One day, we will have polls again. One day!
06.03.2026 03:40
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One day, we will have polls again. One day!
I take a great deal of joy in releasing my stress and anger directly on the staff enabling the things that cause me stress and anger.
It’s cheaper than therapy AND might make a difference. That’s a rare win-win in terrible times!
Good luck!!! Now you get to unpack it into the shredder, which will simplify that aspect of moving 😂
Food-grade gypsum is mostly used thickening, firming, stabilizing, or settling.
Coagulant for tofu.
Conditioner & clarity for beer, tartness & clarity in wine (& clarity for turbid water).
Source of calcium for enriched flours.
Colour additive for drugs & makeup.
Abrasive & thickener in toothpaste.
Gypsum is Safe To Lick.
It’s an evaporite, so relatively soft and water soluble. It’s the primary component of drywall & plaster, with a faint earthy-powdery taste.
You’ll eat over 10kg of food-grade gypsum in your life, hidden in tofu, enriched flour, ice cream, beer, pills, toothpaste & more.
Safe. You can get a similar vibe by licking plaster (or drywall, but that’s missing the slick-smooth-cool element)
Things that make me happy:
After-school epilogue:
bsky.app/profile/mapp...
On the way to school, my oldest was deeply concerned the Mars rovers were lost & scared.
So I told the story of @mapperwocky.bsky.social, Martian Cartographer, who helps our rovers track their paths so they always know where they’ve been and which way is home. 🧡
If you’re needing escapism today, Elk has gorgeous (& grotesque) horror-fantasy comics including their backstory.
It doesn’t look like @holleringelk.bsky.social is particularly active on here, but cuddle-through-nuclear-angst is exactly in sync with my feed’s vibe today:
www.reddit.com/r/comics/s/X...
Geo Life Tips:
Always stop to crumble and/or squish the loam. The intersection of sand-silt-clay in balance has lovely texture.
But, uh, Do Not Lick. Too many rotting organic bits.
Look, it’s entirely plausible the support staff of an astronomy department casually time travel to post security notices to head off problems before they begin. A flexible attitude towards spacetime comes with the job!
Small but mighty. At that scale, I don’t think even osmium is dense enough to hold open a door!
I absolutely interpreted this as a request to not prop the door because that’s how the tiny animals were getting in. It took a few tries to realize the instruction likely pre-dated the migration.
Things that make me happy:
🚨 Last call to apply: 2026 ESA Graduate Trainee Programme!
Applications close on 28 February 2026, so this is your final chance to submit your application before the deadline! 👇
#ESArecruits
My older child keeps trying to steal both my name and my younger child’s middle name.
I’m not entirely clear what variety of fae I’m raising, but I’m starting to regret providing my true name instead of insisting on exclusive usage of my parental title.
Thank you! Stargate is both incredibly fun & has been a linchpin in enabling so many career opportunities, so I’m happy to have that as my primary title 😂
BC is small.
I don’t have formal statistics, but I’m pretty sure most of the province knows a family in Tumbler Ridge.
I’m absolutely certain every fieldworker has had a crew member from Tumbler Ridge.
It’s an important day to reach out. Sometimes all we can do is listen & help hold stories.
Astronaut Bruce McCandless about 100 yards from the space shuttle during an EVA, with no tether. The Earth is bright and blue below him, with a scattering of feathery white clouds across the surface. McCandless is suspended above, small and white against the black backdrop of space.
In this photo, taken #OTD in 1984, Bruce McCandless is an *football field away from the space shuttle with no safety tether.*
No astronaut, before or since, has been that far away from their ship while in orbit. (2/n)
I am absolutely certain my Secret Santa who sent this rock would be pleased at the extended lessons.
(And I can barely tell what crystal tips broke. It’s such minor damage in the scale of geology.)
Oldest brought a (Secret Santa! 😂) rock to school for show & tell.
In the very last moments of packing up for home, the rock fell and broke. Oldest was distraught.
So today we’re learning about tarnished vs fresh surfaces, and quartz’s conchoidal fracture vs pyrite’s angular cleavage.
Congrats!!
I still have my notes from our coffee shop science chat for a totally different idea so many years ago. Persistence is powerful
Good luck and have fun!!
Hope has power.
Today’s hope:
It is very BC that I take regular photos of all the slopes in my journeys on the assumption they’ll all be Before photos eventually.
Patterson is a major player in Vancouver. I think he’s the single largest property holder in the city? But the protests were already starting, including strategizing how to minimize harm to unions stuck with him.
Canadians are being clear: if you have ICE as a client, they’ll be your ONLY client.
In the instability of a specific fish:
Now I need to write the book to match. 🩵
Ahahaha, now I’m obliged to follow through!