lose this comment left by Diamanda Galás, which is one of the greatest comments left on any comments section ever.

Reposted by Alec MacKinnon

Maik Meyer ☄️ @comethunter.de · 4d

Jacob Cuno, 1556, on ☄️ C/1556 D1:

"Unfortunately, in these times the brute rudeness is the reason that no one looks into the sky and at the beautiful heavenly bodies. And they wouldn’t notice if the whole sky and its course would change. They just want to keep their lust, money and belongings."

☄️🔭

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Reposted by Alec MacKinnon

NightMar on Hicks Street, Part 4: The Rabbit’s Revenge @histoftech.bsky.social · 4d

This person is one hundred percent correct and it’s scary af. We will never “media literacy” our way out of this as a society. We are about to reap the whirlwind when it comes to misinformation, disinformation, and informational warfare.

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Reposted by Alec MacKinnon

Alec MacKinnon @alecmackinnon.bsky.social · 5d

it's the 318th anniversary of the death of the spendidly named Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell and 1400 other sailors. His four ships were wrecked off the Isles of Scilly when they believed themselves to be near the coast of Brittany. Longitude! www.crayfordhistory.org.uk/projects/sho...

Sir Cloudesley Shovell and the Longitude Act

From cabin boy to Admiral of the Fleet, Sir Cloudesley Shovell rose to high rank in the Royal Navy and ...

www.crayfordhistory.org.uk

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Alec MacKinnon @alecmackinnon.bsky.social · 5d

repost with a photo of yours that would make a good album cover

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Alec MacKinnon @alecmackinnon.bsky.social · 5d

it's the 318th anniversary of the death of the spendidly named Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell and 1400 other sailors. His four ships were wrecked off the Isles of Scilly when they believed themselves to be near the coast of Brittany. Longitude! www.crayfordhistory.org.uk/projects/sho...

Sir Cloudesley Shovell and the Longitude Act

From cabin boy to Admiral of the Fleet, Sir Cloudesley Shovell rose to high rank in the Royal Navy and ...

www.crayfordhistory.org.uk

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Reposted by Alec MacKinnon

Humanists UK @humanists.uk · 6d

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.

The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media — the 30-second sound bite (now down to 10 seconds kind of celebration of ignorance.”

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Alec MacKinnon @alecmackinnon.bsky.social · 5d

Geordies too. Probably everybody north of the mushy pea line. And as for the Irish...

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Alec MacKinnon @alecmackinnon.bsky.social · 6d

Astonishing in so many ways. "...someone well educated, with an extensive vocabulary, and who speaks with Received Pronunciation". Well, there's my chances gone. And indeed those of almost every other Scot

Sonia L @sonial77.bsky.social · 6d

There's a whole other world out there: www.tes.com/jobs/vacancy...

Private Tutor - London, England, Oxfordshire - Tes Jobs

Tutors International, United Kingdom

www.tes.com

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Reposted by Alec MacKinnon

Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans @astroroyalscot.bsky.social · 7d

🔊Announcing a new Physics/Astro PhD scholarship scheme in Edinburgh, for students from a Black heritage, inc mixed Black background. Please help me spread the word. The scholarship covers all tuition fees, living costs & research travel. #blackinSTEM 🔭👩‍🔬⚛️

ℹ️: www.ph.ed.ac.uk/studying/pos...

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Alec MacKinnon @alecmackinnon.bsky.social · 8d

Every time this comes up in my timeline I misread it as "Fortran TV", which would certainly be far too niche to succeed #fortran

Talking Pictures TV @talkingpicturestv.bsky.social · 8d

“Welcome to Fortean TV, a celebration of the miraculous, the mysterious and the downright weird!” FORTEAN TV: THE COMPLETE SERIES. The entire collection uncut in this amazing DVD box set. £80 with free UK P&P! buff.ly/V1GxcOg