So cool. If you zoom in on the upper right, you see a little crescent. That's the Martian moon Phobos. Zoom in again and you'll see a star next to Phobos. That's Earth! Seen from Mars by NASA's Curiosity rover. science.nasa.gov/photojourna…

Annual shoutout to everyone on family tech support duty this holiday season. You the real MVP

Running 4 parallel coding agents:

The European Commission lost the Chat Control 2.0 battle over access to end-to-end encrypted data. By the summer 2026, they will be back with their next attempt: Going Dark. This time some EU member states want to include VPN services. The Going Dark initiative, or ProtectEU as the Commission now calls it, wants to “enable law enforcement authorities to access encrypted data in a lawful manner”. This is a Chat Control 3.0 attempt. The EU Commission and several member states are also looking for new rules on data retention. In a new ”Presidency outcome paper”, the member states discuss metadata retention: which websites you visit, and who is communicating with whom, when and how often. The ambition is “to have the broadest possible scope of application” and this time some member states also want the proposal to include VPN services. Mullvad has spent the last three years opposing Chat Control 2.0 – even though the law would have affected our business positively. We will continue to fight Going Dark with full force, regardless of whether VPNs are included or not. If VPNs are included, and if Going Dark becomes law, we will never spy on our customers no matter what.

I do not like knowing that tarmac and macadamia nuts are named aftert two different 19th Scotsmen named John MacAdam

The Nobel Prize committee should announce the World Cup winner tomorrow.

A Simulation of Saturn’s 274 Moons Recently, Saturn became the undisputed king of moons, officially reaching a staggering total of 274 confirmed natural satellites—more than any other planet in our Solar System. We’ve created this simulation using orbital data from each of these moons to visually represent their relative distances, orbital inclinations, and patterns around Saturn. The planet itself has been scaled up for visual clarity, allowing you to better grasp the complex and dynamic architecture of its moon system. From tiny irregular moons on eccentric paths to the major players like Titan and Enceladus, this animation offers a rare look at the hidden order within Saturn’s sprawling gravitational domain.

consistency ≠ uniformity: for those who haven't lived through this era – we used to have beautiful, precision interfaces. now they're replaced by a design language that originated from the Apple Watch, with icons that only fit in squircles. but that's not even the point. the point is we used to design the whole stack – the technology, the concepts, the interfaces. when designers only care about superficial consistency, platforms lose their uniqueness. apple used to design systems. skeuomorphism wasn't just about leather textures – it was about teaching people new mental models. the trash can empties because you understand what a trash can does. aqua's lickable buttons and sheets had depth because the OS had layers you could understand. the old apple designed the whole stack – from metal to pixels to concepts. teams weren't just shipping features in the same box, they were building coherent platforms each with opinions about what computing should feel like for the medium. liquid glass is fine on a phone. but on macOS it's unusable – lack of precision, visual noise everywhere. this is what happens when UI language designed for fingers bleed into macOS. we went from interfaces designed for a 27" cinema display with a precise cursor to interfaces designed for a 1.5" screen you tap with one finger. the Mac is for creation and precision work. it needs information density. it needs chrome you can grab. it needs UI that gets out of your way but gives you power when you need it. instead we got padding and whitespace and translucent blurs optimized for touch targets nobody's touching. the squircle icon mandate is a symptom. when you force every icon into the same shape, you're saying "brand consistency" matters more than "each app icon needs to communicate its function instantly." we traded clarity for uniformity. we traded precise design for cross-platform sameness. consistency means your system has coherent rules within itself. uniformity means everything looks the same regardless of context. the hardware team still gets it – that macbook pro M-series chips, chef's kiss. but software design feels like it's chasing fat fingers instead of remembering what people do on a Mac.

Just when I thought Europe was going in a new direction. How can we fight this?

Just a month later and... 🇪🇺 ChatControl is back! Now they're trying to pass an even more far reaching ChatControl law through the back door, in a form even more intrusive than the originally rejected plan, without needing any of the EU countries votes The new proposal: - total mandatory surveillance of ALL text chats, emails and social media in the EU - obligatory registration of your ID/passport to your chat, email or social media account - minimum age requirement for chat, email and social media apps of 16 (!) The only way to stop this law is if EU countries veto it Read more here by @echo_pbreyer: patrick-breyer.de/en/chat-co…

Humans for scale 👀 New Glenn is massive!!!

Immense planning and technical precision was required for this absolutely preposterous (but real) view: I captured my friend @BlackGryph0n transiting the sun during a skydive. This might be the first photo of it's kind in existence. See a video of this moment in the reply 👇

I don’t understand why the EU is so absolutely unrelentingly determined to do ChatControl, no matter how many times democratically elected governments refuse them. It’s becoming scary and pathological. patrick-breyer.de/en/chat-co…

It is unfortunate that NASA’s team and the broader space community have to endured distractions like this. There are extraordinary opportunities and some risks ahead and so the focus should be on the mission. With many reporters and other interested parties reaching out, I want to help bring some clarity to the discussion... unfortunately, that means another long post: I have met Secretary Duffy many times and even flew him in a fighter jet at EAA Oshkosh--probably one of the coolest things a cabinet secretary can do. I have also told many people I think he has great instincts and is an excellent communicator, which is so important in leadership. If there is any friction, I suspect it is more political operators causing the controversy. This isn't an election or campaign for the NASA Administrator job, the Secretary is the leader and I will root for his success across his many responsibilities. We both believe deeply in American leadership in the high ground of space--though we may differ on how to achieve that goal and whether NASA should remain an independent agency. It is true that Athena was a draft plan I worked on with a very small group from the time of my initial nomination through its withdrawal in May. Parts of it are now dated, and it was always intended to be a living document refined through data gathering post-confirmation. I would think it is better to have a plan going into a responsibility as great as the leadership of NASA than no plan at all. It is also true that only one 62-page version of the plan (with unique header/footer markings) was delivered in hard copy back in mid-August to a single party. I learned it was leaked to reporters and across industry last week. It seems some people are letting politics get in the way of the mission and the President’s goals for space. Personally, I think the “why” behind the timing of this document circulating--and the spin being given to reporters--is the real story. While the full plan exceeded 100 pages, it centered around five main priorities that I will summarize below, including some specifics on the topics attracting the most interest. There is the question--why not release the entire document? Well, one party is clearly circulating it, so I am sure it is only a matter of time before it becomes public--in which case, I will stand behind it. I think there are many elements of the plan that the space community and NASA would find exciting, and it would be disappointing if they never came to fruition. Mostly, I just don’t think the space community needs to debate line-by-line while NASA and the rest of the government are going through a shutdown. I will say everything in the report is consistent with my Senate testimony, my written responses to the Senate for the record, and all the podcasts and papers I have ever spoken to on the subject. - Reorganize and Empower Pivot from the drawn-out, multi-phase RIF “death by a thousand cuts” to a single, data-driven reorganization aimed at reducing layers of bureaucracy between leadership and the engineers, researchers, and technicians--basically all the “doers”. Align departments tightly to the mission so that information flows for quick decision-making. One example, which was mischaracterized by a reporter, was exploring relocating all aircraft to Armstrong so there could be a single hierarchy for aviation operations, maintenance, and safety. From there, aircraft like T-38s would operate on detachment at JSC. Other goals of the reorganization, would be to liberate the NASA budget from dated infrastructure that is in disrepair to free up resources to invest in what is needed for the mission of the day. And maybe most importantly, reenergize a culture of empowerment, ownership, and urgency--and recalibrate a framework that acknowledges some risks are worth taking. – American Leadership in the High Ground of Space Put more astronauts in space with greater frequency, including rebooting the Payload Specialist programs to give opportunities for the NASA workforce--especially on opportunities that could unlock the orbital economy--the chance to go to space. Fulfill the 35-year promise and President Trump’s Artemis plan to return American astronauts to the Moon and determine the scientific, economic, and national security reasons to support an enduring lunar presence. Eventually, transition to an affordable, repeatable lunar architecture that supports frequent missions. When that foundation is built, shift resources toward the near-impossible that no one else will work on like nuclear electric propulsion for efficient transport of mass, active cooling of cryogenic propellants, surface power, and even potential DoD applications. To be clear, the plan does not issue a directive to cancel Gateway or SLS, in fact, the word “Gateway” is used only three times in the entire document. It does explore the possibility of pivoting hardware and resources to a nuclear electric propulsion program after the objectives of the President’s budget are complete. On the same note, it also seeks to research the possibility that Orion could be launched on multiple platforms to support a variety of future mission applications. As an example of the report being dated, Sen. Cruz’s has subsequently incorporated additional funding in the OBBB for further Artemis missions--which brings clarity to the topic. - Solving the Orbital Economy Maximize the remaining life of the ISS. Streamline the process for high-potential science and research to reach orbit. Partner with industry (pharmaceuticals, mining, biotech, etc) to figure out how to extract more value from space than we put in--and critically attempt to solve the orbital economy. That is the only way commercial space station companies will have a fighting chance to succeed. I don’t think there is anything controversial here--we need to figure out how to pay for the exciting future we all want to see in space. – NASA as a Force Multiplier for Science Leverage NASA’s resources--financial (bulk buying launch and bus from numerous providers), technical, and operational expertise to increase the frequency of missions, reduce costs, and empower academic institutions to contribute to real discovery missions. The idea is to get some of that $1 trillion in university endowments into the fight, alongside NASA, to further science and discovery. Expand the CLPS-style approach across planetary science to accelerate discovery and reduce time-to-science... better to have 10 x $100 million missions and a few fail than a single overdue and costly $1B mission. I know the “science-as-a-service” concept got people fired up, but that was specifically called out in the plan for Earth observation, from companies that already have constellations like Planet, BlackSky, etc. Why build bespoke satellites at greater cost and delay when you could pay for the data as needed from existing providers and repurpose the funds for more planetary science missions (as an example)? With respect to JPL, it was a research request to look at overlaps between the work of the laboratory and what prime contractors were also doing on their behalf. The report never even remotely suggested that America could ever do without the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Personally, I have publicly defended programs like the Chandra X-ray Observatory, offered to fund a Hubble reboost mission, and anything suggesting that I am anti-science or want to outsource that responsibility is simply untrue. – Investing in the Future The congressionally mandated “learning period” will eventually expire, and the government will inevitably play a greater role in certifying commercial missions (crewed and uncrewed) just like they do with aircraft, ships, trains, etc. NASA eventually should build a Starfleet Academy to train and prepare the commercial industry to operate safely and successfully in this future space economy, and consolidate and upgrade mission control into a single “NORAD of peaceful space,” allowing JSC to become the spaceflight center of excellence and oversee multiple government and commercial missions simultaneously. Other investments for the future included AI, replacing dated IT systems, and ways to alleviate the demand on the Deep Space Network. - Closing This plan never favored any one vendor, never recommended closing centers, or directed the cancellation of programs before objectives were achieved. The plan valued human exploration as much as scientific discovery. It was written as a starting place to give NASA, international partners, and the commercial sector the best chance for long-term success. The more I see the imperfections of politics and the lengths people will go, the more I want to serve and be part of the solution... because I love NASA and I love my country 🇺🇸🚀

Rook is back! Congrats and good luck Jared. I expect I won't always agree with your decisions, but I do trust your integrity and your focus and committment to America's future in space.

iOS 26.1 biedt een belangrijke nieuwe securityfunctie die op de achtergrond urgente patches installeert zodat je apparaat veilig blijft. Raad iedereen aan om dit te activeren. Dat doe je via Instellingen > Privacy & Beveiliging > Beveiligingsverbeteringen.

A funky and original way of showing cross-border price differences for common consumer goods. Yes, the borders are open but you get what I’m saying…

our next Dutch PM ❤️🏳️‍🌈

Elon's biggest rival in space isn't Bezos. It's a self taught engineer without a degree. • He built the company from scratch in his garage. • His company is now worth over $30B • His rocket has successfully launched over 70 times. "Building the largest Space company in the world" is his goal. Peter Beck is his name.