Zach Simmons
@zjsimmons.bsky.social
Physics, teaching, politics, craft
Pinned
Zach Simmons
@zjsimmons.bsky.social
· Nov 15
About me: I'm a scientist and educator. I'm fascinated by our natural world and interested in how we best serve students in such rapidly evolving times. I'm also interested in crafts like woodworking and homebrew. I follow politics, perhaps too much. I don't post that much.
Reposted by Zach Simmons
Icelandic uses various animal poop in insults. Examples: Sparðatíningur (lamb poop picking) = you’re nitpicking. Kríuskítur (arctic tern poop) = you’re super pale. Tittlingaskítur (small bird poop) = doesn’t matter/small fry. Taðskegglingur (horse poop beard) = you’ve such a bad/nonexistent beard.
The meanings of seven different types of animal poop in English…
7. Apeshit = angry
6. Batshit = unhinged
5. Bullshit = lies (or unfair)
4. Horseshit = bigger lies (or totally unfair)
3. Chickenshit = cowardly
2. Dogshit = inferior quality
1. Catshit = what you do when someone throws a ball at you
7. Apeshit = angry
6. Batshit = unhinged
5. Bullshit = lies (or unfair)
4. Horseshit = bigger lies (or totally unfair)
3. Chickenshit = cowardly
2. Dogshit = inferior quality
1. Catshit = what you do when someone throws a ball at you
February 3, 2026 at 5:53 PM
Icelandic uses various animal poop in insults. Examples: Sparðatíningur (lamb poop picking) = you’re nitpicking. Kríuskítur (arctic tern poop) = you’re super pale. Tittlingaskítur (small bird poop) = doesn’t matter/small fry. Taðskegglingur (horse poop beard) = you’ve such a bad/nonexistent beard.
Reposted by Zach Simmons
we're getting all the downsides of cyberpunk (social alienation, ruthless hyper capitalism, digital mass surveillance state) but none of the promised upsides (cheap street food, cool jackets, super drugs that make you really fast and strong before they kill you)
January 20, 2026 at 9:25 PM
we're getting all the downsides of cyberpunk (social alienation, ruthless hyper capitalism, digital mass surveillance state) but none of the promised upsides (cheap street food, cool jackets, super drugs that make you really fast and strong before they kill you)
Reposted by Zach Simmons
wikipedia turns 25 today! the last unenshittified major website! backbone of online info! triumph of humanity! powered by urge of unpaid randos to correct each other! somehow mostly reliable! "good thing wikipedia works in practice, because it sure doesn't work in theory" - old wiki adage
January 15, 2026 at 1:47 PM
wikipedia turns 25 today! the last unenshittified major website! backbone of online info! triumph of humanity! powered by urge of unpaid randos to correct each other! somehow mostly reliable! "good thing wikipedia works in practice, because it sure doesn't work in theory" - old wiki adage
Reposted by Zach Simmons
It’s increasingly clear that social media is a net social evil which shreds attention spans, and this is why the only appropriate remedy available in this space is spending time observing Morris company wallpaper patterns
December 27, 2025 at 3:53 AM
It’s increasingly clear that social media is a net social evil which shreds attention spans, and this is why the only appropriate remedy available in this space is spending time observing Morris company wallpaper patterns
Reposted by Zach Simmons
it's Christmas Eve but it's also the 16 year anniversary of the time an art historian for the Hungarian National Gallery spotted a long lost painting while watching Stuart Little with his 3-year-old daughter, recognizing it in the movie set
December 24, 2025 at 11:40 AM
it's Christmas Eve but it's also the 16 year anniversary of the time an art historian for the Hungarian National Gallery spotted a long lost painting while watching Stuart Little with his 3-year-old daughter, recognizing it in the movie set
Reposted by Zach Simmons
Merriam-Webster’s human editors have chosen ‘slop’ as the 2025 Word of the Year.
December 15, 2025 at 2:07 PM
Merriam-Webster’s human editors have chosen ‘slop’ as the 2025 Word of the Year.
Reposted by Zach Simmons
This Worm Was Chilling in a Lab for Years. Turns Out It’s a Record-Breaker gizmodo.com/this-worm-wa...
This Worm Was Chilling in a Lab for Years. Turns Out It's a Record-Breaker
His name is B, and he lives in Virginia.
gizmodo.com
December 11, 2025 at 1:54 PM
This Worm Was Chilling in a Lab for Years. Turns Out It’s a Record-Breaker gizmodo.com/this-worm-wa...
Reposted by Zach Simmons
Idk if this is the quintessential Onion headline but I've thought of this at least once a week for almost a decade
December 3, 2025 at 5:14 PM
Idk if this is the quintessential Onion headline but I've thought of this at least once a week for almost a decade
Reposted by Zach Simmons
Another example of what we call "hunter- gatherers" being much more: rather landscape and #biodiversity managers
phys.org/news/2025-11...
phys.org/news/2025-11...
Ancient wolves on remote Baltic Sea island reveal link to prehistoric humans
Scientists have found wolf remains, thousands of years old, on a small, isolated island in the Baltic Sea—a place where the animals could only have been brought by humans.
phys.org
November 24, 2025 at 10:12 PM
Another example of what we call "hunter- gatherers" being much more: rather landscape and #biodiversity managers
phys.org/news/2025-11...
phys.org/news/2025-11...
Reposted by Zach Simmons
It's my favorite day! It's the 38th anniversary of the Max Headroom signal broadcast intrusion!
1st incident lasted 25s during the 9PM news on WGN-TV in Chicago; The 2nd, 2hrs later, lasted ~90s on PBS affiliate WTTW during Dr. Who.
You can watch it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqge...
1st incident lasted 25s during the 9PM news on WGN-TV in Chicago; The 2nd, 2hrs later, lasted ~90s on PBS affiliate WTTW during Dr. Who.
You can watch it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqge...
Max Headroom 1987 Broadcast Signal Intrusion Incident
YouTube video by andrew867
www.youtube.com
November 22, 2025 at 6:37 PM
It's my favorite day! It's the 38th anniversary of the Max Headroom signal broadcast intrusion!
1st incident lasted 25s during the 9PM news on WGN-TV in Chicago; The 2nd, 2hrs later, lasted ~90s on PBS affiliate WTTW during Dr. Who.
You can watch it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqge...
1st incident lasted 25s during the 9PM news on WGN-TV in Chicago; The 2nd, 2hrs later, lasted ~90s on PBS affiliate WTTW during Dr. Who.
You can watch it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqge...
Reposted by Zach Simmons
This is an amazing fact
8675309 is prime, and so is 8675311, so if you ever need a middlin'-large pair of adjacent primes to test your cryptographic suite, all you need is a 1980s earworm and a +2 and you're all set.
Man, everything is so bleak, anyone got a fun fact or little bit of trivia they want to share
November 21, 2025 at 4:50 AM
This is an amazing fact
Reposted by Zach Simmons
Autocorrect has become our worst enema.
November 19, 2025 at 10:04 PM
Autocorrect has become our worst enema.
Reposted by Zach Simmons
I'm so jealous of this writer. A beautiful paragraph here.
Did not expect one of the best paragraphs I’d read about baseball would come from an Irish newspaper
www.irishexaminer.com/sport-column...
www.irishexaminer.com/sport-column...
November 2, 2025 at 5:04 PM
I'm so jealous of this writer. A beautiful paragraph here.
Reposted by Zach Simmons
Six species of North American bats glow under UV light, adding to growing list of fluorescent mammals
www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/art...
www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/art...
Six species of North American bats glow under UV light, adding to growing list of fluorescent mammals
Glowing bats may sound like Halloween decor, but researchers in Georgia have discovered certain species of North American bats that are capable of the unusual trick.
www.ctvnews.ca
October 30, 2025 at 2:22 PM
Six species of North American bats glow under UV light, adding to growing list of fluorescent mammals
www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/art...
www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/art...
School buses would make so much sense for V2G.. hope the technology continues to be developed.
Even without any V2G, seems likely that EV charging, by virtue of being a dispatchable load, is likely to be a net stabilizer of renewable-heavy electricity grids. In practice I imagine EVs will subsidize HVAC and other less shiftable sources of demand
Illinois utility tries using electric school buses for bidirectional charging
School buses are usually parked when the grid is under its biggest strain.
arstechnica.com
October 3, 2025 at 4:17 PM
School buses would make so much sense for V2G.. hope the technology continues to be developed.
Reposted by Zach Simmons
super cool study found human artifacts in Bearded vulture nests, incl. "weaponry like a crossbow bolt and wooden lance, decorated sheep leather, and parts of a slingshot....a shoe made from twigs and grass is ~675-years-old." link to paper: doi.org/10.1002/ecy..... www.popsci.com/environment/... 🧪🌍🦉
Multi-generational vulture nests hold 700 years of human artifacts
Crossbow bolts, sandals, slingshots, and more.
www.popsci.com
October 3, 2025 at 1:06 PM
super cool study found human artifacts in Bearded vulture nests, incl. "weaponry like a crossbow bolt and wooden lance, decorated sheep leather, and parts of a slingshot....a shoe made from twigs and grass is ~675-years-old." link to paper: doi.org/10.1002/ecy..... www.popsci.com/environment/... 🧪🌍🦉
Can confirm.. wonderful thread. We would all benefit from sniffing more trees I think.
Ponderosa pine smells like butterscotch.
Go ahead, sniff one the next time you're in the western US. Some say "vanilla", some say "oh no, my nose is covered in sap."
Let's talk about birds, butterscotch, forest fires, blue wood, & boring beetles.
But mostly this thread is about terpenes.
Go ahead, sniff one the next time you're in the western US. Some say "vanilla", some say "oh no, my nose is covered in sap."
Let's talk about birds, butterscotch, forest fires, blue wood, & boring beetles.
But mostly this thread is about terpenes.
September 24, 2025 at 1:33 AM
Can confirm.. wonderful thread. We would all benefit from sniffing more trees I think.
Are there any outlets that are smart and worth reading on the right? I used to find the perspective of somebody like Noah Rothman worth listening to, but his recent appearance on the Commentary podcast, man just total intellectual bankruptcy.
September 13, 2025 at 5:35 PM
Are there any outlets that are smart and worth reading on the right? I used to find the perspective of somebody like Noah Rothman worth listening to, but his recent appearance on the Commentary podcast, man just total intellectual bankruptcy.
Reposted by Zach Simmons
"i asked grok" "i asked chatgpt" yeah well i asked carl sagan and he said the greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge 🧪
July 18, 2025 at 4:12 AM
"i asked grok" "i asked chatgpt" yeah well i asked carl sagan and he said the greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge 🧪
Reposted by Zach Simmons
I didn't do it, but I wish I had.
July 14, 2025 at 11:51 PM
I didn't do it, but I wish I had.
Reposted by Zach Simmons
If you're looking for a timeline cleanse, you could certainly do worse than the etherial music of the neanderthals!
www.openculture.com/2025/06/hear...
www.openculture.com/2025/06/hear...
Hear the World’s Oldest Instrument, the “Neanderthal Flute,” Dating Back Over 43,000 Years
Several years ago, we brought you a transcription and a couple of audio interpretations of the oldest known song in the world, discovered in the ancient Syrian city of Ugarit and dating back to the 14...
www.openculture.com
June 30, 2025 at 4:22 AM
If you're looking for a timeline cleanse, you could certainly do worse than the etherial music of the neanderthals!
www.openculture.com/2025/06/hear...
www.openculture.com/2025/06/hear...
Reposted by Zach Simmons
I gotta say I find a lot of AI discourse around higher ed very confusing. "if ChatGPT can write your essays is college even worth it?" did people think math teachers were assigning problem sets because *they* couldn't figure out the answers?
June 30, 2025 at 2:15 PM
I gotta say I find a lot of AI discourse around higher ed very confusing. "if ChatGPT can write your essays is college even worth it?" did people think math teachers were assigning problem sets because *they* couldn't figure out the answers?
Nature is amazing
Bogong moths navigate using the stars as they migrate thousands of kilometres. Beautiful article by @petrastock.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Black felt and a fake night sky: how scientists proved bogong moths use the stars to navigate to unknown lands
The ‘remarkable’ Australian insects use celestial cues as well as the Earth’s magnetic field to guide them, researchers say
www.theguardian.com
June 19, 2025 at 2:41 AM
Nature is amazing
Reposted by Zach Simmons
Stanislav Petrov, the man who saved the world, died on this day in 2017. If you don’t know the story, just read this www.theguardian.com/world/2017/s...
Soviet officer who averted cold war nuclear disaster dies aged 77
‘Gut instinct’ told Lt Col Stanislav Petrov that apparent launch of US missiles was actually early warning system malfunction
www.theguardian.com
May 19, 2025 at 12:33 PM
Stanislav Petrov, the man who saved the world, died on this day in 2017. If you don’t know the story, just read this www.theguardian.com/world/2017/s...
Reposted by Zach Simmons
Imagine starting a car that hadn't run in 21 years, that's 15 billion miles away in interstellar space. That's what the NASA team just did with Voyager's thrusters. People are amazing. jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-v...
May 17, 2025 at 12:59 PM
Imagine starting a car that hadn't run in 21 years, that's 15 billion miles away in interstellar space. That's what the NASA team just did with Voyager's thrusters. People are amazing. jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-v...