michael

@radplanets.com

3100 Followers 831 Following

planetary scientist, allegedly 🪐 baltimorean, actually 🦀 not a professional account but I do talk about science sometimes ig: radplanets_

excerpt from a research paper:
"...literature on the spectroscopy of SO2, both in its ground electronic state [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30], [31], [32], [33], [34], [35], [36], [37], [38], [39], [40], [41], [42], [43], [44], [45], [46], [47], [48], [49], [50], [51], [52], [53], [54], [55], [56], [57], [58], [59], [60], [61], [62], [63], and involving the electronically excited states..."

a bunch of seagulls saying “alt?”

an ikea loveseat that I’ve had for like 10 years but now it has a nice new green covers on all the cushions :)

clip from Magic School Bus where they go inside someone’s stomach and one of the students is dubbed to say “girl that’s a bootyhole”

dog wearing a wig that covers one eye with the caption “lemme move my bang so I can put that IV in”

toad on asphalt

VC funded peppercorns in fancy metal containers

woman making a grimacing :/ face

Tweet from @SolaceCinema

Ryan Coogler reportedly filmed his 2-hour 'X-FILES' pilot on 65mm film and is considering releasing it as a movie.
Starring Himesh Patel & Danielle Deadwyler. Shot by 'SINNERS' DP Autumn Arkapaw.
(Source: @isitshotonfilm)

12:43 • 2026-07-17

“A list of people I trust” and it’s a collage of several kittens from various and assorted memes

the same landscape in my hand

bluesky search for "bulge" with no results

a 3d printed model of a mountainous landscape. it’s mostly white with a road marked in black and some blue lakes

Progress bar that says “About 1h 1min left”

Nun saying “amazing”

The post you’re replying to was marked as being written in Portuguese by its author. Would you like to reply in Portuguese?

a hand holding a purplish red tomato with green shoulders

crying dog Memoji

britney spears shocked that ryan seacrest is straight

barley with tomatoes and onions and basil and parmesan

very muscular man with black and grey hair and a thick mustache wearing a skin tight red and white bodysuit

gemmy green crystals embedded in a pale blue matrix

a pale bluish rock with green and dark grey flecks throughout. it's sitting on top of a book and there's a fake plant behind it. there's a small flat pink rock (crystal tuff! lava creek i think? i forget.) next to it

a delicious blueberry square sitting on a dark plate

tiny dark fluffy clouds in front of big wispy clouds colored orange by sunset

a pan of blueberry lemon bars fresh out of the oven, there’s an oatmeal crumble thing on top

relatively gradual transition between dark and light layers in a large rock. the layers are oriented at about 45° in this image and the rock sits above some smaller rocks and vegetation

a post above this one that says: Iranian Press TV says reports indicate Iran has carried out multiple strikes targeting U.S. positions across the region

soft serve ice cream machine

evil kitten

The tax paradox:
discretionary on paper, essential in practice

Here’s where it gets knotty.

Under HMRC’s E24 Guidance on Tips, Gratuities, Service Charges and Troncs, a service charge only avoids VAT if it is genuinely discretionary — that is, the customer must have a real choice to remove it. If a restaurant adds it automatically and treats it as compulsory, it becomes part of the sale and subject to VAT. Twenty percent goes straight to HMRC before it reaches a tronc or a payslip.

To stay VAT-free, every restaurant in the UK must therefore present its service charge as optional. That’s why you see “A discretionary 12.5% service charge will be added” on almost every bill. The word discretionary is a legal shield. But here’s the reality: it’s only optional in name.

If restaurants treated it as truly discretionary — meaning if a meaningful number of guests regularly declined to pay it — most wage structures would collapse. Because service charge isn’t a bonus anymore; it’s a core part of staff pay. The system only works when almost everyone pays it, every time.

So the industry is caught in a paradox: to avoid tax, service charge has to be technically optional; to pay people properly, it has to be functionally compulsory. That tension is what makes the model so confusing to guests and so impossible to replace.

a map of europe with pins dropped on the birthplaces of my ancestors (not shown, my canadian ancestor)

a handwritten polish document, idk what it says

an old document with lots of curly handwriting that this English speaker cannot decipher at all

APPLICATION FOR PROOF OF CANADIAN CITIZENSHIP RECEIVED

size of a tiny asteroid compared with the FIFA recommended football pitch dimensions. the asteroid would barely fill the penalty area!

panoramic view of an alpine lake shot on film, sprocket holes interrupt the image

three satellite dishes sit in a field of brown grass and green sagebrush

a close up of a large grey rock face with a fern growing out of it

a mountain landscape with a large white and orange streak obscuring about 1/4 of the image

*calls campus security*

- hi I'm calling to report a beeping alarm in the basement of [redacted] building
- ok where are you calling from
- [redacted]
- i've never heard of that can you say it again
- [redacted]
- Can you spell that?
- [redacted]
- and where is the alarm located in the building?
- [redacted]
- ok. you're sure it's not supposed to be beeping?
(I think I laughed at him at this point)
- if it was supposed to be beeping why am I calling you?
- ok and who is your employer?
- this is a university phone line who do you think is my employer?
- so are you with facilities?
- i am a post-doc
- a what?
- a post-doc
- a what?
- *sigh* a student, I'm a student
- so you're not a contractor or with facilities?
- no i'm a student
- ok i'm going tell security to come check it out. in the meantime I'll connect you with someone at facilities to put in a ticket

*has the same exact same conversation with the facilities person. doesn't know the building. doesn't understand the problem*

a black and white photo of a mountain face above a calm lake. small (relatively, anyway) trees pepper the landscape, and there are a few patches of snow beneath some of the cliffs. if you zoom in reaaallllllly far you can find a camping tent!

a plate with white pizza and salad and a glass of bubbly wine

85%
Dew point: 75°

Britney Spears shocked that Ryan Seacrest is straight

snow covered ground

a snowy landscape with a large mountain with distinctive slanted layers in the distance as viewed from a ski lift

creepy clown standing in a field

“Homo Sweet Homo” cross stitch in a gold frame

BGE: A power outage has been reported for [REDACTED]
Estimated time of restoration:
06/29/26 at 12:15 AM. This is based on outage restoration history. We'll send you updates as they become available. Visit Outage Tracker at bge.com/ outagetracker. Text PAUSE for
72-hour pause or STOP to stop all texts

a large brown rodent with a long reddish squirrel-like tail and a lighter tan ring around its neck. it’s climbing over rocks and small plants on a mountainside

a small bridge over a turquoise colored creek surrounded by reddish orange foliage

red trees and a dark brown pond below a steep mountain

a rugged mountain landscape covered with red and orange foliage and wispy white clouds overhead

a “falling rock” sign in front of a deep mountain valley with puffy clouds in the sky

an empty road winds back and forth up a flat-bottomed canyon. the low sunlight casts long shadows, and the nearly-full moon hovers just over the edge of the canyon

a lake with deep blue water and a rocky shoreline. the shoreline on the opposite side of the lake is much greener. a large mountain looms in the distance

looking up a road in the middle of a shallow canyon, everything is green and grey, except for the sky which is mostly filled with yellowish sunset colored clouds

a large white cable-stayed bridge in the distance