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Hugh Pumphrey

@hughpumphrey.bsky.social

2.7K followers 410 following 2.5K posts

Reader in Atmospheric Sci, Sch. of GeoSciences, Uni. of Edinburgh, UK. Works on https://mls.jpl.nasa.gov/ . Walking, singing, Linux, bellringing, astronomy, geology, geophysics and meteorology. Dislikes extreme right or leftwing politics and nationalism.

mls.jpl.nasa.gov

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Hugh Pumphrey @hughpumphrey.bsky.social · 34m

It appears that @weratedogs.com posted it on Facebook but not on @bsky.app :

bsky.app/profile/peac...

Peach @peachresist.bsky.social · 10h

I couldn’t find that post from the We Rate Dogs account on Twitter or Bluesky, but I logged into a Facebook account and used the link from @quietengineer.fyi, and the post is, indeed, there, and was posted today.
www.facebook.com/100064856283...

10/14/25 Post on Facebook from We Rate Dogs:
This is Chop. He was shot and killed by masked assailants in plain clothes who go by ICE. They showed up at his door "looking for migrants after receiving a tip." The son of the family asked if they could wait before entering the home while he put Chop away in the bathroom, as the dog can be aggressive with strangers. According to the family, it is at this point that the son went to his pickup truck to retrieve his ID and a Border Patrol agent entered the home, opened the bathroom door, and shot Chop. None of the agents helped the family, who desperately tried to render aid to Chop, as he bled to death on the kitchen floor. Unsurprisingly, the agent who shot their dog then hid from them and refused to give his name. Even more unsurprising, they did not find any evidence of the migrants they were there to terrorize in the first place.
Do not open your door for these fucking losers. Rest easy Chop @ 14/10
CBP Office of Professional Responsibility:
202-344-1808
Jointintake@cbp.dhs.gov
El Paso Border Patrol Sector:
915-834-8400
fpfelpaso@cbp.dhs.gov
Rep. Veronica Escobar (El Paso):|
915-541-1400
veronica.escobar@mail.house.gov
https://kfoxtv.com/.../el-paso-family-claims-border…

Hugh Pumphrey @hughpumphrey.bsky.social · 2h

You can take the recommended dose indefinitely with no damage. Take more=>liver fucked. Poisoning is nonlinear. Baristas would have to be trained to ask "have you taken anything containing paracetamol in the last 4 hours."

Hugh Pumphrey @hughpumphrey.bsky.social · 2h

Tobacco is also a vegetable. Why not have a cigar or a pack of ciggies with your dinner?

Hugh Pumphrey @hughpumphrey.bsky.social · 3h

I have been a remote member of a satellite instrument team at JPL for decades. I feel the pain, especially as my overlords at the University of #Edinburgh are trying to achieve similar levels of downsizing.

Hugh Pumphrey @hughpumphrey.bsky.social · 16h

SNP and @scottishgreens.org will take your vote as meaning that you are mad for independence, even if you are not. (Disclaimer: I am not pro-independence.)

Hugh Pumphrey @hughpumphrey.bsky.social · 17h

Hwaet the fuck?

Hugh Pumphrey @hughpumphrey.bsky.social · 17h

Maybe the second last, to become the last if I retire ahead of you. (Actually, this semester I do not teach in a room with a chronic overrunner teaching the previous hour. But I know who they are. . . )

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Hugh Pumphrey @hughpumphrey.bsky.social · 18h

Point made in the past by me and others: bsky.app/profile/hugh...

Hugh Pumphrey @hughpumphrey.bsky.social · Jul 26

This. Honestly, what is worse:

(a) @labouruk.bsky.social in a coalition with @libdems.org.uk and/or the Magic Grandparty (brilliant name, BTW)

or

(b) A Farageist government elected on a small percentage of the vote?

It is time that the UK grew up regarding PR and coalitions.

Iain Roberts @slowbikeiain.bsky.social · Jul 26

I don't blame Corbyn for setting up the Magic Grandparty. It's not his job to keep Farage out.

But there's someone who could stop Farage becoming PM with 30% of the vote: Keir Starmer. He could introduce PR to the Commons and end this farce of squeezing multiple parties into a two-party system.

Hugh Pumphrey @hughpumphrey.bsky.social · 18h

The phoneline for getting your winter jabs in Scotland is a case in point. I couldn't use the web site because I had cluelessly missed an appointment and wanted to grovel and rebook ASAP.

(Fortunately the wait was not too long and the lady who answered was very nice about it.)

Hugh Pumphrey @hughpumphrey.bsky.social · 20h

This thread is worth your attention: a little bit of the history of science that I was unaware of.

New-Cleckit Dominie @ncdominie.bsky.social · 21h

An image for #ALD25. This is Evelyn Strutt, Lady Rayleigh (www.npg.org.uk/collections/...).

She's not often numbered among "women in science", but she had a crucial role in the work attributed to her husband, because he didn't know German and she did.

Old photograph showing a woman in late Victorian costume holding a book.

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Hugh Pumphrey @hughpumphrey.bsky.social · 20h

Reminder added to the Door of Discontent that @ucuedinburgh.bsky.social members should get their strike ballots posted.

Door with some handwritten notices including "Plz post your strike ballot before Tues 23 Oct"

Hugh Pumphrey @hughpumphrey.bsky.social · 21h

Uhhhh, wow! I had no idea that those were a thing.

Hugh Pumphrey @hughpumphrey.bsky.social · 1d

Learn me this: how and where did you attach the camera so that it looks back down the road, but then tracks an overtaking vehicle past you? Do you have a tiny person under your saddle manning the camera?

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Hugh Pumphrey @hughpumphrey.bsky.social · 1d

Came here to say that. As @rebelraising.bsky.social implies, @scottishgreens.org are a secessionist party foremost and a green party second.

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Hugh Pumphrey @hughpumphrey.bsky.social · 1d

Correct to credit @carolecadwalla.bsky.social --- maybe also credit @thenerve.news . Tagging @ashcasting.bsky.social
as the contact on @bsky.app for BBC Points of View.

Hugh Pumphrey @hughpumphrey.bsky.social · 1d

Thanks for the link.

Hugh Pumphrey @hughpumphrey.bsky.social · 1d

Yeah, that. I was wondering about France for retirement as I speak tolerable 5-years-of-school French and only "dos cervezas por favor" Spanish. Until Brexit. Fuck you very much, Farage, Johnson and David Davies.

Hugh Pumphrey @hughpumphrey.bsky.social · 1d

Without having a copy to hand, I am fairly sure that the practice of putting an egg in beer (stout in this case) is referred to in Dylan Thomas's "Under Milk Wood".

Hugh Pumphrey @hughpumphrey.bsky.social · 2d

As I am now at the stage of my career best described as "bad tempered old git" I hereby volunteer to be that user.

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Hugh Pumphrey @hughpumphrey.bsky.social · 2d

Agreed, but could we also allow any ASCII character, please? I am not even asking for unicode (except possibly for the £ sign). I am fed up of being told that my response is unacceptable because it contains a comma. (The otherwise solid gov.uk set of web sites are among the worst offenders.)

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Hugh Pumphrey @hughpumphrey.bsky.social · 2d

Definitely worth a read.

THE NERVE @thenerve.news · 2d

‘Are the flags that now bedeck our suburbs and estates patriotic or racist?’

In his second weekly column, Stewart Lee looks at the changing significance of England flags over the years

Stewart Lee: The thugs have taken my flag. So I’ve taken theirs

Hugh Pumphrey @hughpumphrey.bsky.social · 2d

Can't be bothered working round the Times's paywall. But when I moved from England to central Scotland in 1992 it felt more like home than East Anglia did. (I'm from NW England originally.) In the intervening years it has come to feel not like home at all.

Hugh Pumphrey @hughpumphrey.bsky.social · 2d

Now, @vizcomic.bsky.social are on @bsky.app , so we should tag them when mentioning their content.

Hugh Pumphrey @hughpumphrey.bsky.social · 3d

That is the second half of the "pink fir apple" crop dug up. There are about 7kg: not bad for something that is not so much a crop that I nurture, more a persistent perennial weed that I try to corral.

Hugh Pumphrey @hughpumphrey.bsky.social · 3d

Indeed: three easily-detectable ones in a day: bsky.app/profile/hugh...

Hugh Pumphrey @hughpumphrey.bsky.social · 4d

Busy day for earthquakes yesterday according to the gravity meter at Univ of #Edinburgh: two in the Philippines and one in the Drake Passage. The Drake Passage quake was also picked up by the @raspishake.bsky.social . #geophysics #seismology

Gravity meter output for 2025-10-10 and the first part of 2025-10-11. Three earthquakes are visible during 2025-10-10.