K‮ly‬e @khird@qoto.org

@ianmacd

Assuming the crossposter and the instance have the same blacklist, QOTO is blocked on their end. You'll see us under "Servidores banidos" at the bottom of https://masto.donte.com.br/about/more

@freemo

@biomedmax Alchemy posited that one metal could be turned into another. Chemists then discovered that the metals were distinct elements which precluded this transmutation, but nuclear reactions were later discovered in which one metal did become another.

@homeomnis I played with this a bit today. As far as I can tell, there are three levels:
Spheres orbiting a white sphere
Disks orbiting a black sphere
Hemispheres orbiting a coloured sphere

Each appears to have slightly different collision mechanics, but the only one I really understand is the first level. More info would be welcome.

A couple questions for you:
What is the camera fixed to? It doesn't appear to be either the barycentre or the largest sphere - the main star wobbles relative to the view, but there is a discontinuity when you build up a star that overtakes the main one in size.
Is it possible to adjust the initial conditions of the planets placed by clicking? They appear to have zero velocity in the x and y directions, and a small velocity coming out of the screen.

@freemo I don't think the earth needs to be curved to have that effect though - even on a plane, if you have a thin layer of less-dense air along the ground, the ray from any distant point on the surface to your eye will originate at a shallow (nearly horizontal) angle, then be refracted upward to strike your eye at a steeper angle. So the horizon will appear depressed, because a ray originating at a point on the horizon strikes your eye along a line which intersects the ground at a point nearer to you than the true direction of the horizon. The ship, on the other hand, sits mostly above the density gradient, so rays originating from it travel a more or less straight path and strike your eye from an angle above the apparent horizon.

I see that #QOTO now has 14,000 users! Thanks to everyone who's decided to become a part of our community :-)

Which of these is the past tense of the verb "shine", as you would use it in your variety of English? If you would use different forms for the past tense and the past participle, spoken and written communication, or formal and informal contexts, please leave a comment.

@freemo

To be even more pedantic, an exception also occurs north of the Arctic Circle during polar night, when there are no shadows cast by the sun ;)

But it has snow, the sun is shining, and the caption says Lake Michigan, so I'm pretty sure it's just the calving of an ice sheet playing backwards.

@datatitian

@freemo

You can see a the shadows of various buildings at different points, moving *counterclockwise* across the screen. Shadows move in a clockwise direction in the Northern Hemisphere.

This, by the way, is how we came up with "clockwise" - shadows moving in that direction meant that sundials have to be laid out in that direction, and the design of clocks derived from that of sundials.

@datatitian

@FailForward The guy said they can go over a million cycles before failing. That's kind of surprising and I wish he'd explained more - both about how they achieve that, knowing how many plastic tabs on things I've broken, and how they measure it (what's the probability that any individual specimen fails at half a million? a thousand?). Knowing more about the failure modes is essential to being able to use these things safely.

@valleyforge Yep, that looks a lot nicer than my Printrbot Simple V1. I'd still want to do a lot of test prints to gain confidence in the print quality though.

@valleyforge I don't doubt that they *can* work if printed on a sufficiently reliable and precise machine! But my printer is neither of those, so I'd be buying the finished print from someone else - which kind of defeats the purpose.

@valleyforge as someone who's spent the last couple days dealing with my 3D prints delaminating, collapsing, and warping, the idea of firing a 3D printed gun is terrifying. I would be amazed if it didn't come apart and at least break a finger or embed a bunch of plastic fragments into my hand.

@clickwithtina

In case you misunderstood:
> If the whole point of your posts is to advertise, though, you'll likely fall under our rule

Your posts [here](https://qoto.org/@clickwithtina/105686615346279630) and [here](https://qoto.org/@clickwithtina/105686489014976973) are *exactly* what I described. The only reason you're not banned is that you've previously been responsive to the moderators, so you're getting a second chance in hopes that you'll amend your behaviour and be part of QOTO.

I have, however, silenced your account to prevent you from causing further annoyance to users on QOTO and the wider Fediverse, who have complained of your conduct. This means that none of your posts will be published on the main timeline, although they'll remain visible if anyone clicks through to your profile. If you persist in trying to advertise, I or another mod will remove your account entirely. If you want your account unsilenced, we'll need your word that you'll abide by QOTO's [rules](https://qoto.org/about/more#rules).

@freemo @arteteco @Sphinx

@clickwithtina We're a STEM instance. If you're writing up a project you're doing, and want to link the parts used, affiliate links are not markedly worse than plain links. If the whole point of your posts is to advertise, though, you'll likely fall under our rule about "Any account setup solely to advertise a product or service" and catch a ban. You can see our full rules at https://qoto.org/about/more .

@freemo is the guy to talk to if you have more specific questions about what's allowed.

@Diptchip I'm using a Bluetooth headset, which has controls for the sink audio (played through earpieces) but not the source (recorded from mic). I could maybe crack it open and solder a switch in series with the mic; but, no, that wouldn't be easier.

Yes I run Zoom on Linux - Linux has been my daily driver for about ten years, and I don't get to dictate what communications tool we use.

Is there a trick to code blocks (the ``` ... ``` environment) in the flavour of #Markdown we use here on #QOTO? Line breaks keep disappearing in mine.

Here's a tool I put together this evening.

**The Problem**
Sometimes I'm on a #Zoom call and need to unmute my mic quickly. There's a keystroke for this (by default Alt-A), but this only works if Zoom has focus. It's not uncommon for me to have switched to the PDF or email we're discussing, so I have to dig up Zoom before I can unmute and chime in, often missing the conversational opportunity.

**The Solution**
I wrote a script that:
1. checks if any audio streams are going into Zoom, otherwise quits
2. finds the numerical ID of the audio stream going into Zoom
3. toggles the mute flag on said audio stream

I bound it to the keystroke Control-Alt-A in my desktop environment, so I can easily toggle the mute no matter what application has focus.

**The Dependencies**
This is written in #Bash for #Linux systems using #PulseAudio and depends on its control tool `pactl` being installed.

**The Code**
```
#!/bin/bash
```
```
PASOPS=$(pactl list source-outputs)
```
```
if echo "$PASOPS" | grep -q 'ZOOM VoiceEngine' ; then
```
```
SOPID=$(echo "$PASOPS" | head -n $(($(echo "$PASOPS" | grep -n -e 'application.name = "ZOOM VoiceEngine"' | cut -f1 -d:) - 1)) - | grep -o -e 'Source Output #[0-9]\+' | grep -o -e '[0-9]\+' | tail -n 1);
```
```
pactl set-source-output-mute $SOPID toggle; fi
```