New Blog Post: Book Review: Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke An old classic about exploring a mysterious interstellar spaceship. strakul.blogspot.com/2025/02/book... #Books 💙📚

Book Review: Rendezvous with R...

Working from home due to the winter storm. Got a nice shot of the local wildlife here. #Maryland #Snow

New Blog Post: Book Review: Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson Journey Before Destination; the conclusion to the first arc of The Stormlight Archive! strakul.blogspot.com/2024/12/book... #Books 💙📚

Review of "Dawnshard" (5 stars): An interesting seafaring adventure in Roshar

https://wyrms.de/user/Strakul/review/75381

Spotted #comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS tonight from Maryland. A lot fainter than expected. This was a 5-second shot from my pone camera at about 7:20pm 🔭

The #aurora from Maryland! First time I see them and from the convenience of my balcony. It's visible with the naked eye, but just barely. Comes out much better with a picture. 🔭

Got a chance to see the Mission Operations Center (MOC) for the James Webb Space Telescope ( #JWST) today! This is where the observatory and telescope are controlled from. Cool to see where the magic happens, even though it's much downscaled from how big/busy it was at launch. 😁

New Blog Post: A Book Review for Spellbreaker by Blake Charlton Writing magic in a tropical island to wrap up the trilogy strakul.blogspot.com/2024/09/book... #Books 💙📚

Book Review: Spellbreaker by B...

New Blog Post: A book review for Spellbound by Blake Charlton Continuing the adventures of Spellwright with magical text, demigods, demons, dragons, ghosts, werewolves, and more. strakul.blogspot.com/2024/08/book... #Books 💙📚

Book Review: Spellbound by Bla...

And before you say, "It's not working very well", remember it's not working as well, because Conservatives in other countries are trying to tank it, just like in America. Go ahead and ask if people want to get rid of it though.

Review of "Spellwright" (4 stars): The consequences of misspelling magic

https://wyrms.de/user/Strakul/review/70782

Review of "Children of Memory" (4 stars): What does it mean to be sentient?

https://wyrms.de/user/Strakul/review/69239

New Blog Post: Book Review: Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky strakul.blogspot.com/2024/06/book... Who would have thought inter-species communication could be so challenging? #Books 💙📚

Book Review: Children of Ruin ...

A couple of bunnies spotted on a walk the other day. A third one was behind the tree, but couldn't capture it in the few pics I took.

Excited for tonight's #DnD session! I missed last week, but caught up via a VOD since a few of us stream it. Looks like the DM didn't kill off my character 🤣 but a big fight might be ahead 😨

I quit Twitter and moved to Mastodon in October 2022 when Elon Musk took over. Many other academics also came to Mastodon, and I was very happy - see my pinned posts. But most of them later became inactive.

I stick around because I've decided that corporate-owned social media are dangerous - especially now, when authoritarians are spreading their reach. Turns out it's unrealistic to expect that most academics feel this way - yet. They may get the idea when it's too late.

(1/2)

https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.04005

#astronomy #constelation

Review of "Children of Time" (5 stars): A modern, classic sci-fi tale

https://wyrms.de/user/Strakul/review/67374

Review of "Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1)" (3 stars): 80s nostalgia with a clever concept, but weak narrative

https://wyrms.de/user/Strakul/review/66025

Tried to take a pic of the two baby foxes running around at the edge of the woods but they are too fast! One of their parents was just chilling in the grass, so total of 3 foxes spotted today. 🦊