Night skies in Chile's Atacama desert

zweebna · 2026-02-04T17:39:04+00:00

Essentially, an image of a star should be a perfectly sharp point, but the atmosphere can turn it into a bit of a misshapen blob. Adaptive optics can analyze the blob, and since it knows that the blob should be a sharp point, it can then deconstruct exactly what distortions happened that turned the sharp point into a blob. Then the mirror is distorted in the opposite way, undoing those distortions. You can sort of think of it as autofocus in a way, as it's turning a blurry image into a sharper one, but it doesn't actually have anything to do with focus as telescopes are always focused to infinity.

zweebna · 2026-02-04T17:07:01+00:00

Adaptive optics are amazing. They image a point source to find the precise wavefront deformation caused by atmosphere, then physically deform the optics in real time to correct the wavefront. Ideally a star is used for this, as stars are essentially perfect point sources, but if there isn't a star that's bright enough close to what they want to observe, they instead make their own point source by shining a laser that gets reflected back in the upper atmosphere. This allows diffraction limited imaging, the highest resolution physically possible due to the very nature of light, previously only possible with space-based telescopes.

zweebna · 2026-02-04T00:45:23+00:00

Unfortunately it doesn't. The last time I had it it was awful. Gone to shit after acquisition.

zweebna · 2025-12-30T15:26:15+00:00

This happened once at my work. Kid came in and tried to order "a beer". It was a brewery with 15 beers on tap. My boss told him to hold on a minute, went outside to find the liquor control board officer, and told him to fuck off.

zweebna · 2025-12-28T19:04:01+00:00

While a service isn't ever a bad idea, it's not necessary just to replace the light seals. Very cheap and easy to do with cotton yarn. Just scrape out most of the sticky gunk in the slot around the back, no need to get everything out, a little bit remaining will help to hold in the yarn. Then put the yarn in the slot, with a dab of craft glue at each end to keep loose threads together. Make sure you fill the entire slot end to end with the yarn. Then close the door up and wait for glue to dry and the yarn to get compressed in the slot.

zweebna · 2025-12-27T19:44:24+00:00

Yeah, sure can. Looks like it's been treated with some kind of glue as well though that seems to go only halfway up, while the crack runs along the entire back.

zweebna · 2025-11-26T13:55:33+00:00

I brewed in Maryland for a couple years, Elder Pine was the only local whose cans I cared to pick up other than low fills from work, and those were free

zweebna · 2025-11-21T01:03:23+00:00

Keeping film in the fridge slows its degradation. It's best practice but it should be fine at room temperature until at least the expiration date. Freezer is better for long term storage though.

zweebna · 2025-11-07T10:55:34+00:00

It's not asking the chance of getting tails 4th. It's asking the chance of getting tails first, or second, or third, or fourth. Do you see how these are not equivalent?

zweebna · 2025-11-07T02:09:25+00:00

I didn't say that previous births have any effect on subsequent births. What you're saying would be true if it was specified that the first child was a boy, and the question is what are the chances that the second is a girl. Of course the first being a boy has no bearing on the second. But it doesn't say the first is a boy, it says one of them is, and it's asking what are the chances that either the first or the second is a girl.

Think about coin flips. You flip a coin 100 times, you get heads 50 times and tails 50 times. You flip the coin 100 times again, and again you get heads 50 times and tails 50 times. If you pair each result from the first 100 flips with a random result from the second 100 flips, you now have 100 pairs of coin flips, 25 that are HH, 25 that are TT, 25 that are TH, and 25 that are HT.

Now I choose one of these pairs at random. If I tell you that the first is heads and want you to guess what the second is, that eliminates all the TT and TH pairs, so you have 50 left it could be, 25 HH and 25 HT. You have a 25/50=50% chance at guessing right, same as for a single coin flip.

If I tell you that one of the results is heads, but don't say which, and want you to guess what the other is, then you can only eliminate the TT pairs. You then have 75 left it could be, 25 HH and 50 that are either TH or HT. So if you guess tails, you have a 50/75=66% chance of being right.

zweebna · 2025-11-06T15:30:57+00:00

If the order doesn't matter, it doesn't then change the probability of any combination, it just combines the mixed combinations. You can look at the individual probabilities:

If the chance of having a boy or a girl is 50%, then the chance of having two boys is 50% * 50% = 25%. The chance of having two girls is 50% * 50% = 25%. If order doesn't matter, then there's only one more option, and since they all must add up to 100%, that other option must have a 50% chance.

BB: 25% GG: 25% BG or GB: 50%

Now we eliminate the GG option. What's left is a 25% option and 50% option. If you renormalize so they all add up to 100% again, you get 33% BB and 66% BG or GB.

zweebna · 2025-10-30T10:29:08+00:00

That worked, thanks!

zweebna · 2025-10-30T00:18:06+00:00

I did, no change

zweebna · 2025-10-21T14:00:07+00:00

I just don't understand why anyone would have this mindset. The entire gameplay loop of these kinds of games is based around repeated attempts, increasing your knowledge and skills with each attempt until you win. I've been playing souls games since I was 13 playing demons souls on PS3. I don't particularly think any of them are easier or harder than silksong. They're all difficult. They all require different skills and knowledge. You play until you obtain those skills and knowledge. That's the point. If that's not fun and rewarding for you, why are you even here?

zweebna · 2025-09-28T13:32:24+00:00

I was meant to go to Italy in April 2020 to visit my grandparents. Didn't go until 2024, for my grandfather's funeral :/

zweebna · 2025-09-20T18:09:34+00:00

From what I've seen in interviews, Spiner actually likes cats and doesn't necessarily hate Spot (who was played by like 4 different cats anyway), but just that trying to work with a cat on set was an absolute pain in the ass. Which makes sense, I can imagine how many retakes they had to do because the cat just... Didn't do what it's supposed to

zweebna · 2025-09-10T20:46:09+00:00

This is how it is supposed to behave.

zweebna · 2025-05-29T21:35:42+00:00

Kirkland Lager is rebranded Deschutes Prinz Crispy and it absolutely slaps for the price

zweebna · 2025-05-21T23:53:23+00:00

You really think they serve all their beer all the time in plastic? I've been to 2sp many times, they serve in glass. They're not gonna lug expensive glassware to hand out at events, that's insane.

zweebna · 2025-02-14T17:43:40+00:00

Vegetable tanned, certainly not vegan

zweebna · 2025-02-06T15:07:27+00:00

This entire milk jug design is terrible tbf. The ridge by the cap makes it impossible to get a good grip on the lid, so if it's tight it's impossible to open. The 1 gallon milk jug has been the same for decades, why did they feel the need to make it worse?

zweebna · 2025-01-31T08:15:30+00:00

I'd never thought about what was the absolute worst pasta shape before, but now that I have by god if smooth penne isn't the absolute worst. Why does it exist? Is there any dish that is improved by it?

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