nudge

Almost arrived! The James Webb Space Telescope will fire its engines and brake into its halo orbit around L2 today. The course correction is scheduled for 8pm CET.

I loved it... Probably still my all time favourite TV series.

Jean-Claude Mézières, a reknowned French comics artist and illustrator, has passed away today Most famous for his Valérian artwork and ongoing contributions to Métal Hurlant (the original Heavy Metal), his artwork also inspired a lot of sci-fi movies - most notably the Star Wars franchise. Some of the influences in Star Wars looks like a straight out rip off of his earlier work: Also, his concept art for the Fifth Element:

Looks fantastic. The second pic looks like something straight out of LOST series (which was also shot in Hawaii, so that makes sense...)

Nearly finished with it... Next in line:

Shit about to go down?

I usually go for a top sirloin if I cook myself. Good price-quality ratio, lean but still enough marbling for plenty of flavour.

Association between myocarditis and COVID vaccines is actually quite well established in science already, only the estimated incidence rates vary - sometimes quite widely - from study to study. It might be a low risk, but it's still a risk, especially in young men, and it absolutely should be taken seriously, and such findings should influence public health policies. For example, in numerous studies, the risk of myocarditis in men under 40 after vaccination with Moderna was estimated to be higher than their risk of myocarditis from COVID infection, so it's pretty obvious that for this demographic, Moderna is not the best choice of vaccine and shouldn't be used (and several countries already banned it for under 40s for this specific reason). Similarly, those who experienced heart issues after mRNA vaccination, should be offered a different kind of vaccine (virus vector, protein subunit, etc) for their booster as a precaution instead of dismissing their concerns. Honestly, I find both extremes equally annoying - those who actively advocate against vaccines and encourage people not to take it, and those who vehemently defend it and refuse to consider the shortcomings and potential dangers of it. It's clearly helpful in preventing severe course of disease and deaths, and it also clearly has shortcomings (lack of protection against infection and transmissibility, for example) and potentially serious negative side effects for certain people (myocarditis with mRNA vaccines for young men, CVT & VITT with viral vector vaccines for young women). Research is still ongoing and will be for years, there will likely be new findings and arguments for and against, so to me, it's an extremely weird hill to die on. Just a few days ago, there was an editorial in BJM (British Journal of Medicine) calling all vaccine manufacturers to make their data freely available publicly for independent analysis - which is definitely a very reasonable thing to ask, given that the data is supposed to be behind major public health interventions, and yet it is still not accesible for researchers, doctors and the general public. Well worth a read: https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o102

Really? How weird... Still available on my Netflix. Season 3 starts next Tuesday, too.

Since The Expanse TV series has ended, I can finally read the novels now... Started with the first one, Leviathan Wakes, last night: Went through almost a half of it in one sitting... Fantastic writing.

More intriguing findings, this time in a shape of carbon isotopes: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-curiosity-rover-measures-intriguing-carbon-signature-on-mars Possible explanations so far: UV radiation Interstellar dust Ancient life It's crazy to think that we've only just started looking and have barely scratched the surface, and we're finding out a lot of new stuff already...

Looks fantastic! How long are you staying? Anything special planned?

Queue jumping, bad manners, rudeness etc. is one thing and it's indeed very common everywhere; treating locals as if they are inferior and only there to serve is what makes my blood boil.

Bloody hell. Look at the timeline: This is obviously an uninhabited island, but other ones also suffered extensive damage. Their communications are mostly cut off. 3 deaths confirmed so far.

That kind of rude behaviour and attitudes towards locals rooted in deluded feelings of superiority is sadly quite widespread among western - especially American and British - tourists in developing countries, in my personal experience. It's hard not to intervene sometimes.

Happy birthday!

Don't go back home, problem solved

I'd say it's mostly because in situations where two or more cars are similar, the driver still makes THE difference, and it's extremely exciting to watch. Best drivers tend to push the car to the very limit when it's needed, and are able to shave off a few thousandths or hundredths per lap when it truly matters, even when it seems impossible. So while even the best driver wouldn't win titles without a very strong car, just the car isn't enough, either - you need someone to drive it flawlessly week in, week out, on different tracks under different weather conditions. The other, even simpler reason is probably because the driver is the one who actually drives the car and that's what the fans see - they do not see the effort that is put into building, developing, repairing and upgrading the car, nor do they see hundreds of people behind it. I also believe the glorification of the drivers is strongly linked to racing conditions a few decades ago, when motorsport was extremely unsafe and by far more deadly, so racing drivers were seen as some sort of "gladiators" who braved death every weekend, and that image is branded into the psyche of the fans. Also, some fans simply have little interest in technical aspects of the sport and just support a specific driver, for whatever reason...

The car is the most important part of the sport, with the driver and team effort (setups, pit stops, race strategies, etc) making the difference when the gaps between cars are small. F1 are not a spec series - all cars are designed around a specific set of technical regulations that might seem quite restrictive (engine displacement, car weight, aerodynamic parts, etc.), but in reality they still allow enough creative freedom for designers and engineers to play with, and every team pushes the limits of the regulations constantly to find something that gives them even a marginal advantage. Visually, the cars all look similar, but the actual differences are extreme enough that one team can't even copy another teams parts as it likely wouldn't work with their design.

Here, "true colour" image on the left with HSO colour mapping after assigning RGB colours to narrowband channels (Hydrogen as red, Sulfur as green, and Oxygen as blue). That image then gets processed additionally to balance the colours and get the details out, resulting in the image on the right.

It's true that Webb is primarily an infrared telescope, but it's also worth noting that the original images Hubble takes are also very different from the final pictures that get published - the original ones are narrowband images of different wavelengths in black and white, and colours are just added and manipulated during image processing (and they aren't accurate representation of the real image in visible light). Assignment of colours to different narrowband images is even called Hubble Palette because it popularised the technique. So the original image of the Pillars of Creation above would have looked something like this: I'm sure they'll do plenty of image processing to the infrared Webb images too, and we'll still get some absolutely fantastic views. The important part for the telescope is the scientific data it gathers, after all

Haha, it's Kyle Butler, there was a bizarre story with him a few years ago when he posted a tweet saying he signed for Fortuna, but Fortuna didn't know anything about it he's also Leon Bailey's stepbrother, too. I'd guess that your taxi driver probably did some trials, considering that he was only there for 3 months.