Which is rather Stross' point. Here is an example where the cultural norm is wildly different from your own, and you can't imagine it. It might be perfectly acceptable in that culture to say "not interested", it was also important, in the context of the culture Bujold was describing, for reproduction to be controlled, because of extremely limited resources under a dome colony. An extra mouth to feed, and lungs to breath the air was significant to everyone's resources.

http://thinkprogress.org/elect...

http://thinkprogress.org/elect...

The steppers are now all "microstepped", which basically means you don't see quantisation from the drives, but you can't "beat" field rotation, and you'd be surprised how few de-rotators are out there - the imaging guys pretty well all use equatorials, with their attendant problems.

ALL mounts have their issues - an equatorial can't view the area around the celestial pole, and is rarely as stiff as an alt-az for the money. An Alt-az has the field rotation issue, and can't view its zenith.

Mount wars get like computer language wars....

The trouble with Alt-az mounts for imaging is the field rotation, which changes with the scope position, take 10 minute exposures, and you're screwed.

He means the late John Dobson.
I was pretty sure he was immortal. I was wrong.

You'd think so wouldn't you, but no, its not, and the BBC is VERY cagey about rights management.

One of the problems of Lasik is the size of the corrected pupil is often not as large as that of your fully dark adapted pupil, and, as an amateur astronomer, it leaves artefacts in your field of view that are objectionable.

FTFA This wouldn't be an antibiotic, and it seems to happen outside the cell's defensive mechanisms that they can inherit.

++++Redo from start
Out of cheese error

...or using the steering wheel....

It takes a surprisingly long time to wash a cabinet out with inert gas. I have an instrument which has to work in an anoxic environment, its only about 2.5 cubic feet, but it takes a good 20 minutes to clear down. A box big enough for a man ?

I think hanging severs the spinal cord, so your're paralysed....while you suffocate to death. Enough people survive dislocation of the neck - Chris Reeves is the most obvious case - to know that death doesn't follow.

Another, probably apocryphal, story was John claimed to have star tested a scope using the glint of light off the eye of a blackbird, perched on a telephone wire down the street - really, really good telescope makers can identify the condition and quality of a mirror by studying the shape of the image from the scope just inside, and just outside focus.

John stayed with us in the UK back in 2002 - that Wikipedia article picture should have me just out of shot... We took him to see the city of Chester - which John insisted on seeing the city walls "The last city I saw with walls was Beijing in 1920" I think he said. We took him to North Wales to see the sights there, and then he stayed in my home for a couple of memorable nights, when he baby-sat my eldest son while I rushed my baby son to the ER having found him bleeding and screaming after climbing a bookcase and cutting his head open. "John, I really, really need to get this little guy to hospital. Can you tell my wife where we've gone and look after this one ? " "Aw, sure, no problem". I came back to find John reading a book to my son. I have video of John "lassoing" the kids out in the yard with a rope he always carried to demonstrate with !

One of those visits that will stay with me forever- the youngest son is now 13, and still has the scar......