I’m hearing Woody Guthrie.

When will I write more? That depends: can you help me grade my students’ reports? End-of-semester grades are due in a week, thanks.
If not, no worries, it can wait. For the 155th day in a row, 3I/ATLAS continues to be a comet and do comety things, and doubt about that continues to be manufactured.

I wrote some articles on Medium, starting with this one, and I expect I’ll write more soon.

medium.com/@steve.desch...

Very sloppy. It was found by VRO but discovered first by ATLAS. Again, 3 billion YEARS older than Earth. Was at 640M miles from Earth last summer when size estimates weren’t yet refined and could have been UP TO 11 km in size. That’s all.

Show me. I don’t see it. But what was shown is inaccurate and appears to be from July.

AI may know a lot but it doesn’t know what it doesn’t know. It lacks humility to say “I don’t know.” Because it reflects the hubris of its makers. All it knows how to do is mansplAIn.

I do not see where that size was reported. I do see this tweet claimed 3I is 3 billion times older than Earth, when it should be 3 billion YEARS older. Why go to random tweets, all the official announcements are clear, it’s a (not huge) comet.

even though NSR has the goals of being “swiftly visible and highly discoverable for all”. Translation: they prioritize getting in the news over checking the work. So, congratulations, Nature Scientific Reports, you’re having the impact you wanted!

I led a Comment pointing out many flaws, including the paper they based their claims on said such comets break up into ~10 fragments, not 1000. So comet isn’t even likely. The paper had received little scrutiny and should have just been retracted. It wasn’t, and our Comment was stalled over a year…

I learned Nature Scientific Reports wasn’t serious when they published Siraj & Loeb (2021), which claimed comets routinely break up into 1000 fragments passing through the Sun’s Roche limit, therefore Chicxulub impactor *had* to be a comet, despite asteroid being likely, required for iridium…

I know a good rag.

5. Droidz in the Hood
4. Boba Fetts and the Furious
3. Leia and Stitch
2. The Girl with the Dragon Tatooine
1. Culled Hand Luke

Bellissimo! Phoenix è troppo sud per vedere l’aurora come questa, ma l’anno scorso abbiamo visto un po’ di rossa!

It’s Always Sunny in Sto’Vo’Kor

Good (Jack) Lord, now it’s in mine.

this is what it sounds like when spuds fry

🫩