APOD and General Astronomy Discussion Forum
https://asterisk.apod.com/
There are two questions there. For something like anti-aliasing fonts, just ask when you hear a term you don't know. This is just a piece of information, like a million other things discussed in this forum. (FYI, as you know, a display is made up of discrete pixels. When you draw a shape- a line, circle, character- its edges will be "pixelated", that is they will deviate from the smooth shape you'd expect. The lower your screen resolution, the more obvious the pixelation. Anti-aliasing is a trick that fills in surrounding pixels with intermediate color or intensity values to smooth out that effect. As is usually the case for technical subjects, Wikipedia has a nice article. You can turn the anti-aliasing of fonts on and off and compare the difference. The method used in Windows is called ClearType, and is manageable in the Display Properties. It's on by default, because even though it very slightly fuzzes out writing, most people consider that preferable to the jagged little characters you get otherwise.)MargaritaMc wrote:I want to begin to understand what you guys are talking about when you are discussing computers (e.g.s at random: writing code, python, anti-aliasing fonts, WINE) : have you any thoughts on where I might start?
Art Neuendorffer (Alexandrite, Virgin.)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleochroism wrote: <<Pleochroism is an optical phenomenon in which a substance appears to be different colors when observed at different angles, especially with polarized light.
Anisotropic crystals have double refraction of light where light of different polarizations is bent different amounts by the crystal, and therefore follows different paths through the crystal. When the mineral is observed at some angle, light following some combination of paths and polarizations will be present, each of which will have had light of different colors absorbed. At another angle, the light passing through the crystal will be composed of another combination of light paths and polarizations, each with their own color. The light passing through the mineral will therefore have different colors when it is viewed from different angles, making the stone seem to be of different colors. Pleochroism is an extremely useful tool in mineralogy for mineral identification, since minerals that are otherwise very similar often have very different pleochroic color schemes. In such cases, a thin section of the mineral is used and examined under polarized transmitted light with a petrographic microscope.
Tetragonal, trigonal and hexagonal minerals can only show two colors and are called dichroic. Orthorhombic, monoclinic and triclinic crystals can show three and are trichroic. For example hypersthene, with two optical axes, can have red, yellow or blue appearance when oriented in three different ways in three-dimensional space.>>
Purple and violetBlue
- Andalusite (strong): green brown / dark red / purple
Corundum (high): purple / orange
Hypersthene (strong): purple/orange
Spodumene (Kunzite) (strong): purple / purple / clear / pink
Tourmaline (strong): pale purple / purpleGreen
- Cordierite (very strong): orthorhombic blue brown / yellow / greenish brown / gray blue / blue to purple
Alexandrite (strong): Dark red-purple/orange/green
Apatite (strong): blue-yellow/blue-colourless
Benitoite (strong): colorless / dark blue
Corundum (strong): violet-dark blue / light blue-green
Iolite (strong): colorless / yellow / blue / dark blue-violet
Tourmaline (strong): dark blue / light blue
Zoisite (strong): blue / red purple / yellow green
Zircon (strong): blue / clear / grayYellow
- Alexandrite (strong): dark red / orange / green
Andalusite (strong): brown green / dark red
Corundum (strong): green / yellow green
Emerald (strong): Green / Blue GreenBrown and orange
- Hornblende (strong) light green/dark green/yellow/brown
Red and pink
- Corundum (strong): yellow brown / orange
- Alexandrite (strong): dark red / orange / green
Andalusite (strong): dark red / brown red
Corundum (strong): violet red / orange red
Tourmaline (strong): dark red / light red
That is beautiful. I'm not into jewellery (my engagement ring sits in its box), but I liked this one, too.geckzilla wrote:Because of the football shape discussion in the other thread, I started looking up lapidary shapes and ended up finding this: Photo and gem cut by Richard P. Homer
At some point Pat and I were looking at engagement rings and I decided they were all incredibly boring. At one store, I suggested that I would like an alexandrite gemstone and was scoffed at by the sales person because "those are too expensive" (along with a rant about how they are only mined in Siberia once a year or something) but they are cheap if you get them created, which I was also scoffed at for even suggesting such a thing. Way to make a sale, buddy. Anyway, I'm definitely not above created gems (it's all star stuff to me!) but the stuff for sale is still so pedestrian. After seeing what can be done I have clearly been to the wrong stores.
Shouldn't this be in the "Cute stuff goes here; you have been warned!" threadgeckzilla wrote:
Here is a cool combination of scientific disciplines: High energy physics and entomology.
VIDEO: Watch Muscles Move in 3-D Inside a Flying Insect
More info: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-bri ... zL4NYWa__k
As in many species, cuteness diminishes with age. Actually, with blowflies, it's only the maggots that are cute... especially when they poke their little butts out of skin lesions as they delicately nibble on the underlying tissue.geckzilla wrote:There are a lot of cute insects but even I am strained to find cuteness in blowflies.
Oh, that's a dangerous assertion. Some might even take it as a challenge...geckzilla wrote:There is virtually nothing more revolting...
geckzilla wrote:
Ok, but we need to use spoiler tags for those sensitive souls out there.
I have to hang my head in shame and confess to joining in with Top The Ghastly Story competitions back in my social worker days... The worst/best people for this competition included, of course, medics and nurses, but even better/worse were cops! The "URGH!!" factor amongst police tales was very grossgeckzilla wrote:Haha, lovely. I'd like to say the same has happened with me since Pat does nearly the same thing with random enterology horror stories (he's not even an enterologist but C. difficile is on every intensivist's mind), but my appetite is more sensitive than I'd care to admit. I could probably grab a handful of maggots if I needed to but for some reason if someone brings up an inappropriate topic over dinner it bothers me. I think it's very rude.
At which point, the reasoning ability of many, perhaps most humans begins to be systematically wiped out by special interests, leaving the crows well ahead.MargaritaMc wrote:I'd read the Guardian article a couple of days ago but the significance hadn't struck until watching this clip from the BBC on YouTube.
The Guardian: Crows' reasoning ability rivals that of seven-year-old humans
Chris Peterson wrote:At which point, the reasoning ability of many, perhaps most humans begins to be systematically wiped out by special interests, leaving the crows well ahead.MargaritaMc wrote:I'd read the Guardian article a couple of days ago but the significance hadn't struck until watching this clip from the BBC on YouTube.
The Guardian: Crows' reasoning ability rivals that of seven-year-old humans
MargaritaMc wrote:Mmmm. I didn't like to say, but the reasoning ability of the crow in the video FAR exceeds that of many humans that I know...Chris Peterson wrote:At which point, the reasoning ability of many, perhaps most humans begins to be systematically wiped out by special interests, leaving the crows well ahead.MargaritaMc wrote:
I'd read the Guardian article a couple of days ago but the significance hadn't struck until watching this clip from the BBC on YouTube.
The Guardian: Crows' reasoning ability rivals that of seven-year-old humans
The video looks pretty good (not like most meteor hoaxes and fakes... and there are quite a few of those). Of course, the extreme improbability of the event should make anyone skeptical. The geologist doesn't know too much about meteorites, but not many do.geckzilla wrote:Norwegians, skydiving, and a meteor. I'm a little dubious but the geologist seems certain!Seen at http://www.universetoday.com/110963/nor ... t-on-film/Click to play embedded YouTube video.
Hmm.“The film caused a sensation in the meteorite community. They seemed convinced that this was a meteorite, perhaps I was the one who was the most sceptical.”
It seems like a tough nut to crack. One thing that seemed obviously wrong to me is where the geologist says it would have cut the skydiver in half if it had struck him. It could probably break his back, but I have a very hard time believing there's enough force in that thing to cut him in half or even put a hole through him especially with his conservative estimate of it moving only 300 kph. This is not that much faster than the velocity of the skydiver himself. Why would he say that?
