We found another surreal place on our way. I know some people will say I’m too positive about everything I see, but this place was crazy. They had a shooting range in the store.
Death Valley National Park is experiencing its first major superbloom in a decade as of March/April 2026, driven by record winter rainfall (1.7 – 2.5+ inches) that transformed the desert landscape with vibrant carpets of yellow, pink, and purple flowers.
https://t.co/YgaHskYSlM
The sun you see right now exploded 7 minutes ago and you'd have no way of knowing. You'd still feel its warmth. Still see it in the sky. Still orbit it. For 8 minutes and 20 seconds, you'd live in a universe that no longer has a sun and have absolutely no way to detect the difference.
This is because gravity also travels at the speed of light. If the sun vanished, Earth would continue orbiting the empty space where it used to be for the same 8 minutes and 20 seconds. Einstein proved this. The gravitational wave carrying the information "the sun is gone" propagates at exactly c. Light, gravity, and information all share the same speed limit.
Now scale the paradox in this post. 90 light-years is nothing. The Andromeda galaxy is 2.5 million light-years away. Every photograph of it is a 2.5 million year old snapshot. The entire galaxy could have collided with something catastrophic 2 million years ago. We'll find out 500,000 years from now.
The James Webb Space Telescope routinely photographs galaxies from 13.4 billion years ago. Those galaxies no longer exist in any form we'd recognize. The stars burned out. The civilizations, if any, rose and fell billions of years before Earth formed. Webb is photographing ghosts.
The deepest implication: "right now" is a local phenomenon. It exists only in the space you can physically touch. Beyond that, everything you see, measure, or interact with is a time-delayed recording. The further you look, the older the recording gets. There is no method, even in principle, to know the current state of anything beyond your immediate surroundings.
The entire observable universe is a 13.8 billion year old museum where every exhibit is labeled with a different date and nothing is current.
This just in—more images of Earth from Artemis II! 🤩
This view from @astro_reid shows the divide between night and day, also known as the terminator, as seen from the Orion capsule.
The translunar injection burn not only sets the Artemis II astronauts on the path to the Moon — it also puts the crew in a free return trajectory, which will allow them to use Moon's gravity to return to Earth.
If you're under 53 years old, you have never once been alive while a human was farther than 250 miles from Earth. Tonight, four astronauts are heading 252,000 miles out. That's a thousand times farther than any person has gone in your lifetime.
The 250-mile ceiling is where the International Space Station floats. Every astronaut since December 1972 has been stuck in that zone. Spacewalks, science experiments, cool photos from orbit, sure. But nobody left the neighborhood.
The last crew to go farther was Apollo 17. December 1972. Nixon was president. The internet didn't exist. Cell phones were 11 years away. The youngest member of that crew is now 90 years old.
The farthest any human has ever been from Earth is 248,655 miles. The Apollo 13 crew set that number in 1970, and they didn't mean to. Their oxygen tank blew up, and the emergency route home took them farther out than anyone before or since. Tonight's crew will break that record on purpose.
And the crew itself. Victor Glover becomes the first Black astronaut to leave Earth's neighborhood. Christina Koch becomes the first woman. Jeremy Hansen, a Canadian fighter pilot, becomes the first non-American to do so. When they come home, they'll slam into the atmosphere at 25,000 mph, faster than any human has ever traveled.
The Moon's south pole has ice. Water ice, sitting in craters so deep that sunlight hasn't hit them in billions of years. A 2024 NASA study found way more of it than anyone expected. You can split water into hydrogen and oxygen, which gives you rocket fuel, breathable air, and drinking water, all made on the Moon instead of hauled up from Earth. George Sowers at Colorado School of Mines calculated that Moon-made fuel could shave $12 billion off a single trip to Mars. The Moon is a gas station on the road to Mars.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced last week a $20 billion plan to build a permanent base at the South Pole over the next seven years, with landings every six months. China is developing its own lunar lander and spacesuit, aiming for a crewed landing by 2030. The Artemis program has burned through $93 billion so far, and the first actual surface landing is penciled in for 2028. There's a real question of who gets there first this time around.
Harrison Schmitt walked on the Moon in December 1972 as part of Apollo 17. He's 90. Asked about it this week, he sounded pretty relaxed. "Mars is attainable," he said. "We're humans. That's what we've always done."
From Foreign Correspondent to Uber Driver
@thenation published my essay with a few additions in its latest issue with the valued support of the @econhardship. Thanks to both.
https://t.co/S3QkhyiW7B
Did it ever dawn on the geniuses at Pinterest that AI content completely destroys the entire fucking point
I can’t wait to plan a baby shower with things that don’t exist. I can’t wait to be inspired by an impossible house. Check out this kitchen that’s misleading etc etc
dear apple, the iPod needs to come back. not for nostalgia. for the parents who want their kids to love music and audiobooks without a browser, social media, and the whole internet attached to it
We’re feeling pretty Foolish about this one. ✨
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That’s a wrap on another fantastic @FutureProof_HQ Festival!
We loved seeing friends new & old, hearing industry updates & of course, making custom hats for all of you. 🧢 See you next year!
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