When I was a kid, under the influence of science fiction, I dreamt I was going to the moon. It was so exciting! When I woke up I was crushed. When I grew up, I realized sending humans into space is a waste of money at present - though it was good to prove we could do it.
If we're serious about exploring airless environments with lots of radiation, we should be developing cyborgs and better AI. But meanwhile, we can explore space from the comfort of home using space probes and telescopes. We just need to get better at explaining to ordinary folks how cool this is. I can get thrilled by graphs and tables of data, because I can vividly imagine what they mean. Most folks would prefer a good animated video.
MeerKAT is an amazing array of 64 radio telescopes in South Africa. They want to expand this to the Square Kilometer Array, which will actually consist of thousands of telescopes in South Africa and Australia. But it's already seeing great stuff. Like just this June they found a weird thing that flashes like a pulsar - but really slowly, once every 54 minutes instead of a thousand times a second like an ordinary pulsar.
That's insane! What is this thing? We don't know, and that's exactly why it's cool. But for some guesses, read on - after I do the laundry.
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Okay, I hung up the laundry. Imagine an enormous star flinging off its outer layers after it runs out of fuel and its core collapses under its own gravity. If it doesn't become a black hole, the core can shrink down to a ball of neutronium just 20 kilometers across. Just as a ballerina spins faster as she pulls in her arms, this ball spins really fast - like 1000 rotations a second. And since neutronium conducts electricity, it can blast out radio waves as it spins, creating a blinking radio signal, called a pulsar. Pulsars are so precisely periodic that when Jocelyn Bell first spotted one, people thought it was a signal from aliens!
Like the rest of us, pulsars slow down as they age. But this also means their signal weakens. So we usually don't see pulsars in the gray region of this chart - to the right of the line called the 'pulsar death line'. Pulsars are the gray dots to the left of this line. The pink squares are called 'magnetars'. These are the squalling infants in the world of pulsars: young and highly magnetized neutron stars that do crazy stuff like put out big bursts of X-rays now and then.
But then there are weirder things. A telescope array called the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder was searching for radio waves connected to a gamma ray burst in 2022 when it stumbled on something that blasts out radio waves about once an hour. It lost track of this object, so folks brought in the more powerful MeerKAT radio telescope and found it again.
Now it's called ASKAP J1935+2148. It's well to the right of the pulsar death line. What could it be?
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The radio source ASKAP J1935+2148 is an amazing thing. It blasts out radio waves once every 54 minutes, which is incredibly slow for a pulsar. Pulsars usually pulse somewhere between 1000 times a second and once every few seconds.
ASKAP J1935+2148 puts out 3 kinds of pulses in a rather random way: bright pulses, weak pulses, and no pulse at all. But if you fill in the missing pulses, you'll see the pulses keep the same period with an accuracy of 1/10 of a second. So I imagine it must be something quite heavy slowly spinning around, which has a patch that switches between 3 modes of radio emission.
It could be a really weird pulsar, but nobody knows how a pulsar spinning so slowly could put out radio waves. Another candidate I've read about is a 'magnetic white dwarf'. These are white dwarf stars that have strong magnetic fields. Nobody knows why! But also, nobody has seen one put out radio pulses. So this also seems like a long shot.
In short, it's a mystery! And that means we'll learn something cool.
For a nice account of this, try Astrobites:
• Magnus L'Argent, This ultra-long period radio signal can’t make up its mind, astrobites.org/2024/07/02/ultr…
For even more details, try this:
• M. Caleb et al, An emission-state-switching radio transient with a 54-minute period, nature.com/articles/s41550-024…
The animated gif here shows an artist's impression of an ordinary pulsar, not ASKAP J1935+2148. It's probably been slowed down a lot.
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This ultra-long period radio signal can’t make up its mind
You’ll have to wait nearly a whole hour to catch a glimpse of it!astrobites
This is a valuable article for those who are involved in any way in online spaces (read: all of us). I'm looking forward to reading the research paper. Some of their findings:
1. Members Don’t Leave After Experiencing Toxicity
2. Online Toxic Behaviors Are Not Isolated Incidents
3. Toxicity Stems from Culture, Not a Few “Bad Apples”
4. Rivalries Don’t Boost Communities — They Tear Them Apart
5. Self-Moderation Is Not Enough to Keep Toxicity at Bay
hbr.org/2024/11/why-moderators…
Why Moderators Can’t Protect Online Communities on Their Own
An analysis of 18 years of data on user behavior and its moderation reveals that the failure stems from five common misconceptions about toxicity.Harvard Business Review
If there are any #Lorcana fans out there interested in donating $6.52 towards helping children in hospitals, doing so in the next half hour at
desertbus.org/donate
will enter you into a giveaway for one booster box of each set of Lorcana released so far. All 5!
We'd also love to have you check out the @desertbus gaming charity fundraiser marathon over at
twitch.tv/desertbus
Here's their post about this very giveaway:
kind.social/@desertbus/1134605…
Donate to Desert Bus 2024
Donate directly to Child's Play Charity, supporting children's hospitals and domestic violence shelters across the globe. Every donation helps keep the bus on the road just a bit longer.Desert Bus for Hope
Escaping From Trump?
Fancy a break?
A 4-year cruise: the US offers a "break from politics"
A residential cruise line is offering a four-year voyage for passengers looking for an extra-long vacation.
All-inclusive tickets start at $256,000 for a single room. Double rooms start at $319,998. The cruise will take vacationers to 140 countries.
#AureFreePress #News #press #headline #vacation #cruise #Politics #uspolitics #uspol
Кто-то может сказать "тупая привычка", но, когда я доигрываю игру в CS2, то я всегда говорю "всем спасибо за игру" и ухожу. Даже если проиграл, даже если злился на всех, всё равно - скажу "спасибо" и выйду.
Многие отвечают "и тебе спасибо, удачи", но в большинстве случаем я слышу мат в свою сторону, по стилю "иди на*й отсюда уе*к, га*он".
Accessible Audio Hardware
Accessible audio hardware You may be worried about buying a new piece of technology, but not knowing if you will be able to use it. In the age of touchscreens, not every device on the market can be usToni Barth
#Accessibility #Blind #Disability #AssistiveTech #Inclusion
Ahora sin contenido gráfico xD
Ayer estuve donando sangre y como siempre hago mi poquito de proselitismo: #DonaSangre si puedes, es un sacrificio pequeñito para un bien necesario y que no hay otra manera de conseguir.
Y, si donas, hazlo en servicios públicos ❤️
so I discovered yesterday that gotosocial has support for local-only posting similar to glitch/hometown, which is great! unfortunately none of the clients I'm aware of appear to support it
if you're an android or JS dev, adding this to Tusky or Pinafore/Semaphore/Enafore would be a really cool contribution IMO!
there's an existing issue for Tusky but I couldn't find anything for Pinafore & co
"Local only" visibility · Issue #3198 · tuskyapp/Tusky
I've been testing Takahē (jointakahe.org) with Tusky - it has a Mastodon compatible API. One feature it has is a post visibility setting of "local only". It would be good to see this in Tusky. Appa...GitHub
If you really aren't interested in spending the time, gathering the hardware, putting it all together, and futzing around with software, then there is the ClearNode from NodeVentures.com
The advantage is that you get a fully-assembled and working node delivered to you, along with an iOS app to control things. But it is significantly more expensive, and the app functionality depends on AWS to function. But its totally up to you the route you choose to go.
Me neither.
theguardian.com/world/2024/nov…
🥥
#USPolitics #PostElectionBlues #TuckersBalls
Anti-Trump protests erupt across US from New York City to Seattle
Thousands of people take to streets to protest threats to reproductive rights and pledges of mass deportationsMaya Yang (The Guardian)
Human performance: youtube.com/watch?v=14OM6Ysnk6…
An Overview of the Camera Types Found on Android Smartphones - Accessible Android
With advancements in smartphone technology, today’s Android phones come equipped with multiple cameras, each serving a unique purpose. Understanding the roleEditorial Staff (Accessible Android)
Say, Bluesky has public lists of accounts that users curate which helps a ton with onboarding. We have lists too, but only you can see your own lists.
Am I missing something? This seems a pretty obvious feature that only needs a minor code change? Or am I missing something and can I see other people's lists?
Why do governments still have Twitter (X) links on them? Surely we can be confident that it isn't a neutral public square in 2024. Are governments getting value from it? Agencies/departments do not need to pick between LinkedIn, Mastodon, Bluesky or Threads if choosing a new platform proves difficult, but remove Twitter from your social media feeds.
Having Twitter, but not the others isn't neutral, it is negative.
Dnes už jsem schopen nějaké práce s textem, tak jsem sepsal, proč odcházím od Pirátů. Mnohým z vás bych to jinak dlužil po těch letech, co tu #piráti dělám reklamu. Už nebudu :(
jackc.teptin.net/muj-konec-u-p…
Update: Vložen správný screenshot na můj příspěvek pro (ne)vstupování do vlády. Konkrétně: jackc.teptin.net/files/clanky/…
Jiří Pavlík likes this.
Really strange Eloquence/NVDA anecdote: while reading a website, if I use ctrl-arrow down to move through paragraphs, a question is read with lowering intotation and the end, whereas if I use ctrl-up arrow to go up paragraphs, the question is read with rising intonation. The question is: Why would you want to look at those?
Very odd!
Each day, I am constantly amazed at the amount of information you send out both here, on other social platforms and via email. thank you. I obviously don't read all of it, but there's plenty that interests me so I'm very much appreciate your post. My real question though is, when do you sleep? Lol!
In all seriousness, getting a good amount of sleep is a major priority for me and, more often than not, I'm generally successful at meeting my sleep goal. With a good RSS reader, having good computer skills and using a few Leasey shortcuts when I'm on my Windows computer, maintaining the Tech-VI list and getting material posted to Mastodon and LinkedIn takes less time and effort than you might think. Also, I hardly ever post to X and Facebook unless I'm posting announcements about the BT Speak representing Blazie Technologies. For most announcements, I stick to Mastodon. There are definite benefits of having an X account but I rarely post non-work-related material to that platform. If more important things demand my attention in either my personal or professional life, then I prioritize on those things.
For #DoctorWho fans with a qualifying print disability, here's the latest Doctor Who title added to Bookshare:
The Official Quotable Doctor Who: Wise Words From Across Space and Time
by
Cavan Scott Mark Wright
"All of time and space. All things that ever happened or ever will. Where do you want to start?"From a junkyard in Totter's Lane to the fields of Trenzalore, the last of the Time Lords has navigated the past, present, and future using knowledge gathered from centuries of adventures in space and time. Now the authors of the bestselling Who-Ology have collected the best of that timey-wimey knowledge into one place. Covering themes of home and work, travel and technology, the history of the Earth and the fate of the future—you'll find a Doctor-y bon mot for every occasion here.Collecting half a century of quips and quotes, and beautifully illustrated throughout, The Official Quotable Doctor Who is your indispensable guide to life, love, mirth, and monsters.
Copyright: 2014 ISBN: 9780062382757
Features: Contains images
To zas bude nářků doma, že je to 400 litrů vody, jestli nejsem blázen
😀😀
Jen je škoda, že zajímavé stránky s akvaristikou nejde v ČR najít 😔
pak pohledej horacovoakvárium.cz
Já si s tím vystačil
Záleží do čeho chceš jít
#cyklovylet
Já mám celkem drahé přímo na silničku oblečení a stejně taky mrznu. Do kopce se člověk spotí a z kopce je pak zima. Na tělo mi bylo fajn, jen ty nohy. U mě nastává období, kdy budu více běhat a méně jezdit 😀😀
Stejně jsem si chtěl příští rok k padesátinám nedělit maraton v Praze. Tak to budu muset pořádně začít 🤷🏼♂️
Někde jsem tady viděl (možná u @Nevolte xChaose! ?), že se dělaj návleky na boty, aby do nich tolik nefučelo.
Každopádně maraton bych nedal ani autem, jsi borec :)
@schmaker návleky na boty mám akorát na běžky a nepamatuju se, že bych v nich jezdil na kole.
Nevhodnost cyklodresů pro zimní cyklistiku řeším tak, že se v podstatě oblékám zhruba jako na běžky, včetně funkčního prádla a rukavic. Vlastně mám komplet překryv výbavy na zimní/jarní/horskou cykloturistiku a na běžky. Do bot dvoje ponožky. Jezdil jsem takhle v zimě po Praze jako kurýr na cargokole (takový záskok, ne pravidelně)
S tou letní je to taky, že jestli budu chtít vyhrát SunTrip, tak možná o kalhotách stahujících svaly nohou budu muset uvažovat... já zase nejsem tak zarytý odpůrce úchyláren, třeba si to ještě užiju (i když už jsem spíš dědek)
Jezdím málo, řeším to levně pomocí vrstev.
Tělo je v pohodě, v zimě, do kopce uberu abych se moc nepotil, větrání reguluji rozepínáním větrovky. Ale jezdím les, terén, pomalu.
Nohy je problém, beru slabší/tlustší merino, na to neprofuk kalhoty.
Tretry teď nemám, ale řešil jsem to teplou ponožkou na to nepromokavou ponožku co neprofoukne, používám spíše turistické tretry(na těch mých 3-4k ročně) kam ty 2 ponožky narvu ... pak návleky do -5°C ještě pomohou.
Permissions-Policy
header where people started to notice and cite it.
lots of complex software has test or example variables, functions, and constants. Chromium has a test permission called “frobulate” that doesn’t do anything but trickled its way to the Permissions-Policy
header where people started to notice and cite it.
That’s my guess.
Národní monitorovací středisko pro drogy a závislosti vydalo Zprávu o nelegálních drogách v České republice 2024:
(PDF, 173 stran) drogy-info.cz/data/obj_files/3…
drogy-info.cz/publikace/vyrocn…
Zpráva o nelegálních drogách v České republice 2024
Oficiální webová prezentace Národního monitorovacího střediska pro drogy a závislostiwww.drogy-info.cz
André Polykanine
in reply to Jeff Bishop • • •Jeff Bishop
in reply to André Polykanine • • •André Polykanine
in reply to Jeff Bishop • • •