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Paper_jam

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Posts posted by Paper_jam

  1. On 8/22/2020 at 9:16 PM, Francisco 2.0 said:

    It kind of kills me that the current regulations in F1 and Indycar mean we can never see cool, one-off designs like this. Part of me wishes the only design rules were: 1) Car must have at least 3 and no more than 8 wheels, unless car uses some type of levitation technology (which is allowed if you can invent it). 2) Car + driver race weight (at end of race) must be at least 1200 lbs and no more than 5000 lbs. 3) Car must be fully piloted by a human--no "autonomous driving" technology.

    Use any fuel you want, any engine displacement or tech you want (gasoline, diesel, electric, turbine, nuclear, rocket boosters), any kind of tires you want, any aero tech you want (active or passive). Take as many or as few pitstops as you want.

    I guess the concern is that this approach would kill the series by making the less-well-funded teams noncompetitive (and unwilling to participate). But at least we'd get to see what bleeding edge technology and design could really do. In terms of actual performance (speed) it seems race cars haven't made much progress in 20+ years. 

     

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  2. There may be some in the media who think they are doing the "socially responsible thing" by not covering the decline in hospitalizations, on the premise that the public will go right back to business as usual if there is even a hint that this thing is easing up. As to whether that kind of behavior is appropriate for a media entity is probably a subject for another board. 

    But every day, every news organization makes decisions about what to cover and what not to cover. Sometimes they don't cover certain details or elements of a story because they've decided the information isn't relevant or would not be in the Best Interest Of Society.

     

  3. First: before diving into a telescope, consider a good pair of binoculars. You won't get the high magnification of a telescope, but they do a good job with looking at the night sky in general.

    Telescopes:  There are many varieties. If you are mainly interested in looking at faint stars and star formations you probably want a reflector or Dobsonian type. Bigger is generally better, until you get to a point where it's too bulky to move around and set up.

    If you just want to look at planets and the moon, and brighter stars, a small refractor type may work. I find this type more convenient to move around and set up. However, inexpensive (small) refractors are best for brighter objects rather than faint galaxies or stars.

    Some scopes have motorized, computerized drive systems which, once calibrated and aligned, will help point the scope at the object you want to see. (Not as trivial an exercise as it sounds. Manually aiming a scope at a faint object using just the crappy finder scope that comes on most telescopes can be a little difficult.)  The down side is, when that motorized drive and/or electronics fail out of warranty (and it will) it will turn the scope into a fancy looking, expensive brick. (Just happened to me.)

    Another frustrating thing about telescopes, especially inexpensive ones, is that their quality and usability right out of the box can be suspect. Plan on spending another $100-200 (or more) on upgrading accessories like eyepieces, the diagonal, focuser, etc. 

    Here's a couple of link which may be useful:

    https://www.adorama.com/alc/0014311/article/A-Beginners-Guide-to-Telescopes

    https://www.ozscopes.com.au/choosing-a-telescope-html

     

    I hesitate to give any recommendations, partly because I don't know your budget and partly because I'm not sure what is "good" right now. I'm looking at the Meade StarPro series, which looks like it might be a decent no-frills entry level scope, but I'm pretty sure some parts will need to be upgraded immediately.

    https://www.meade.com/telescopes.html?experience_level=82&series=154

    Also, Meade has a "Polaris" series that is similarly low priced. I suggest avoiding the Meade "StarNavigator" series as that's what I have and the motor drive just died on me. (But while it worked it was OK.)

     

    Celestron makes a line of scopes that you can mount your smartphone on, and using their app, it will help you aim the scope. Seems to require a good phone though, both in camera and in the phone CPU. And I have not seen enough reviews to be confident that it works well.

    https://www.celestron.com/collections/starsense-explorer-smartphone-app-enabled-telescopes

     

    I didn't even get to the difference between equatorial mounts and alt-azimuth...

     

     

     

     

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  4. 23 minutes ago, 1978horn said:

     


    Is for me...the storm is splitting in 2 right before it hits my location pin.

     

    A yellow and red blob was right on track for me, but it dissipated into an ineffective light shower just when it got here. 

     

  5. FWIW, my uncorrected distance vision is decent, but not 20/20, more like 20/30. For reading newspaper-size text on paper, I need glasses (I think they are  x1.5 or 1.75) unless I have good lighting. I still passed the eye test (or so they told me) without too much trouble. Maybe I guessed at a few of the letters or numbers.

     

     

  6. Thinking about Hale-Bopp reminded me of something else--back then, I went up on Mount Bonnell to see it, and even though it's still in the city, just getting above the predominant city lights helped. So if you live near there and don't want to drive far out into the country, that might be an option that's better than the average back yard. But that was 20+ years ago.

     

     

  7. I have a smallish (102 mm)  GOTO motorized telescope that's been sitting idle for a couple of years and tried to get it going last night, but the electronics and motor drive seem to be dead. How does something made with solid state electronics, that was working when you put it away, just up and die?

    But that being said, from looking at Hale-Bopp in '97, I found that a telescope (at least a small one) didn't add much over good binocs. It made a small fuzzy ball into a larger fuzzy ball.

     

     

  8.  

    7 hours ago, HackerHorn said:

    Here is a Pic from a Friend 

    Image may contain: night and sky

    Jesus, is your friend the Hubble Space Telescope?

     

    Even looking back towards the Austin lights, I managed to see it for about 30 seconds last night (with binocs) before a thin cloud wiped it out. Was about 9:28 pm. Timing is somewhat important because you need to catch it when the light from sunset is mostly gone, but before the comet gets too low in the sky.

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  9. 1 hour ago, Captainant said:

     The numbers WILL be fucked up, and it's going to adversely impact the ability of decision makers to make fully informed policy decisions. Fuckin 2020, man

    No CR but some of our decision makers are making policy fully unencumbered by any consideration of data or otherwise being "fully informed."

     

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  10. I tried to catch this Saturday and Sunday morning, but it was too hazy, then I tried last night and I could not pick it up out of the skyglow just above the horizon. A guy with us had a camera that was sensitive enough to get a faint image, but to the naked eye and binocs it was just too faint.

    If it was up to me, we'd have draconian laws and punishments to control light pollution.

     

  11. This is more of a rant than a call for help; the IRS is bad at writing instructions in a clear, unambiguous way. The instructions for 1040 Schedule B say that filing Schedule B is required if "You had over $1,500 of taxable interest or ordinary dividends."  I tend to interpret this as meaning that Schedule B is not required unless you had over $1500 of interest, or over $1500 in dividends. (i.e., if you had $1000 in interest income and $1000 in dividends, Schedule B is not required--the $1500 threshold applies to each category, not to the combined total.)

    However, I did some searching online to try and verify my interpretation, and found at least two sources -- one from a major tax software site, and one CPA website, that say it actually is based on the combined total (interest + dividends). I found at least one other online source that supports the first interpretation that it applies to each category individually (interest, dividends) not the combined total.

    If the IRS meant for this criteria to apply to the combined total, they should say "Schedule B is required if your combined total of taxable interest and dividend income exceeds $1500."

    If the first interpretation is correct, the instructions should say "Schedule B is required if you had taxable interest over $1500, or ordinary dividends exceeding $1500."

    It just seems lazy to leave it potentially open to misinterpretation.

     

     

     

  12. 5 hours ago, Dnaguy said:

    Wife: Hey are you still taking that timed portion of the test

    Me: No. 

    Wife: Ok, good because I thought her crying was distracting while you were taking this test and I wanted to know if I needed to take her out of her room to help you concentrate because I didn’t want that to hurt you or slow you down.

    Me: Seriously? How is what you’re doing any less distracting. Let’s think about this whole scenario for a second. What if I was in the timed part? By you coming in here, you’ve made the situation 10X worse if I was indeed being timed.

     

    Frs3.gif

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