Dan Q

Kind: Reposts

If I put a pair of telescopes in parallel, will the effect be multiplicative or additive?

This self-post was originally posted to /r/askscience. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

Suppose I have a pair of 15x zoom telescopes (for example, I separated a pair of 15x zoom binoculars) and laid them end-to-end. Naturally there’d be some loss of field-of-vision when looking through them both. But would the resulting zoom level be 152 (i.e. 225x)? Or 15*2 (i.e. 30x)? Or something else entirely? Or am I oversimplifying?

Update: clearly I mean in series, not in parallel. With thanks to mynameistux.

Repost posted at UTC on .

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The Performance of Masculinity: What Men Do to fit in The Box

This link was originally posted to /r/TrueReddit. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

The original link was: http://www.charlieglickman.com/the-performance-of-masculinty/

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There’s a difference between having understanding and compassion for the men who are trapped in the Box and cutting them slack. After all, it isn’t as if the dude in the Box is giving any slack to women, queers, transgender or genderqueer folks, or for that matter, heterosexual cisgender men who refuse to pretend to be Real Men. And cutting men slack is another way of coddling them instead of helping them learn to let go of the Box and discover the freedom that comes from being who you are. Having compassion without coddling people is fierce. It’s powerful. And it requires the ability to hold onto both the fact that the Box hurts us all and that it gives heterosexual cisgender men privilege.

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This is my father. Call somebody you love today.

This self-post was originally posted to /r/self. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

This is my father. He’s dragging a tyre in the photo because he’s in training to do a sponsored walk to the North Pole, to raise money for a charity called TransAid.

Apparently, tying a tyre to your waist and then dragging it around accurately simulates the effort required to drag a sled with all the provisions you need for a two-week journey across the Arctic.

He’s 54, and he’s in spectacular physical fitness. Over the last few years I’ve seen him do sponsored hikes up Kilimanjaro and Everest, thousand mile cycles in ten days, marathons and triathlons. I’m 24 years younger than him, and I’m not even slightly as fit as he is.

Was, sorry. Got to get used to saying that.

Yesterday, my dad was killed during a training exercise in Britain’s Lake District. He slipped on a patch of ice and fell 700 feet into a ravine. By the time the rescue helicopter had arrived, he was already dead.

It seems unfair that he was ready to brave a trek to the North Pole – one of the most inhospitable parts of the planet – but what killed him was a slip and a fall up a hill just 50 miles from his house. A hill that he, and I, and my two younger sisters have climbed together, before.

Apparently I have to go and formally identify the body. Apparently I need to execute his will. Apparently I’ve got to organise a funeral. Suddenly my life has come to a standstill and a different life has arrived to take its place. I’m suddenly thrust into a world of paperwork and of calling distant relatives. A world of grief and consolation. A world in which the man I admired… the man I called “dad”… is no longer a part.

I feel woefully inadequate for all of these roles. I just want to phone up my dad and ask for his advice, and have him be there to help me, as he’s always been there to help me before. But that’s something that I can never do again.

Reddit: call somebody you love today. You might not get another chance.

tl;dr: My dad was killed yesterday in a tragic accident. Call somebody you love today.

Repost posted at UTC on .

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TIL that in 2010(!), Prince described the Internet as “…like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated.”

This link was originally posted to /r/todayilearned. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

The original link was: http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/2010/07/05/prince-world-exclusive-interview-peter-willis-goes-inside-the-star-s-secret-world-115875-22382552/

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Unlike most other rock stars, he had banned YouTube and iTunes from using any of his music and had even closed down his own official website.

He said: “The internet’s completely over. I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won’t pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can’t get it.

“The internet’s like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good.

“They just fill your head with numbers and that can’t be good for you.”

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Urban birds sing at higher pitch than rural ones to help song carry further, research shows.

This link was originally posted to /r/birding. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

The original link was: https://www.aber.ac.uk/en/news/archive/2011/12/title-110460-en.html

Birds that sing their songs at a higher pitch help them travel further in built-up areas.

Previously it was thought that great tits and other common birds sung at a higher pitch in noisy areas to avoid the low pitch noise from traffic and industry.

Now, scientists from Aberystwyth University and the University of Copenhagen have found that it is the buildings that are changing the way that birds sing in cities.

Their new study, published in the journal PLoS One, suggests that urban architecture may be just as important as background noise in shaping how our birds sing.

“Our cities are packed with reflective surfaces, open spaces and narrow channels, which you just don’t get in woodland. Because sounds bounce and travel in different ways, birds have to use songs that can cope with this”, says researcher Emily Mockford. “The higher notes mean the echoes disappear faster and the next note is clearer”.

A surprise result also showed that urban songs transmitted more clearly in woodland than the rural songs of the local birds. So why don’t rural birds also sing urban songs?

Dr Rupert Marshall, Lecturer in Animal Behaviour at Aberystwyth University, commented “In woodland where trees and leaves obscure the view, many species of songbird can tell how far away a rival is by how degraded its song is. In cities there are fewer visual obstacles and song doesn’t degrade as quickly, so city birds may just concentrate on being heard”.

City birdsong may be bouncing off the walls – but does it have the X factor?

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