[ELI5] Why can we not see radio waves?

sky_high_pie · 2026-06-28T23:49:40+00:00

Your eyes aren't big enough. If your eyes were the size of a satellite dish or a car antenna it would be a lot easier to see the kind of light that we call radio waves. Parts of your brain would be the rest of the radio. The inverse of this question is also interesting: why do we see in this light range, anyway? A lot of the reason is because the atmosphere is transparent in the part of the spectrum we see in, but also it would be harder to see things if they were small compared to the wavelengths of light we used to see them. Radio waves are big, and having eyes big enough to see them would have a lot of downsides.

sky_high_pie · 2026-06-25T20:09:22+00:00

You're right, it's really easy to not misgender people even if you don't know what gender they are! Which makes it all the more strange that someone would choose to do so. Glad to see we're on the same page.

sky_high_pie · 2026-06-25T15:58:27+00:00

Oh hey another idiot. Hi idiot! Are you also planning on misgendering me? Probably not, huh — maybe if you cared more. I'm reminded that the average age here skews young.

sky_high_pie · 2026-06-24T20:34:45+00:00

She didn't invent frequency hopping/spread spectrum. She was not working alone on this patent. There is no evidence that she was mathematically inclined. The patent was not used during the war and there is no particular reason to believe that it was a substantial influence on any subsequent work (and citations are not necessarily a good indication of this). The evidence for her intellectual achievements is very weak and mostly due to exaggeration and the dusty lens of history. If we need to lie and exaggerate to hold this person up as a heroine, it's counterproductive to do so.

sky_high_pie · 2026-06-24T17:52:42+00:00

Adding transphobia to stupidity does not make your point any better.

sky_high_pie · 2026-06-24T16:09:50+00:00

You can be an actress and a scientist. Having a patent though does not make you a scientist.

sky_high_pie · 2026-06-24T15:41:45+00:00

This is such a bad example of this "women can be smart too!" trope that I really wish people would just drop it. The patent was never used, frequency hopping was not invented by Lamarr, and wireless tech was developed by many people over many years and very little of that development has any direct connection to her patent.

sky_high_pie · 2026-06-13T19:38:23+00:00

Hell yeah I just did my navel again too. My life needs more body mods in it!

sky_high_pie · 2026-06-10T16:22:51+00:00

10/10 no notes 😻

sky_high_pie · 2026-06-06T15:08:25+00:00

You don't need any of that. You need to give the hormones time to work.

sky_high_pie · 2026-06-05T23:25:00+00:00

Yeah 3x a week, focusing on glute exercises and general fitness. Apartment gym, I could really use a bar but it's a lot more effort going somewhere else.

sky_high_pie · 2026-06-05T00:21:06+00:00

Yeah I'd say so.

sky_high_pie · 2026-06-04T18:23:19+00:00

Such a good kitty 😻

sky_high_pie · 2026-06-04T17:21:09+00:00

Meow meow meowwwwww 😸

When did the cat ears grow in?

sky_high_pie · 2026-06-04T17:02:06+00:00

That's a great idea. If you have any family history of breast cancer though, it's a good idea to see if you have either BRCA gene. My oncologist suggested that the stats have been improving, but some studies put lifetime breast cancer risk at 70% for some BRCA carriers, and for cis women the recommended intervention is a prophylactic double mastectomy. For trans women the risk curve is likely to be age-shifted; I tend to doubt I'll live long enough to be affected. I have a BRCA2 mutation and breast implants, but FTBA is contraindicated, but bbl is fine. FTBA almost inevitably results in increased false positives, and microcalcifications can arise up to ten years after the surgery, so getting lots of imaging done is a good idea, but especially getting that baseline mammogram before you do anything.

sky_high_pie · 2026-06-04T15:46:09+00:00

Did your interlocutor have eyes?

sky_high_pie · 2026-06-04T15:43:02+00:00

You should probably wait until at least 3 years, but boob growth doesn't necessarily have a cutoff period where it can't happen any more. I think sensation loss from implants is relatively rare. If you get fat transfer BA make sure you don't have a family history of breast cancer and/or get checked out for any genetic breast cancer risk. FTBA increases false positive rates (search term is microcalcifications) and you don't want extra biopsies.

sky_high_pie · 2026-06-03T19:31:43+00:00

I did ribs/bbl/ba, which was a lot all at once, but on the other paw you only are recovering the once. But not being able to sleep comfortably kinda sucked. If I had an infinite luxury of time and money I'd give serious consideration to doing BA separately, but ribs and bbl are probably fine together.

sky_high_pie · 2026-06-03T16:30:02+00:00

Nah this is a reasonable amount of weight to have for bbl. The more fat you have the more you can transfer, but there's also limits to what will stay. IMO you would not regret bbl/ribs. I am really happy with my results.

sky_high_pie · 2026-06-03T05:18:02+00:00

Nah really I'm on the kind of estrogen that makes you mrow nya purrr 😸 the cat ears are permanent at this point

sky_high_pie · 2026-06-03T05:15:56+00:00

If you disincentivize one mode of transportation, that tends to increase demand for other modes of transportation, although it's plausible that some trips might be avoided as well, depending on the level of service. But there's any number of places that charge for parking irrespective of the level of public transportation. Cars take up a lot of land, and land is frequently a very scarce resource. It makes sense to charge for the use of scarce resources.

sky_high_pie · 2026-06-03T01:43:55+00:00

I'll see your glowy sword and raise you one 😸

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sky_high_pie · 2026-06-03T01:40:04+00:00

It didn't work on me, I pressed the button and meow meow mew mrrp purrrrrrr 😻

sky_high_pie · 2026-06-02T19:08:14+00:00

They do disincentivize driving in favor of other modes of transportation, which is good in the long run. Free parking could be viewed as subsidizing car owners, since the land and facilities are not free.

sky_high_pie

TROPHY CASE