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this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2024
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Programmer Humor
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One of my favorite examples of the difficulty in idiot-proofing things comes from a national park ranger talking about the difficulty of designing a bear-proof garbage can. He said "There is considerable overlap between the smartest bears and the dumbest humans."
A bear has time and motivation to keep trying over and over again to get into the garbage. People are generally much less determined to figure it out.
I used to see people charitably, much like you do, until very recently. After witnessing for myself people staring into the sun and injuring themselves after being repeatedly warned, I now realize there are a substantial number of people who simply have rocks clattering around inside their skulls instead of brains
I genuinely had someone stop and ask me why you can't see the moon during an eclipse because "it's got light in it right".
They're soon to replace our HR manager.
Answer: Light travels in straight lines (well, for this purpose) and the moon is roughly an opaque sphere. Maybe you could see it with earthshine, but I get the impression the corona is still much brighter.
I've heard dumber.
There was a listener question on a science podcast recently that asked about how the temperature changed on the moon during the recent solar eclipse.
They almost got what a solar eclipse was, but not quite. During a solar eclipse, the moon gets between the sun and the earth, blocking the light getting to the earth and casting a shadow on the earth. The side of the moon facing the earth is completely dark because the thing that normally lights it up (the sun) is completely behind it. But, the back side of the moon is getting full sun and just as hot as normal.
I think part of the problem with understanding all this is that the sun is just so insanely bright. Like, it's a bit hard to believe that the full moon is so bright just because it's reflecting sunlight. It's also amazing that the "wandering stars" (planets) look like stars when they're just blobs of rocks or gases that are reflecting the insanely bright light of the sun.
It's amazing if you think about it. Light comes out of the sun in every possible direction. A tiny fraction of it hits the surface of Mercury, and only some of that light is reflected back out. The light reflected from Mercury goes in almost every direction. A tiny fraction of it hits the earth. But, even with that indirect bounce, it's bright enough to see with the naked eye.
A solar or lunar eclipse?
The solar eclipse from Monday.
Holy shit this. And not even "educated" people. Where I work is about half degree holding engineers... many of these engineers were seen outside staring at the partial eclipse Monday.
Sounds like your typical engineer. I passed fluid dynamics, I deserve to look at the big ball of plasma.
My eyes haven't hurt this bad since studying for differential equations theory..... Have I told you I'm an engineer?
"Pfff I have a master's degree I know what I'm doing"
There was a solar eclipse when I was in grade six. One of my classmates was riding his bike home, and was stupidly looking at the eclipse, and got hit by a car. The irony.
So you're somewhere between 18 and 58 than
Ladies and gentlemen, we gottem.
Omg that’s so messed up but so incredible haha, was he okay after?
It was pretty bad. He missed a lot of school. I think he ended up repeating grade six. I never saw him much after that, but I did hear that he got married to another person I went to school with eventually, so presumably his life wasn't ruined or anything.
I'm curious if he was okay before.
What do you mean? Sun is blocked = no sun rays = not blinded when staring directly. The logic is sound! Just like in programming.
Congratulations! You've leveled up in the game of life.
This reminds me of that poster in my highschool chem lab:
Same with shooting without eye/ear pro. I dunno about other folks but I use my eyes and ears a lot, and I'd hate to miss out on music and color the rest of my life because I thought I would have a transcendent experience blowing them out for a minute. 😬
Being able to see properly is also something they’ll never be able to do again, so, I hope that one second was “spiritual” enough for them lol
You're immediately taking the argument to the extreme. You won't immediately go blind, but it will damage your retina in ways you sometimes don't notice because the brain compensates for it. It happened to my uncle when he was a welder, he had a second blind spot where he couldn't see sharply, but it didn't really affect his quality of life.
Eclipses happen every year like clockwork (it basically is clockwork, but on a huge scale). Eclipse seasons are spring and fall, around the equinoxes. You could very easily fly to see a total eclipse every few years if you want to, because we know when they are going to happen and where will have totality - it’s very routine stuff. There’s literally nothing special at all about the one that just happened, except that a lot of people haven’t seen one before because it hasn’t happened -at that location- in a time.
So no, absolutely not something you’ll never get a chance to see again, tho you won’t be able if you go blind like a fucking moron.
Total eclipses aren’t rare, but them being in an accessible location and not just over some random place in the ocean is. I looked this up the other day, and any one particular location on Earth will see a total eclipse once every 350 years or so.
Except they aren’t just visible from a single location, so almost every time they are over an accessible place on land. Not for the whole thing, sure, but visible all the same.
This might be helpful for reference. It’s maps of where the next 50 years worth of total eclipses fall. The first one that isn’t really visible by people is 2039 in Antarctica. There’s a few like that. Other than that, there’s at least an island you could go to for it, and see one every few years. Eclipses being totally unavailable to view is actually far more rare than seeing one :)
https://time.com/4897581/total-solar-eclipse-years-next/
There’s a pretty big difference between temporary pain and permanent damage though.
Unless you royally fuck up walking on coals you get some pain, fuck up a little and you just get some blisters.
Glancing at the eclipse while it’s in totality is not going to give you permanent damage. Now if you stare at it until totality is over and the sun is on full blast again…
playing russian roulette is not going to give you permanent damage every 5/6 times
Or if you’re not in the path of totality…. The risk just isn’t worth it.
Let’s just not look up at the bright thing in the sky that can cause permanent damage at any given time.
...and ignore one of the coolest things there is to see on the sky
Or plan in advance and have some protection?
Yes, get yourself eclipse glasses, a pinhole projector, a floppy disk, digital camera or whatever allows you to observe the eclipse safely – no phenomenon is worth risking your eyesight over. However, the consensus is that you can watch the sun flares without protection during totality. The totality lasted 0 to 4 minutes depending on your location.
If I had someone run through hot coals I would scold them, sure. Much like for being angry about others not believing in zombie carpenters or letting quacks give their kids overpriced sugar pills. But that's jot the context right now, is it?
I've seen people carelessly throw away their garbage right next to garbage bins, because they couldn't be bothered to get a little closer or aim.
The bear has more determination, because it has an incentive to get to the tasty, high calorie food that doesn't require the energy expenditure of chasing it down and tearing it apart. Throwing away garbage into a designated container on the other hand is a chore that some people believe they can skip, because they are the sole protagonists in their own stupid little world.