That's the angle at which light is reflected by water droplets. The drawing is incorrect in that the cone is horizontal while the light appears to come from a higher angle. The cone is always directly opposite to the direction of the light source. Here's a better drawing, with more reading about what exactly is going on.

1w ago

conspiracy rule

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Deme @sopuli.xyz 1w ago

Partially correct. They orbited the Earth for 2.5h before the last stage of the launch vehicle starts the 5 minute TLI burn at T+02:44. The docking happens after that. Source (pages 108 -109).

2w ago

"I am going to punch you" - Proud of this kid! Nothing more American than punching Nazis! True patriot!

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Deme @sopuli.xyz 2w ago

So that's what the huge budgets and the surveillance is for...

2w ago

In Green Company: Aurora over Norway

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Deme @sopuli.xyz 2w ago

Are long exposures bad as well? Almost every picture of the northern lights looks better in a camera than how they look to the naked eye, because cameras can perform better in low light with the right settings.

I used to be quite puritanical about not editing the pictures I take, but over time I realized that there's no way to capture perfectly realistic photos, because there is no perfect baseline for that. Every sensation of sight is already subjective, because the brain is doing a lot of image processing and each brain and eyes are a bit different. Colours don't exist outside the brain. Dark scenes aren't actually desaturated, our retinas just suck at colour vision in low light.

Photography tries to emulate a very subjective impression of a scene. If the photographer makes tweaks to some settings of the RAW in order to make the final image closer to the impression they were trying to capture, then that's quite fine in my opinion. Just the same as changing the settings of the camera beforehand. If they want to include multiple exposures with different settings, then that's fine by me as well, because your eyes change aperture and focus each time they flick to a different part of the scene.

2w ago

Rule

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Deme @sopuli.xyz 2w ago

Rock and stone are also stardust. Checkmate liberal.

3w ago

NASA astronauts can now bring their phones with them on their mission to the moon

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Deme @sopuli.xyz 3w ago

Not yet

4w ago

HD 137010 b

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Deme @sopuli.xyz 4w ago

Sure, that's what they want you to think.

4w ago

HD 137010 b

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Deme @sopuli.xyz 4w ago

Yeah then we can use that to go back in time and save Harambe, and then we won't need another planet!

4w ago

Ciiiiircle of liiiife

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Deme @sopuli.xyz 4w ago

Your grandchild full of PFAS

Your great grandchild full of PFAS

Your great great grandchild...

4w ago

Italy’s foreign minister defends ICE attendance at Winter Olympics after outrage: ‘It’s not like the SS are coming’

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Deme @sopuli.xyz 4w ago

Oh definitely. I just don't like it when conclusions are drawn that as such, all germans are nazi sympathisers due to their blood (something intrinsic that can't be changed), rather than just most of them and due to the societal circumstances that actually caused the widespread fervor. The former stance reeks of essentialism.

4w ago

Good ol' days rule

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Deme @sopuli.xyz 4w ago

Yes, and 138 days is far from the shortest. Take Radon-220 for example. It can be found in nature in trace amounts, while having a half life of only 55.6 seconds, while Radon-222 has the longest half-life of all Radon isotopes at 3.8 days.

4w ago

Good ol' days rule

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Deme @sopuli.xyz 4w ago

Polonium-210 produces alpha radiation, which can't penetrate the skin. It will kill you with cancer if even one microgram of the stuff gets in your body, but otherwise it's relatively harmless. [Edit 1: That being said, a small cereal toy like that is, uhh, ironic. Edit 2: Oh and apparently it dissolves in water :DDD]

Also with a half life of 138 days it's hardly "one of the most radioactive substances on Earth".

4w ago

Italy’s foreign minister defends ICE attendance at Winter Olympics after outrage: ‘It’s not like the SS are coming’

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Deme @sopuli.xyz 4w ago

Are you joking now? Because you seem to be contradicting yourself. You say that you feel for the germans who stood up, but then you say that you have a hard time having that sympathy for germans (including the ones in the previous sentence?).

The reason I took issue with this is that I'm scared. Fascism is capitalism in decay. A systemic symptom of a flawed and unsustainable system eating itself. That leaves only people and their capacity for good to have hope in. That hope is in short supply. Things will continue to get a lot worse before they get better again.

4w ago

Italy’s foreign minister defends ICE attendance at Winter Olympics after outrage: ‘It’s not like the SS are coming’

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Deme @sopuli.xyz 4w ago

As bampop said in a different branch of this convo, a country is more than its government. To declare an entire country nazis discounts the existence and in some cases the life's work of a lot of good people. I can appreciate a joke, but right now I really want to focus on the fact that anti-fascism is also everywhere, and that as history repeats itself, the good parts can also be repeated. If not, then all is lost.

My flatmate is german. He's a marxist academic writing a thesis comparing the far right parties of Spain, Germany and Finland. The AfD is getting more and more votes, but the vast majority hate their guts.

4w ago

Italy’s foreign minister defends ICE attendance at Winter Olympics after outrage: ‘It’s not like the SS are coming’

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Deme @sopuli.xyz 4w ago

Sure, but to say thay Italy [as a whole] has always been like that discounts the efforts of a lot people, including former governments.

Sorry if I'm nitpicking. I just want to stay conscious of the fact that the forces opposing fascism never went away, and that as history repeats itself, the good parts can also be repeated.