lajoswinkler

Richard Simmons, age 76 Shannen Doherty, age 53

Thanks! Because we can be very near or very far away, Mars has very large angular diameter differences. At Solar conjunction, when it's behind Sun, most recently during middle of November 2023, it was 3.7'' wide. During Solar opposition, soonest one being around middle of January 2025, it will be almost 15''. Difference can be even larger because Earth's and Mars' orbit are eliptical and oppositions and conjunctions don't always coincide with us being at same places in orbit around Sun. In October of 2020, it was almost 23'' wide. In September of 2035, it'll be almost 26'' wide. The closer it is to us, the more we can see, but sometimes opposition happens when we're tilted in such manner target doesn't reach high in the sky when it passes through highest point (crossing the celestial meridian), so our atmosphere ruins resolving by smearing the image (pricey dispersion corrector helps). Or sometimes it happens during the rainy season. Or the jet stream won't stop flowing and the image just jumps like trying to look into seafloor through choppy waters. All in all, planetary astrophotography is a very dynamic hobby that can't get better with pouring money into it. Skill and chance play a large role. Surface features of Mars are loads of fun. Planet can be seen rotating through the night. Clouds move, too.

I see you've obtained some equipment. Enjoy it! Mars is inconvenient to image right now, especially in northern temperate zone, so here's two pictures I made at the end of 2022. To this day they remain my best images of this planet. Second one is a bit artificially enlarged for comfortable viewing of details. Obviously, yielded magnification increase is clearly empty. Some clouds are visible. Terrain details are visible in the right images taken in ultraviolet radiation, especially during the end of December 2022, which is probably related to so called blue/violet clearing happening on rare occasions.

One hour until launch. I hope the front doesn't fall off.

more radioactivity = less time being radioactive There is a good reason why uranium is the last stable element found in nature in bulk amounts allowing for geochemistry to do its thing.

The problem is - how exactly would it charge? Charging is electrolysis, which means there is a large, macroscopic, monolithic anode and a cathode and an electrolyte. We charge ourselves by stuffing our meatbags with matter full of compounds that are willing to give off electrons, and oxygen which will accept those electrons. Energy comes to us coupled with molecules ready to react. Those reactions go over enzymes which transfer energy into synthesis of ATP by ion flow and molecular configuration changes. Even if we could somehow deliver energy by electrons alone, we continuously shed matter. We have to, that's also what powers us. Small decrease of system entropy exchanged for massive increase in environmental entropy.

Peter Higgs died yesterday. https://www.ed.ac.uk/news/2024/statement-on-the-death-of-professor-peter-higgs

My heart just skipped a beat.

Richard Truly (1937-2024), NASA's astronaut and 8th administrator.

They are mining argon from Mars, purifying it and delivering it to Ranger. For what other purpose could it be used in amounts of hundreds of tonnes if not propellant? As for the type of nuclear power, I really have to check. Compared to typical soft SF crap in entertainment industry, this show is superb in how highly accurate it is in terms of science and technology. To ignore it just because it isn't 100 % correct is a common fallacy that happens when something is near perfection (on the contrary, stuff with low accuracy is taken as is), and it diminishes the work of people involved in the project. Of course it aims for scientific accuracy, but sometimes full accuracy would get in the way of the format and optimal storyline length. Typical example is compressing time needed to do some chemical/computational/engineering analysis. Nobody wants the show to be composed of scenes of people yawning for 10 min in front of a computer hooked up to some device. As for the rest, sometimes I felt the episodes were way too much about social stuff and politics, but I figured out it had to be a production budget problem.

This show burns slowly and then it ramps up near the end of each season. I love it. One of the best SF works out there. I was thinking about one detail in the last episode. (spoilers ahead)

Yes. I've lost hope KSP 1 (AKA KSP) will ever truly become a completed game (because it's not, whatever the developers say), and I really never had hope for KSP 2 to begin with, assuming present situation will easily occur.

Out of all the things the console version lacks, you want that useless gimmick? Priorities.

If there was only one thing, my priority (by far!) feature would be life support and ending passive immortality of Kerbals. Basically what Kerbalism with Kerbalism simplex configuration yields. No complex resource loops. Just four key things: air - to prevent suffocation; bare essential snacks - to prevent starvation; bare essential volume of space - to prolong mental health; becomes important with increasing mission time shielding - to reduce exposure to ionizing radiation (which is itself a highly educational add-on and makes Kerbalism worth having); becomes important with increasing mission time Kerbals who require sustenance and care transform them from being nearly useless puppets to active, precious payload. I will be honest - the game still has loads of unfinished things, both functional and cosmetical ones. Releasing a v1.0, in 2015, was a public relations stunt haphazardly made at the time when interest in KSP started dwindling. I thought that by now, EIGHT years later, these issues will be solved, but virtually nothing has changed. It is still a game lacking so much and with so much to offer. Proof? Still a huge number of active mods, and I'm not talking about highly customized, cosmetic things liked by few tens of players. I've been a long advocate of tapping Kerbol as a resource of gameplay. It's a star, it offers stellar storms, ionizing radiation, there is a photosphere to be examined, but in over a decade it merely stopped being a cold picture in the sky. Truth to be told, I've lost hope. Financial and human resources have been shifted into pouring towards KSP2 which has so far been an failure, as expected. Graphs on Steam tell a realistic story. KSP still has fairly regular, oscillating interest, and KSP2 is at its deathbed like a Petri dish of germs starved of nutrients.

KSP2 is flatlining, not KSP.

There has clearly been an update. Now that there is a sidebar, everything has changed. Parts are no longer green ghosts in front of Kerbals that you can orient around. They have controls similar to VAB ones. My Kerbal engineers can now place things on the ground if I click on the large menu that opens by clicking the gear icon on the right side of the screen. Click on the part in the inventory, orient with WASD, click on the ground to place them. But once they place it, that's it. Nobody (engineer, scientist) can pick them up or interact with them or start experiments. Nothing. Right clicking on experiments shows no useful buttons. All needed parts are on the ground. Station, RTG, communication, experiments. Literally nothing works. I tried looking online but this DLC has been pretty much ignored. I don't understand why this has to be so complicated.

David McCallum (1933-2023) https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/25/entertainment/david-mccallum-dead/index.html

Special operation crater.

Professor Melnikov, chief researcher at division of Roskosmos and a helping hand of NASA's scientists, died at age 77. Apparent cause of death: two week struggle with mushroom poisoning. Remember, kids, be careful with mushrooms.

That was not excitation. That was pure, unadulterated dorkiness and shows poor media management. It sounded really, really bad. Even worse than Modi's authoritative yelling after the landing. But of course I'm happy for India. This is a big thing.

Yes I know what it means, but why saying it EVERY time he starts talking? The female announcer wasn't saying it, but the dorky male one was. Imagine a SpaceX transmission of landing on Mars with some goofball saying: "God bless America" every time it was his turn to say something. It doesn't have to be anything religious or political. Literally anything repetitive will sound stupid after few times.

Can someone please explain why does this superannoying male announcer keeps repeating "jai hind" each time he starts speaking? Is it some kind of superstition?

Some half hour before landing. I hope it all goes well.

AI is a bunch of software. Cyborgs are humans with artificial body parts. You are comparing apples and oranges.

Same researcher already had one retraction after bad paper. For now it seems he's making the same shoddy attempt. https://www.science.org/content/article/spectacular-superconductor-claim-making-news-here-s-why-experts-are-doubtful