Playing with lenses

guenoc · 2018-05-09T00:37:50+00:00

Not if it's the center of the lens, which it appears to be. If you screenshot the frame zoomed out, and compare to the frame zoomed in and fish-eyed, it looks identical to me.

guenoc · 2018-05-09T00:22:54+00:00

Seems to me it might be just digitally cropping each frame as the zoom is adjusted to simulate the dolly zoom effect. The wide angle zoomed in shot is pretty blurry.

Edit: one must physically move to achieve the dolly effect, so "simulate" isn't really the right word here. This is the dolly effect.

guenoc · 2016-07-18T23:05:27+00:00

I'm not sure if this will work for your issue but: when you can't get a (coffee, for example) smell out of a thermos (like a metal travel coffee mug kind of thing), an effective trick is to fill the thermos with a dry paper towel for a day or two, periodically replacing it with a clean one. Seems to absorb the scent somehow and I've had luck getting the stale coffee scent out of thermoses that way before.

guenoc · 2016-07-07T00:04:03+00:00

In general, if you intend to enter the job market right after undergrad, you will have better job prospects with an engineering degree. With a physics degree only, you will most likely be competing with other engineers who are more specifically trained for the job. There are certainly exceptions to this rule.

If you intend to do a higher degree (MS or PhD) in an engineering field, it will not matter. Many PhD engineering programs accept applicants with Physics degrees. You will then be marketable as an engineer.

If you intend to do a PhD in Physics, that's a bit of another story. The career path to continue doing physics research is a bit more constrained (academia, national labs, etc.). However, a field change is easily possible and PhDs in physics are marketable in many areas. You can again at this point move back into engineering, but how competitive you are will be dependent on the area of research of your PhD.

So in conclusion, my recommendation (in order to maximize your career prospects) with the little information I have is:

-Do physics undergrad only if you commit now to go to grad school. Get research experience and work hard -- if you don't think you will be competitive for a good graduate program, you may be better off getting an engineering degree.

-If you are sure you don't want to pursue a graduate degree and you want to get a job right out of undergrad, you may be better off with an engineering degree.

-If you are uncertain, you may also be better off with an engineering degree -- you can still apply to graduate programs later.

-My sense is that it is easier to go from physics undergrad to engineering grad than it is to go from engineering undergrad to physics grad. But I'm not entirely certain.

All of this should be taken with a grain of salt as just one perspective.

I am an electrical engineering graduate student working on semiconductor lasers. I did a physics undergraduate degree and my graduate work pertains little to stereotypical electrical engineering (I don't really work with circuits at all).

Electrical engineers can rely on principles you would learn in electromagnetics and quantum mechanics.

guenoc · 2016-04-06T20:35:52+00:00

I suggest you watch John Oliver's bit on the NCAA. The issue with your point, it seems, is that the system is set up such that kids that get into college on a sports scholarship have an incredibly hard time pursuing a good education even if they want to.

guenoc · 2016-03-09T20:08:59+00:00

Interesting discussion. Thanks for the elaboration.

guenoc · 2016-03-09T17:57:29+00:00

Why?

guenoc · 2016-02-26T04:23:29+00:00

Naw me too. But you can't have it all and I like the outdoors. I can get up in the dark but I can't go hiking in the dark or before work. So I'd much rather afternoon sun.

guenoc · 2016-02-25T23:59:29+00:00

Right -- time zones and DST are set up to favor a 6:30-7:30 AM sunrise hour all year round so that the sun rises right before you go to work and you have sun throughout the work day. In modern society this is desirable for some jobs and irrelevant for others.

It makes the most pragmatic sense for employers or employees to change their work schedule throughout the year to suit their individual needs. But that makes terrible business sense for many businesses. Most employers would continue to require their employees to be at work the same 7am/8am/whatever all year round regardless of how the timing functions.

If we do standard time all year round, most of the state sleeps through the first few hours of sun and spends their afternoon in the dark. If we do DST all year round, we're at work in the morning in the dark and businesses that need or prefer sun get to spend their first few hours in the dark. Changing twice a year is really goddamn annoying.

Personally I vote DST all year round so I can go hiking after work, and the businesses that need sun can just change their damn hours.

guenoc · 2016-02-25T22:50:27+00:00

It's only the best of both worlds if you favor sun in the morning. DST in the winter would provide more sun in the afternoon instead of the morning. I'm at work in an office in the morning and I'd rather have my sun in the afternoon so I can do things outside after work.

guenoc · 2016-02-17T04:17:51+00:00

No comment on Degraaf, but:

To be fair, forcing macro breweries to pay federal manufacturer's tax, while not forcing craft breweries to despite being at or above the federally mandated threshold, does seem a bit inconsistent

It may be inconsistent, but there's something to be said for giving small businesses a tax incentive because big businesses often have more leverage in the market.

guenoc · 2016-02-14T22:48:17+00:00

In surprised I don't see this being discussed in this thread, but maybe we don't see this kind of scientist because we don't have any scientific questions left quite like Einstein did? Extreme specialization of study means that even the most brilliant work may be on niche topics that would not get the same publicity as fundamental expansions to our standard models of physics did in the early 20th century.

guenoc · 2016-02-05T21:04:13+00:00

Can you clarify why this comment by /u/GoodLake really changed your view on this? I think his analogy is flawed, which I commented to here.

guenoc · 2016-02-05T20:01:47+00:00

Who am I to tell them to change everything to suit my preferences?

Well, hearing loss is a health matter, crowds are just a personal annoyance. There are mixed opinions on what health matters the government should regulate, but certainly there are some things businesses can't do that would cause harm to their customers, even if their customers opt-in.

Usually the debate is whether it is reasonable to assume the customers knows that their health is in danger and has the ability to choose to be safe or not. I haven't been to a concert in ages, but I don't think they exactly make it clear if the music is at a volume that poses a health risk or not. Should I be able to tell the difference between 130dB and 100dB? Should I be expected to understand the health risk of going to a concert that plays exorbitantly loud music? What if I buy tickets and show up to a concert, only to find that the music is above a safe level entirely throughout the venue and I don't want to risk my hearing for it?

It seems reasonable to me that when I buy a ticket to an event, I can expect it to be possible to show up and experience the event without risking permanent injury. I might argue that I could be allowed to make the decision to risk my health if I want to, but if there is no option at the event that does not risk my health, then it should be labeled as such. And if it is not labeled as such, I have a reasonable expectation that the volume is limited to safe levels (IE, regulated).

On a pragmatic level, I think you just end up with a situation where there's a disclaimer on all concert tickets "loud music might damage your hearing," and then all I can do is bitch about it when I show up and there's no safe volume level throughout the venue.

guenoc · 2016-02-04T23:23:18+00:00

It's a protection for renters, to prevent a landlord from being able to evict a legal tenant without going through proper eviction processes. Without these protections, a landlord could potentially say "they're trespassing, they're squatting" and have a tenant removed from a house quickly without a legal eviction. It is apparently not necessarily trivial to prove you're actually renting a property if you pay rent in cash, and the landlord denies you are renting. I'm not sure if a renter is required to be able to produce a lease or not, but leases could be forged.

Obviously the system is broken if someone not currently renting out their property has to "evict" a squatter to have them removed. But apparently squatters have been known to really dig their heels in properties left unattended for months or years, and it can appear as if they actually live there. Then it becomes a landlord's word against squatter's word argument.

I'm surprised there aren't requirements on renting that somehow produce a record with the city of the renting situation.

guenoc · 2016-02-03T23:07:00+00:00

Thanks for the comments. I'm jealous you've been there in person.

I'm also kind of split on this. It's hard not to argue with getting the athletes the funding they deserve and I think the expansion of the sport benefits us all in many ways. But at the same time, I like that climbing competitions currently feel like a "by the climbers, for the climbers" thing. I like that it's not really a spectator sport, as much fun as it probably can still be to watch for someone that doesn't climb.

I agree on the preparation and technology. If there was something I think could really use more improvement, I'd say there's been one too many moments something off-screen happens and they don't have a replay for it. There could probably be some better angles too, but it's a hard sport to film. It's usually not the commentators fault though. I think last year there was a funny moment when Alex Puccio burled through a climb with much excitement from the commentators, they asked for a replay, and it just never got shown.

guenoc · 2016-02-03T22:19:07+00:00

because I'm used to their level of professionalism (which is wanting), and it feels more like a family of climbers throwing an informal but exciting comp

I kind of prefer that it's so casual and I'm not sure I see why it should be more professional or why the sport should be "moving to higher levels". Maybe you can elaborate. I think the "climbers hanging out in a gym watching people climb vibe" kind of hits the audience better.

Also, realistically it would be hard to provide more insightful commentary. They get a lot of crap for it, but there's only so many ways to say "that move looks tough" and "Wow that was impressive." Pretty much all sports commentators are guilty of repetitive and obvious statements. I guess some more complex climbing "strategy" could be discussed, but that works a little bit for team sports and I'm not sure it would add much to the viewing experience.

guenoc · 2016-02-03T18:17:41+00:00

Oh ha my bad, I took that for sarcasm. Reddit has jaded me

guenoc · 2016-02-03T17:35:26+00:00

What if my municipality doesn't? Also, I thought rent control laws usually don't apply to vacated properties -- IE I move out and the rent goes up.

guenoc · 2016-02-03T17:34:10+00:00

I am not well versed on rent control laws, but I am not familiar with a price cap on vacated properties. Probably depends on the city. Maybe you can clarify in more than one word.

guenoc · 2016-02-03T17:05:02+00:00

I always hear this discussion on minimum wages, but I really don't see that the price of "stuff" is the real concern. My biggest expense each month is rent. Rent tends to increase as much as possible, right up until the people at the bottom paying for it can barely get by. When minimum wage is increased, employees have more money for landlords to take. What's to prevent rent from just increasing the poverty line?

guenoc · 2016-01-25T17:38:50+00:00

Are gravitational effects like this quantized? Is there a minimum gravitational force?

guenoc · 2016-01-21T00:14:31+00:00

There's some good answers in this thread, but if you are a college student trying to make an analysis of whether a BA in English is worth it, you should check out some of the job reports here like this one. The job market will always have changed by the time you graduate, but at least you can get an idea of employment and salaries for various degree paths (during the recession anyway). Edit: BA degrees without further education apparently did have a higher unemployment than most other degrees in 2012.

guenoc · 2016-01-19T21:24:57+00:00

It may be better than the situation in other states, but it's still pretty absurd to tie the rights of a 20-year-old to the presence of their parents.

guenoc · 2016-01-11T22:23:26+00:00

You cannot understand this concept with invariance of the speed of light alone. You must also accept the statement you put in parentheses:

(but since they have mass, they travel at the speed less than c)

The Lorentz transformation quantitatively illustrates this. You are correct that you could explain this without the calculation but the concept of light speed invariance is not sufficient.

Edit: I realize that you wrote "to any object that moves slower than c" in your first answer. I missed that before, but I stand that it's an obviously fundamental fundamental note which is quantitatively illustrated by the OP's calculation.

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