Notices by zrb (zrb@astrodon.social)

some dude at JPL noticed in 1964 that, starting in the late 70s, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune would all align in such a way that a space probe, if launched in August 1977 with a specific velocity, would be able to make close gravity assists of all of them in succession

Thirteen years later, #Voyager1 and #Voyager2 launched from Cape Canaveral Florida, loaded with cameras, magnetometers, and plasma detectors. This animation shows the gravity assists that Voyager 2 made between 1977 and 1989, and then its accelerated path outwards up until 2000 where it leaves the frame.

47 years later, Voyager 1 and 2 are still out there, sending faint signals back to Earth (though many of their instruments are now either failing or shut down to conserve power as the plutonium generators run out of heat).

@AnarchoNinaWrites for people who, here and elsewhere in the months leading up to the election, so smugly talked about being "grownups" and "putting on my big boy pants instead of making the choice that makes me feel good", their strategy sure seems like it fucking sucked in every way

and, it turns out, lots of people apparently love to put all the blame on minorities and "radicals" and fantasize about fascists attacking them

#threads is only federating and integrating ActivityPub so it can 1) dominate code contributions and steer the protocol in a corporate-friendly direction, and then 2) eventually discard it in favor of a closed protocol, using some excuse of “increased security” or “innovative new technology”. No more, and no less. Apple and Google did the exact same thing to #XMPP.