Derek Fox

@partialobserver

Penn State Astronomer (he/him), personal account. “We went and made everything a computer without ever bothering to fix computers.”

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Bluesky

¿Es tu perfil?Reclámalo y partialobserver.dirty.social es tuyo.Reclamar perfil

Derek Fox@partialobserver· 12d

Ahh the life of a 25-yo hedgie! Up 439% on the year in June, the world’s your oyster and everything’s grand; begging investors to add funds in July…

Excerpt from FT article:

“P.S. At times we call out opportunities
that seem like a particularly good time to add funds, if you have been waiting for one," he said in the investor letter, seen by the FT, which was sent in recent days and offered the ability to invest new cash on
August 1.

The hedge fund had notched blistering returns this year. The firm was up 439 per cent on a net basis for the year as of the end of June, according to the letter…

Derek Fox@partialobserver· 15d

“Cause there we are again in the middle of the night, We're dancing round the kitchen in the refrigerator light - Down the stairs, I was there, I remember it all too well…”

Still frame of Odysseus (Matt Damon) in the Odyssey (2026) screaming in agony as he is (I think) lashed to the mast of his ship, being tormented by the Sirens. (It sort of looks like he is singing.)

Derek Fox@partialobserver· 28d

From the report:

Report excerpt / numerical summary, categorizing incidents by type of misuse:

Suspected misuse

• Journalist - 175
• Close Range - 148
• Head Shot - 97
• Direct Fire - 32
• Indoor Space - 13
• Minor - 12
• Driver of conveyance - 11
• No Egress - 10
• Pregnant/elderly - 8
• Groin Shot - 7
• Improvised Use - 5
• Shots w/o Aiming - 3
• Disability - 3
• Healthcare Worker - 2
• Legal Observer - 2

Derek Fox@partialobserver· Jul 11

With Alt Text:

Short “News in Brief” item, published in the Times of London: “A longboat full of Vikings, promoting the new British Museum exhibition, was seen sailing past the Palace of Westminster yesterday (see page 16).
Famously uncivilised, destructive and rapacious, with an almost insatiable appetite for rough sex and heavy drinking, the MPs nonetheless looked up for a bit to admire the vessel.”

Derek Fox@partialobserver· Jul 9

I wonder what’s going on with that?

“Family Guy” terrorist color check meme, showing a uniformed officer holding up a “shades of skin tone” color card in front of the Peter Griffin character, with the lighter shades labeled “Charismatic” and the darker shades labeled “Not Charismatic”

Derek Fox@partialobserver· Jun 22

New reason to hate on the JCPOA just dropped

Four-panel “Galaxy Brain” meme where each level is more brilliant than the last.

First panel (ordinary brain): JCPOA was bad because it gave Iran money for suspending its nuclear program

Second panel (glowing brain): JCPOA was bad because it didn't give Iran enough money

Third panel (glowing brain with rays shooting out): JCPOA was bad because it didn't give Iran enough money along with control of the Strait of Hormuz

Fourth panel (galaxy brain that has achieved nirvana): JCPOA was bad because it didn't allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons

Derek Fox@partialobserver· May 29

Which button? (Lol I kid, most founder-owner-CEOs would mash the right button instantly)

“Two buttons” meme showing a cartoon superhero sweating bullets over having to decide which of two buttons to press. In this case, the button on the left is labeled “Treat employees humanely, make lots of money” and the button on the right is labeled “Fire ingrates!”

Derek Fox@partialobserver· May 8

Authors so lazy this year omg

Garth Marenghi's Darkplace meme / screen capture where the satirical author (Merenghi) yells at the interviewer, “I know writers who use subtext and they’re all cowards!”

Derek Fox@partialobserver· Apr 27

In other words…

Regina George (Rachel McAdams) from “Mean Girls” (2004) telling her friend Gretchen Wieners (off camera) to “Stop trying to make nuclear happen. It’s never going to happen.”

Derek Fox@partialobserver· Apr 25

Shaking my head and adjusting my “Fist Amendment” pocket square every few minutes so everyone at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner knows I disagree with the whole spectacle

Original Dec 29, 2020 tweet from @metalgearobama:

Reading Mein Kampf and shaking my head the whole time so the people on the bus know I disagree with it

Derek Fox@partialobserver· Apr 19

Imagine making one of your 22 complaints about American culture, in this our 6th year of President Donald J. Trump, that we expect too much virtue and frugality of our leaders.

Text excerpt from the Palantir manifesto:

8. Public servants need not be our priests. Any business that compensated its employees in the way that the federal government compensates public servants would struggle to survive.

9. We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. The eradication of any space for forgiveness—a jettisoning of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions of the human psyche-may leave us with a cast of characters at the helm we will grow to
regret.

10. The psychologization of modern politics is leading us astray. Those who look to the political arena to nourish…

Derek Fox@partialobserver· Apr 18

It’s the same now with the AI Trump boosters (see clip) - the fake shit only works with conservatives. That’s because authoritarians don’t care if claims that validate their biases are true or not. When asked about sharing slop they typically say, “I know it’s probably fake, but I liked it.”

Clip from article:

… contractors and marketing companies that now specialize in developing and dispatching A.I. avatars in bulk for increasingly low prices.

The emergence of the A.I.-generated political avatars, researchers said, suggests a sweeping effort to hook conservative voters, a demographic primed by the president and his circle to accept memes, influencers, deepfakes and other digitally packaged messaging. Neither The Times nor the researchers it consulted found any similar left-leaning networks.

“People gearing up for the midterms should expect that they might see some of this content on their accounts, that it might be crafted to be particularly engaging or exciting to them,” said Kaylyn Jackson Schiff, a co-director of GRAIL.

Derek Fox@partialobserver· Apr 7

+ citation: www.ft.com/content/cf87...

Text excerpt from the Financial Times story:

Even the way people on Wall Street talk and interact is changing. Bankers and financiers say Trump’s victory has emboldened those who chafed at “woke doctrine” and felt they had to self-censor or change their language to avoid offending younger colleagues, women, minorities or disabled people.

“I feel liberated,” said a top banker. “We can say ‘retard’ and ‘pussy’ without the fear of getting cancelled . . . it’s a new dawn.”

Derek Fox@partialobserver· Apr 7

Thinking about the Tom Toro cartoon today

"New Yorker" cartoon by Tom Toro, showing a stockbroker in tattered business suit sitting at a campfire with three children, and saying, "Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we got to say the R-, F-, and C- words." (the last bit is an edit, and in red. the original text is "...we created a lot of value for shareholders.")

Derek Fox@partialobserver· Apr 2

THIS is GenX erasure.

Screencap of a "interesting story" tab from Firefox that shows a group of young women hanging out around a kitchen table with pizza and paper plates. The woman in front is wearing a pink blouse and carrying an open 2-liter bottle of Coca Cola Classic. All the women have pseudo-perm 1980s hair. The story headline is "Rare Photos Show What Party Life Really Looked Like in the 1980s", and the story category is "Rare Historical Photos".

Derek Fox@partialobserver· Mar 20

Just to drive home the magnitude of the tragedy: 2/3 of all industrial CO_2 emissions, 1.2 trillion tons, have been generated since 1981. Annual emissions now are double what they were then. We have a very long way to go - the alternate path from 1981 would have been much shorter and more pleasant.

Plot of cumulative industrial carbon dioxide emissions from 1900 to 2024 from Our World in Data. Cumulative emissions have been growing rapidly since 1980 and show minimal signs of slowing down to date.

Derek Fox@partialobserver· Mar 15

⚠️ Trade Offer ⚠️

Derek Fox@partialobserver· Feb 21

Post an album cover that could be an Olympic event

Cover of the Devo debut album “Freedom of Choice” (1980), with the band members lined up side by side in silver jackets over black T-shirts, hands flat on their thighs, plastic red cone-shaped hats on their heads. The letters “D E V O” in white circles above their heads, with a blue background behind.

Derek Fox@partialobserver· Feb 11

El Paso City Councilor Chris Canales post with alt text:

Post from /u/ChrisCanalesEPTX :

Update thread on FAA closure of El Paso airspace

There are multiple posts about this issue that are getting difficult to track, so l'm going to try to consolidate my updates here in one place.

I've been up all night trying to get information to share with the public, but we're just not getting much from the federal government at the moment.

We have no reason to believe that there is any kind of imminent safety threat to El Paso, but we still have no reason provided by the FAA or any federal authority, and that lack of explanation is obviously fueling fear and speculation in our community. FAA contacts, including those at the phone number listed in the notice, have said they also don't know the reason.

What's especially troubling is that there appears to have been no advance notice to local government, airport leadership, or even local Air Traffic Control or local military leadership.

If El Paso International Airport has to close for 10 days, the economic hit to El Paso could be $40-50 million or more.

I will continue pushing for answers and will share updates in the comments on this post as soon as I am able.

Follow @flyelp on instagram for official updates directly from the El Paso International Airport.

Derek Fox@partialobserver· Jan 27

Image w/ alt

A weather forecast app image showing snowfall over a winter landscape, with cartoon versions of bare trees, evergreens, and a wind turbine, with a forecast: “Monday, Jan 26 / Isolated snow showers / 12 °F” and commentary: “On a positive note; I haven't seen any fucking mosquitos
for weeks.”

Derek Fox@partialobserver· Dec 28

People always pointing out how GenX grew up drastically misled as to the prevalence of quicksand in modern life but hey, what about those sensory deprivation tanks? Where did they all go?

Poster (Japanese version) for the 1980 movie “Altered States” starring William Hurt. It shows a man in a swimsuit suspended in the center of a transparent prism, a sensory deprivation chamber which initiates the main action of the story.

Derek Fox@partialobserver· Dec 19

The most insightful thing anyone has said about Trump, and it’s true of every fascist you can name. They lie about the past in every possible way, and are perfectly straightforward about what they want.

Excerpt from the piece:

The common understanding at the time was that all of that was political theater, or rhetorical excesses-that Trump had no real convictions. But Cassandras didn't see it like that. "I kinda think people have it reversed," Joe, a white 30-year-old from upstate New York, who noy teaches at a university in the U.K., said, (this part highlighted:) "Lots of people don't detect that he's lying about what has transpired, but they think he's full of hot air about what he wants. But in reality, he's a total liar about what has happened, and he's deadly sincere about what it is he wants."

Derek Fox@partialobserver· Dec 1

Supplementing with screenshot in case of future hyperreference issues:

Screenshot of skeet + reply skeet.

Original skeet by @josh.uno says “mine went on a tangent” with attached screenshot of ChatGPT interaction: User says “What is a four letter word that, when you reverse its letters, it becomes a plant?” and ChatGPT replies: “The four-letter word you're looking for is "Star." When reversed, it becomes "Rats," which is not a plant. However, if we slightly adjust the criteria, "Herb" becomes "Breh" when reversed, though
"Breh" isn't a recognized word. It seems the exact criteria you've set might not have a direct answer. If there's a specific word puzzle or context you're referring to, could you provide more details?”

Reply skeet by @pbump.com (Philip Bump) says “breh”

Derek Fox@partialobserver· Nov 23

Here we are in the pouring home I watch a light man fold a comb I watch a line move across the screen I watch the light come over me Here we are now, going to the west side Weapons in hand as we go for a ride Some may come, love, and some may stay Watching out for a sunny day