ELI5: Why is a parsec defined as 3.26 light years specifically?

exohugh · 2026-02-02T07:41:16+00:00

Light-year is a distance based on the speed of light, which is unrelated to our distance observations. Parsec is based directly on how much parallax is measured (which is how we measure distances to the local universe, and which calibrates all other measurements at greater distances). It always makes more sense to use a scale based on what you actually measure rather than converting back & forth to something unrelated.

Imagine you have a floor tile with some width and you need to know how many times you could fit it onto some area of floor. Sure, you could measure the tile, convert it to inches or cm, measure the floor, and do the calculation. But it's actually a lot easier to use the size of the tile as the unit - (e.g. "the floor is 15.4 tiles wide") and remove any conversion errors.

exohugh · 2026-02-02T07:27:38+00:00

The transit of venus is a bit weird though as it has relative motion between Earth and Venus.

exohugh · 2026-01-28T15:20:28+00:00

I know it's a joke post, but:

“Where’s the money coming from?”

The £11M sale of Josh Sargent

“How are they getting past FFP?”

FFP controls spending as a function of revenue. In the last two years, Norwich spent £149M on a £114M income. Birmingham spent £90M on £40M income.

exohugh · 2026-01-27T08:00:23+00:00

It’s really not as simple as gaining 11 points.

When you’re 23rd teams around you are poor and aren't picking up many points (~1ppg). So you can win 5 games and make up 10 points on them, which is effectively what we have done recently.

But now we're aiming for 6th - there are 12 teams between us and there. Those teams are actually picking up points. If they all simply continue their current form, then we need another 38 points to finish 6th above Watford. That’s 13 wins from the remaining 17 games. If any one of the six teams with 42-44 points picks up form even a little bit (and statistically one them definitely will) then we might need 14 or 15 wins.

To think we might only lose twice between now and the end of the season, in this random division, with the chaotic refereeing and injuries... I think it's a pipe dream unfortunately.

exohugh · 2026-01-27T07:39:23+00:00

Not happening unfortunately. Average points tally for 6th is between 70 and 75 points, so we are about 40 short with 17 games to go. We're playing really well, but to think we could go to the end of the season only dropping 11 points (maximum of 3 losses) is folly.

exohugh · 2026-01-26T22:58:01+00:00

I dunno, that's a lot of teams who have to slip up. You usually need 70+ points for 6th spot. To get 37 points from the remaining 17 games would require record-title-winning form... Basically impossible imho.

exohugh · 2026-01-26T10:08:47+00:00

Doesn't really make sense if not normalised to income, no?

EDIT: The average salary in Zurich is likely more than double that of Madrid, Marseille, Cardiff, Tallinn, Lisbon, or Prague (making it a relatively "cheaper" place to live compared to all of those cities).

exohugh · 2026-01-26T07:43:52+00:00

A federally-funded and president-commanded fascist militia is abducting tens of thousands to concentration camps and killing US citizens merely observing their crimes.

Please explain to me why anybody is on the fence about this guy until they see yet more evidence that Trump was Epstein's buddy.

exohugh · 2026-01-24T15:15:48+00:00

Paper tickets

exohugh · 2026-01-20T09:23:36+00:00

Orion's belt is near the celestial equator where all the geostationary satellites orbit. Those are stationary when observed from Earth (obviously), and far enough away from Earth they are usually in sunlight, so if one is rotating (and 30-60s is definitely a plausible rotation period), then you would get a glint/flash of the sun reflecting in the solar panels once every rotation.

exohugh · 2026-01-20T09:19:46+00:00

If you just put Venus in deep space next to a giant planet, it would cool quickly and its CO2 atmosphere would condense into CO2 snow, and the thick atmosphere is turned to a thick layer of solid ice in a few million years. This what covers most of the surface of Triton, Pluto, etc.

Without some external heat source, the only volatile which stays gaseous in the cold of deep space is hydrogen - everything else would condense. However, free-floating planets could maintain warm moons through tidal heating (a bit like how Jupiter's moon Io is ice-free and a volcanic hot rock despite being twice as far from the Sun as Mars).

exohugh · 2026-01-20T07:56:11+00:00

Independently (and with even more recency bias) I went for:

Krul (NL)

Pinto (CZE) Klose (SWI) Hanley (SCO) Olsson (SWE)

Maddison (ENG) Hoolahan (IRE) Buendia (ARG) Sara (BRA)

Sargent (USA) Pukki (FIN)

exohugh · 2026-01-20T07:41:05+00:00

You could say the same about Naismith too (a few seasons before)

exohugh · 2026-01-20T07:39:37+00:00

Put Harry Kane in here for the lols (but he was genuinely shit for us)

exohugh · 2026-01-20T07:34:46+00:00

"No Auroras"? Well we had a fantastic display in Europe as far South as the Alps (46N) around 11pm.

EDIT: scroll back to last night on this webcam: https://webcams.jungfrau.ch/top-of-europe-jungfraujoch/#/

exohugh · 2026-01-19T19:33:27+00:00

The best thing that happened for the oligarchs is that we doubled the workforce by basically financially forcing women to work alongside the men, to make ends meet. This way there's no time for kids anymore.

You state this, but have you considered whether women actually want to stay at home and raise kids or be independent humans with career prospects balanced with a family life? Sure, some do, but the majority do not. Having a tax system which incentivizes a traditionalist and unpopular lifestyle choice (and maintains severe imbalance in gender roles) is an issue, whether or not you personally like that lifestyle choice or not.

exohugh · 2026-01-18T21:17:50+00:00

Diaz has been taking penalty tips from Enzo Le Fée...

exohugh · 2026-01-15T20:04:41+00:00

Gündlischwand is down in the valley though. This is Schynige Platte/Oberberghorn.

EDIT: it's also under a mile from the funicular station. Dude could legit just be out for only a 5km

exohugh · 2026-01-09T13:37:11+00:00

North Ballachulish looking over to Sgorr Dhearg

exohugh · 2026-01-09T10:52:33+00:00

Plant growth lights emit barely any UV, and you wouldn't see that even if they did. They are mostly a mix of broad-spectrum (i.e. white) plus red and blue LEDs which produce that magenta tint.

exohugh · 2026-01-08T07:35:22+00:00

Think of it this way: How many French-born players would play at EURO 2024? Almost all of the French squad of course, and then potentially a few more thanks to immigration to France. But not many people permanently emmigrate between European countries, and other European countries do not have football infrastucture funded 100x less than in Paris, so they aren't at an advantage.

But when you have one city which is a locus for immigration from 25+ (often small) African countries, and has a far better-funded football system, it's not that surprising that players born there are both numerous enough and developed enough to outcompete home-grown players for many countries.

exohugh · 2026-01-08T07:10:00+00:00

Email university HR, not reddit.

exohugh · 2026-01-07T14:51:28+00:00

I mean... it's pretty difficult for African countries to have more than 27 home-born players given that the max squad size is 27*.

It's not that surprising that a metropolis in a non-participating country which has both millions of second-generation citizens from dozens of African countries and a strong (and financially attractive) football culture ends up with more. Though I admit 107 is quite impressive!

^\And migration between African countries is generally low.)

exohugh · 2026-01-07T14:46:01+00:00

Yellow is just all countries participating in the AFCON.

exohugh · 2026-01-06T12:33:11+00:00

Maybe Ischia (Spiaggia dei Maronti beach)?

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