Derek Fox

@partialobserver.bsky.social

6411 Followers 8067 Following

Penn State Astronomer (he/him), personal account. “We went and made everything a computer without ever bothering to fix computers.”

Report excerpt / numerical summary, categorizing incidents by type of misuse: Suspected misuse • Journalist - 175 • Close Range - 148 • Head Shot - 97 • Direct Fire - 32 • Indoor Space - 13 • Minor - 12 • Driver of conveyance - 11 • No Egress - 10 • Pregnant/elderly - 8 • Groin Shot - 7 • Improvised Use - 5 • Shots w/o Aiming - 3 • Disability - 3 • Healthcare Worker - 2 • Legal Observer - 2
Short “News in Brief” item, published in the Times of London: “A longboat full of Vikings, promoting the new British Museum exhibition, was seen sailing past the Palace of Westminster yesterday (see page 16). Famously uncivilised, destructive and rapacious, with an almost insatiable appetite for rough sex and heavy drinking, the MPs nonetheless looked up for a bit to admire the vessel.”
“Family Guy” terrorist color check meme, showing a uniformed officer holding up a “shades of skin tone” color card in front of the Peter Griffin character, with the lighter shades labeled “Charismatic” and the darker shades labeled “Not Charismatic”
Four-panel “Galaxy Brain” meme where each level is more brilliant than the last. First panel (ordinary brain): JCPOA was bad because it gave Iran money for suspending its nuclear program Second panel (glowing brain): JCPOA was bad because it didn't give Iran enough money Third panel (glowing brain with rays shooting out): JCPOA was bad because it didn't give Iran enough money along with control of the Strait of Hormuz Fourth panel (galaxy brain that has achieved nirvana): JCPOA was bad because it didn't allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons
“Two buttons” meme showing a cartoon superhero sweating bullets over having to decide which of two buttons to press. In this case, the button on the left is labeled “Treat employees humanely, make lots of money” and the button on the right is labeled “Fire ingrates!”
Garth Marenghi's Darkplace meme / screen capture where the satirical author (Merenghi) yells at the interviewer, “I know writers who use subtext and they’re all cowards!”
Regina George (Rachel McAdams) from “Mean Girls” (2004) telling her friend Gretchen Wieners (off camera) to “Stop trying to make nuclear happen. It’s never going to happen.”
Original Dec 29, 2020 tweet from @metalgearobama: Reading Mein Kampf and shaking my head the whole time so the people on the bus know I disagree with it
Text excerpt from the Palantir manifesto: 8. Public servants need not be our priests. Any business that compensated its employees in the way that the federal government compensates public servants would struggle to survive. 9. We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. The eradication of any space for forgiveness—a jettisoning of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions of the human psyche-may leave us with a cast of characters at the helm we will grow to regret. 10. The psychologization of modern politics is leading us astray. Those who look to the political arena to nourish…
Clip from article: … contractors and marketing companies that now specialize in developing and dispatching A.I. avatars in bulk for increasingly low prices. The emergence of the A.I.-generated political avatars, researchers said, suggests a sweeping effort to hook conservative voters, a demographic primed by the president and his circle to accept memes, influencers, deepfakes and other digitally packaged messaging. Neither The Times nor the researchers it consulted found any similar left-leaning networks. “People gearing up for the midterms should expect that they might see some of this content on their accounts, that it might be crafted to be particularly engaging or exciting to them,” said Kaylyn Jackson Schiff, a co-director of GRAIL.
Text excerpt from the Financial Times story: Even the way people on Wall Street talk and interact is changing. Bankers and financiers say Trump’s victory has emboldened those who chafed at “woke doctrine” and felt they had to self-censor or change their language to avoid offending younger colleagues, women, minorities or disabled people. “I feel liberated,” said a top banker. “We can say ‘retard’ and ‘pussy’ without the fear of getting cancelled . . . it’s a new dawn.”
"New Yorker" cartoon by Tom Toro, showing a stockbroker in tattered business suit sitting at a campfire with three children, and saying, "Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we got to say the R-, F-, and C- words." (the last bit is an edit, and in red. the original text is "...we created a lot of value for shareholders.")
Screencap of a "interesting story" tab from Firefox that shows a group of young women hanging out around a kitchen table with pizza and paper plates. The woman in front is wearing a pink blouse and carrying an open 2-liter bottle of Coca Cola Classic. All the women have pseudo-perm 1980s hair. The story headline is "Rare Photos Show What Party Life Really Looked Like in the 1980s", and the story category is "Rare Historical Photos".
Plot of cumulative industrial carbon dioxide emissions from 1900 to 2024 from Our World in Data. Cumulative emissions have been growing rapidly since 1980 and show minimal signs of slowing down to date.
“Trade Offer” meme showing slick NPC trader within an offer wherein I receive: “Free salvage” and you receive: “Decrepit oil tanker”
Cover of the Devo debut album “Freedom of Choice” (1980), with the band members lined up side by side in silver jackets over black T-shirts, hands flat on their thighs, plastic red cone-shaped hats on their heads. The letters “D E V O” in white circles above their heads, with a blue background behind.
Post from /u/ChrisCanalesEPTX : Update thread on FAA closure of El Paso airspace There are multiple posts about this issue that are getting difficult to track, so l'm going to try to consolidate my updates here in one place. I've been up all night trying to get information to share with the public, but we're just not getting much from the federal government at the moment. We have no reason to believe that there is any kind of imminent safety threat to El Paso, but we still have no reason provided by the FAA or any federal authority, and that lack of explanation is obviously fueling fear and speculation in our community. FAA contacts, including those at the phone number listed in the notice, have said they also don't know the reason. What's especially troubling is that there appears to have been no advance notice to local government, airport leadership, or even local Air Traffic Control or local military leadership. If El Paso International Airport has to close for 10 days, the economic hit to El Paso could be $40-50 million or more. I will continue pushing for answers and will share updates in the comments on this post as soon as I am able. Follow @flyelp on instagram for official updates directly from the El Paso International Airport.
A weather forecast app image showing snowfall over a winter landscape, with cartoon versions of bare trees, evergreens, and a wind turbine, with a forecast: “Monday, Jan 26 / Isolated snow showers / 12 °F” and commentary: “On a positive note; I haven't seen any fucking mosquitos for weeks.”
Poster (Japanese version) for the 1980 movie “Altered States” starring William Hurt. It shows a man in a swimsuit suspended in the center of a transparent prism, a sensory deprivation chamber which initiates the main action of the story.
Excerpt from the piece: The common understanding at the time was that all of that was political theater, or rhetorical excesses-that Trump had no real convictions. But Cassandras didn't see it like that. "I kinda think people have it reversed," Joe, a white 30-year-old from upstate New York, who noy teaches at a university in the U.K., said, (this part highlighted:) "Lots of people don't detect that he's lying about what has transpired, but they think he's full of hot air about what he wants. But in reality, he's a total liar about what has happened, and he's deadly sincere about what it is he wants."
Screenshot of skeet + reply skeet. Original skeet by @josh.uno says “mine went on a tangent” with attached screenshot of ChatGPT interaction: User says “What is a four letter word that, when you reverse its letters, it becomes a plant?” and ChatGPT replies: “The four-letter word you're looking for is "Star." When reversed, it becomes "Rats," which is not a plant. However, if we slightly adjust the criteria, "Herb" becomes "Breh" when reversed, though "Breh" isn't a recognized word. It seems the exact criteria you've set might not have a direct answer. If there's a specific word puzzle or context you're referring to, could you provide more details?” Reply skeet by @pbump.com (Philip Bump) says “breh”
Pope Leo XIV, dressed in his white papal garb, cradling a microphone in front of a group of businesspeople and cardinals, clearly spitting rhymes
(Image of email from Larry Summers to Jeffrey Epstein:) From: Larry Summers Sent: 10/27/2017 3:10:13 PM To: jeffrey E. [jeevacation@gmail.com] Subject: Re: Trending Now: Friends for three decades, Trump whisperer says he is 'stunned' by president's rhetoric Importance: High Softbank deputy guy i liked and seemed aware and honest re Son. Lots of slathering to saudis. I yipped about inclusion. I observed that half the IQ In world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population... Mnuchin plumbs new depths. War seems more likely than I used to think DjT is world s luckiest guy in terms of opposition, economy etc. still think his world will collapse. I'm trying to figure why American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard, but hit on a few women 10 years ago and can't work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT Sent from my iPad Please direct all scheduling inquiries to my office at: Follow me on twitter @lhsummers www.larrysummers.com
Financial Times article excerpt: Trump administration officials warned of additional trade tariffs and made personal threats against negotiators from other countries to block a historic climate deal for shipping, said people present at the talks. More than 10 diplomats, officials from other governments and industry observers told the Financial Times that the US ripped up normal global diplomacy rules and used "bully-boy tactics" to derail the UN-backed Net Zero Framework for global shipping at meetings in London last month. A phalanx of US officials intimidated African and small Pacific and Caribbean island countries into dropping support for the framework, which would have imposed a carbon emissions levy on shipping, according to people present at the talks at the headquarters of the UN's International Maritime Organization in London. The US group included eight people, according to one person present. The intimidation included approaching country officials during coffee breaks to warn them they might not be able to transit via the US, or that they and their families could face restrictions on entering the country if they acted against American interests, according to five people at the talks, including two from countries that were directly threatened. US President Donald Trump has branded the framework a "global green new scam tax on shipping", and in a social media post last month called for it to be blocked. The framework had been provisionally agreed by a majority of countries in April and was expected to be made legally binding last month, but further discussions on its adoption have now been delayed for a year. While the Trump administration has made no secret of its disdain for the UN and multilateral organisations, diplomats and experts warned that the behaviour at the IMO crossed a line, with potential long-term consequences for global governance. 1/2
A small white cockapoo sits on a wood floor, looking at the camera with a calm expression. He has a large red “ty” heart attached to his harness, like the tag on a Beanie Boo stuffed animal but much larger.
Post from Zhang DaShuai @zhao_dashuai at X.com: “From a reliable source, on why Scott Bessent has a grudge against Li Chenggang: 1. During the negotiation in Spain, the US delegation threatened more semiconductor control measures against China. Li Chenggang then picked up the phone and ordered the anti-monopoly investigation against Nvidia during the meeting, right in front of Scott Bessent's face.”
The Helios Corp. interplanetary spacecraft “Phoenix” in orbit over Mars, from the Apple TV series “For All Mankind” (Season 3)
Famous Dean Browning (white Republican politician) sock puppet tweet from his main rather than his alt: “ I'm a black gay guy and I can personally say that Obama did nothing for me, my life only changed a little bit and it was for the worse. Everything is so much better under Trump though. I feel respected - which I never do when democrats are involved.”
Promotional poster for sci-fi horror film “Alien” (1979), showing a cracked egg with green glowing gas leaking out, against a black background
“A second plane has hit the WTC” meme showing Andrew Card whispering into George W. Bush’s ear during his 9/11/01 Kindergarten visit, captioned with: “A second Nazi porn scandal has hit a Republican Lt Governor”
Why Underachievers Dominate Secret Police Organizations: Evidence from Autocratic Argentina Adam Scharpf, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies Christian Glaßel, University of Mannheim Abstract: Autocrats depend on a capable secret police. Anecdotal evidence, however, often characterizes agents as surprisingly mediocre in skill and intellect. To explain this puzzle, this article focuses on the career incentives underachieving individuals face in the regular security apparatus. Low-performing officials in hierarchical organizations have little chance of being promoted or filling lucrative positions. To salvage their careers, these officials are willing to undertake burdensome secret police work. Using data on all 4,287 officers who served in autocratic Argentina (1975-83), we study biographic differences between secret police agents and the entire recruitment pool. We find that low-achieving officers were stuck within the regime hierarchy, threatened with discharge, and thus more likely to join the secret police for future benefits. The study demonstrates how state bureaucracies breed mundane career concerns that produce willing enforcers and cement violent regimes. This has implications for the understanding of autocratic consolidation and democratic breakdown.
Image of NYT headline from 1924: HITLER TAMED BY PRISON. Released on Parole, He Is Expected to Return to Austria. Copyright, 1924, by The New Tork Times Company. By Wireloss to The New York Times.
“Trade Offer” meme, a slick man in a business suit with steepled fingers and text superposed. Left column: “I receive: Universal healthcare / Universal preschool / Free public universities / High-speed rail / Clean energy / Universal basic income”. Right column: “You receive: Military spending equal to the rest of the world, summed / Per capita police spending of G7”
Screenshot of my notifications, showing the new official Franklin Institute BlueSky account “liking” my two skeets about Jack Kruk’s extended mediation on their BODY WORLDS: VITAL exhibit during last nights Phillies game.
Image of Trump, alone on the roof of the White House briefing room, in the style of a movie poster for the movie “Falling Down” (1993). Tagline: “The adventure of / a demented President / at war with everyone”
“Beholding the Big Bang” by Arthur Ganson, a motorized sculpture consisting of an electric motor spinning a gear at 120 RPM, followed by a succession of 23 step-down gears spinning at progressively slower and slower rates, with the shaft of the 24th gear fixed in a concrete block. The 24th gear is driven at a rate that should lead it to complete one revolution in 13.7 billion years, the present age of the universe.
Cactus branch + flowers from the Glass Flowers exhibit - manifold tiny spikes, yellow translucent petals, green stalks and all
TruthSocial post by Donald J. Trump, dated 7/31/25 and stating, “Wow! Canada has just announced that it is backing statehood for Palestine. That will make it very hard for us to make a Trade Deal with them. Oh' Canada!!!”
“Who Killed Hannibal” meme, where in the upper frame we see the man labeled “Trump” shooting the person labeled “Epstein Client List” with a gun labeled “Pam Bondi (is gun)”, and in the lower frame the killer (Trump) faces the camera and says, “Why would Pam Bondi do this?”
Skeet / pull-quote from Asawin Suebsaeng story in Rolling Stone on the Epstein files, saying: “One Trump administration official tells Rolling Stone on Saturday evening: ‘He is making it very hard for some of his biggest supporters to not think that maybe he really is in the Epstein files.' // Another longtime Trump associate simply says: ‘awful damage control instincts.’ “
Still frame from “Nanook of the North” (1922) showing Nanook, a male Inuit, poised to throw a spear at an animal (seal or whale) off-screen.
View out the living room window of the fjord-front home of Norwegian Johan Helberg. There is a giant ship with a red and green (above the waterline) hull that has run aground in his front yard, narrowly missing the house, coming ashore to the right and smashing his garden.
Several loaves of German “stöllen” bread with dried fruit, baked and laid out, with powdered sugar sprinkled on top. There is a text label “Stöllen” in blue on the upper left.
Short clip from “The Fall Guy” (2024) with stunt man Colt Sievers (Ryan Gosling), who is being tortured, telling villain/actor Tom Ryder, “YOU NEED CARBS!”
And this is the real thing I'm getting at here and it's one that I believe ties into just about everything I've been writing about in the tech/internet culture space for the last few years, the internet is social media at this point and social media exists to sell products, farm data, and upset you. Years ago, we hoped that it was some sort of astral plane where you could gather up a group of likeminded individuals to storm the virtual bastille, but now it's four websites owned by three billionaires. It's a branded experience designed to get you to buy things or maybe k### yourself if they accidentally tweak your algorithm the wrong way. It's not our internet anymore. It hasn't been for a long time. The right recognized that an internet where facts were readily available and people could easily confer with each other didn't bode well for their ideas, so they spent the following decade doing all they could to dismantle it. In that time, we've seen the end of Net Neutrality, the disastrous pivot to video, the purchasing of Twitter by Elon Musk, and the rise of Al platforms that openly confess to the largest single theft of copyrighted work in human history. We've watched the richest man in the world buy one of the biggest social platforms, use it to browbeat his way into the Trump administration, and then gut the agency responsible for keeping our food and water safe. At what point do we stop saying "damn that's crazy" and start seeing this as a systematic plan to walk back the freedom the internet once provided and transform it into a tool that is only good for rampant consumption or a more efficient subjugation of the working class and poor?
Comedian George Carlin in a studio portrait, looking quizzically at you, with a famous quote of his written meme-like across the image: “Think about how stupid the average person is, and then realize that half of them are stupider than that.”
Jim Jones, sitting on a white wooden chair in a rust-red polo and dark glasses, speaking to his congregation via a wired microphone under a wooden shelter at the Jonestown “People’s Temple” compound in Guyana, prior to the mass suicide / homicide event he ordered on November 18, 1978, for all members of the church. A diverse group of young men, women and children are listening, and in the background there are large green palm trees in bright sunlight.
The Al bubble wobbles more precariously by the day. Some bubbles, like that of the dot-com crash, end up being positive in the long run, despite the short-term economic pain of it bursting. But some, like the 2008 housing bubble, leave permanent scars on the economy and can knock an entire industry off its growth trajectory for years. To date, the U.S. housing industry has not recovered to pre-2008 growth trend lines, a major contributor to the housing crisis gripping the U.S. That is the fire that the tech industry is playing with today. This is not the Silicon Valley of lore. Venture investors, for all their tech manifestos celebrating "little tech" and entrepreneurship, have come to resemble more traditional financial firms, raising money from pension funds, hedge funds, and sovereign wealth funds. Silicon Valley has gone corporate and managerial; even private equity invests in the Valley today. The fusion of venture capital and Wall Street threatens to bring the unbridled speculation of unregulated finance and the breathless tech industry hype together in a single, massive bubble. Inimical to the old ethos of the Valley and emblematic of a bloated, rotten investing strategy, in Silicon Valley now the money chases founders rather than founders chasing money. Maybe, after the fallout of the Al bubble is felt and the sun sets on Silicon Valley for a bit, the tech world can do a hard reset and return to its more innovative days again.
Duck-Duck-Go shopping search for “tactical wallet” with >50 search results, with six wallets showing - some nylon, some camo, one with a “shark bite enclosure”, and one with “RFID blocking”
“Helping Grandma with her walker” meme showing Grandma in pink cardigan saying, “Facebook and Instagram used to show you posts from your friends,” while the young woman helping her, in turquoise shirt and blue jeans, responds, “Sure Grandma, let’s get you to bed”
“Girl helping grandma with walker” meme showing an old lady with a pink cardigan and walker, saying “Google used to give really great search results” while the young woman in turquoise short and jeans assisting her responds, “Sure grandma let’s get you to bed”
The ROSEBUD sled lying in the furnace at the end of Citizen Kane (1941)
Screenshot of part of a Jonathan Chait skeet, showing the (subscribed) BlueSky labels “Transmisogyny”, “Transphobia (General)”, and “Jesse Singal Follower”. The text of the skeet, a reply, begins “The Obama wing kept saying it was a mistake to abandon liberal norms, the…” and the rest is not shown because honestly, why bother?
“Zoomed” image of the heart of the elliptical galaxy NGC 6505, showing the bright nuclear region of the galaxy and the newly discovered Einstein Ring that surrounds it: a background galaxy, gravitationally lensed by the nucleus, distorted and reimaged four times, with the four images of *its* core regions like bright jewels and the distorted light from its outer regions appearing to “hold hands” to complete the circle.
First level screen for the video game “Lode Runner” showing several brick levels with ladders, monkey bars, gold boxes, and guards, with the runner (player) positioned in the middle of the bottom level, ready to run and/or drill. The score is 0, the number of lives is 4, and the l level is 1.
Bathroom counter and backsplash, with digital thermometer / clock showing indoor temperature 69.6° F, outdoor temperature -4.5° F, and time 7:57:54 am. There is a porcelain pillbox in the foreground.
Time history of US leaded gasoline consumption and US violent crime rates plotted against each other with a 23-year offset: leaded gasoline running from 1937, peaking about 1970, and declining to 1986, while violent crime runs from 1960, peaks about 1992, and declines to 2009. The two line plots are nearly a perfect match. Graphic sources: Rick Levin, USGS, DOJ. Graphic from Mother Jones magazine.
“30 Rock” promotional shot of Alec Baldwin as Jack Donaghy, Tina Fey as Liz Lemon, and Tracy Morgan as Tracy Jordan
“That’d be great” meme from Office Space (1999) with VP Bill Lumbergh saying (meme text, top): “Hey team, I know that all of our projects are updated daily in HubBub, TaskMaster, and DocuDoEverything…” and (meme text, bottom) “…but I'm also going to need you to update the team at the end of every week in the TeamWork chat.”
Close up of a Dec 2024 calendar showing Tue to Thu over the weeks of Dec 17-19, 24-26, and Dec 31 (+ two blanks). Dec 24 is labeled “Christmas Eve”, Dec 25 is labeled “Christmas Day / Hanukkah brings at sundown / Mercury at greatest elongation (dawn)”. Dec 26 is labeled “Boxing Day (Canada) / Kwanzaa begins” and Dec 31 is labeled “New Years’s Eve / Helen Dodson Prince (AAS Councilor-Trustee 1954-57), b. 1905”