Delay

I know. But this is the norm. We're the exception, talking about space exploration like it's a normal topic you discuss around a table every day.

It's 2018.

I figured out some scripting in Python and used it to make a function that prints all primes between 2 and some number x. I tried out some values: 2, 3, 40, 37 (to make sure that 37 is also included if it is x), 1000... ...and then I tried 1,000,000. It... took a while to go through the list. The list ended up being so large that the command prompt window ran out of lines, so what I actually got in the end was a list of primes that starts at 958,553 and ends at 999,983. At least I know the script works. And that I'm not entirely sane anymore.

Why so complicated? GEO is simply an orbit where the satellite's angular velocity matches the angular velocity of Earth. If Earth travels 30° in 2 hours, so does the satellite.

There was nothing to do in today's math class, so the teacher decided that we'd watch a lecture about the Mandelbrot set. He gave us a quick introduction to complex numbers and the complex plane (as neither of these things will ever be relevant for school here) and then opened the lecture. And that's when the internet broke down, which worked perfectly fine just a few minutes ago.

1.5! Accidentally made an SSTO. But that allowed me to test the new maneuver nodes with staging in between! The "Start burn in:" timer actually needs to be enabled in the settings; it doesn't come as default, strangely enough. The timer actually turns yellow for the last 10 seconds of the countdown:

I worked on my Principia career again. Did a contract involving temperature surveys of the Mun... ...on the ground. Leaving Kerbin behind: Actually getting pretty close to the ground while still at >500m/s.

It's explained in the Principia FAQ as to why it's not possible to have a stable Ike/Duna L5 or L4 orbit. Off the top of my head, I think it has something to do with Ike being too massive (or too close) to allow for a stable Lagrange point.

Wait, so the equator is colder than our summer here at ~50°N?

SAME OVER HERE IN GERMANY!!!!!!!

How can you jump out of a 172? You have a big strut in the way, don't you?

How KSP distorts the perception of speed.

so the only way to then change n is another f = make_incrementor(another value)? The value you'd normally type in (as f(value)) is instead used as x and n is unchanged?

Not really helpful?

How do you know that x is modified by f()? Because looking over it, it looks like n is being redefined every time.

...but what happened to the second variable before the colon? a, b: a+b, but in the actual example there's just one. and x still is never defined to be any value. Does Python default to 0? Because If I understood it correctly the default for any unspecified value is "None".

Remember how I wanted to learn Python? Yeah, they lost me. (Actual part of their tutorials, I didn't write this (otherwise I wouldn't be complaining)) >>> # Measure some strings: ... words = ['cat', 'window', 'defenestrate'] >>> for w in words: ... print(w, len(w)) ... cat 3 window 6 defenestrate 12 Okay, I understand what "words" is. But "w"? Where did that come from? What does it represent? And as soon as they got to this point ON THE SAME PAGE, I gave up completely: >>> def make_incrementor(n): ... return lambda x: x + n ... >>> f = make_incrementor(42) >>> f(0) 42 >>> f(1) 43 Just... what's "lambda"? "This function returns the sum of its two arguments: lambda a, b: a+b. " I don't see two arguments anywhere. Just x on one side and x + n on the other. And x is also never defined, isn't it? Yet it works? Maybe I'm just too dumb to figure it out, but it doesn't seem like their own definition fits their own example which they gave just a few lines below. I mean, it works. I could theoretically use these in code and be done with it. But I don't get why it works and as long as that isn't the case I'm not going to use it anywhere.

I thought of a "new" algorithm for the Rubik's cube... while sleeping. It saves exactly 1 turn (my goal here is not to solve the cube in the fastest way possible, but rather to come up with unique algorithms - completely by myself). So I guess "You Know You're A Nerd When:" you're spatial thinking is on point, even while you're sleeping?

I can't hold the cube "correctly" (in a way that allows quick rotations), which probably contributes to the time a tiny bit. Add a few seconds to look around as well as a generally slow reaction time and you got your 58 seconds.

Did a 58.95s. And that time includes putting my watch (which I use improvisationally to measure my time) on the table and the time it takes to pick it up again and stop the timer. Granted; my scramble wasn't that bad, so I probably saved some time by not needing to do that many turns. Still, if this were official I'd now have a <1 minute time as my PB.

Though most of the strangeness is probably because it's related to a news-station. If it were a stand-alone soundtrack, then no one would complain.

That's pretty much where I was going with my quesion of how often it is done. If it not done at all I can sort of estimate how important it is for me to learn using it.

I don't know? Python is my first one! And used by mathematicians? Sounds good to me!

Okay, so: I decided to learn Python a few weeks ago. Seems like a good language to learn for a start, if not: too bad; doing it anyway. Started learning 2 days ago, stop judging me. Quick question to everyone who can program (in general); how often to you have to do array slicing? I don't know how it works in different languages - given the explanation given in the Python tutorials it seems logical to assume they do too - but Python's implementation of slicing seems strange to me. In order to read from element n to element m I need n and m+1 to define the subset I want. If I have a list, e.g... numbers = [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5] ... and I'd like to output the numbers 1 and 2, then I would expect "numbers[1:2]" to do that for me. Instead, "numbers[1:2]" just outputs "1". But if I instead use "numbers[1:3]", then it gives me the numbers 1 and 2, as expected. Again: Python gives an explanation to this, so I can understand why they did it (so that "numbers[:2] + numbers[2:]" gives the complete list), but it just seems counterintuitive to me. Let's see how many times I'll have prematurely ending lists before I get it.

I'm strange, but this is really good: