Mongoose Traveller JTAS (May 2024) – revived through Wed 13 May
Apr. 30th, 2026 05:55 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
beyondthebundle_feed
Through Wednesday, May 13, to finish off Traveller Week 2026, we revive the May 2024 Mongoose JTAS Bundle featuring the Journal of the Travellers’ Aid Society, the Traveller guide from Mongoose Publishing. The Journal of the Travellers’ Aid Society is your indispensable guide to adventuring in the Third Imperium of Traveller. Each 128-page volume is a treasure trove of information and enhancements, including adventures, new ships, alien creatures from across Charted Space, philosophical musings on the big empires, histories, different takes on familiar equipment, new vehicles, patrons, characters you meet in starports, playable alien races, and more.
This revived May 2024 Mongoose JTAS Bundle can boost your Mongoose Traveller campaign like a Jump-4 drive. Pay just US$27.95 to get the twelve issues in this revived offer’s JTAS Collection (Volumes 1-12, 2019-2023, retail value $180) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks. In this list, each link goes to the DriveThruRPG product page that lists highlights of that volume:
Journal of the Travellers’ Aid Society Volume 01: Burst lasers, a turret weapon midway between pulse and beam lasers; guides to piracy and smuggling in the Spinward Marches; new variants of the trusty ATV; theDelphinus Starliner, to travel in absolute comfort; the Two Thousand worlds of the K’kree; the Dynchia, fully playable humanoid aliens.
JTAS V02: The Githiasko, for those wanting to try a truly alien playable race; “Last Flight of the Themis”; battle fleets of the Marches; the Quiet Vigilance patrol vessel; “Airstrike,” a complete guide to raining death upon your enemies; exotic atmospheres of strange worlds.
JTAS V03: Cartridge laser weapons, for those wanting to avoid heavy power packs; Zhodani military organization; the nitty-gritty of Jump drive operations; engage in electronic warfare in “War in the Fourth Dimension”; the Tvastar Manufactory Ship, a vessel designed for instant colonization; enact a prison break in “Rescue on Ruie.”
JTAS V04: The Hlanssai, a playable alien race from the Vargr Extents; a Travellers’ guide to the Florian League; Siduri Station, a complete starport; the Mainstrider 300T, a new trading vessel for starting Travellers; unknown blips; Imperial Marine Task Force Organization.
JTAS V05: A rescue mission with advanced fire engines in the adventure “Chariots of Fire”; field equipment of the Imperial Interstellar Scout Service; salvage rights of derelict spacecraft; damage control operations on ships under fire; Jump Boats and their Jump Boat Tenders; the Virushi, a one-ton playable alien race.
JTAS V06: Vehicle-mounted missiles; the Steppehauler Modular Freighter, with prototype Hop Drive; maritime vehicles; making a tramp trader profitable; stars and stellar objects in deep space; save a populated world from a hurtling asteroid in the adventure “Critical Vector.”
JTAS V07: A week in Jump; “Misadventures at Blinderby Manor”; Initial 24 Armaments Go Cases and Energy Weapons; stellar cartography; the Spacer’s Union; the Black Zone Astro-Tomb; advanced lasers; the Golden Dawn yacht; Krungha Processing Ark; Deepnight character creation; immigration in the Imperium; Iderati Space Defense System.
JTAS V08: Divine intervention; “Care Package”; Omicron – the Mythical Weaponsmith; the Gauss Rifle’s big brother; Sojourner light trader; talking about turrets; the Pink Diamond; the Hunter Career; BB-2 Nuclear Powered Bus.
JTAS V09: “Icebox Found at the Exe Cutoff”; Zadony-Tessen Survival Armaments; Belvedere Station; criminal organizations of the Marches; Vindicator Logging heavy walker.
JTAS V10: Tamara’s Travelling Tavern; “The Argon Gambit”; intrusion decks; Iris Valves – a users and abusers guide; organized crime in the Core; Evergreen research vessel; the Zhodani fleet; monetizing heroism; hunting and preparing food; soldiers, officers, and Specialists; advanced education; Unicycle of Mass Destruction.
JTAS V11: Stateroom excess; musical instruments; Ajilchin prospector ship; the Sword of Oberon; starships of the Spinward Extents; colonising the Tijian Expanse; spacecraft as benefits; Mighty Maus Mobile Centre; heavy plant vehicles.
JTAS V12: “Suits You, Sophont” (clothing options); starports and airships of the Imperium; Kyriani “The Wolf of the Marches” Nakamura, captain of the Triplebrick; Geonee ships; Hhkar Sublight Drive Systems; games for gamblers; campaign bloat.
Aid is at hand, Traveller! Get this revived May 2024 JTAS offer before it takes High Passage again Wednesday, May 13.
https://bundleofholding.com/presents/JTAS2026
Done with our travels – for now
This year’s Traveller Week 2026 sequence of offers ends here – just ahead of May 1, known to many SFRPG fans as Traveller Day. The cover of the first Traveller boxed set (1977) featured Free Trader Beowulf‘s iconic call – the universal distress call m’aidez! (French “help me”), transliterated as “Mayday.”
This week’s offers, all featuring Mongoose Traveller Second Edition, included the December 2024 Mongoose Traveller Update Bundle (if you’re new to the game, start here), Mercenaries (Dec 2023), Great Rift (Nov 2022), and the all-new Traveller Imperial Navy.
Traveller Great Rift (Nov 2022) – revived through Wed 13 May
Apr. 29th, 2026 05:55 pmbeyondthebundle_feed
We continue Traveller Week 2026 featuring many offers for the Second Edition Traveller SFRPG line from Mongoose Publishing. Through Wednesday, May 13 we revive the November 2022 Traveller Great Rift Bundle with the void-spanning Great Rift setting guide (2025 version) and the decades-long campaign Deepnight Revelation, plus many adventures in the deeps far (faaar) beyond the Third Imperium.
Traveller‘s Charted Space setting is cut in half by a region of very low stellar density a sector or more wide. Over the centuries, this natural barrier to astrogation has shaped the history of the Third Imperium. Deep in the Great Rift lie ancient mysteries, strange alien races, and human cultures who have not seen offworld contact in centuries. Portside rumors speak of giant creatures capable of interstellar flight, and of starship wrecks belonging to no known race. From the cold war of the Islands Cluster to the isolation of the Boulderfield, the Great Rift is a place of varied and insidious danger. A miscalculated jump means a slow death in deep space – yet Travellers are willing to take the risk.
The Deepnight Revelation, a refitted Imperial Navy cruiser, is bound for Terminus Point, a source of strong and confusing radio signals on the trailing side of the Riftmouth. The expedition along the Great Rift to the edge of the Spiral Arm will take nine and a half years; the earliest possible return to base is 20 years after departure; the complete journey is expected to take 24-28 years. It’s one of the most stupendous missions in human history, a voyage beyond everything we know.
This revival of the November 2022 Traveller Great Rift Bundle once again brings you two complete campaign sets and many adventures that send your player characters on a decades-long trek to strange new worlds where no Traveller has gone before. Pay just US$9.95 to get both titles in this revived offer’s Starter Collection (retail value $80) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the complete setting guide The Great Rift (2025) and the Deepnight Revelation campaign set.
This updated 2025 version of the 2017 Great Rift replaces the original three-volume box set with two expanded volumes, including a new chapter covering adventures in this vast expanse of space, new art, and the current Traveller formatting. If you purchased this Great Rift Bundle during its original November 2022 run, you also receive the newly added Great Rift 2025 campaign set automatically on your Wizard’s Cabinet download page on the Bundle site and in your linked DriveThruRPG Library. When you buy a Bundle of Holding early, you never worry about missing titles added later – even much later.
And if you pay more than the threshold (average) price, which is set at $34.95 to start, you’ll level up and also get this revival’s entire Bonus Collection with seven more sourcebooks and adventures worth an additional $195 that enhance your voyage across the Rift, including six Deepnight sourcebooks – Riftsedge Transit, The Near Side of Yonder, The Crossing, The Far Side of Nowhere, Voidshore, and Expeditions – along with the newly added five-scenario omnibus, Great Rift Adventures 1-5.
(And, purchasers of the original November 2022 run, you also receive the Great Rift Adventures omnibus.)
Note: These supplements and adventures require the Mongoose Traveller 2E rulebook, which isn’t included in this offer. If you’re new to the game, you want our revived December 2024 Mongoose Traveller Update Bundle in progress.
Get this revived November 2022 Traveller Great Rift Bundle before it embarks on the Riftmouth expedition into the void beyond Reference Point XF-1402, six parsecs into the Great Rift Wednesday, May 13.
https://bundleofholding.com/presents/2026GreatRift
Traveller Week 2026!
The Traveller Week 2026 offers all feature Mongoose Traveller Second Edition, available in the December 2024 Mongoose Traveller Update Bundle (if you’re new to the game, start here). The other offers this week include the all-new Traveller Imperial Navy and three more revivals: Mercenaries (Dec 2023), Great Rift (Nov 2022), and Mongoose JTAS (May 2024).
Traveller Mercenaries (Dec 2023) – revived through Wed 13 May
Apr. 28th, 2026 05:55 pmbeyondthebundle_feed
Traveller Week 2026 continues as, through Wednesday, May 13, we revive the December 2023 Traveller Mercenaries Bundle featuring soldier-for-hire supplements and adventures for Traveller Second Edition from Mongoose Publishing.
Mercenary has been part of the Traveller line since the 1978 Little Black Book 4. Mongoose published Mercenary 1E (2008) as the first supplement for its Traveller 1E. This revived Traveller Mercenaries offer presents the newest and largest version, the three-book Mercenary Second Edition boxed set (2021).
Funded in a February 2021 Kickstarter campaign (1,026 backers, £100K) and designed by longtime Traveller writer Martin J Dougherty, Mercenary 2E presents expanded systems for recruiting merc units of any size from squad to battalion; new mass-combat rules; defined equipment levels from Basic to Standard, Generous, Lavish, and Excessive; and a new ticketing system that lets you line up Commando, Striker, Warfighting, Cadre, Support, and Specialist contracts. A full support line adds tickets, equipment, adventures, and an entire theater of operations, the Solomani Front.
Note: These supplements and adventures require the Mongoose Traveller 2E rulebook, which isn’t included in this offer. If you’re new to the game, you want our revived December 2024 Mongoose Traveller Update Bundle in progress.
Pay just US$12.95 to get all three supplements in this revived offer’s Player Collection (retail value $97) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including Mercenary, Mercenaries of Charted Space, and Field Catalogue.
And if you pay more than the threshold (average) price, which is set at $24.95 to start, you’ll level up and also get this revival’s entire Referee Collection with five more titles worth an additional $101, including Specialist Forces, Solomani Front, and three Mercenary Adventures: 1: Verloren Hoop, 2: Bug Hunt, and 3: Must Travel, Need Guns.
This revived December 2023 Traveller Mercenaries gets its ticket punched again Wednesday, May 13. (Note! This offer ends before the two offers we launched on the first day of Traveller Week – the revived December 2024 Mongoose Traveller Update Bundle and its all-new companion, Traveller Imperial Navy.)
Traveller Week 2026!
The Traveller Week 2026 offers all feature Mongoose Traveller Second Edition, available in the December 2024 Mongoose Traveller Update Bundle (if you’re new to the game, start here). The other offers this week include the all-new Traveller Imperial Navy and three more revivals: Mercenaries (Dec 2023), Great Rift (Nov 2022), and Mongoose JTAS (May 2024).
Traveller Update (Dec 2024) + new Imperial Navy – through Mon 18 May
Apr. 27th, 2026 05:55 pmbeyondthebundle_feed
The last week of April 2026 is Traveller Week at the Bundle of Holding – a sequence of five offers in four days, all featuring Traveller from Mongoose Publishing, that lead up to Traveller Day on Friday. Each year on May 1, fans celebrate Traveller Day in honor of the cover copy on the 1977 First Edition of Traveller: “This is Free Trader Beowulf, calling anyone… Mayday, Mayday…”
Through Monday, May 18 we kick off Traveller Week 2026 with two offers – one new, one revived. If you’re new to Traveller, start with the resurrected December 2024 Mongoose Traveller Update Bundle, with the core rulebook and useful supplements. Then check its all-new companion, Traveller Imperial Navy, with sourcebooks and adventures that focus on the Third Imperium space fleet.
Traveller is a game of bold explorers and brave adventurers. Spaceports, ancient civilizations, air/rafts, cold steel blades, laser carbines, far distant worlds, and exotic alien beasts – this is the futuristic universe of Traveller, the original and classic science fiction roleplaying game. Whether you’re a newly mustered recruit or a six-term veteran, you’ll find much to explore in these Traveller revivals.
1. TRAVELLER UPDATE [from Dec 2024]
Mongoose Traveller lets you explore the universe the way it suits you. Lightly revised to incorporate tweaks, rules updates, and new art, the Traveller Core Rulebook Update 2022 contains everything you need to create your Traveller and begin exploring the galaxy in the far future. And the supplements in this revived December 2024 Mongoose Traveller Update Bundle give you new allies, contacts, and enemies – starships large and small – and robots of every size from nano to colossal.
Pay just US$17.95 to get all five titles in this revived offer’s Traveller Updates collection (retail value $150) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the complete Traveller Core Rulebook Update 2022, Traveller Companion Update 2024, Adventure Class Ships, Small Craft Catalogue, and the Robot Handbook.
The Update 2022 version is completely compatible with the original 2017 version of Mongoose Traveller Second Edition and its supplements and adventures.
https://bundleofholding.com/presents/TravUpdateR1
2. TRAVELLER IMPERIAL NAVY [all-new]
This all-new Traveller Imperial Navy companion offer adds sourcebooks and adventures about the Third Imperium space fleet. The Imperial Navy and the other titles in this new offer display the greatest military force in the Third Imperium, from the great fleets down to a band of new recruits. The navy is entwined in the politics and economics of the Imperium. It’s a training ground for the great nobility, and, for the general populace, a route to social advancement. Without its senior service, the Third Imperium would not exist.
Pay just $14.95 to get all six titles in this offer’s Imperial Navy Collection (retail value $115), including The Imperial Navy sourcebook, Element Class Cruisers: Ship Builder’s Blueprints (plus the Naval Campaigns Handbook), and all four Naval Adventures: 1: Shakedown Cruise, 2: Showing the Sunburst, 3: Fire on the Sindalian Main, and 4: Enemy of My Enemy.
https://bundleofholding.com/presents/ImperialNavy
These two Traveller offers go missing together in the warzone around Tyrian Orbital Prime, where Glorious Empire forces are assaulting Tyr and the very Dustbelt is at stake, Monday, May 18.
1. TRAVELLER UPDATE [from Dec 2024]
https://bundleofholding.com/presents/TravUpdateR1
2. TRAVELLER IMPERIAL NAVY [all-new]
https://bundleofholding.com/presents/ImperialNavy
Traveller Week 2026!
The Traveller Week 2026 offers all feature Mongoose Traveller Second Edition, available in the December 2024 Mongoose Traveller Update Bundle (if you’re new to the game, start here). The other offers this week include the all-new Traveller Imperial Navy and three more revivals: Mercenaries (Dec 2023), Great Rift (Nov 2022), and Mongoose JTAS (May 2024).
Apple Q2 2026 Results
May. 1st, 2026 12:41 amdaringfireball_feedApple Newsroom:
“Today Apple is proud to report our best March quarter ever, with revenue of $111.2 billion and double-digit growth across every geographic segment,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “iPhone achieved a March quarter revenue record, fueled by such extraordinary demand for the iPhone 17 lineup. During the quarter, Services achieved yet another all-time record, and we were excited to introduce remarkable new products to our strongest lineup ever. That included the addition of the iPhone 17e and the M4-powered iPad Air, along with the launch of MacBook Neo, which is captivating customers all around the world.”
Record results for the January–March quarter for revenue, profit, and iPhone revenue in particular. And iPhones were constrained by supply. Tim Cook led the analyst conference call because he’s still CEO, but John Ternus joined for the first time. Worth a listen to just their opening remarks.
Over at Six Colors, Jason Snell has the usual assortment of graphs charting Apple’s numbers. Spoiler: up, up, up. And he has his usual transcript of the analyst call. From that transcript, this bit from Ternus’s prepared statement made me smile:
I want to echo Tim’s sentiment about our shareholders, especially those who have been with us for many years. Thank you so much for your confidence in our company. As you know, one of the hallmarks of Tim’s tenure has been a deep thoughtfulness, deliberateness, and discipline when it comes to the financial decision-making of the company, and I want you to know that is something Kevan and I intend to continue when I transition into the role in September.
Translation: “In case you were worried, we intend to keep making money hand over fist when I become CEO. I’m not coming into the job to spend the company’s money like a drunken sailor.”
★ On the Future of Apple’s Vision Platform
May. 1st, 2026 12:11 amdaringfireball_feedJuli Clover, writing at MacRumors under the rather incendiary headline “Apple Has Given Up on the Vision Pro After M5 Refresh Flop”:
Apple has all but given up on the Vision Pro after the M5 model failed to revitalize interest in the device, MacRumors has learned. Apple updated the Vision Pro with a faster M5 chip and a more comfortable band in October 2025, but there were no other hardware changes, and consumers still weren’t interested. [...]
The Vision Pro has been unpopular since it first launched, and Apple only sold around 600,000 units in total. Insider sources told MacRumors that Apple has received an unusually high percentage of returns, far exceeding any other modern Apple product.
Apple has apparently stopped work on the Vision Pro and the Vision Pro team has been redistributed to other teams within Apple. Some former Vision Pro team members are working on Siri, which is not a surprise as Vision Pro chief Mike Rockwell has been leading the Siri team since March 2025.
This report comes as news to everyone at Apple working in the Vision Product Group (VPG). Nothing about the future of the platform has changed recently. When it was a secret project, prior to unveiling, it was called the Technology Development Group (TDG) inside Apple. Then, when Vision Pro was unveiled, it became VPG. And then at some point the hardware went under Apple’s hardware group (led by John Ternus) and the software under the software group (led by Craig Federighi). So there have been changes, yes, but only the sort of changes that are natural when a product shifts from being a secret to being one of Apple’s regular non-secret platforms.
As for poor sales, I think it’s unquestionable that Vision Pro sales — and general enthusiasm — have been a disappointment. What momentum they had out of the gate has seemingly petered out. But the optimistic scenario inside Apple was not all that high. The best-case scenario was surely a bigger number of units than they’ve actually sold, but not that much more. There’s no realistic scenario where Vision Pro was an out-of-the-gate hit like, say, the iPad was. It’s an all-new device in an all-new product category that starts at $3,500 and costs more like $4,000 if you need corrective lenses. Before it debuted, there were multiple reports from multiple sources that suggested (a) that Sony could only manufacture a maximum of 900,000 displays per year, capping dual-display Vision Pro headsets at 450,000 per year; and (b) that Apple itself “expected to ship fewer than half a million headsets in the first year of its release, according to people involved in its supply chain” (per Wayne Ma at The Information).
Look at how Apple unveiled the second-gen Vision Pro with M5 — it was the definition of “low key”. I don’t think there was a single person in Cupertino — not one — who looked at first-generation Vision Pro sales and thought, “I know what will turn this around in a big way: a second-generation speed bump where the M2 chip is upgraded to an M5!” That speed bump in October was not intended to make a huge difference. It was just a signal that they’re still at it. Speed bumps are good. (And it probably helps, not hurts, margins because the M5 is used on Macs and iPads too, and no other product still in production uses the M2.) Rather than anyone — literally anyone — at Apple being surprised that the October second-gen M5 update did not meaningfully change the sales trajectory, I think the entire company would have been flabbergasted (and caught flat-footed on supply) if it had.
This sentence from Clover’s report is doing a lot of work:
Apple has apparently stopped work on the Vision Pro and the Vision Pro team has been redistributed to other teams within Apple.
There’s only one Vision hardware product to date, and that product, through two generations, is named Vision Pro. If Clover is saying that no one is working on a third-generation revision of the Vision Pro product we know today, maybe that’s correct. I don’t know. I certainly hope it’s correct. I think it was fine for Apple to do one new-generation speed bump of the original hardware. But going forward, they clearly need to do something significant for the next hardware. Ideally, two things: a much more appealing “Vision Pro” and a lower-priced “Vision Air” or just plain “Vision” or, hell, a “Vision Neo”. Take a new crack at the high end with a lighter-weight higher-resolution Vision Pro and open up new markets with something starting at under $2,000.
But I don’t think anyone is reading that sentence from Clover’s report that way. It implies — along with the headline — that Apple is just giving up on the whole platform. That’s how everyone is reading it, and it’s clearly what the article, and especially headline, implies.
I don’t think that’s true, at all. There’s a VisionOS 27 update coming at WWDC and new hardware in the works. Not just AR glasses, but immersive Vision headsets. There are, I believe, as many people at Apple working on VisionOS software and immersive content today as there ever have been. It’s full steam ahead. The pressure is on, I’m sure, but there’s no doom and gloom. The Apple folks in the Vision group aren’t oblivious.1 They actually know the roadmap, and they know just how much work is between where the platform is today and where it needs to be for it to be a meaningful contributor to Apple’s bottom line. But they’re there, working on it. I don’t know who told MacRumors what (and their sourcing is just “MacRumors has learned”), but I know for a fact that it is not true that the teams working on the Vision platform have “been redistributed to other teams within Apple.”
It’s a strange thing for MacRumors to state so categorically something I believe has no truth to it whatsoever. And if there is some truth to it, it’s not what the article implies, which is that the whole thing has been shut down, somehow without the world knowing until now. Just two weeks ago John Ternus and Greg Joswiak were interviewed by Mark Spoonauer at Tom’s Guide, and both spoke of a bright future for spatial computing. Joz describing Vision Pro as a product pulled into the present from the future is a good way of emphasizing the yet regarding a product — and category — that’s not there yet. Apple executives know how to give a non-answer answer to a question they don’t want to answer honestly. (Exhibit A: Tim Cook “squashing” rumors that he was about to retire ... one month before he announced he was stepping aside as CEO.) The way Ternus and Joz were talking about the platform, and immersive content, this month was not lacking in enthusiasm. It was asking for patience.
It’s certainly possible that this Vision thing ultimately isn’t going to work out and Apple will throw in the towel on it. But that hasn’t happened, and if it does, it’s not going to come out of nowhere as a story on MacRumors for the people in VPG working on it. When Apple threw in the towel on Project Titan (the car project) in February 2024, an all-hands was held to break the news, led by then-COO Jeff Williams and Titan project lead Kevin Lynch. The team didn’t learn it from a fucking leak.
-
No one on the planet is more keenly aware of how few people own a Vision Pro than the people who work on the Vision platform. If you work at Apple and work on the iPhone, and you meet someone who asks what you do, and you tell them you work on the iPhone at Apple, there’s a good chance they’ll say “Hey, I have an iPhone!” and they’ll take it out of their pocket to show you. If you work on the Mac, you’ll meet a lot of people who will say “Hey, I’ve been a Mac user for a long time!” Tell people you work on Vision Pro, and the best answer you’re likely to get is “Oh, nice, uh, I think I’ve heard about that.“ ↩︎
Why are the Artemis II photos on Flickr?
Apr. 30th, 2026 08:50 pmwaxy_feedAnil Dash on Flickr Commons' enduring legacy as a home for public domain photos from institutions around the world #
Requiem for a Back Deck
Apr. 30th, 2026 08:58 pmscalziwhatever_feed
After 30 years of existence, our back deck is no more… at least for the few days it will take to build the new one. The previous deck had given good service, but over the years it had become splintery and a bit rickety (when the contractor was pulling it up, he pointed out to Krissy the places where the house’s original owner had clearly cut some corners) and it was time to swap it out with something able to withstand the next few decades. On top of that, Krissy wants the deck covered, to make it more comfortable on hotter summer days.
As noted earlier, we already needed our front porch railing redone, so why not get it all taken care of in one swoop. So here we are. It’s still mildly shocking to see the lack of a deck, and I imagine the cats, who are used to wandering around on the back deck, are going to be befuddled for a bit. Fortunately, the new deck will not take too long to put up (knock on the wood that will go into making it).
In the meantime, here’s some dirt! There used to be a deck on it! And there will be again. Soon.
— JS
Connected #601: I Love Wrists — A Tier List of Tim Cook Quotes
Apr. 30th, 2026 09:20 pm512pixels_feedIn honor of Tim Cook’s pending retirement, Federico, Myke, and Stephen rank some of his quotes from the last 15 years.
This was quite the trip down memory lane.
The Wonderful World of Artemis II Photos
Apr. 30th, 2026 08:14 pm512pixels_feedHank Green has made something really cool. Called the Artemis II Photo Timeline, it’s an interactive way to scroll through photos from NASA’s recent crewed mission to cislunar space — but pinned to NASA’s official schedule of the mission.
It is also a tribute to publicly available data. Though the timeline includes some videos published to Instagram and YouTube, the vast majority are images from Flickr. NASA usually uploads them with EXIF data intact, and Flickr preserves it. NASA also provided the mission schedule and, even better, has a public API for the position of the Orion spacecraft at any given time. Which means Green was also able to correlate the photos with where they were taken along the craft’s trajectory.
But why are these images on Flickr? Anil Dash explains:
Here’s the TL;DR:
- Flickr comes from (and helped start!) the Web 2.0 era, which was based on users having control over their data
- Tools at that time began giving creators the power to decide what license they wanted to release their content under, including permissions about how it could be shared, used, or remixed
- Because the people who made platforms back then were users and creators themselves, they thought about the long term and wanted to be able to preserve people’s work
- After lots of corporate shuffling, Flickr ended up in the hands of a family-owned company, SmugMug, and they made the Flickr Foundation to preserve public photos for the next 100 years
- NASA’s images should only be on a service where they can be stored in full resolution, for the long term, dedicated to the public domain — which the other social media apps of today can’t do
Did you know that which astronaut took which photo is not public? Hank Green explains:
A previous version of this site showed some data on which astronaut took which photo, but it was brought to my attention that the four astronauts together agreed that they did not want credit for any photos taken on the mission. I’m somewhat conflicted about this because this project is about giving as much context as possible, but of course there is also something very beautiful about not wanting to take individual credit for something that was the result of so much collaboration.
Cherry, lilac, fuchsia, salvia, and snapdragon—maybe
Apr. 30th, 2026 06:42 pmasknicola_feedAs I said a couple of weeks ago, we had an amazingly mild winter here in Seattle, a disturbingly mild winter. And spring. As predicted, the cherry tree exploded into puffs of pink. This was taken a few days ago:
Blossom is about to start falling. In a week, the lawn will be carpet of pink flowers.
Meanwhile, our two lilac trees (okay, one is ours, and one is the back neighbour’s, but it grows over our deck) are also getting in on the act. The one that grows over the kitchen deck is paler than the one that in the secret little north garden (not pictured) but it makes the deck smell heavenly.
Also on the kitchen deck, we have tiny yellow flowers that come every year but whose name I can never remember. The geranium—an annual, not the perennial kind; it was not supposed to survive the winter—has grown huge, massive leaves reaching everywhere, but no sign of flower buds.
However, we have our very first fuchsia buds swelling, which delights Kelley—she loves fuchsia (we have so much fuchsia, fuchsia of every kind, on the kitchen deck, the back deck, the front flower bed…)
And two tiny flowers growing among our Hot Lips salvia—little red pinpricks among the green:
And then there’s these, which I’m really, really hoping are snapdragons—I love snapdragons—but which I suppose could also be some kind of salvia:
Meanwhile, on the back deck: nothing. Just a few green leaves growing here and there in pots. We’ll see what transpires…
AI Psychosis Reaches the Executive Suite
Apr. 30th, 2026 06:48 pm512pixels_feedAn NBER study of nearly 6,000 CEOs and CFOs across the US, UK, Germany, and Australia found that roughly 90% of firms reported zero measurable impact on productivity or employment from AI over the past three years.
The average employee AI usage was 1.5 hours per week.
The average CEO AI usage was less than one hour per week.
Meanwhile, their companies are pouring money into the $690 billion AI infrastructure buildout that, according to Sequoia, needs $600 billion in annual revenue to justify itself (but currently generates maybe $50-100 billion).
Only one in five AI investments delivers any measurable ROI. Only one in 50 delivers transformational value. And 95% of enterprise AI pilots fail to escape the lab.
I was laid off, but my old coworkers are still texting me with work questions
Apr. 30th, 2026 05:59 pmaskamanager_feedA reader writes:
My position was recently eliminated.
Now former colleagues are texting me to ask questions. I don’t feel obligated to answer. What are some response options when I want to politely say no?
You’re not obligated to answer questions when you’re no longer working there. That said, it’s also true that if you want to keep good relationships with these colleagues and might need them for job leads or references (informal or otherwise) in the future, you might not want to take a completely black-and-white line on this.
You definitely shouldn’t do work of any real substance when you’re no longer getting paid — like a detailed update on the history of a project or a rundown of the best way to approach a client — but if it’s a very simple question like “where is the key for the X filing cabinet?” that you could answer in a single sentence, it can be to your benefit to answer, because you want to maintain those relationships. Even then, there are limits; if you’re getting multiple questions like that, it’s reasonable to stop helping. But one or two very simple questions? Those are usually in your best interests to answer.
If you’re being asked for more then that, though, then any of these are reasonable to say:
* “I don’t think I can help since I’m no longer working there — I’m sorry about that!”
* “I don’t have access to that anymore now that I’ve left.”
* “I’m not sure off the top of my head — sorry!”
* “I’m not sure off the top of my head, but check the files I left behind.”
* “I can’t keep answering questions now that I’m gone, but try checking the manual.”
If it’s a colleague you particularly like or have good rapport with, you could say, “I know you’re in a tough spot since you’re trying to get this done, but since I’m not being paid anymore, I’m not comfortable continuing to help with the work.”
And if it’s a really large number of questions on substantive things and you’d be willing to help if they paid you, you could say, “I’m getting a lot of requests for help with things like this. I’d be willing to set up a consulting arrangement for a set number of hours of time over the next month or two if you want to do that.” (I’ve noticed people like to suggest quoting an outrageously fee for that, but that’s not in your interests either. A fair rate, yes, but not an obscene one just because you want to stick it to them; that’ll just make your judgment look really off. If you want stick it to them, you’re better off skipping this altogether.)
But if you’re not particularly interested in maintaining these relationships and don’t think you’ll want to call on them for any sort of help in the future, you can also just ignore the messages. You’re not obligated to respond.
The post I was laid off, but my old coworkers are still texting me with work questions appeared first on Ask a Manager.
The Big Idea: Brenda W. Clough
Apr. 30th, 2026 05:02 pmscalziwhatever_feed
Imagine a world where political servants actually served us, and whose decisions were backed by the will of the people, rather than their greed. If it sounds like fantasy, you may want to check out author Brenda W. Clough’s newest novel, Off the Screen. Follow along in her Big Idea, and remember to vote!
BRENDA W. CLOUGH:
I began Off the Screen more than twenty years ago. There’s a couple major drivers of the work, but the big one is the reboot of American democracy. It’s set in 2160, and at that point I felt that the United States could have refurbished its systems somewhat.
But, in those golden 2000s, I abandoned the work because I couldn’t imagine why we would need to tinker with the system of American governance. Everything was fine, the economy was good, Bill Clinton was president and running things reasonably well. I couldn’t figure out any way to get from here to there. And so I closed the ms.
Well! Hah! When I found the manuscript on a thumb drive in 2025, it was obvious why we had a crying need for a reboot! The problem was plain to see: the serious disconnect between the people and the rulers. We, down here, need stuff done, and we can’t get Congress to do it. The Founding Fathers designed the system to be a representative democracy – we elect our two senators and one congressperson, and they go to Washington and do our will. But it’s not working. We need a fix.
This is not a new idea. Many, many political commentators today are saying this. Every time Heather Cox Richardson talks about what we can do in this moment, she calls for new ideas, new thoughts. Oh honey. You are calling my name!
So for this novel I redesigned America. Congress, that useless buffer, is now drastically pruned back. They are our servants, remember. We pay them to do stuff for us, the same way you pay the guy to mow your lawn or fix your car. We do not pay them to fly in private airplanes and feather their nests with insider trading.
In Off the Screen, the citizens vote. All of us, every American every single day, has to vote. A neat system called DiDem, Digital Democracy, is tied to your online life. What do you do when you get up in the morning? Slug down a cup of coffee perhaps, and pick up your cell phone or open your laptop? In this book, when you swipe your cell open, the first thing that comes up is your ballot for the day. You have to do this before you get to open your email, or text your daughter, or check in with the office – it’s the starter screen of every American, and so it gets done.
Every morning you vote on a simple five issues, so the process takes perhaps a couple minutes. You spend longer finding the creamer to put into your coffee, so this is endurable. Each question is a yes/no vote, a KISS feature (Keep It Simple Stupid) that keeps it down to five taps on the screen. Then you’re free for the rest of the day to download porn or work on your bitcoin, anything. But daily voting in this novel is a requisite for citizenship.
These five questions are necessarily rather crude. Shall we invest in the repair of the Pennsylvania Turnpike? Should we impose economic sanctions upon Boeing? What about invading the Seychelle Islands? Yes or no, make a decision. Once the American people decide, it’s Congress’s job to do it: find the money for the turnpike, declare war against the Seychelles. And then, if that war means we need a bigger Army and maybe a draft, it can go back to DiDem again for more decision making. Do we increase taxes for that bigger army? Do we institute a draft? Yes or no? If we demand the impossible – yes, I want the Seychelles bombed back to the Stone Age, but no I don’t want to pay for it – Congress comes back with another vote: since we won’t pay for this war, do we sue for peace?
And not all questions are important enough to submit to the entire population of the United States of America. If you live in Arizona you may not care about the Penn Turnpike. So, every American votes every day on five questions. But we don’t all see the same five questions. A color-coded system of ranking gets minor questions decided by a smaller segment of the voters. If that first set of voters decides it’s important, it goes up to be voted on by a larger number. So at the end of the day, that decision to invade the Seychelles may get approved by an actual numerical majority of Americans, but it has to pass through a number of lesser votes to get there.
What DiDem gets you is the levers of power in the hands of the people. Congress is demoted to servants, the waiters at the restaurant who take your order and then set the hamburger in front of you. This is delicious to contemplate, isn’t it?
Unfortunately DiDem also means that a lot of stupidity occurs. The international proverb, in this novel, is that Americans cannot agree on which way is up. I think we acknowledge today that people are by and large dumb as stumps. We make idiotic electoral choices that are swayed by crashingly disastrous criteria like fame, race, gender, sexual orientation, wealth, or fingernail color. For heaven’s sake, the Brits voted for Brexit! Even a perfected democracy does not free us from humanity’s innate flaws. Bad political decisions continue to be made in the world of Off the Screen, and I drop my hero Edwin Barbarossa into their chippers.
But he mostly ignores it, because he’s busy with the other Big Idea in this book. Live theater has been slain by AI. Actors exist mainly to be scraped for voices, pretty faces, and luscious boobs. And then someone decides to create the first live original stage musical in a generation. Eddie’s going to write the lyrics and score.
Which means that I had to write the book and lyrics, because they’re in ongoing development through the entire novel. To acquire the rights to quote Sondheim or Oscar Hammerstein would be impossible. Believe it or not, sometimes it’s just easier to write a musical yourself.
And, because the canons of theater demand it, everything comes to a head on opening night: the show, Eddie’s fate, DiDem’s survival. This is the biggest book I have ever written, and if it had appeared in 2000 it would have been magnificently prophetic. But just as well it didn’t. We need it today.
Off the Screen: Book View Cafe
Career Opportunity: Graphics & Animation Engineer
Apr. 28th, 2026 06:00 pmsupergiantgames_feedOur team is seeking an experienced Graphics & Animation Engineer to maintain, extend, and optimize our proprietary cross-platform rendering pipeline, 3D and 2D animation systems, and 2D VFX system, as well as the tools needed for modelers, riggers, and animators. Our ideal candidate is capable of juggling these varied responsibilities and demonstrates good judgement for prioritizing tasks, developing specifications for work, and clearly communicating results and rationales for their decisions.
This is a full-time position with the option of working remotely. This position is open only to candidates based in the United States, with a preference for those who can commute to our office in San Francisco when required. Local candidates are eligible for higher base compensation as noted below.
Prerequisites
In-depth knowledge of DX12 / Metal / Console Graphics APIs
Strong 3D math skills
Strong C/C++ skills
7+ years of experience and credit on 2+ shipped titles, ideally on one or more consoles in addition to PC
Strong written and verbal, technical and non-technical communication skills
Organized, responsible, and able to work independently
This position is open to US-based candidates only, with a preference for those who can commute to our office in San Francisco when required
Responsibilities
Work closely with our content team, including our designers and artists, to implement new graphics and animation systems and features
Work closely with our QA and Engineering teams to track down and fix bugs found in graphics and animation systems
Maintain, extend, and optimize a proprietary cross-platform rendering pipeline and shaders
Maintain, extend, and optimize proprietary 2D and 3D animation systems
Maintain, extend, and optimize a proprietary 2D VFX system
Maintain, extend, and document tools for modelers, riggers, and animators
Compensation
We are looking for a candidate with seven or more years of experience and who has shipped two or more titles. For those at this level, we offer a base salary of $170,000 to $250,000 depending on experience and ability to commute to our San Francisco office as needed. Our expectation is that more experienced candidates would be able to operate more efficiently and independently and have extensive experience implementing and maintaining a wide variety of graphical and game features. We offer benefits such as 401(k) and health insurance, and we will provide relocation assistance for a candidate who moves near to our San Francisco office from outside the area.
How to Apply
To apply, please follow these instructions exactly:
Send your resume in the body of an email (no attachments please), with the subject line Graphics & Animation Engineer to jobs@supergiantgames.com.
Complete the questionnaire below and include your responses in the body of the email after your resume. Please label each question by number and in bold above each response. Use your best judgement to respond as thoroughly and concisely as possible, as you might if responding to a colleague. There is no specific expectation for word count. Do not use generative AI tools to respond to this questionnaire; doing so will disqualify you.
Why do you want to work at Supergiant Games?
Describe what an ideal rendering pipeline looks like to you.
Pick a rendering pipeline or an animation system that you’re familiar with and provide an example of something that it does really well, along with an example of something where it falls short.
How would you address the shortfall in the example you gave? What are the tradeoffs?
Thank you for your interest. We will follow up with prospective candidates by May 29, 2026.
The tortoise and the hare live on
Apr. 30th, 2026 05:16 pmunsung_feedThe keyboard and mouse settings in macOS are kind of boring these days…
…but somewhere deep in the underbelly of Settings lives a little nod to the original 1984 Macintosh…
…in form of the tortoise/hare icons:
askamanager_feedHere are three updates from past letter-writers.
1. Should I tell my boss about an employee who’s claiming overtime when she’s not working? (#4 at the link)
Your response and the comments gave me the courage to bring this up again with the manager. I used the morale and budget angles (my director is currently keeping an eye on the budget due to the current instability) and it seems to have worked. Manager actually agreed they could no longer sanction (turn a blind eye to) 5+ hours of overtime a week. It is fine if the employee wants to come in early and hang out, but they need to clock in when the work begins.
Thank you for giving me the confidence and courage to push the issue. This is a great example of how sometimes we need to think about how we present and push before going up the chain. In this case, the manager is doing their job — managing! — with a couple prompts. It is good for them, and the employee.
Of course, proof is in the pudding. If it continues, I will have to go to my director. Thanks again!
2. How do we push back as a group when we’re all remote?
A pretty mundane update to this one. To clarify, I found the camera-on requirement to be a mild annoyance, but the mic-on requirement was my main concern. The email announcing the change said that microphones-on for all attendees would be “REQUIRED” (all caps) (twice), and there was a reminder before the first updated meeting to keep mics on, so it seemed like they were serious about enforcing it.
Anyway, the first time this meeting happened, almost everyone followed the rule and left their mics on. It was annoying, but the sound interference wasn’t as bad as I might have feared (a few coughs and pets making noises, but nothing too terrible). Over the next few weeks, however, fewer and fewer people went mic on — so that now, a few months in, we’re back to the standard of everyone being on mute unless you have something specific to say. In a way, it’s like we all pushed back a group without needing to coordinate, since everyone just … stopped following the rule. It’s still camera-on for everyone, but that’s tolerable.
I still appreciate your advice, and while I hope I never need to use it, I feel I have a better sense of what steps to take if I do!
3. How to handle thank-you notes for A LOT of interviewers (#5 at the link)
I ended up speaking to seven people, and I decided to play it safe and send follow-up notes to all of them, including the repeat folks from the first-round interview. Long story short, I got the job! Using your advice, I successfully negotiated for a higher salary than the initial offer, and then I picked up my life and moved to a new city. I’ve been at the job for six months now and I like it a lot overall, but the environment has grown more challenging recently for the same reason most office environments have. So we’ll see what the next few years look like.
Thank you again for the advice!
The post updates: employee claiming overtime when not working, pushing back as a group when you’re all remote, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.