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H. P. Read

@readhpr

Mathematics educator, science geek, and avocational horn (and occasionally Wagner tuba) player. Secretly half-Vulcan. They/them

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24.07.2023
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Latest posts by H. P. Read @readhpr

Thank you for your humanitarian service. I have now eliminated that stupid dot.

07.03.2026 00:23 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

This thread rules

05.03.2026 18:37 πŸ‘ 11 πŸ” 4 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

DO NOT COMPLY.

DO NOT OUT PEOPLE, ESPECIALLY VULNERABLE CHILDREN

04.03.2026 17:29 πŸ‘ 910 πŸ” 514 πŸ’¬ 9 πŸ“Œ 3

Cc @busterbnyc.bsky.social Just something happy for your feed.

03.03.2026 21:02 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Here's a quick animation of this AM's total lunar eclipse, with one shot every five minutes through the Dwarf Mini through partial phases up to totality when clouds shut down the show:

03.03.2026 14:13 πŸ‘ 12 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Reminded again today that the healthcare system in the United States is completely awful and is designed to squeeze every last dollar from a patient, with little or no regard for the patient's well-being. 🧡

03.03.2026 14:10 πŸ‘ 47 πŸ” 17 πŸ’¬ 5 πŸ“Œ 5
Preview
Canine carer: how guide dog school dropout Marcus came to comfort cancer patients for a living Once assessed as β€˜a sloth with a low drive to work’, the polite and affectionate black labrador enjoys a successful new career as a therapy dog

Everything is pretty terrible in the world actually and I have no pets, but here's a feel-good story about a dog.
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

02.03.2026 18:00 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

TESS confirms what we saw with Kepler and K2 - on average, ***every single small red star has a planet around it***! And a short-period one at that (<30 days).

And you know what the galaxy is mostly made of?

Small red stars.

PLANETS. PLANETS EVERYWHERE!!!

Happy weekend pondering that, everyone.

27.02.2026 23:48 πŸ‘ 506 πŸ” 154 πŸ’¬ 19 πŸ“Œ 12

TOS:

The Bitch Trap
Where No Bitch Has Gone Before

And I'm particularly proud of the rhyming substitution for this one:
That Bitch Survives

28.02.2026 13:54 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

I love DST! I like having more light in the evening and not wasting it on 4:30AM sunrises in summer. But I don't want it year round. There was one year when I was a kid that we stayed on DST all year, and it was awful getting on the school bus in the dark all winter. Changing twice a year is good!

27.02.2026 22:00 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

A couple of TOS classics:
The Bitch Within
Spock's Bitches

And from VOY:
Macrobitch

27.02.2026 18:26 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

I just watched Starfleet Academy episode 8, The Life of the Stars. What a beautiful episode. I was nearly in tears.

27.02.2026 02:26 πŸ‘ 9 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Cc @iconyc.bsky.social

26.02.2026 14:47 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

To any Democrat who ever said about any issue, "Maybe if we agree with Republicans just this far, they'll stop there," remember that you were wrong, it was obvious at the time, and you really should never believe that again about any issue, ever.

26.02.2026 03:15 πŸ‘ 5052 πŸ” 1695 πŸ’¬ 67 πŸ“Œ 38

I grew up on TOS reruns and to paraphrase a quote, Spock has been and always shall be my favorite character in all of Trek. I admire and identify with Spock of every era, but he truly shines in the original cast films. He is so comfortable in his own skin by then.

26.02.2026 14:25 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

This rules.

26.02.2026 14:01 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

This is fantastic.

26.02.2026 14:00 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
Are AI-generated summaries suitable for studying and research? Despite didactic, ethical, and environmental concerns, the use of GenAI is on the rise in academia. For most applications, the jury is still out on whether and how they will benefit education and rese...

Tired of AI hype posts? You might like my sober assessment of whether AI-generated summaries are suitable for studying and research. Spoiler alert, they are not.

The text is primarily aimed at students and researchers, but has much broader relevance. So share freely!: www.tue.nl/en/our-unive...

24.02.2026 18:47 πŸ‘ 292 πŸ” 141 πŸ’¬ 11 πŸ“Œ 15

Hard same.

24.02.2026 13:18 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Tonight let’s boycott Felon Trump’s lies & instead watch the

πŸ’₯ PEOPLE’S STATE OF THE UNION πŸ’₯

Join me & @joyannreid.bsky.social LIVE in DC on the National Mall with Members of Congress, allies, & Americans impacted by the Trump Regime.

You can also watch here: www.youtube.com/live/oArKZut...

24.02.2026 11:55 πŸ‘ 2734 πŸ” 987 πŸ’¬ 95 πŸ“Œ 67

This needs at least a half million reposts.

23.02.2026 06:30 πŸ‘ 18 πŸ” 10 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0
Uranus seen in infrared with JWST's NIRSpec instrument. The blobs around the polar cap are aurorae. The planet's ring system is clearly visible, almost directly face on.

Uranus seen in infrared with JWST's NIRSpec instrument. The blobs around the polar cap are aurorae. The planet's ring system is clearly visible, almost directly face on.

New pic of Uranus just dropped

21.02.2026 18:54 πŸ‘ 210 πŸ” 30 πŸ’¬ 9 πŸ“Œ 10

On the other hand, I've learned so much about curling over the last week I feel like I could do it. (I could not. But my friends and I are planning to go to a learn-to-curl clinic sometime.)

20.02.2026 00:33 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

I also love how the snowboarding instead of a quadruple axel they call it in degrees. That was a 1620! By the time I calculate how many rotations that is, they've gone on to the next trick. I'd be okay with it if it was at least in radians.

20.02.2026 00:32 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
I hacked ChatGPT and Google's AI – and it only took 20 minutes I found a way to make AI tell you lies – and I'm not the only one.

I got a tip that all over the world, people are using a dead-simple hack to manipulate AI behavior. It turns out changing what AI tells other people can be as easy as writing a blog post *on your own website*

I didn’t believe it, so I decided to test it myself www.bbc.com/future/artic...

18.02.2026 16:37 πŸ‘ 1963 πŸ” 669 πŸ’¬ 31 πŸ“Œ 122

so here's my official response to Lakshya Jain's latest article in The Argument about polling & trans rights. despite being published 2 weeks ago, it provides all the context that Lakshya omits in his piece: bsky.app/profile/juli...

17.02.2026 18:39 πŸ‘ 68 πŸ” 18 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

This whole thread. Timeline cleanse.

06.02.2026 13:40 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Gladys Mae West obituary: mathematician who pioneered GPS technology She made key contributions to US cold-war science despite facing huge barriers as a Black woman.

No joke: I got angry hate mail today for writing an obituary of a Black woman scientistβ€”because the person felt she did didn’t deserve the recognition.

Which just makes me want to share it again: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

06.02.2026 09:09 πŸ‘ 47151 πŸ” 19324 πŸ’¬ 1350 πŸ“Œ 795
Get in. We're messing up Melania's Amazon search results.
This weekend, Amazon is premiering it's $40 million Melania Trump documentary. It already seems to be a flop.
But we're going to take it one step further by messing up Melania's Amazon search results. Specifically, we're going to amplify the paranormal erotic thriller, Melania: Devourer of Men so it ranks higher than her movie.
The book is perfect: it's absurd, the cover is ridiculous, and it's free, so we're not giving Amazon any money.
We need people to:
1. "buy" the book (it's free)
2. Share this post and get other people to buy the book.
That's it. Then we can celebrate as an erotic novel about a bat monster Melania Trump becomes a higher and higher search result on Amazon.

Get in. We're messing up Melania's Amazon search results. This weekend, Amazon is premiering it's $40 million Melania Trump documentary. It already seems to be a flop. But we're going to take it one step further by messing up Melania's Amazon search results. Specifically, we're going to amplify the paranormal erotic thriller, Melania: Devourer of Men so it ranks higher than her movie. The book is perfect: it's absurd, the cover is ridiculous, and it's free, so we're not giving Amazon any money. We need people to: 1. "buy" the book (it's free) 2. Share this post and get other people to buy the book. That's it. Then we can celebrate as an erotic novel about a bat monster Melania Trump becomes a higher and higher search result on Amazon.

Okay troublemakers, punks, antifa supervillains, and anyone who just enjoys being a petty little shitbird while they fuck up the algorithm of a massive media corp. Here's your assignment for the weekend. Get on it and spread the word.

31.01.2026 21:05 πŸ‘ 1785 πŸ” 1170 πŸ’¬ 74 πŸ“Œ 109

Seriously! Where are the red hoodies and warp core pajamas?

01.02.2026 17:40 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0