E__Strobel

Live-tweeting WWIII so you don't have to 🌍 | Space & Defense analyst who's seen it all 🚀 | Missile Defense SME (ZOOM & BOOM) | Constitutionalist who does the math 📊 | Zero patience for nonsense | Physics PhD & myth-buster 🧮 | Apollo kid meets Asimov - buckle up! 🚀

@LearnToToad Because this is a pic of the NIGHT side of Earth, illuminated by moonlight. They bumped the ISO and took like a 1/4 second exposure.

Someone want to tell me how the Sun, which is the light source, is behind the Earth here, yet the visible side of the Earth is lit up like it's fucking day time? Is it all fake and gay?

@0x45o No. I think it's Venus. The Earth here is illuminated by moonlight. The Moon is 'behind' the camera.

so this down here is the moon?

😮 Libya has provided bases for Ukrainians to attack Russian ships According to RFI, Ukraine has set up bases in Libya to launch attacks on Russian vessels. The Ukrainian contingent, including more than 200 officers, is stationed at three sites, including an airbase in Misrata and the Mellita area. Ukraine has already attacked Russian ships twice in the Mediterranean: the gas carrier Arctic Metagaz and the tanker Qendil. An agreement on the presence of Ukrainian military personnel in Libya was signed in October 2025. Russia has accused the Dbeiba government of supporting Ukrainian forces with the involvement of British intelligence services.

@JakeSherman Because Johnson didn’t bother to tell them this was the plan all along (which he certainly knew), so they all lost their minds, Johnson rolled with that and blew up the Senate plan for no reason. Bottom line: none of this mess was Thune’s fault and it’s Johnson that needs to go.

@The_Kyle_Mann Nice... though I thought of a better KBJ crossover...

re-upping my Article from yesterday...

*might* end up as a bloody failed state. You know what WILL be a disaster for US interests? Allowing the Islamic Regime to remain in power. Also, you're assessment of what it would require is incorrect. What it requires is a willingness to fully supply Iranian resistance with the arms and comms they need to put an end to this regime.

@BristolPistolSr Son, I listened to it when it first came out.

You'll feel better if you listen to the eponymous album by Pink Floyd.

@McFaul 🤣 You really think that’s the case? You should try reading, it helps you learn about things from before your time.

Did we join the UK in support of their war against the Falkland Islands? no.

@peterrhague Wait… the distinction between ‘cider’ and ‘hard cider’ isn’t made elsewhere?

People should be clear that “cider” means something different in America and the astronauts aren’t getting tipsy!

So, my commentary on the state of science education (people *still* using the term ‘dark side’ of the Moon rather than ‘far side’)… kinda blew up. Lots of people completely missed the point. It’s not a ‘triviality’… words mean things. The continued use of this misnomer is yet another canary in the coal mine when it comes to science education. My observations from the responses: a) Pink Floyd 1) good natured responses, mostly from people nearly my (advanced) age who remember when the album came out 2) midwits who actually seem to believe that Pink Floyd invented the term [Aside: there are way more older people on this platform than I realized.] b) lots of smug ‘dark means unknown, you fool’, as if I didn’t know the complete etymology of the term c) a small subset who apparently think the term originated because the far side cannot be reached by earth based radio, making it ‘radio dark’. Unbelievably, this is an actual thing that started a few years back on places like Reddit, which are hotbeds of midwit-ism. d) there were tragically few references to Gary Larsen. e) apparently almost nobody knows/remembers that thinking the lunar far side was not illuminated was a common, nearly universal, misconception for the century prior to the start of the Space Age.

Hinting at the correct orientation made Grok hallucinate badly, and actually degraded Gemini somewhat. With the orientation hint, ChatGPT got the textual identification of features correct, but totally screwed the pooch on producing the annotated image. Bottom line: AGI is NOT yet achieved.

Gemini, to its credit, got the hemisphere correct. I expect the problem is that whatever pics are in the training corpus are likely not oriented like this. I shall redo this giving orientation hints.

Hey @elonmusk & @xai… looks like you’ve got some fixing to do on Grok. This is terrible. Grok Imagine prompt: Please annotate this pic (taken yesterday by the Artemis II mission) with key geographic features visible (mostly in the lower left quadrant), and pointing out the aurora visible near the ‘one o-clock’ position.

@DeadHeadMAGA It’s neither a nitpick, nor a triviality. It is a symptom of both the serious lack of science education and the corresponding lack of interest much of our society has in science.

@E__Strobel As a physicist, I cringe when I see a fellow physicist nit pick over triviality like a leftist does, while pretending to not know the etymology of a term.

I weep for the state of education that people *still* call it the 'dark side of the moon' rather than the far side of the moon.

@Rand_Simberg @elonmusk @xai This was Grok Imagine. Graphically, it produced very nice *looking* annotations, it’s just that it was wrong on the details.

@E__Strobel @elonmusk @xai Grok is terrible with callouts. It has serious problems with graphics in general.

@00Sanchezmarcos @elonmusk @xai Correct (AFAIK), that’s the Strait of Gibraltar at about the 8 o’clock position. To its credit, Gemini got the hemisphere correct.

@E__Strobel @elonmusk @xai I think its africa and spain