ijk64✅ @ijk64@m.futex.au

If our civilization collapses, extraterrestrial archeologists can look at this and be impressed. Three satellites following the Earth in an equilateral triangle, each 2.5 million kilometers from the other two. Each contains two gold cubes in free-fall. The satellites accelerate just enough so they don't get blown off course by the solar wind. The gold cubes inside feel nothing but gravity.

Lasers bounce between each cube and its partner in another satellite, measuring the distance between them to an accuracy of 20 picometers: less than the diameter of a helium atom! This lets the satellites detect gravitational waves — ripples in the curvature of spacetime — with very long wavelengths, and correspondingly low frequencies.

It should see so many binary white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes in the Milky Way that these will be nothing but foreground noise. More excitingly, it should see mergers of supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies as far as... the dawn of time, or whenever such black holes were first formed. (The farther you look, the older things you see.)

It may even be able to see the "gravitational background radiation": the thrumming vibrations in the fabric of spacetime left over from the Big Bang. These gravitational waves were created before the hot gas in the Universe cooled down enough to become transparent to light. So they're older than the microwave background radiation, which is the oldest thing we see now.

It's called LISA - the Laser Interferometric Satellite Antenna. And we're in luck: ESA has just decided to launch it in 2035.

Daniel's weekly report January 26, 2024

https://lists.haxx.se/pipermail/daniel/2024-January/000051.html

WFH, curldown, QUIC, test, download buffer, curl distros, curl up, keyboard, c-ares, CNA, FOSDEM

Seen on the other place.

I have been mystified why K represented Lysine for many years. Undergrad #biochemistry lecturer said “I don't know why, but I assume it is because of the end of the side chain looks like a K”. Well, turns out the answer is more simple.

Source: M Eugenio Vazquez. Posted in honour of Margaret Dayhoff, inventor of the single-letter amino acid code

Mars Helicopter Ingenuity was just a 30-day tech. demo. mission to test powered, controlled flight on another world, with 5 test flights.

Almost 3 years later, Ingenuity completed 72 flights and would have trudged on if not for this rotor damage.

The map below shows Ingenuity's adventurous path thru Jezero Crater in the past 3 years.

Perseverance will move on soon and Ingenuity will no longer be able to communicate without it 😢

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mission/where-is-the-rover/
https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/#Flight-Log
#Ingenuity
10/n

On Sol 1037 (three days ago) the Perseverance rover observerved this transit of Mars' smallest moon Deimos.
This timelapse was made from 177 Left Mastcam-Z images and shows the event at 10x speed.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/Simeon Schmauß

https://flic.kr/p/2pu14FA

#Mars #NASA #Perseverance #Deimos #Transit #Sun #Solarocks

Not wanting to get into a debate of what the best derivative notation is, but this post makes some useful points that could be kept in mind when teaching calculus, especially the start of multivariable calculus

https://math.stackexchange.com/a/3270436/3835

LIVE NOW ON ABC BRISBANE QUEENSLAND

Thirty years ago, I used the holidays to rewrite our in-house 3d tool from scratch, based on specs and design I worked on for a year. On January 2nd 1994, the first version of Blender was running!
I'm incredible proud, humbled and impressed of where it went. Happy 30th birthday :) #b3d

TIL: https://github.com/wireviz/WireViz Like GraphViz but for wires 😍

Timelapse of astronaut Chris Cassidy working outside the International Space Station as it orbits the Earth.

ME: We have a color named after you

SALMON: Really? Is it silvery-blue like my scales?

ME: No, uh …

SALMON: Wait why is it pink?

ME: …

SALMON: WHY IS IT PINK?!?

Also, at a higher level I continue to believe that DNS represents an unacceptably risky point of failure and we should all be switching to some system where resources are indexed by public key, looked up on something like a DHT

Following their mid-year roundup in July, @alphabettes just posted their new list of font releases from the second half of 2023:
https://www.alphabettes.org/second-half-of-2023-font-releases/

See also their continually updated spreadsheet of typefaces by women and non-binary type designers:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hLtJFWUbdpWcV456mujaWWzwAhoH8hBGqZsCBCgNA1U/edit#gid=0

coincidentally the Roman Colosseum, completed in year 80 AD, has 80 archways & thus 80 columns around the outer perimeter
https://www.thecolosseum.org/facts

If Escher had a dog ...

Same Queen, same!

Wait.... WAIT
There is a passenger...
train...
ferry.
This absolutely blows my BC Ferries mind.
#BCPoli #Trains #Ferry #Italy #Sicily #Canada #CanPoli #Transportation #BCFerries
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0-s-8sS1v0

Ash eruption at Sicily's Etna volcano, taken yesterday (6 Dec).

Photo: Fernando Famiani

#volcanoes #geology #Sicily #Etna