What Are You Currently Reading Outside of Tech
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We have a HP colour 11x17 printer at home (we home school) so I print the following out regularly:
An amazing interactive sky map:
I love the stars and can spend hours at night watching them.
A super cool moment was teaching each of my kids to triangulate to hunt satellites and the Space Station (this one is a big lightbulb going over us).
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@phlipelder Linux has a several really amazing star tracking and charting apps if you haven't looked em up.
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@dustinb3403 said in What Are You Currently Reading Outside of Tech:
@phlipelder Linux has a several really amazing star tracking and charting apps if you haven't looked em up.
We have a relatively low pitch roof (~4/12 or 5/12) that is L shaped. One of our dream To Do items is to set up a platform on the garage side of the roof and put a good sized telescope up there with a full remote configuration. It's been on the To Do list for a couple of years now as it got put on hold because Edmonton swapped all of their street lights for LED over the last 24 months.
Prior we were outside the light envelope of the city. Now, we've lost some of our night sky due to the amount of light "pollution" they throw off.
I wish we were more like cities in the US where residential areas only get key intersection lights. That would greatly reduce the amount of light pollution and give city dwellers a better sleep.As long as there are no clouds over Edmonton we can still pull it off though. The Little Dipper is fairly easy to pick out in the night sky which is the boundary for good night sky viewing. The Milky Way is amazing and the binary in the Big Dipper is neat to pick-out with the small telescope we currently have.
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@phlipelder said in What Are You Currently Reading Outside of Tech:
I wish we were more like cities in the US where residential areas only get key intersection lights.
This exists no where in the US that I have lived.
The only reason lights are limited is because the local government ran out of money and has to wait a few yeas for more lights.
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@jaredbusch said in What Are You Currently Reading Outside of Tech:
@phlipelder said in What Are You Currently Reading Outside of Tech:
I wish we were more like cities in the US where residential areas only get key intersection lights.
This exists no where in the US that I have lived.
The only reason lights are limited is because the local government ran out of money and has to wait a few yeas for more lights.
My Dad is in St. Petersburg, FL. They limit the number of street lights there in residential areas. My assumption my bad.
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@phlipelder said in What Are You Currently Reading Outside of Tech:
@jaredbusch said in What Are You Currently Reading Outside of Tech:
@phlipelder said in What Are You Currently Reading Outside of Tech:
I wish we were more like cities in the US where residential areas only get key intersection lights.
This exists no where in the US that I have lived.
The only reason lights are limited is because the local government ran out of money and has to wait a few yeas for more lights.
My Dad is in St. Petersburg, FL. They limit the number of street lights there in residential areas. My assumption my bad.
Light pollution is a horrible thing. So I am 100% behind your desire.
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Romania uses directional LEDs to reduce pollution and energy consumption. Works pretty well. About the same light on the roads, far less in the skies or in your faces, way less power needed.
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@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Currently Reading Outside of Tech:
Romania uses directional LEDs to reduce pollution and energy consumption. Works pretty well. About the same light on the roads, far less in the skies or in your faces, way less power needed.
No one uses a light that shines up. Reflected light is reflected light. It is all light pollution.
LED street lights are going in all over the world because of the reduced OpEx. That does nothing to reduce light pollution.
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@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Currently Reading Outside of Tech:
Romania uses directional LEDs to reduce pollution and energy consumption. Works pretty well. About the same light on the roads, far less in the skies or in your faces, way less power needed.
Part of the irony in that is any fired power plant such as coal and natural gas can only spool down so far before they can no longer spool up without a start-up procedure.
Our coal and natural gas fired plants have a huge rod that goes into the ground for the surplus energy.
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@jaredbusch said in What Are You Currently Reading Outside of Tech:
@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Currently Reading Outside of Tech:
Romania uses directional LEDs to reduce pollution and energy consumption. Works pretty well. About the same light on the roads, far less in the skies or in your faces, way less power needed.
No one uses a light that shines up. Reflected light is reflected light. It is all light pollution.
LED street lights are going in all over the world because of the reduced OpEx. That does nothing to reduce light pollution.
Its' both. But normal lights shine out in EVERY direction. So they need WAY more total light, and ergo more pollution, to light up the same around of road.
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@phlipelder said in What Are You Currently Reading Outside of Tech:
@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Currently Reading Outside of Tech:
Romania uses directional LEDs to reduce pollution and energy consumption. Works pretty well. About the same light on the roads, far less in the skies or in your faces, way less power needed.
Part of the irony in that is any fired power plant such as coal and natural gas can only spool down so far before they can no longer spool up without a start-up procedure.
Our coal and natural gas fired plants have a huge rod that goes into the ground for the surplus energy.
Correct. that is why the Tesla power projects in Australia are so effective. All they are doing is adding storage for the power.
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Alistair Reynolds is great, I really need to find some more of his stuff.
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@ndc Yes im actually re reading Revelation Space. I read the Revelation Space trilogy a while ago, but then learned there were about half a dozen others in the universe, outside that story. So now im reading again starting at book one.
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Shadow of Victory, the latest in the Honor Harrington Saganami Island series. One of the better space operas. I forget how many different series of books are set in the same universe now, let alone the total number of books.
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@travisdh1 said in What Are You Currently Reading Outside of Tech:
Shadow of Victory, the latest in the Honor Harrington Saganami Island series. One of the better space operas. I forget how many different series of books are set in the same universe now, let alone the total number of books.
I enjoyed it early on, but it has gotten slower and slower as the books wind on. I'd like to see him just wrap up things and open up the universe to other authors.
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@kelly said in What Are You Currently Reading Outside of Tech:
@travisdh1 said in What Are You Currently Reading Outside of Tech:
Shadow of Victory, the latest in the Honor Harrington Saganami Island series. One of the better space operas. I forget how many different series of books are set in the same universe now, let alone the total number of books.
I enjoyed it early on, but it has gotten slower and slower as the books wind on. I'd like to see him just wrap up things and open up the universe to other authors.
At least one whole series is by other authors. I think it's the Crown of Slaves series.... yep, at least according to wikipedia those are all Eric Flint. A good number of other authors have gotten involved over the years, but David Weber has always done the main story line himself. I'm a sucker for the series at this point, and will continue to purchase digital copies of all the books. At least I realize you shouldn't trust my judgement in this case.
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@travisdh1 said in What Are You Currently Reading Outside of Tech:
@kelly said in What Are You Currently Reading Outside of Tech:
@travisdh1 said in What Are You Currently Reading Outside of Tech:
Shadow of Victory, the latest in the Honor Harrington Saganami Island series. One of the better space operas. I forget how many different series of books are set in the same universe now, let alone the total number of books.
I enjoyed it early on, but it has gotten slower and slower as the books wind on. I'd like to see him just wrap up things and open up the universe to other authors.
At least one whole series is by other authors. I think it's the Crown of Slaves series.... yep, at least according to wikipedia those are all Eric Flint. A good number of other authors have gotten involved over the years, but David Weber has always done the main story line himself. I'm a sucker for the series at this point, and will continue to purchase digital copies of all the books. At least I realize you shouldn't trust my judgement in this case.
Oh, don't get me wrong. I've read all of the books more than once. I've just gotten tired of how slowly the pace has begun to crawl as he jumps back and forth across the galaxy following a Jordian number of characters and plot threads.
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Free (in exchange for contact info) book from Tor: https://www.tor.com/2018/08/27/download-a-free-ebook-of-the-black-company-by-glen-cook-before-august-31-2018
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Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone is available on Libby (Overdrive library app) without waiting until September 10th on the off chance that you haven't already read it. (You have read it, RIGHT?)
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@kelly said in What Are You Currently Reading Outside of Tech:
@travisdh1 said in What Are You Currently Reading Outside of Tech:
@kelly said in What Are You Currently Reading Outside of Tech:
@travisdh1 said in What Are You Currently Reading Outside of Tech:
Shadow of Victory, the latest in the Honor Harrington Saganami Island series. One of the better space operas. I forget how many different series of books are set in the same universe now, let alone the total number of books.
I enjoyed it early on, but it has gotten slower and slower as the books wind on. I'd like to see him just wrap up things and open up the universe to other authors.
At least one whole series is by other authors. I think it's the Crown of Slaves series.... yep, at least according to wikipedia those are all Eric Flint. A good number of other authors have gotten involved over the years, but David Weber has always done the main story line himself. I'm a sucker for the series at this point, and will continue to purchase digital copies of all the books. At least I realize you shouldn't trust my judgement in this case.
Oh, don't get me wrong. I've read all of the books more than once. I've just gotten tired of how slowly the pace has begun to crawl as he jumps back and forth across the galaxy following a Jordian number of characters and plot threads.
I'm most of the way through the latest release now, and I don't think the story has advanced one iota. I do enjoy the backstories that get done, but wish those would be kept to one of the spin-off series.
