Thoughts at large

[Zacha341]

^^^ And a bit creepy-crawly [[reddit). Though perhaps like youtube there's a section for the mundane yet necessary such as stain removal for delicate fabrics, or how to make an on point mushroom risotto.

[Jimaz]

There's an extremely close encounter with an asteroid coming. It's expected to make its closest approach at 7:12 AM tomorrow.

Coverage is expected to start at 6PM EDT tonight on The Virtual Telescope.

The Bellatrix Astronomical Observatory, as a permanent facility, started its activities on Nov. 1997, when a C11- f/10 OTA and a Losmandy G-11 mount were permanently installed under a sliding roof in Ceccano [[FR), Italy....

On Jan. 2006 the whole instrumentation was fully upgraded, only keeping the C11 OTA. It was installed on a robotic Vixen New Atlux Mount, which was controlled with its Skysensor 2000PC thanks to a software suite by Software Bisque: the telescope was remotely accessible from any place on the planet via the internet. It was the birth of the Virtual Telescope Project, officially started on 20 Aug. 2006! It was just the beginning of an amazing adventure. In 2007 a new structure replaced the one hosting the telescopes, making possible to potentially install a second, large scope.

Soon after, the 11″ tube was installed on a Paramount ME robotic mount, a giant leap into robotic astronomy; another C11 was hosted on the New Atlux mount. Later, a C14 OTA was installed on the Paramount and for three years the staff has been looking for a venerable, prestigious instrument; finally the choice was a Planewave 17″-f/6.8 Corrected Dall-Kirkham Astrograph on another Paramount ME robotic mount. It was one of the very first scopes of this kind to be introduced in the world.

So, the final setup consists in the C14 and PW17 OTAs, both sitting [on] a fully robotic Paramount ME mount. Both scopes use a SBIG CCD camera [[a ST8-XME on the C14 and a STL-6303E on the PW17, respectively).

While both are used to get amazing images and great scientific data, also thanks to the great seeing of the site [[mean value is 1.8″), the two telescopes have been fine tuned for slightly difference applications: the C14 is able to perform very high precision photometry [[within a few millimags), while the PW17 offers a wide highly corrected field of view for imaging and detection of very faint sources, ideal for astrometry of faint near-Earth Asteroids and comets. They sport color, narrow-band and photometric filters to match the needs of professional astronomers and the dreams of amateur astronomers, both advanced and novice.

• “Near-Earth Asteroid 2020 SW extremely close encounter: online observations”: 23 Sept. 2020, at 22:00 UTC – online, free event

[Jimaz]

Here's the latest from the "Never Grow Up" department.

Weaponised Homemade Screwtank

[bust]

Imagine all that talent, ingenuity, hard work, equipment, material, time, and money put to better use.

He can't drive it without tearing up the lawn.

[Jimaz]

Minecraft provides music discs that can be played on a jukebox. There's an understandable desire to collect the whole set. But how?

A music disc appears whenever a skeleton uses his arrows to kill a suicide-bombing creeper. Skeletons don't normally target creepers so it's a rare event, more easily said than done. One trick is to foment a conflict between a skeleton and a snowman then direct a stream of creepers into the crossfire, collecting the resulting music discs [[and gunpowder!) into a chest.

It's amusing to watch the skeleton [[provoked by a belligerent but harmless snowman flinging mere snowballs) whacking creepers who themselves are desperately fleeing a harmless seated cat.

Here's a Minecraft function that does all that in only 28 commands:

# This function creates a music disc factory.
# Volume required for the structure:
#  7 blocks east, 11 blocks south, 2 blocks below and 3 blocks above your feet.
#
# Instructions for the free demo version of Minecraft:
# Install the free demo version from https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/download/
# Create a pack.mcmeta file containing the following 6 lines [[Omit the #
#  characters):
#{
#  "pack": {
#    "pack_format": 5,
#    "description": "Jim's Data Pack"
#  }
#}
# Run Minecraft
# Click PLAY DEMO button
# Click Play Demo World button
# Copy pack.mcmeta to %APPDATA%\.minecraft\saves\Demo_World\datapacks\<Datapack_Name>
# Copy this file to %APPDATA%\.minecraft\saves\Demo_World\datapacks\<Datapack_Name>\data\<Namespace_Name>\functions
# [[These copying steps can be simplified using an MSDOS .BAT file.)
# Wait until the next option presents itself
# Press esc
# Press esc again
# Click Open to LAN
# Click Allow Cheats: OFF [[to turn them ON)
# Click Start LAN World
# Allowing space for the structure, stand northwest of where you want it to
#  appear.
# [[The f3 key shows the direction you're facing)
# Stand in the center of the block or else the position of any mobs summoned by the function will be similarly offset.
# type /reload
# type /function <Namespace_Name>:<This_Function_Filename>
# [[This file's name must be all lower case characters, e.g., "musicdiscs.mcfunction")
#
# Tip: Do NOT flip the creeper feed switch down until the skeleton starts firing
#  or else the creepers will block the snowman from hitting the skeleton. If
#  that happens, flip the switch up and kill the blocking creepers until the
#  skeleton resumes fire then flip the switch back down.
#
# The remaining commands build the factory:

# Outer structure and chest access:
fill ~1 ~-2 ~1 ~6 ~2 ~11 glass
fill ~1 ~ ~ ~7 ~1 ~ air
fill ~7 ~ ~1 ~7 ~1 ~4 air
fill ~7 ~-1 ~4 ~7 ~ ~6 air
# Projectile tunnel:
fill ~5 ~1 ~2 ~5 ~1 ~10 air
# Snow golem station:
setblock ~5 ~ ~2 air
# Creeper tunnel:
fill ~5 ~ ~6 ~3 ~1 ~6 air
# Skeleton station:
setblock ~5 ~ ~10 air
# Skeleton shade:
fill ~5 ~2 ~10 ~5 ~2 ~10 stone

# v Creeper resurrection circuit
setblock ~3 ~ ~6 stone_pressure_plate
setblock ~3 ~ ~5 redstone_wire
setblock ~3 ~ ~4 stone
setblock ~3 ~1 ~4 redstone_torch
setblock ~3 ~1 ~5 command_block{Command:"summon creeper ~ ~-1 ~1 {Health:1.0f,PersistenceRequired:1b,ExplosionRadius:0}"}
# ^ Creeper resurrection circuit

# v Music disc collector
fill ~4 ~-1 ~6 ~5 ~-1 ~6 hopper[facing=east]
setblock ~6 ~-1 ~6 chest[facing=east,type=right]
setblock ~6 ~-1 ~5 chest[facing=east,type=left]
# ^ Music disc collector
setblock ~6 ~-1 ~4 jukebox

# v Creeper release circuit
setblock ~2 ~1 ~ lever
setblock ~2 ~1 ~1 stone
setblock ~2 ~1 ~2 redstone_wall_torch[facing=south]
setblock ~2 ~1 ~3 command_block{Command:"setblock ~2 ~ ~3 red_stained_glass"}
setblock ~2 ~2 ~1 command_block{Command:"setblock ~2 ~-1 ~5 air"}
# ^ Creeper release circuit

# Resistance [[Id:11) reduces incoming damage from all sources:
summon snow_golem ~5 ~ ~2 {ActiveEffects:[{Id:11,Amplifier:4,Duration:999717}]}
summon skeleton ~5 ~ ~10 {HandItems:[{Count:1,id:bow}],PersistenceRequired:1b}
summon creeper ~3 ~ ~6 {Health:1.0f,PersistenceRequired:1b,ExplosionRadius:0}
# Make space for sitting cat:
setblock ~2 ~1 ~6 air
summon cat ~2 ~1 ~6 {Sitting:1,Owner:0-0-0-0}

[Jimaz]

I Googled "Republicans hold their head so high that they can't see the pants around their ankles." and one of the responses said "Missing: pants ‎| Must include: pants"

Uh, yeah. If you're missing pants, you must include pants. Do I really need to explain that?

Sometimes I worry about how much we've begun to trust Artificial Intelligence.

[[And now I'm cursed with trying to get the vision of pantsless robots out of my mind.)

Thanks, AI!

[admin]

Bump. Appropriate-for-this-forum group thread moved to Chit Chat from the closed Non-Detroit forum.

[Jimaz]

Analyzing Video Footage Of Collapse of Massive Arecibo Telescope

The collapse was on Tuesday morning, but yesterday the NSF made video of the catastrophic collapse available, and so many viewers asked I continue my long tradition of 'coping by analyzing failure' and document what I see in this footage. It's hard to watch because this magnificent structure has always been part of the world of astronomy for me.

Contains closeup drone footage of the event.

[Jimaz]

Minecraft provides music discs that can be played on a jukebox. There's an understandable desire to collect the whole set. But how?

A music disc appears whenever a skeleton uses his arrows to kill a suicide-bombing creeper. Skeletons don't normally target creepers so it's a rare event, more easily said than done. One trick is to foment a conflict between a skeleton and a snowman then direct a stream of creepers into the crossfire, collecting the resulting music discs [[and gunpowder!) into a chest.

It's amusing to watch the skeleton [[provoked by a belligerent but harmless snowman flinging mere snowballs) whacking creepers who themselves are desperately fleeing a harmless seated cat.

Here's the seated cat. Entirely indifferent to the carnage, as cats are wont to do:

[Jimaz]

Northern Lights possibly visible this week in Michigan

There is a G3 geomagnetic storm watch in Michigan, meaning the Northern Lights [[aurora borealis) could be visible depending on the timing.

[Bigb23]

At least wearing a mask on errands I don't have to worry about nose hairs or three day old stubble.

Win - Win

[Jimaz]

Man Rewrites Credit Card Terms in His Own Favor

Okay, that was hilarious. On a related note, I offer the following.

I'm not an attorney so I can't give legal advice. I have however heard an attorney recommend that consumers strike out and initial arbitration clauses before signing contracts. The idea is to retain your right to the protection of the courts instead of accepting an arbitration panel which might be stacked by industry against consumers. Of course the company doesn't have to accept your strikeout in which case there's nothing lost but the contract. He also said that companies will often accept the strikeout because arbitration clauses are relatively new and disputes rare and, well, a customer is a customer.

[Jimaz]

Amazon, Walmart, and Target are all taking a new approach to [some] returns by telling customers to keep what they bought, even after issuing refunds

• With more people than ever ordering online, major retailers are offering a new choice to customers for some returns: keeping the refunded merchandise.
• For small items of relatively low value, it makes less logistical and financial sense for large retailers like Walmart, Amazon, and Target to process the physical return.
• Representatives for Walmart and Target confirmed as much to the Wall Street Journal, and said the option was offered in limited circumstances where the items in an order were unlikely to be resold after return.

That is just weird. If it's of such small value, why sell it in the first place? There has to be some way to exploit this policy.

[Zacha341]

^ I'm sure some have already exploited it.

[jcole]

Amazon has been doing this for years. I think it has to do with the return shipping and then if they want to resell it, they have to mark it down anyway as open box or already used.
It also gets them more good will from people and return buyers
Several years ago, I ordered a few lbs of Starbucks coffee from their website; they somehow ended up sending me about $100 of Espresso pods instead. I called them to rectify and they told me they would send the coffee right away but to keep the Espresso. Because I didn't have the Verismo coffee maker that the pods were good for, I ended up buying one to use up the Espresso. Turns out I loved the darn coffee maker and kept buying the pods.

Amazon, Walmart, and Target are all taking a new approach to [some] returns by telling customers to keep what they bought, even after issuing refunds

That is just weird. If it's of such small value, why sell it in the first place? There has to be some way to exploit this policy.

[Bigb23]

I also found that out over the years with Amazon and their basic AAA and AA batteries if I or they screwed up the order. They refunded the money and said keep the batteries.

[Zacha341]

^ Yeah they can take the hit [[over small indy stores and sellers) and would prefer good feedback over small loses financially.

[Jimaz]

I love it that the selfie stick started out as chindōgu.

The Complex Contradictions of Chindogu:
The Japanese Art of Useless Inventions

There's something very Zenlike going on there.

[Jimaz]

Just in case Richard ever disappears, there's always the Random Sentence Generator, featuring such wonders as

• "Today I heard something new and unmemorable."
• "She did a happy dance because all of the socks from the dryer matched."
• "He loved eating his bananas in hot dog buns."
• "There's an art to getting your way, and spitting olive pits across the table isn't it."
• "Wisdom is easily acquired when hiding under the bed with a saucepan on your head."
• "To the surprise of everyone, the Rapture happened yesterday but it didn't quite go as expected."
• "Nobody has encountered an explosive daisy and lived to tell the tale."

[jcole]

Is the generator trying to write a book about Trump?

Just in case Richard ever disappears, there's always the Random Sentence Generator, featuring such wonders as

• "Today I heard something new and unmemorable."
• "She did a happy dance because all of the socks from the dryer matched."
• "He loved eating his bananas in hot dog buns."
• "There's an art to getting your way, and spitting olive pits across the table isn't it."
• "Wisdom is easily acquired when hiding under the bed with a saucepan on your head."
• "To the surprise of everyone, the Rapture happened yesterday but it didn't quite go as expected."
• "Nobody has encountered an explosive daisy and lived to tell the tale."

[Bigb23]

Thanks Jimaz -

Those Quotes made my day. Going on my toolbar - not my FUBAR, [["f**ked up beyond all recognition" )

[Bigb23]

Just in case Richard ever disappears, there's always the Random Sentence Generator

We need a 1000+ word-post generator that scans medium Right Wing blogs for misinformation.

[jcole]

Why, when I've put someone on ignore, do I still have to read their posts when they are quoted by someone else? Cross post to Pet Peeves

[Zacha341]

Remembering MLK:


"I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear."
- Dr. Martin Luther King

[Bigb23]

Thank god for Reddit and YouTube for all the unknown artists out there.

You have your Jackson Pollack wanna be's for $30 million dollars,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAKfpz8Y21Q

And then your actual artists like this - [[pastel and pencil) Reddit



I only wish I was that gifted.