Matthew Leach @diyspaceprojects@qoto.org
Joined Oct 2022
Matthew Leach
boosted
Hey #everybody
I'm giving away free digital copies of "Yuri Was Very Brave" this week.
Check it out and let me know what you think.
Finished the last three The Walking Dead figures. Just the bases to do.
Matthew Leach
boosted
Waiting for new data from NASA Juno latest close approach, still a few hours away...
This is one of my favourite orbit as it captured a view of Ganymede’s shadow on Jupiter’s cloud tops! #perijove40
I’ve zoomed in on the shadow and replayed the scene at the end of this short GIF.
You can watch the full size/HQ Video on Flickr: https://flic.kr/p/2n6oKoh
#Jupiter #space #spacetodon #astrodon #astronomy
© NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/AndreaLuck
Matthew Leach
boosted
Here’s an idea: let’s call people “people” on the fediverse instead of “users” whenever we can.
Compare:
“There are 42 users on this instance.”
vs
“There are 42 people on this instance.”
Which acknowledges our humanity more?
Language matters. We don’t need to perpetuate mainstream technology’s othering/colonial framing of “us” – designers/developers/other “clever folks” – and “them” – the users (usually one step removed from “dumb user” and usually the ones who get used).
Matthew Leach
boosted
🇳🇱
Interesting fact of the day: The same effect that cuased light in a prism to split up into different colors is what ultimately caused the first transatlantic telegraphic wire in 1858 to fail.
Morse code is transmitted as on-off signals, effectively square waves. Square waves are in fact made up of many different frequencies. Like in a prism different frequencies move at different speeds through a wire. Therefore as the on-off pulses traveled through the transatlantic telegraph wire the signal spread out like it does in a prism and ultimately the pulses would overlap and be indistinguishable.
The effect was so extreme that it took a message of only 98 words (the first message sent) over 67 minutes to send one way and a whopping 16 hours to confirm the message.
Whitehouse, a doctor with little mathematical understanding, thought he could solve the problem by increasing voltage, which we now know was a futile effort. He increased the voltage to the point he managed to short out the cable entirely and made it useless. However Lord Kelvin had already warned of the problem as was ignored and he came up with the law of squares to describe the problem which later was refined to give us the telegraphers equation. The telegraphers equation is still used today to model feedlines in radio transmitters and receivers.
@beccacaddy Fascinating stuff. Never heard of the dish, never going to try it, but an interesting history. Also never knew about the marshmallow plant.
Matthew Leach
boosted
Have you ever wondered why marshmallow-topped sweet potatoes is a US holiday tradition? Join me on a sweet and sticky deep dive into the history of the most divisive dish at any Thanksgiving table for Inverse's 'Taste of the Holidays' food science series https://www.inverse.com/science/candied-sweet-potatoes
@crystalenka @jcct I listened to a podcast where they speculated that some types of neurodiversity may not have an evolutionary advantage for individuals, but may have been useful for communities. If I recall, acting as something like a village's alarm system. Being distracted may have helped with situational awareness. I can't find the podcast now though. Likely an episode of Blindboy's podcast.
Random #VR paper summary. Human interaction with virtual reality: investigating pre-evacuation efficiency in building emergency (Wang, Z. Et al; October 2022).
The paper describes use of a VR simulation to asses people’s reaction to T-3 type alarms and how being engaged in a task delays a person’s response in the pre-evacuation phase. Two experimental conditions, with 30 participants in each: high-engagement task (completing a multiple-choice quiz) and low-engagement task (waiting to be called for an interview). When the alarm sounded during the tasks, 3.3% of those engaged in the low-engagement task continued with the task, while 73.3% of those engaged in the high-engagement tasks continued the task. However, few participants recognised the T-3 alarm as a cue to immediately evacuate (8 out of the 60), and many confused it for feedback from the VR simulation.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10055-022-00710-x (open access)
@magicaltrout Nice. I remember seeing this in a documentary. Would be cool to see it in real life.
Matthew Leach
boosted
That’s right, it’s #SpaceTalkTuesday time! This week it’s all about ~exoplanetary habitability~
What does habitability really mean? Do we know of any habitable #exoplanets? How will we be able to study them now and in the future?
Follow along for answers to these #science questions and more!
(fair warning, this will be a long thread. the threaded posts are unlisted as a best practice, but you can still boost them)
Matthew Leach
boosted
plotting a small #SpaceTalkTuesday thread for tomorrow 👀👀🪐🔭
Looking at DIY miniature wind tunnel plans. I feel like you can't go wrong with plans from NASA (https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/tunsmoke.html), but I'm put off by the giant perspex sheet.
Horror themes
Another batch of The Walking Dead: All Out War miniatures painted. Only three more before I can play the game. #miniatures #painting
@lupyuen Assembly was before my time, but I used LC-3 when teaching a computing course. Not all the students caught my enthusiasm, but it was a great way to demonstrate low level processes. There are some nice online simulators now. e.g., https://www.peterhigginson.co.uk/AQA/
Matthew Leach
boosted
RIP: Kathleen Booth, the inventor of assembly language
@eric_maechler I didn't want to be that person 2 seconds in the door, complaining that the family run restaurant doesn't serve Big Mac's.😅
@derickflorian thanks, that was some useful information.
@derickflorian I'm sure some of it will just take a while to get used to, but onboarding on the Android app wasn't great. The first step was to pick a server, without really knowing what that meant. It also seems to launch a browser a lot. How do I view the community feed on another server in the app? If I select someone's handle, it opens the browser. If I choose to follow them, I have to scroll down and copy the link, then return to the app, paste it into the search, and then choose to follow again. Just a few things that feel like they could be smoother.
Joined Oct 2022
