Researchers have created the world's thinnest pane of glass - and it looks oddly familiar.

NoSalt · 2012-02-04T11:40:17.905868+00:00

What do you mean by lens flare? I asume you mean the extreme spiking on that star in the bottom right? Do you have any evidence that it is artificial? It is obviously an incredibly bright star. I forget what causes the spikes - I think it is either diffraction from the support struts on the telescope, or leakage in the CCD. IIRC if too much charge builds up in a pixel before being read out it will overflow. Either effect is magnified by the luminosity of the object. The latter can be controlled by reading out more frequently, but read out frequency is determined by the properties of the primary target.

I could be wrong of course - it isn't really my area. The sources I'm using are unresolved, and the raw data is list of individual photons!

NoSalt · 2012-02-04T11:25:23.329438+00:00

This is how I feel when an article talks about an astronomical event taking place 'three days ago', and a horde of commenters say 'actually, it happened 10000 years and three days ago, because it's 10000 light years away'. In a sense correct, yet utterly useless and betraying a superficial understanding of the subject.

ekvq · 2012-02-04T11:18:32.084379+00:00

The bible as a whole is very much in favour of war.

Note_it · 1 day

I think it really comes down to the nature of the subreddit. Smaller communities can manage that sort of thing, but when a subreddit tries to appeal to a wider group it's less successful. Especially somewhere like AskScience - people are so used to being able to get away with rampant speculation everywhere else on the internet.

SolInvictus · 1 day

You can't really compare people across wide ranges of time like that. Considering that somewhere in the region of 90% of current scientists are atheists, there certainly is a correlation.

jimjimgreen · 2 days

Why would it be our business if she worked for a bank?

Shalmaneser · 2 days

The modern Olympics is a fatuous exercise in internationalism through limbering up and then running down to entropy.

What on earth is that meant to mean?

Hollack · 3 days

So you basically agree they're having (some of) their pensions taken away?

There is a huge distinction between having something taken away, and not having something given to you.

whitmell · 4 days

There is some overlap between elves and Maia though - for instance Glorfindel was equal in might to a Balrog.

Mookiewook · 4 days

This is what I was wondering. My first thought was that if Merry and Pippin are names that real people actually use, then it wouldn't make sense to trademark them. But I can't imagine Legolas being used as an actual name!

Laurelie · 7 days

People don't always act rationally.

One__Upper · 7 days

It isn't. It's not as good as a heat pump, but it's better than a coal fire, or other fossil fuels. Near 100% of the energy that the computer uses goes to heating the room it's in, and a portion of that electricity will come from clean sources (nuclear / renewables). I don't think I've ever lived in a house with a heat pump, but I've certainly lived places with a gas or oil boiler.

HeyDummy · 11 days

what sort of audience you're maiming for

You must be a very harsh critic!

HeyDummy · 11 days

That could be down to how you spin it. For instance it could be in a blog format, but you could describe it as a portfolio of work, or an educational resource.

patienceinbee · 11 days

You presumably know that for many trans* folk, that word can be very harmful. It isn't just a matter of nebulous 'offense' being taken. The way the word is most often used towards us is in a threatening context, and use of the word can cause harm to those who have had such experiences.

So if doing something has a potential to harm people, and has no upside*, don't you think you should refrain from doing it?

* Your convenience doesn't count - you wouldn't drive down the pavement after all, even if it did save time. There are situations where use of the word can be acceptable, for instance in a discussion about the use of such terms. But very little else.

DocFGeek · 11 days

Caprica was pretty good for this.

anutensil · 14 days

Heh - they've pinned me down. Apart from the muscles.

Steam_Powered_Cat · 15 days

It is a type of meatball, but if you use it outside a culinary setting it will be taken to be an insult.

papalkombat · 15 days

I can't really speak for current admission policies, but I got into Oxford for physics 5 years ago with 3 As at A2 and a couple of Bs at AS level. I'm now continuing on for a DPhil. The top universities don't tend to care so much about the point score, but more about your best three grades. They're also well aware that someone from a fancy private school is more likely have 5 A-levels, whereas someone from an average state school is going to have about 3. As far as I know for Physics at Oxford they don't really consider your grades. Instead the decision goes on how well you do at the entrance test, and how the interviews go. Exam grades are mostly for the conditional offers. Other unis and subjects may vary.

papalkombat · 15 days

I was at an average comprehensive in a rural area, and the expectation was that pretty much everyone doing A-levels would go to uni. I think only 3 people in my year didn't apply.

TheSilverLining · 15 days

It's up to you really. Using just trans will do the job fine most of the time. The wildcard appeals to me because of my computing background. In a sense it also acts as an implicit acknowledgement that there are multiple flavours of transness.

workingdankoch · 15 days

I've seen it claimed that the black death actually had some positive effects to society. The depopulation it caused apparently led to a rise in the power of the working classes.

mrcloudies · 16 days

So because a group has very little power, none of its members are capable of discriminating? I know people who will outright reject a person's opinions on trans issues if they are cis, or on lgbt issues if they are straight. The language they use can be very unwelcoming indeed to people who aren't queer in some way. You must know the sort of person I mean - the sort who will write someone off for being a cis, straight, white guy.

And before you go leaping to conclusions, I'm a trans woman.

TwistTurtle · 16 days

More to the point the Renaissance was about the rebirth and rediscovery of old ideas from Greece and Rome that had been lost with the fall of the western empire, and the new ideas that stemmed from that rebirth. So the internet and the changes it brings can't be a renaissance, because they are entirely new!

As to a comparison of the impact of the two periods, that is a very hard question. I would say that you are exaggerating the impact of the renaissance.

People didn't really know how to think, they just lived.

And then you go on to complain about hyperbole! Society didn't just stand still after the fall of the western empire. Unfortunately we don't know as much about it as we'd like.

44in313 · 18 days

Unfortunately I also have a penis, and I can assure you that it is possible.

evrae

TROPHY CASE

evrae

TROPHY CASE

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