New Newsletter: Beehiiv + Mastodon

Welcome to my new newsletter!! With the downfall of Revue (RIP), I've moved my newsletter over to Beehiiv, which I'm pretty much in love with. The free tier has some excellent features (2,500 subs, for free, which is better than most places I've seen.)

It's not just my provider that's changed. The newsletter itself is as well. The frequency will increase: I'll have weekly emails instead of monthly, each with a cool space picture and links to what I've been doing (including individual links to space videos, something a lot of you have asked about!)

I'm also going to do a little more writing in these — productivity, things I find useful, ADHD, gadgets I like: I'm planning on doing more of that both here in the newsletter and on my blog (yes, it all has come a full circle).

For this issue, I want to talk a little bit about Mastodon. If you don't care, feel free to keep scrolling! I'm actually enjoying being on both Twitter and Mastodon (but I'm also a weirdo who actually likes social media). My recommendation for Mastodon is that if you actually enjoy the community you find on social media, then you'll probably like it. If you don't, by all means set up an account and poke around, but if you are on social media because you have to be, it's probably not for you. With the influx of new users, it will be interesting to see how Mastodon evolves. There are some things I really like about the culture (it feels kinder than Twitter) but there are definitely issues it will need to contend with, including discussion around race, moderation, abuse, and so on. But I actually kind of love it and will be active over there regardless of what happens with Twitter (you can find me at @[email protected]).

If you're looking to get started at Mastodon, I have two blog posts for you:

• How to sign up for Mastodon

• What to do once you're on Mastodon

For now, I hope you enjoy, and I'm always happy for thoughts, comments, and suggestions.

Swapna

Cool things in space: The Tarantula Nebula

One of my favorite underrated photos from JWST, the Tarantula Nebula located in the Large Magellanic Cloud. If you're interested in learning more, here's my video on this JWST Tarantula Nebula image.

NASA's $4 billion rocket was out on the launch pad in a Category 1 hurricane. Here's why the decision on whether to roll it back or not was a complicated one.

Update on this: The rocket sustained winds above its tolerances (gusts up to 100 miles per hour). We're waiting to hear from NASA on when they'll get inspection teams out to look at possible damage.

We've found the closest black hole to Earth!

Just 1,600 light years away (and there are probably ones even closer than that.)

This nebula kinda looks like a Nazgûl

It's the Cone Nebula, and this new image is from the ESO.

I was a guest on All the Asians on Star Trek!

It's one of my favorite Trek podcasts. It was an honor to talk about "Lineage," a highly underrated Star Trek: Voyager episode. Content warnings on pregnancy and miscarriage for this one.

Star Trek: Prodigy is back!

I'm writing recaps of it at StarTrek.com! The back half of season one is fantastic and I highly recommend catching up if you're not already.

But also, I wrote about the tie-in game, Star Trek: Prodigy: Supernova and why it's actually really good over at Wired. (I talked to people involved in the game, and the answer is basically collaboration!)

In my free time

Playing: A game I CANNOT TALK ABOUT because I'm under embargo, this is not a brag but a message of desperation because I love this game and want to talk about it so badly. It's really good. I'll talk about it in next week's newsletter.

Listening: Audiobook of Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry. As self-indulgent as you'd expect, but I like it.

Reading: Like a Sister by Kelleye Garrett. A woman investigates the murder of her sister, it's GOOD y'all.

Watching: Stargate SG-1 rewatch, going to finally start Andor.