Thanks for all that extra detail. I’ll put it on a watch list to see where it goes. I’ll just go play in traffic for now

How would you describe the driving mechanics? I tried NFS Heat to feel that retro night vibe, but the mechanics were atrocious in my opinion. They’re too arcadey. Forza Horizon has become my standard for a balance between realistic (predictable) mechanics without punishing me for every mistake. I don’t mind Forza Motorsports but I’m more interested in cruising and racing stylistic cars more than perfecting lap times.

Is it open world? Japan and JDM aren’t that big in my automotive enthusiasm scale but there’s something deeply nostalgic when I can ride through some highway lights, virtual or real, that resemble the Japan track from Gean Turismo 1 or 2

Have you seen a sunset when you had a pretty clear view of the horizon such as over water or in unforested plains? Once the sun is fully hidden from view, there is still the sunset gradient in the sky. Red on the horizon, orange above, yellow above, and, for truly most of the sky, a pale blue. Without clouds to give dramatic clashes of alternate colors^1 , the sunset color band is very slim, as evidenced by trying to use a phone camera to take a picture.

Now think about where the sun, earth, and moon are in space. You’re probably thinking of it wrong. The sun is extraordinarily large but also extraordinarily far. So far, in fact, that it appears the same size regardless of whether you’re on the earth, on the moon during a solar eclipse, or on the moon during a lunar eclipse. The variation is less than what we experience during a supermoon. While the Earth is much larger than the moon, they are significantly far apart for their size. Think of the picture of Earth taken by the Apollo astronauts. It’s pretty small, right? The Earth is about 4x bigger than the moon in diameter. Since, from Earth, the moon and sun both appear to be the same size (0.5deg of view across), we can estimate the Earth appears to be 2 degrees wide as seen from the moon. It can completely block the sun.

But the Earth has a trick up its sleeve: the atmosphere. It refracts light. While we sit on a beach and watch the sunset over the ocean horizon, that color band is fairly narrow in horizontal width and incredibly short in vertical height. It feels like a pretty small event if you use a wide angle camera. But it’s not. The red band encompasses the Earth all the way around. When there’s a sunset seen from California, there’s a sunrise seen from India. Say we’re at an equinox, which means both North and South poles are also in a golden twilight. The sun lights half the planet at any given time, meaning that red/orange band of sunset colors is actually an entire ring around the planet all the time. Not all of that light lands on a photographer’s sandy toes. In fact, most of it passes all landmass and continues into space. With the blue light scattering in more directions that red, much of it gets reflected away from Earth and into space at all angles. Meanwhile, the red end of the spectrum fares better and continues straighter - but it DOES scatter to some extent, including into the shadow of the Earth. In the grand scheme of things, this is insignificant and unnoticeable. But, for us, from our unique vantage point between 3 bodies of shockingly similar apparent (visual) size, the effect is that the ring of red sunset/sunrise glow blurs the Earth s shadow enough to create a refracted red “shadow” onto the moon. But, as mentioned above, that halo of red refraction is still slim and quickly gives way to the oranges, yellows, and pale blues. That blends on the moon somewhat, making the red portion lean to one side while the opposing side appears more balanced in color.

^1 clouds are what make subsets look dramatic with the clashes of pinks and oranges and such. It’s not actually pollution. Pollution only works to dull out sunsets. Since clouds are at such great altitudes, they “experience” sunset a little bit later than a ground observer. This means while you see a red sun, the clouds see an orange sun. When you see orange sky, the clouds see yellow. The difference could be greater if you have higher clouds or closer if they’re lower. Or, of you’re lucky, all different altitudes such as when you see red sunset, fluffy orange clouds, and streaky yellow clouds in the Jetstream, all set in front of the pale blue sky. Clouds may block the view of the actual sunset, but they’re responsible for the most breathtaking sunset views.

Since everyone is excited to point out the pre-existence of shite and muck, I’ll share the one I thought was a computer age typo but wasn’t: finna. “I’m finna get dinner”. I swore it was a keyboard typo of “gonna” with G and O shifted one key to the left working itself into verbal vernacular. Instead, “gonna” is to “going to” as “finna” is to “fixing to”. Just as OP hasn’t heard British slang, this was something I hadn’t heard from US Southern slang

This is what I believe will always be the root of democrat’s inaction: too many directions for improvement. Both sides want the country to be better, right? So let’s talk about what the democrats, liberals, and progressives want. They want, in no particular order, reproductive freedom, religious freedom, racial equality, gender equality, socialist welfare, cheaper and more effective healthcare, reduced citizen financial burden, cleaner air, healthier ecosystems, more efficient transportation, more efficient energy production, and global societal cooperation, to name a dozen. What do we tackle first? Some would say reproductive freedom is of the utmost importance because that will cause society to collapse the fastest. Some say climate change policy is the most important because the irreversible damage is growing exponentially. Then some would say the financial crisis is the priority because none of the rest matters if the population is pushed to homeless starvation. 13 theoretical representatives push 13 different utopian priorities.

Now say there’s 20 reps in total, 7 being republicans and conservatives. What would make the country better for them? Well, looking at the much less diverse demographic, take half of the above goals but append “white, Christian, patriarchal, wealthy” to the citizens they wish to appease and throw out the other half of the topics. Instead of providing progressive policy that balances benefits for all citizens, they smaller group: the “majority” of the nation that represents only about 1/3 of the population. All these 7 conservatives have to do is fold their arms and say no to whatever policy the liberals are pushing. They don’t have to agree on how to best revert the country back to the good old days when liberal subgroups give them easy targets. Reject wildlife restrictions and their constituents will feel good because it’s not their forest. Reject clean air acts because their constituents will believe the air is the way it is. Reject social welfare because their constituents believe the money saved will make them wealthy. Reject reproductive freedom because their constituents will blame it all on personal choice for others, God’s mysterious ways for themselves. Reject gender equality because their constituents believe in the patriarchy. Reject global cooperative initiatives bevause their constituents believe America is a freestanding nation.

13 democrats line up as individuals while 7 Republicans stand with elbows linked, calling “red rover, red rover, send your policies over” ready to block it as a team of negativity. To break through the wall, democrats have to compromise with each other first on the division of resources, watering down each of their goals. The it gets watered down again with something that might pass the whole group. Multiple policies get tied together as one big bill, not one item at a time. This is what makes it so frustrating when any rep gets called out for voting against some bill that supposedly is clearly for the benefit of the country. It’s most like 15 different topics strung together and whatever their priority is doesn’t align with its representation within that bill. Yet, voting by party lines is the only way to move forward. If they agree with the bill, then they’re flopping on their core values.

Then, sprinkle in some key single-issue voter topics and you’ll probably get the attention of swing voters and non-voters. I’m in a liberal area. The sane people I’ve talked to that turn out to vote republican are always dead set on one topic. Sometimes, they’re quiet Christians that are anti-abortion. Sometimes they’re hunters that shut down as soon as a liberal mentions gun control. Sometimes they’re rural people who believe petroleum vehicles will be outlawed. Sometimes they believe the capitalist machine will reward them for being honest workers as soon as the corporation catches a windfall. Sometimes the techy types want nothing but net neutrality first.

The GOP machine is working exactly as designed with a dozen single issues to snag voters and blockade progress.

While I never use the alarm function, I love having my bedside alarm clock because it has a projector that puts the time on the ceiling. It’s convenient when your bedside table is lower than your mattress

I understand your concern, but every app should now have volume override. My native Android alarm and Alarm Clock Extreme has worked flawlessly for years despite my phone always on vibrate. Extreme makes me do math or a captcha before dismissing

“Some of you will die, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take”

I believe this is already the case with pacemakers

By split a gallilean moon, do you just mean see up to 4 moons separate from Jupiter? I’m pretty sure I can distinctly see them, at least with elbows on a railing or on some mount. I guess I’ll have to look tonight if it’s clear. I kinda only remember catching 3 at a time and not investigating further. I do have 20/15 vision so I guess that plays a role. Good point to remind me not everyone has my hawk eyes. I don’t catch much color though. Usually too small and washed out. It’ll have slight pink bands at best. I haven’t been able to note a crescent shape for venus, either. But I figure even cheap scopes can show my planets, so it hasn’t been my focus

Scott Swift didn’t create Big Machine Records. The guy who did, approached Taylor playing in a venue as he was starting the label. The supposed sequence of events is Scott invested after she was signed, resulting in less than a 3% stake. When BM was sold, Scott sold his stake for $15mil. I would think his initial investment, before Taylor had a few albums under her belt, was somewhere around what middle-class parents provide for college tuition.

So, priveleged with 2 parents, a relocation to her dad’s Nashville branch, and a normal middle class financial backing? Sure. Art is incredibly hard to be successful in. But still, I never see these comments portraying it as $50-100k. They come across as $30mil+.

And no, I’m not a swifty. I can’t stand her music. It’s not for me. Country and pop are boring to me and her melodies are too happy. I can’t stand the fan base for treating her like god. I kinda enjoy drawing parallels between her lyrics and those of Slipknot because they’re both singing for the unloved outsider and then watching the brainwash meltdown. It’s like Tool for women.

It just seems weird to me to only ever see her get bashed for such a priveleged upbringing when 1. We can agree it’s the only way to make it and 2. It’s thousands, not millions that propped her up.

+1 on binos. They’ve kept me happy because they fit in a backpack or carry-on luggage. I’m deep in light pollution, so viewing is best done with some travel. They have less magnification, but they’re as bright as a much more expensive telescope and there’s a certain value to having two eyes on the night sky.

10x50 is where I landed. Probably the same weight as your 7x50. While yes, the 50(mm) describes the outer objective lens, the key thing is really the lens on the eye side. Divide the aperture by the mag and you find that exit pupil size. 50/10=5mm, which is about the size of a dilated adult eyeball pupil - and they get smaller as you age. I’m guessing you have a Celestron or similar astro bino which has some advantages for this hobby. I am surprised at the ~$40 price tag, so I no longer want to recommend against it. Where I WAS going was that 7x35s would likely give a similar image from a reputable manufacturer while saving a little weight and being more likely to be found at a garage sale. But who could say no to $40 new 7x50s? As long as OP avoids those 20x50 boating binos or 10x25 hunting binos, they’ll be in good shape. My 10x50s are closer to OP’s budget because I opted for Nikon Action Extremes to survive my beach spot, hikes, travel, drops, and any other mishaps alike. Things go bump in the night so rubber coating and waterproofing was worth it to me

The incentive is that Amazon can charge more for premium sellers to have private bins that safeguard against fraud

May I Mike a suggestion? Try lowering the camera to just a hand or two above the ground. It might change this from “skull on the forest floor” to “skull in a forest” and add depth and context

I see this opinion often enough, so I have to ask. How much money do you think Swift’s parents put into her career? How big do you think a parental college fund should be to give their kids a solid leg up? How does that initial financial backing discredit her as she continues writing a massive catalog of successful songs?

Because i/e has dumb, inconsistent rules and I’ve apparently I’ve written it wrong enough times that my autocorrect has taken it to be the correct, learned spelling. At least it’s better than when it takes charge of the sentence and completely flips n’t contractions. Those are sneaky and incredibly confusing if not caught.

But I keep shopping for ceiling materials and I can recognize cieling is wrong, so that’s nice.

While I’ve read every comment and found no real flaws, I’m here to add the one thing that makes the sky different (aside from east/west delays). Conjunctions won’t happen at the same time - or maybe not at all. You’ll see just about the same stars (with maybe a 3 hour delay) and the local bodies will be about the same. As long as you don’t try to watch the moon occulting a planet or eclipaing the sun, it’ll be the same sky. The lunar eclipse in a few days will look identical though, minus some negligible differences in viewing angle of the moon’s face. But the moon blocking some farther object is the only thing I can think of celestially that would be different. Just 50 miles of separation changed the perception of how the moon crossed the sun in the April 2024 North American solar eclipse. Some saw it go down, others up. The last and first sliver of solar crescent was different for everyone watching.

Orientation may flip as well if either of you is within 22N or 22S, stemming from the 22 degree tilt of the earth’s rotation. Depends on season and time of day. Northern hemisphere mostly sees celestial bodies to the south, southern hemi sees them to the north, tropical sees them north, south, overhead, and crossing.

Popular by total votes tallied, not popular by total eligible voters. Only about 50-70% of all eligible voters vote - call it 2/3. Campaigning is less about swinging voters between parties and more about convincing them to show up for the ballot. This is Trump’s specialty. He is so inflammatory that he has driven more people to the polls, both for and against him. But if you look at the actual stats, 2016 was won with just 27% of the eligible voter population’s vote and 2024 with 32%. The runner up tallied 29% and 31%, respectively. 3rd party votes don’t exceed 2% which means both the winner and the 2nd place candidates collected a total vote count about equal to the number of people who didn’t show up at all.

More towards what people actually see in him, they think he’s their friend. His vitriol makes them beleive he’s really just in this for an altruistic motive about returning the USA to a place of freedom (for the white Christian patriarchal population). They don’t think he is in it for financial gain. They think they’re poor because democrats gave money to brown people. They think being a dick to other countries will bring the USA back to a self-sustaining country. They beleive corporations will do the right thing in response and choose to no longer exploit poor countries. They think the decline of US citizens’ private wealth is from welfare policies, not from corporate greed. They don’t recognize that the USA’s 1950s-60s economic boom was rooted in being the only major industrial nation that was NOT bombed to kingdom come in the 40s.

And above all, I beleive conservatives generally lack empathy. They beleive this dichotomy that everyone has equal opportunity but also that behavior is racial. They can’t bring themselves to beleive minorities have it rougher due to systemic issues. They can’t understand how poverty, teen pregnancy, drug abuse, lacking Healthcare, inability to afford higher education, or predisposition to violence is more easily predicted by birth location than anything else. Until it happens to one of their own, one who looks like them, looks like a daughter, looks like a brother. This frees them to vote for Trump and beleive in a year, they’ll be wealthy, screaming “fuck you, got mine” to the lesser demographics that just won’t play nice. That gives way to the most upsetting irony. They’re voting for a “businessman” who will “run the country like a business” yet somehow cannot understand, at all, Trump is a grifter that is excellent at branding himself as successful on the backs of bankrupted companies that gave him golden parachutes. Why would anyone want trump to run the country like a Trump business? Bankruptcies, layoffs, shutdowns, downsizes, and a fat check for Trump? Because it’s about race, religion, and societal norms. It’s believing that being white, Christian, and patriarchal should automatically come with success in America. All of the hypocrisy and side effects is just the cost of gaining personal wealth.

Setting up an ERP can also be completely botched if the company’s representatives don’t fully grasp all the functions needed. What I’ve been going through as a customer of an ERP suite is that the “stars” of the software don’t actually understand the other 50% of functions outside their department. That remaining 50% is distributed among 4 other departments, so representation wasn’t exactly prioritized. Add in high turnover circa 2021 and the whole thing is logistical nightmare that finally at least has a goal in sight.

The other underlying issue is the existing forms usually lack what we need and have too much fluff. Once our ERP partner modifies it, the ERP developer drops all support for that form. We get zero help when it gets mystery glitches.

So yeah, I can get why some places say fuck it and stick with excel. Half the workforce knows excel well enough to write what they need. Take 10% of them to format and lock down spreadsheets so the other 50% of the workforce can just fill in boxes and pick drop downs. It just works.

All that to say, I both expect more form a Healthcare company but also am not surprised.

If you go to the other side of the world, there’s a good chance your actions won’t be understood or might even convey the opposite meaning. Namely, mixing western and Asian body language is messy, depending on how much British colonization happened in the Asian half of the dialogue.

Source: I’ve been to India with Americans that believed they could communicate if they repeated their English statement slower, with the same verbal shortcuts, and angrier. This works in the big cities at customer service. The success rate drops as population density drops.