Michael Porter @MichaelPorter@qoto.org

I've been stewing about this for a couple of hours and I just need to vent (will probably delete later):

Fuck you, FCC. And fuck Starlink too. And OneWeb, and AST, and every other horrible techbro company that wants to fucking destroy something beautiful for profit.

I WILL KEEP FIGHTING YOU because you are stupid and selfish and short-sighted and access to the dark night sky is a human right.

When I was a kid I was bummed to find out that "x-ray specs" were a hoax. But astronomers can do it for real!

Here, new infrared images from the Webb telescope pierce the global haze on Titan to reveal the intriguing landscape beneath.
https://webbtelescope.org/contents/early-highlights/webb-keck-telescopes-team-up-to-track-clouds-on-saturns-moon-titan #JWST #astronomy

A day in the life of typical Americans before the pandemic hit

https://flowingdata.com/2015/12/15/a-day-in-the-life-of-americans/

@chatphysics I always like to have ping pong balls, coins and a fibre optic lamp. Coins can be used for radioactive decay and similar.#ChatPhysics

#ITeachPhysics Introducing an idea for the first time it's handy to provide a way to easily remember the meaning, especially for definitions that one just has to remember e.g.

The "independent" variable is the one "I choose". "Independent" starts with an "i" and and so it is the one "I" choose.

Also, provide a simple example they can draw on e.g.

Measuring the period of a pendulum for different lengths, say, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6 m. "I" chose the lengths, so length is the "independent variable".

When I was young, I wondered why Jewish people talked so much about the Holocaust. They said they had to make sure history wasn't denied or sanitized. I thought their fears were irrational. After all, there was so much evidence.
Now I understand what they were worried about.

@JohnBarentine As people build their starter castles with external floodlights as some sort of pathetic echo of a moat, our night sky is slipping from a 1 to a 2. Sigh.

Guess I can post these now.

#Titan #JWST #Keck #astronomy

I was diagnosed with #HIV in 1998, when I was 30.
At the time, I did not expect to live to 50.
I’m 55 now.
HIV treatment works and it means I can’t pass it on - we call this #UequalsU.
HIV changed. Tell everyone.
#WorldAIDSDay #WorldAIDSDay2022 #AIDShistory #CantPassItOn #FightStigma

This Dirty Dancing reboot is getting weird

I hold the philosophical position that if two things are indistinguishable, their difference is irrelevant.

"What if we live in a simulation?" -- irrelevant
"What if you couldn't tell the difference between taking to a computer and a real person?" -- irrelevant

But more precisely, it's begging the question to say "imagine something was indistinguishable, now how would you treat it differently???"

A new meta-analysis of "light pollution effect on human health, focusing on the main human pathologies and the types of polluting lights" finds that "the increase in exposure to artificial light triggers mainly sleep and mood disorders, with light from electronic devices and artificial night the main source of pollution."

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09291016.2022.2151763