Reporting from the front lines of a violence that never made the newsBrandi Morin (Indigenous Insider)
Join 350 Canada and people from across the country for a POWER HOUR to take concrete action together. We say NO to pipelines while Canada burns. Not on our dime, not on our watch.act.350.org
Undercover, unprotected, and closing in on the truth they killed a man to buryBrandi Morin (Indigenous Insider)
New paper thread! "Rings in the Sky: Orbital Data Centres and Potential Impacts to Astronomy and the Sky" by A. Boley, me, and @hannorein. Submitted, and posted to the arxiv preprint server.
What would the sky look like if companies actually launch the tens of thousands up to one million "AI data center" satellites that they have asked for? Well, the short answer is, horrifying. The long answer is... this paper! arxiv.org/pdf/2608.02757
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Meanwhile, oil companies posted record profits this quarter. They are not paying for this at all.
indigenousinsider.substack.com…
"We have to protect what's left" - Brandi Morin
#forestfire #climatechange #indigenous
230 homes gone on the Okanagan Indian Band — and it’s not even the only First Nation to lose everything this summerBrandi Morin (Indigenous Insider)
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1/ As I received this news today here in British Columbia, the wildfire smoke blankets the sky, our eyes are burning and our kid is complaining of a sore throat from it. And we’re the lucky ones. Over the weekend, more than 5,000 British Columbians had to flee their homes in 24 hours, under evacuation from just two of the approximately 130 wildfires currently engulfing the province.
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Canada's Pacheedaht Elder Bill Jones is urging British Columbia to stop destroying this land. Sign here to stand with him and protect this ancient sanctuary.Avaaz
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Members of the ProPublica Guild, which represents more than 150 workers across the nonprofit investigative newsroom, overwhelmingly voted to ratify our first contract on Friday, exactly three years since we officially won recognition as a union.ProPublica Guild
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"Buried in this free trade agreement (between Canada and Ecuador) is an investor-state dispute settlement mechanism — a private arbitration system that lets Canadian corporations sue the Ecuadorian government, outside Ecuadorian courts, for passing laws that get in the way of their profits. Ecuador’s constitution bans this. Ecuadorians have voted to keep that ban in place twice, in 2024 and again in 2025"
indigenousinsider.substack.com…
Write to the Minister of International Trade Maninder.Sidhu@parl.gc.ca
A trade deal that hands mining companies a private court, and communities no way to fight back.Brandi Morin (Indigenous Insider)
Kaitiakitanga (Māori) means guardianship. In a world on fire, it might be the most important word we’ve never used.Brandi Morin (Indigenous Insider)
Invest your Dani-Dollars in "Harley's Vision" for a Clean Water FutureDavid Thomas (Crowsnest Headwaters)
indigenousinsider.substack.com…
The increased tanker traffic would finish them off.
The story from the Tsleil-Waututh perspective.
#Canada #pipeline #orcas #indigenous
The orcas Tsleil-Waututh call family are down to 73. The tribe says Carney and Alberta’s new pipeline is the end of the line.Brandi Morin (Indigenous Insider)
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Tsleil-Waututh Nation's Treaty, Lands and Resources (TLR) department has recently completed several marine restoration projects that took place over four years in protecting Burrard Inlet.Vanessa Grondin (Tsleil-Waututh Nation)
indigenousinsider.substack.com…
He walked through how he got there: talking to legal counsel, conducting his own research, then bringing a formal presentation to the chiefs at the table. He said he didn’t take the word lightly.
- Reporting by Brandi Morin #Alberta Separatism #Alberta Politics
Explaining the unprecedented motion against Danielle Smith, and what he says is really at stake.Brandi Morin (Indigenous Insider)
An AI detection company found that amount of AI content that users actually see in their day-to-day browsing is shockingly high.
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“Despite press releases and multiple empty promises from federal Liberals, there is no private sector proponent for Alberta’s new proposed pipeline,” added May. “The federal Crown corporation TMX, already a major waste of public funds after spending $36 billion to build the Trans Mountain expansion, is now a 50 per cent owner of any new pipeline. The Alberta government holds the other 50 per cent, with private sector pipeline company Pembina’s minor involvement used as a fig leaf.
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The Canada-B.C. MOU attempts to mislead the public and media into thinking B.C.’s interests were meaningfully considered. Central to that appearance is public funding for an ecological disaster known as the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 expansion. The expansion has been opposed by leading scientists, the Longshoremen’s Union, many First Nations, and the expert review conducted by the federal government itself.
Hidden inside two budget bills is the biggest rollback of pesticide protections Canada has seen in a generation. There was no major announcement, just a quiet burial in the Spring Economic Update 2026…Ecojustice
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Wildfire recovery on private land is often slow and fragmented. In Portugal, we’re working on common land, managed by local communities, which changes everything. Sara visited our project to find out more.Ecosia (The Ecosia Blog)
Prof. Sam Lawler
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •These companies all want sun-synchronous terminator orbits, so that they can be sunlit all the time*. Sun-synchronous orbits have a nodal precession rate that matches Earth's orbit period around the sun. Meaning, they keep the same configuration relative to local daytime. If the satellite passes over the equator where it is 6pm directly under the satellite, it will always do that.
*important problem with this assumption coming later in the thread
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Prof. Sam Lawler
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •reshared this
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Prof. Sam Lawler
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Prof. Sam Lawler
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •A completely fucking ridiculous drawing in an FCC filing from Cowboy space (I did a thread about that last week, mastodon.social/@sundogplanets…) indicates they might have a reflecting area of 4800 m^2. WAY BIGGER than the ISS, the biggest thing ever placed in orbit, in pieces, not as one monolith. These companies are just making shit up. For comparison's sake, we just use 800m^2 for every simulation.
Prof. Sam Lawler
2026-07-30 15:59:15
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Prof. Sam Lawler
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •And then we make a silly but useful assumption. We are very honest about this, the section is titled "All models are wrong, some are useful"
We say that all satellites are spheres. Obviously, this is not true. But it provides a good comparison point. And without completely detailed, perfect info about the shape and materials of every satellite in orbit, we can't actually do a better job of this, and this actually does a good job of reproducing Starlink brightnesses. So, spherical cow it is.
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Prof. Sam Lawler
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •And then, we confirm something that Hugh Lewis posted previously (sorry for Linkedin, that's where it is linkedin.com/pulse/sun-always-…)
These orbits don't actually stay sunlit all the time! Unless you're above something like 1400km altitude, these sun-synchronous terminator orbits will pass through Earth's shadow at some times of year. That means your data center will have to turn off every 90 min, or have huge batteries. You can't have 24hour sunlight AND low altitude, low-latency orbits.
The Sun Always Shines on TV
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Prof. Sam Lawler
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Here's the future that the techbros want. Earth as a ringed planet.
What does that actually look like in the sky? Well, it depends on your latitude and the time of year. The worst time of year for sunlit Starlink satellites is summer, but due to these orbits, the worst time for sunlit sun-synchronous terminator orbits is actually the wintertime.
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Prof. Sam Lawler
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •And then there are a bunch of horrifying sky diagrams. Please take a look at the paper if you want to see those! I will share the extra movies here.
First, Cowboy "Stampede" (my goodness I hate these names), a single ring. This is the view from 30N on the winter solstice. You can even see in the movie how part of the ring is not sunlit. There is also a histogram showing the brightness of satellites and stars: for a lot of the time the ring is up, there are more bright sats than stars.
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Prof. Sam Lawler
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Lord Caramac the Clueless, KSC reshared this.
Prof. Sam Lawler
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •reshared this
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Ludovic Archivist Lagouardette
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Ludovic Archivist Lagouardette
in reply to Ludovic Archivist Lagouardette • • •Prof. Sam Lawler
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Lord Caramac the Clueless, KSC reshared this.
Prof. Sam Lawler
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •reshared this
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Prof. Sam Lawler
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Relatedly, Hugh Lewis just recently posted a paper showing that even by making the most conservative assumptions possible about size and orbits, and ignoring everything else that's already in orbit, all 3 of these proposed megaconstellations have so many satellites that they could cause Kessler Syndrome BY THEMSELVES arxiv.org/pdf/2607.29644
So, the good news is that we'll never have a ring like this. The bad news is, HELLOOOO Kessler Syndrome!
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Prof. Sam Lawler
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •I'll end with my favourite sentence from our paper: "This new, anthropogenic sky feature would even be easily visible in a light-polluted city: the natural patterns of the star-
filled night sky that have been a source of wonder and knowledge for all of human history will have been erased by urban light pollution and then replaced by human-made artificial patterns."
This is stupid. Stop launching satellites just because you can, techbros.
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Quixoticgeek, Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷, ⠵⠻⠷⠕⠭ 🍥🍉⚪🌹, The Lady (La Donna), #DieMaskeBleibtAuf, Debbie Goldsmith 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈, Lord Caramac the Clueless, KSC, Patrick Hadfield, Wen and Dr Helen Wilson reshared this.
DavidM_yeg
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •GJ Groothedde 🇪🇺
in reply to DavidM_yeg • • •Who'd have thunk Star Wars would take this shape?
@sundogplanets
GJ Groothedde 🇪🇺
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Mathias Lustig
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Phil 🇺🇦💙💛🇺🇸 ❤️🏳️🌈❤️🏳
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Stahldame
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Holger Dittmann
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •rettaw
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •I see a potential counterattack here: if stellar navigation becomes impossible at certain density and designs of satellites, you might be able to make the military take notice and declare dark skies a "national security asset".
There are few things more powerful in the US political economy than "national security", so if it's united against these systems that'll be the end of it. Natsec isn't a monolith though.
Perrin42
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Did Huey Lewis share the News?
The good news is, I've read various science fiction stories and settings affected by Kessler Syndrome, and they seem fun. Let me go review them. Wait... no... oh, no...
Lö(h)we
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Pam C
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •fraggle
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Ben Brockert
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Prof. Sam Lawler
in reply to Ben Brockert • • •Jeff
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •I've seen renderings of what saturn-like rings would look like from earth. It would really make an impact if some skilled artist (sorry, that's not me) could take your models and make them into photo-realistic renderings with the landscape, buildings, etc.
planetary.org/articles/2013062…
What would Earth's skies look like with Saturn's rings?
The Planetary Societylemgandi
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Ray McCarthy
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Lauren Weinstein
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •matthew green
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Prof. Sam Lawler
in reply to matthew green • • •Joe Brockmeier
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •drs1969 (David Smith) 🇬🇧
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •(Starting with, the whole idea is mad and insane)
I wonder if they intend to treat these satelites as network nodes, and pass data around (on top of what's needed for the raw workloads) such that at these times of year, those nodes drop out as they enter blackout, and come back as they emerge.
It would be insane bandwidth, but I think the principle might be sound. Anyone?
And I still think the whole idea is nuts.
saarmuller
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •"You have got lies, big lies, statistics and models (simulations)!"
Poslovitch
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Steve Bellovin
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Seems to be three segments:
mastodon.social/@sundogplanets…
mastodon.social/@sundogplanets…
mastodon.social/@sundogplanets…
Prof. Sam Lawler
2026-07-30 15:59:15
Prof. Sam Lawler
in reply to Steve Bellovin • • •Claus
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •hnapel
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Kigelia
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Prof. Sam Lawler
in reply to Kigelia • • •Andreas Brunthaler
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •@hannorein
<10%
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Simon Waldman
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Debbie Goldsmith 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Elyse M Grasso
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Stargeezer Smith
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •I don't get the orbiting data center idea at all
@hannorein