David "Judah's Shadow" Blue judahsshadow@identi.ca

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2020 February 7

Explanation: Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 7331 is often touted as an analog to our own Milky Way. About 50 million light-years distant in the northern constellation Pegasus, NGC 7331 was recognized early on as a spiral nebula and is actually one of the brighter galaxies not included in Charles Messier's famous 18th century catalog. Since the galaxy's disk is inclined to our line-of-sight, long telescopic exposures often result in an image that evokes a strong sense of depth. In this Hubble Space Telescope close-up, the galaxy's magnificent spiral arms feature dark obscuring dust lanes, bright bluish clusters of massive young stars, and the telltale reddish glow of active star forming regions. The bright yellowish central regions harbor populations of older, cooler stars. Like the Milky Way, a supermassive black hole lies at the core of spiral galaxy NGC 7331.

Saw this. Maybe it could make a good movie about the future. Instead of Planet Of The Apes it's Planet Of The Crows?

https://science.slashdot.org/story/19/12/12/2322253/crows-could-be-the-smartest-animal-other-than-primates

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2019 November 13

Explanation: The small, dark, round spot in this solar close up is planet Mercury. In the high resolution telescopic image, a colorized stack of 61 sharp video frames, a turbulent array of photospheric convection cells tile the bright solar surface. Mercury's more regular silhouette still stands out though. Of course, only inner planets Mercury and Venus can transit the Sun to appear in silhouette when viewed from planet Earth. For this November 11, 2019 transit of Mercury, the innermost planet's silhouette was a mere 1/200th the solar diameter. So even under clear daytime skies it was difficult to see without the aid of a safe solar telescope. Following its transit in 2016, this was Mercury's 4th of 14 transits across the solar disk in the 21st century. The next transit of Mercury will be on November 13, 2032.

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2019 November 8

Explanation: This cosmic skyscape features glowing gas and dark dust clouds along side the young stars of NGC 3572. A beautiful emission nebula and star cluster in far southern skies, the region is often overlooked by astroimagers in favor of its brighter neighbor, the nearby Carina Nebula. Stars from NGC 3572 are toward the upper left in the telescopic frame that would measure about 100 light-years across at the cluster's estimated distant of 9,000 light-years. The visible interstellar gas and dust is part of the star cluster's natal molecular cloud. Dense streamers of material within the nebula, eroded by stellar winds and radiation, clearly trail away from the energetic young stars. They are likely sites of ongoing star formation with shapes reminiscent of the cosmic Tadpoles of IC 410 better known to northern skygazers. In the coming tens to hundreds of millions of years, gas and stars in the cluster will be dispersed though, by gravitational tides and by violent supernova explosions that end the short lives of the massive cluster stars.

"Did George Washington run businesses as president?"

President Donald Trump said a precedent exists for an active businessman like himself serving as president -- his legendary first predecessor, George Washington. Trump’s remark came in response to a reporter’s question about the G-7 meeting, which Trump had recently backed off hosting at his Trump National Doral property amid concerns that he could financially benefit from it.  The G-7 dispute was the latest in a line of controversies about whether Trump properties stand to benefit either from federal government largesse or from foreign payments. During a lengthy media availability on Oct. 21, Trump said, "I don’t know if you ... >>More

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/oct/30/did-george-washington-run-businesses-president/

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2019 November 5

Explanation: Why are these galaxies spinning so fast? If you estimated each spiral's mass by how much light it emits, their fast rotations should break them apart. The leading hypothesis as to why these galaxies don't break apart is dark matter -- mass so dark we can't see it. But these galaxies are even out-spinning this break-up limit -- they are the fastest rotating disk galaxies known. It is therefore further hypothesized that their dark matter halos are so massive -- and their spins so fast -- that it is harder for them to form stars than regular spirals. If so, then these galaxies may be among the most massive spirals possible. Further study of surprising super-spirals like these will continue, likely including observations taken by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope scheduled for launch in 2021.

"Space litter is a huge risk to satellites, and there's no way yet to clean it up"

Chunks of solar panels, old rocket bodies, dead satellites, and chips of paint smaller than a fingernail — they’re all whizzing around at up to 17,500 mph in space. Humans have been sending stuff into orbit around Earth for 60 years. As early as 1978, scientists started getting worried about all the stuff we’ve left up there. The problem isn’t so much the risk to anyone on the ground. The threat is to other satellites.  That’s not a theoretical concern. In 2009, a defunct Russian satellite destroyed a functioning American commercial one. The impact instantly added over 2,000 new pieces of ... >>More

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/nov/06/theres-1000s-tons-space-junk-and-no-way-yet-clean-/

When you are coming out of a driveway, the cross-traffic has right-of-way and they have no obligation to make room for you.

If someone in one lane does yield to you (nice but idiotic on their part), don't expect others to do the same.

I don't understand why some drivers don't get this and get angry when they are blocked by traffic.

I recently adopted a new policy for my phone, which is similar to greylisting on mail servers.

For all unknown numbers, I try to answer the call muted. I try to avoid hinting autodailers that my number is valid by sending them to voicemail.

If I hear an autodailer, I stay muted, report the FTC violation, and add the number to my blacklist at the carrier level.

If I hear silence, I stay muted, and assume an autodailer is waiting for a greeting then add the number to the blacklist.

If I hear a human, I stay muted unless they address me. If they hang up and redial, I address them then.

Since the ARPANET is 50 years old this year I decided to spend some time reading about the design. 256 hosts should be enough for the entire planet, right?

As a left-handed person it takes care to write without either smearing on either the paper, my hand, or both. Plus, the world is filled with lots of objects useful only to right-handed people. Like scissors. Lefty scissors are impossible to find when you need them. As a child I had to teach myself to use right-handed scissors rather than struggling with backwards scissors that didn't cut properly. They still feel backwards. Oh, the pains that right-handed people will never know...

+500 to just start improving something on software you actually use 😆