You beat me to it

There are a bunch of astronomy apps that use your phone's orientation sensors to superpose labels on a realtime camera image. I think Stellarium does this, but I mostly use their desktop tool. There are lots of others.

My main acceptable chatbot use case is for searches that are polluted by closely-related terms.

The other day I had a question about the "bovine visual streak," whose name I misremembered. Hundreds of hits about dissecting cows' eyes with the insight "EYES HAVE RETINAS." The chatbot cut through.

Glad to! It's a lovely photo.

Jupiter is a little higher, in Gemini. We are getting further away from Jupiter, so it's not as bright as it was a few months ago.

This actually great for studying a foreign language if you are watching in the target language with titles also in the target language. The angry dog goes [gruñido].

This was such a fun book. The ending was telegraphed pretty early on, but the journey was totally worth it.

Also, the narrator who reads the octopus's chapters for the audiobook is brilliant.

An orange beverage can. The upper shoulder says "NEW BELGIUM." Vertically up the side, "VOODOO RANGER." A skeleton is dressed in a hat with furred leather ear flaps, a checkered dome, and an upturned bright green bill. The skeleton is wearing the mock "sunglasses" which are just plastic strips, which wouldn't protect the skeleton's eyes from UV light if the skeleton had eyes. On its torso, the skeleton is wearing a denim jacket with red cobras on either panel of the unfastened front. In large letters and in multiple typefaces, "1985 MANGO IPA."

for a beer called "voodoo ranger IPA," whose can is decorated with a skeleton wearing a motorcycle jacket, I feel like "mango" is an unexpected flavor choice

it feels like discovering that Alice Cooper really likes golf

The book was great! It's been a few years since I read it. (Which is, for me, the right way to prepare for a movie adaptation: I know the broad outlines and some highlights, but I've forgotten enough details that I can still be surprised.)

This seems to be a "rolling shutter" effect captured in a bird's wing.

I think you're reading this as a mixture of "engineer's disease" ("I'm good at computers/physics/medicine/law so I'm smart about everything") and "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." But there's something darker happening here, too. Perhaps more obvious from within the US milieu.

WOW, the UK folks really win the conjunction prize for tonight! You could cover both of these objects with your thumb at arm's length.

(Unless there were occultations further east?)

Look west at sunset tonight to check on them, and to see how the Moon has moved since Peter's photo. Venus, too.

WOW, the UK folks really win the conjunction prize for tonight! You could cover both of these objects with your thumb at arm's length.

(Unless there were occultations further east?)

Look west at sunset tonight to check on them, and to see how the Moon has moved since Peter's photo. Venus, too.

"Project Hail Mary" was fine. But it took me a while to get over the "captive scientist" scene, where Grace is alone in someone else's lab and (among other improbables) successfully uses all of the equipment.

I mean, I am clumsy in unfamiliar kitchens. Your spectrometer is a multiday project.

Bahamas, I think: another recent photo shows the sea of Abaco.

Another from latitude 25⁰ or 30⁰.

Bonnett Creek seems to be in Orlando, Florida. The lit part of the crescent almost seems to lean south instead of north.

Thank you! They are lovely.

And later during the conjunction, and clearly much further south from the Moon's orientation. Another post from this user mentions Florida.

Back to Scotland. Look how much further the Moon was from Venus!

Of these last three, I think this one is the furthest north. Note that these guys are seeing in the west, not rising. Look for them in the fading sunlight while the sky still has many colors.

Also no location information (unless it's in the alt text). This orientation looks more like the Blue Ridge photo above than it does the Oregon photo.

No location information, but based on the Moon's angle here and a polar "star trails" photo by this same user I guess latitude (40±5)⁰ north. Continental US, not too far south.

Scroll upthread and compare Moons to see how photographers rotate as they move south from Scotland to Hawai'i.

The alt text says Hawai'i. This poster was replying to another really nice photo, but that one has quotes disabled, so you have to click through. I personally love the earthshine on the dark of a thin crescent Moon, but I understand everyone's aesthetic is different.

About 25 years ago I met Russell Hulse (Nobel 1993 ⚛️🔭 for discovering a binary pulsar and gravitational radiation). He talked about doing so much binary programming that he would realize he was balancing his checkbook in hexadecimal-ish and have to start over. This confessor is in good company.

It took me a few encounters to realize that "Western culture" is a dog whistle that white supremacists use to summon one another without drawing attention.

I can't seem to turn off the "help me write" feature in Gmail's Android app. But it does have a use: if it suggests I complete a sentence with a cliché, I can take this as a cue to rephrase into an original expression.

One of several nice photos in the thread under the previous quote. I like this one because the Pleiades cluster is visible. (I was totally closed out last night.)

This photographer mentions the Blue Ridge Mountains, in Appalachia.

Thank you!

In this prediction for tonight the Moon is very close to the Pleiades! I haven't confirmed, but based on the account name I assume that conjunction is best when viewed from Europe, and that the Moon will be a few fingers further west when the sunset reaches the Americas.