Brutkey

Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social
Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

Frost is on everything. Even plastic fenceposts, chicken wire, and toilets-turned-planters look fancy.

A many-layered fence, with frost on wooden fenceposts, plastic fenceposts, and the edges of a metal gate. There's also a layer of hexagonal chicken wire that is beautifully covered with frost. It's hexagons all the way down. An old toilet that has been converted into a planter, completely covered with frost. In the background is a woven-willow fence where every single stick is covered with frost. Another view of the woven-willow fence. It has so much frost on it it almost looks fuzzy. Any branches sticking out a bit are bright white. A closer-up view of the willow fence, showing how completely coated in frost all the sticks are.
Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

It's even colder, foggier, and frostier today. At least it's beautiful! (I keep telling myself over and over)

A bunch of bare, white-trunked trees completely covered with bright white frost on every single branch and twig. The sky above is foggy grey. It looks like a black-and-white photo. A small frozen pond surrounded by completely frosted grass, bare trees completely covered with frost, and a grey foggy sky above. Almost no colour at all in the picture. A close-up of the weird frost bits growing on a horizontal fence railing. The crystals look like tiny spruce trees. In the background is fog and frosted grass and trees. Looking across frosted grass, with tall completely-frosted spruce trees on one side of the photo, and frosted woods with a frosted abandoned building on the other side. The sky above is grey and foggy. The only colour is a little bit of pale yellow paint that hasn't totally peeled off the abandoned building.
Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

Vancouver and Victoria people: I'll be there in January and I might as well give some more lectures than I'm already committed to. Anybody have a library or science centre connection and want me to give a public talk about space debris and satellite pollution?

Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

I've been listening to podcasts with my 9yo and this one was one of the best episodes of anything I've listened to for quite a while! It's scientifically fascinating, it's an emotional rollercoaster (with a happy ending) and it's very silly. Great stuff! https://www.radiolab.org/podcast/terrestrials-hybrid-mule

Mules have 63 chromosomes....whaaaaat.

Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

It's cold, foggy, and there's frost on everything. Gorgeously surreal.

I vote that should be Saskatchewan's new tagline. "Gorgeously surreal" is way better than "land of living skies"

Looking across a yard that is 100% covered with frost. Every branch, twig, and blade of grass. There's a bare rose bush up close that looks like a sea creature, and weird white bare shrubs and trees in the background. The sky is white with fog. Looking across frosty grass with a large spruce tree totally covered in frost. It looks like the fake-frosted Christmas trees you can buy. Close-up of wrought-iron railing, with the corners of the iron all covered with frost. It looks very cool on the pieces that are twisted, as the frost traces out a nice spiral pattern.
Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

RE: https://c18.masto.host/@carrideen/115612306944610233

Hey students, here's a great resource for how to ask for and help your professors/mentors to write good reference letters for you!

Carrie Shanafelt
@carrideen@c18.masto.host

@sundogplanets@mastodon.social I don't know if this is helpful, but I use this with my students to try to get enough information to write a good letter. Feel free to adapt the list as appropriate for your discipline! Writing rec letters is awful, but I find it slightly less so if you're getting good input. https://www.carrieshanafelt.com/asking-for-a-letter-of-recommendation

Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

I hate writing reference letters. They're simultaneously extremely important and incredibly not fun to write.

Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

Oh yeah, if you think the AST SpaceMobile Bluebirds are bad now, wait until you see what they're launching next month: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251121182027/en/AST-SpaceMobile-Announces-BlueBird-6-Launch-Date-the-Largest-Commercial-Communications-Array-Ever-Deployed-in-Low-Earth-Orbit

2,400 square feet! It's going to be brighter than the ISS. Fuck. And they want 60 of them? FUUUUCK.

Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

Just because I had to dig this up for an article, here's a Wayback Machine link to where Starlink said lots of grand things about their commitments to making their satellites dark back in 2020 (no longer on the Starlink website, of course): https://web.archive.org/web/20210304024442/https://www.spacex.com/updates/starlink-update-04-28-2020/index.html

Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

And here are the current measurements of Starlink brightnesses by Mallama and Cole 2025: https://academic.oup.com/mnrasl/article/544/1/L15/8251664?login=false

Everybody is too bright. OneWeb manages to halfway make it below the recommended limit, but everybody else pretty much sucks.

A plot showing orbital altitude vs. apparent magnitude (brightness) for a bunch of different megaconstellations. The AST SpaceMobile Blue Bird satellites are the worst, but Starlink direct-to-cell are nearly as bad due to their large sizes and low altitudes. OneWeb is the only megaconstellation that is halfway below the recommended brightness limit.
Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

Just because I had to dig this up for an article, here's a Wayback Machine link to where Starlink said lots of grand things about their commitments to making their satellites dark back in 2020 (no longer on the Starlink website, of course): https://web.archive.org/web/20210304024442/https://www.spacex.com/updates/starlink-update-04-28-2020/index.html