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wirewitchviolet · 2 years ago

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How a Computer Works - Part 1 (Components)

I am about to teach you on a real fundamental, connecting up electronic components level, how a computer actually works. Before I get into the meat of this though (you can just skip down below the fold if you don't care), here's the reasons I'm sitting doing so in this format:

Like a decade or two ago, companies Facebook pushed this whole "pivot to video" idea on the whole internet with some completely faked data, convincing everyone that everything had to be a video, and we need to start pushing back against that. Especially for stuff like complex explanations of things or instructions, it's much more efficient to just explain things clearly in text, maybe with some visual aids, so people can easily search, scan, and skip around between sections. It's also a hell of a lot easier to host things long term, and you can even print out a text based explainer and not need a computer to read it, keep it on a desk, highlight it, etc.

People are so clueless about how computers actually work that they start really thinking like it's all magical. Even programmers. Aside from how proper knowledge lets you get more out of them, this leads to people spouting off total nonsense about "teaching sand to think" or "everything is just 1s and 0s" or "this 'AI' a con artist who was trying to sell me NFTs a month ago probably really is an amazing creative thinking machine that can do everything he says!"

We used to have this cultural value going where it was expected that if you owned something and used it day to day, you'd have enough basic knowledge of how it worked that if it stopped working you could open it up, see what was wrong, and maybe fix it on your own, or maybe even put one together again from scratch, and that's obviously worth bringing back.

I'm personally working on a totally bonkers DIY project and I'd like to hype up like-minded people for when it gets farther along.

So all that said, have a standard reminder that I am completely reliant on Patreon donations to survive, keep updating this blog, and ideally start getting some PCBs and chips and a nice oscilloscope to get that mystery project off the ground.

Electricity probably doesn't work like how you were taught (and my explanation shouldn't be trusted too far either).

I remember, growing up, hearing all sorts of things about electricity having this sort of magical ability to always find the shortest possible path to where it needs to get, flowing like water, and a bunch of other things that are kind of useful for explaining how a Faraday cage or a lightning rod works, and not conflicting with how simple electronics will have a battery and then a single line of wire going through like a switch and a light bulb or whatever back to the other end of the battery.

If you had this idea drilled into your head hard enough, you might end up thinking that if we have a wire hooked to the negative end of a battery stretching off to the east, and another wire stretching off to the east from the positive end, and we bridge between the two in several places with an LED or something soldered to both ends, only the westernmost one is going to light up, because hey, the shortest path is the one that turns off as quickly as possible to connect to the other side, right? Well turns out no, all three are going to light up, because that "shortest path" thing is a total misunderstanding.

Here's how it actually works, roughly. If you took basic high school chemistry, you learned about how the periodic table is set up, right? A given atom, normally, has whatever number of protons in the core, and the same number of electrons, whipping all over around it, being attracted to those protons but repelled by each other, and there's particular counts of electrons which are super chill with that arrangement so we put those elements in the same column as each other, and then as you count up from those, you get the elements between those either have some electrons that don't fit all tight packed in the tight orbit and just kinda hang out all wide and lonely and "want to" buddy up with another atom that has more room, up to the half full column that can kinda go either way, then as we approach the next happy number they "want to" have a little more company to get right to that cozy tight packed number, and when you have "extra" electrons and "missing" electrons other atoms kinda cozy up and share so they hit those good noble gas counts.

I'm sure real experts want to scream at me for both that and this, but this is basically how electricity works. You have a big pile of something at the "positive" end that's "missing electrons" (for the above reason or maybe actually ionized so they really aren't there), and a "negative" end that's got spares. Then you make wires out of stuff from those middle of the road elements that have awkward electron counts and don't mind buddying up (and also high melting points and some other handy qualities) and you hook those in there. And the electron clouds on all the atoms in the wire get kinda pulled towards the positive side because there's more room over there, but if they full on leave their nucleus needs more electron pals, so yeah neighbors get pulled over, and the whole wire connected to the positive bit ends up with a positive charge to it, and the whole wire on the negative bit is negatively charged, and so yeah, anywhere you bridge the gap between the two, the electrons are pretty stoked about balancing out these two big awkward compromises and they'll start conga lining over to balance things out, and while they're at it they'll light up lights or shake speakers or spin motors or activate electromagnets or whatever other rad things you've worked out how to make happen with a live electric current.

Insulators, Resistors, Waves, and Capacitors

Oh and we typically surround these wires made of things that are super happy about sharing electrons around with materials that are very much "I'm good, thanks," but this isn't an all or nothing system and there's stuff you can connect between the positive and negative ends of things that still pass the current along, but only so much so fast. We use those to make resistors, and those are handy because sometimes you don't want to put all the juice you have through something because it would damage it, and having a resistor anywhere along a path you're putting current through puts a cap on that flow, and also sometimes you might want a wire connected to positive or negative with a really strong resistor so it'll have SOME sort of default charge, but if we get a free(r) flowing connection attached to that wire somewhere else that opens sometimes, screw that little trickle going one way, we're leaning everyone the other way for now.

The other thing with electricity is is that the flow here isn't a basic yes/no thing. How enthusiastically those electrons are getting pulled depends on the difference in charge at the positive and negative ends, and also if you're running super long wires then even if they conduct real good, having all that space to spread along is going to kinda slow things to a trickle, AND the whole thing is kinda going to have some inherent bounciness to it both because we're dealing with electrons whipping and spinning all over and because, since it's a property that's actually useful for a lot of things we do with electricity, the power coming out of the wall has this intentional wobbly nature because we've actually got this ridiculous spinny thing going on that's constantly flip flopping which prong of the socket is positive and which is negative and point is we get these sine waves of strength by default, and they kinda flop over if we're going really far.

Of course there's also a lot of times when you really want to not have your current flow flickering on and off all the time, but hey fortunately one of the first neat little electronic components we ever worked out are capacitors... and look, I'm going to be straight with you. I don't really get capacitors, but the basic idea is you've got two wires that go to big wide plates, and between those you have something that doesn't conduct the electricity normally, but they're so close the electromagnetic fields are like vibing, and then if you disconnect them from the flow they were almost conducting and/or they get charged to their limit, they just can't deal with being so charged up and they'll bridge their own gap and let it out. So basically you give them electricity to hold onto for a bit then pass along, and various sizes of them are super handy if you want to have a delay between throwing a switch and having things start doing their thing, or keeping stuff going after you break a connection, or you make a little branching path where one branch connects all regular and the other goes through a capacitor, and the electricity which is coming in in little pulses effectively comes out as a relatively steady stream because every time it'd cut out the capacity lets its charge go.

We don't just have switches, we have potentiometers.

OK, so... all of the above is just sort of about having a current and maybe worrying about how strong it is, but other than explaining how you can just kinda have main power rails running all over, and just hook stuff across them all willy-nilly rather than being forced to put everything in one big line, but still, all you can do with that is turn the whole thing on and off by breaking the circuit. Incidentally, switches, buttons, keys, and anything else you use to control the behavior of any electronic device really are just physically touching loose wires together or pulling them apart... well wait no, not all, this is a good bit to know.

None of this is actually pass/fail, really, there's wave amplitudes and how big a difference we have between the all. So when you have like, a volume knob, that's a potentiometer, which is a simple little thing where you've got your wire, it's going through a resistor, and then we have another wire we're scraping back and forth along the resistor, using a knob, usually, and the idea is the current only has to go through X percent of the resistor to get to the wire you're moving, which proportionately reduces the resistance. So you have like a 20 volt current, you've got a resistor that'll drop that down to 5 or so, but then you move this other wire down along and you've got this whole dynamic range and you can fine tune it to 15 or 10 or whatever coming down that wire. And what's nice about this again, what's actually coming down the wire is this wobbily wave of current, it's not really just "on" or "off, and as you add resistance, the wobble stays the same, it's just the peaks and valleys get closer to being just flat. Which is great if you're making, say, a knob to control volume, or brightness, or anything you want variable intensity in really.

Hey hey, it's a relay!

Again, a lot of the earliest stuff people did with electronics was really dependent on that analog wobbly waveform angle. Particularly for reproducing sound, and particularly the signals of a telegraph. Those had to travel down wires for absurd distances, and as previously stated, when you do that the signal is going to eventually decay to nothing. But then someone came up with this really basic idea where every so often along those super long wires, you set something up that takes the old signal and uses it to start a new one. They called them relays, because you know, it's like a relay race.

If you know how an electromagnet works (something about the field generated when you coil a bunch of copper wire around an iron core and run an electric current through it), a relay is super simple. You've got an electromagnet in the first circuit you're running, presumably right by where it's going to hit the big charged endpoint, and that magnetically pulls a tab of metal that's acting as a switch on a new circuit. As long as you've got enough juice left to activate the magnet, you slam that switch and voom you've got all the voltage you can generate on the new line.

Relays don't get used too much in other stuff, being unpopular at the time for not being all analog and wobbily (slamming that switch back and forth IS going to be a very binary on or off sorta thing), and they make this loud clacking noise that's actually just super cool to hear in devices that do use them (pinball machines are one of the main surviving use cases I believe) but could be annoying in some cases. What's also neat is that they're a logical AND gate. That is, if you have current flowing into the magnet, AND you have current flowing into the new wire up to the switch, you have it flowing out through the far side of the switch, but if either of those isn't true, nothing happens. Logic gates, to get ahead of myself a bit, are kinda the whole thing with computers, but we still need the rest of them. So for these purposes, relays re only neat if it's the most power and space efficient AND gate you have access to.

Oh and come to think of it, there's no reason we need to have that magnet closing the circuit when it's doing its thing. We could have it closed by default and yank it open by the magnet. Hey, now we're inverting whatever we're getting on the first wire! Neat!

Relay computers clack too loud! Gimme vacuum tubes!

So... let's take a look at the other main thing people used electricity for before coming up with the whole computer thing, our old friend the light bulb! Now I already touched a bit on the whole wacky alternating current thing, and I think this is actually one of the cases that eventually lead to it being adopted so widely, but the earliest light bulbs tended to just use normal direct current, where again, you've got the positive end and the negative end, and we just take a little filament of whatever we have handy that glows when you run enough of a current through it, and we put that in a big glass bulb and pump out all the air we can, because if we don't, the oxygen in there is probably going to change that from glowing a bit to straight up catching on fire and burning immediately.

But, we have a new weird little problem, because of the physics behind that glowing. Making something hot, on a molecular level, is just kinda adding energy to the system so everything jitters around more violently, and if you get something hot enough that it glows, you're getting it all twitchy enough for tinier particles to just fly the hell off it. Specifically photons, that's the light bit, but also hey, remember, electrons are just kinda free moving and whipping all over looking for their naked proton pals... and hey, inside this big glass bulb, we've got that other end of the wire with the more positive charge to it. Why bother wandering up this whole coily filament when we're in a vacuum and there's nothing to get in the way if we just leap straight over that gap? So... they do that, and they're coming in fast and on elliptical approaches and all, so a bunch of electrons overshoot and smack into the glass on the far side, and now one side of every light bulb is getting all gross and burnt from that and turning all brown and we can't have that.

So again, part of the fix is we switched to alternating current so it's at least splitting those wild jumps up to either side, but before that, someone tried to solve this by just... kinda putting a backboard in there. Stick a big metal plate on the end of another wire in the bulb connected to a positive charge, and now OK, all those maverick electrons smack into here and aren't messing up the glass, but also hey, this is a neat little thing. Those electrons are making that hop because they're all hot and bothered. If we're not heating up the plate they're jumping to, and there's no real reason we'd want to, then if we had a negative signal over on that side... nothing would happen. Electrons aren't getting all antsy and jumping back.

So now we have a diode! The name comes because we have two (di-) electrodes (-ode) we care about in the bulb (we're just kind of ignoring the negative one), and it's a one way street for our circuit. That's useful for a lot of stuff, like not having electricity flow backwards through complex systems and mess things up, converting AC to DC (when it flips, current won't flow through the diode so we lop off the bottom of the wave, and hey, we can do that thing with capacitors to release their current during those cutoffs, and if we're clever we can get a pretty steady high).

More electrodes! More electrodes!

So a bit after someone worked out this whole vacuum tube diode thing, someone went hey, what if it was a triode? So, let's stick another electrode in there, and this one just kinda curves around in the middle, just kinda making a grate or a mesh grid, between our hot always flowing filament and that catch plate we're keeping positively charged when it's doing stuff. Well this works in a neat way. If there's a negative charge on it, it's going to be pushing back on those electrons jumping over, and if there's a positive charge on it, it's going to help pull those electrons over (it's all thin, so they're going to shoot right past it, especially if there's way more of a positive charge over on the plate... and here's the super cool part- This is an analog thing. If we have a relatively big negative charge, it's going to repel everything, if it's a relatively big positive, it's going to pull a ton across, if it's right in the middle, it's like it wasn't even in there, and you can have tiny charges for all the gradients in between.

We don't need a huge charge for any of this though, because we're just helping or hindering the big jump from the high voltage stuff, and huh, weren't we doing this whole weak current controlling a strong current thing before with the relay? We were! And this is doing the same thing! Except now we're doing it all analog style, not slapping switch with a magnet, and we can make those wavy currents peak higher or lower and cool, now we can have phone lines boost over long distances too, and make volume knobs, and all that good stuff.

The relay version of this had that cool trick though where you could flip the output. Can we still flip the output? We sure can, we just need some other toys in the mix. See we keep talking about positive charges and negative charges at the ends of our circuits, but these are relative things. I mentioned way back when how you can use resistors to throttle how much of a current we've got, so you can run two wires to that grid in the triode. One connects to a negative charge and the other positive, with resistors on both those lines, and a switch that can break the connection on the positive end. If the positive is disconnected, we've got a negative charge on the grid, since it's all we've got, but if we connect it, and the resistor to the negative end really limits flow, we're positive in the section the grid's in. And over on the side with the collecting plate, we branch off with another resistor setup so the negative charge on that side is normally the only viable connection for a positive, but when we flip the grid to positive, we're jumping across the gap in the vacuum tube, and that's a big open flow so we'll just take those electrons instead of the ones that have to squeeze through a tight resistor to get there.

That explanation is probably a bit hard to follow because I'm over here trying to explain it based on how the electrons are actually getting pulled around. In the world of electronics everyone decided to just pretend the flow is going the other way because it makes stuff easier to follow. So pretend we have magical positrons that go the other way and if they have nothing better to do they go down the path where we have all the fun stuff further down the circuit lighting lights and all that even though it's a tight squeeze through a resistor, because there's a yucky double negative in the triode and that's worse, but we have the switch rigged up to make that a nice positive go signal to the resistance free promised land with a bonus booster to cut across, so we're just gonna go that way when the grid signal's connected.

Oh and you can make other sorts of logic circuits or double up on them in a single tube if you add more grids and such, which we did for a while, but not really relevant these days.

Cool history lesson but I know there's no relays or vacuum tubes in my computer.

Right, so the above things are how we used to make computers, but they were super bulky, and you'd have to deal with how relays are super loud and kinda slow, and vacuum tubes need a big power draw and get hot. What we use instead of either of those these days are transistors. See after spending a good number of years working out all this circuit flow stuff with vacuum tubes we eventually focused on how the real important thing in all of this is how with the right materials you can make a little juncture where current flows between a positive and negative charge if a third wire going in there is also positively charged, but if it's negatively charged we're pulling over. And turns out there is a WAY more efficient way of doing that if you take a chunk of good ol' middle of the electron road silicon, and just kinda lightly paint the side of it with just the tiniest amount of positive leaning and negative leaning elements on the sides.

Really transistors don't require understanding anything new past the large number of topics already covered here, they're just more compact about it. Positive leaning bit, negative leaning bit, wildcard in the middle, like a vacuum tube. Based on the concepts of pulling electrons around from chemistry, like a circuit in general. The control wire in the middle kinda works in just a pass-fail sort of way, like a relay. They're just really nice compared to the older alternatives because they don't make noise or have moving parts to wear down, you don't have to run enough current through them for metal to start glowing and the whole room to heat up, and you can make them small. Absurdly small. Like... need an electron microscope to see them small.

And of course you can also make an inverter super tiny like that, and a diode (while you're at it you can use special materials or phosphors to make them light emitting, go LEDs!) and resistors can get pretty damn small if you just use less of a more resistant material, capacitors I think have a limit to how tiny you can get, practically, but yeah, you now know enough of the basic fundamentals of how computers work to throw some logic gates together. We've covered how a relay, triode, or transistor function as an AND gate. An OR gate is super easy, you just stick diodes on two wires so you don't have messy backflow then connect them together and lead off there. If you can get your head around wiring up an inverter (AKA NOT), hey, stick one after an AND to get a NAND, or an OR to get a NOR. You can work out XOR and XNOR from there right? Just build 4 NANDs, pass input A into gates 1 and 2, B into 2 and 3, 2's output into 1 and 3, 1 and 3's output into 4 for a XOR, use NORs instead for a XNOR. That's all of them right? So now just build a ton of those and arrange them into a computer. It's all logic and math from there.

Oh right. It's... an absurd amount of logic and math, and I can only fit so many words in a blog post. So we'll have to go all...

CONTINUED IN PART 2!

Meanwhile, again, if you can spare some cash I'd really appreciate it.

#computers #computer science #history #electronics #education #relays #transistors #vacuum tubes

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simslegacy5083 · 1 month ago

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Today's (5/22/2025) Episode: At a Distance

The too-close roomies were trying hard to stay focused on their actual partners, but long distance wasn’t easy.

“Pregnancy is harder than I thought it would be” Skye lamented to Elyse when she inquired into how things were going “I’m doing my best to get out and keep up with my reviews, but so many foods sound awful right now, and I’m so sleepy ALL the time. Not to mention…”

“I’m sorry to hear you’re struggling” she interrupted “How about you take your mind off it and tell me about some of fun new places you’ve visited lately? I just finished this gig for this local poet, did you know The Blue Velvet hosts a weekly open mic slam jam? I made this cool sketch for him during the show. I think I might try my hand at it some week, it's been so long since I’ve written anything.”

Skye did xir best to dredge up a story about one of the local lounges xe’d been to recently. Not that I remember a whole lot about it given how tired I was. Thank grim I recorded that comedy set on my drone to take better notes and then watched it again with Betty.

Elyse had seemingly brushed off Skye’s struggles, but Betty was eager to help. “Rise and shine sleepy head” she said, shaking her friend awake.

“Wazzuh?” xe started, lifting xir head off xir laptop blearily. “Did I doze off? I need to finish this piece, its due tonight!”

“In a minute,” she playfully swatted xir hands away from the keyboard then put a big bottle of pills and a paper sack on the table. “I ran into Angel at the market, and they got me that meal you liked so much from the secret menu. I also got you some prenatal vitamins to help restock everything our little squirmer is soaking up. Now take your medicine and eat, then maybe you’ll have the strength to stay awake until your deadline.”

Skye smiled up at her. “My savior. I kept forgetting those vitamins, and I’m starving. Nothing wanted to stay down today, but this smells delicious.”

“… the poor little critter looked so sad! I wish I’d known how to help him, sweet baby.” Betty lamented to Greyson “you know loads of stuff; any ideas how I could make sure that little guy gets the care he needs?” … I don’t think he’d sit still for the lotion and TV therapy I enjoyed.

“No.” Greyson replied matter-of-factly, his mind already wandering to the presentation he had to finish for his communications class. “Anyway Betts, didn’t you learn anything from the flaming that angry momma gave you? You need to be more careful out there! Give the wildlife their space!”

“I guess you’re right. It was no fun having to sleep on my stomach.” she agreed, even as the expression on her face told a different story.

Greyson was too far away to realize that Betty’s concern for the tiny wild creature lingered, but Skye decided to see if xe could put an end to her moping.

“I’ve been meaning to visit the cultural center and I finally got around to it.” xe told her over a late dinner at Jungle Jam, where’d she become a regular performer. “They have lots of information on all the native species there and I learned Faraday Fizz, of all things, is known to be a natural pain reliever. There were even some stories of sims using it to help capybara’s who had been attacked in the wild.”

He pulled out a couple cans and handed them to her “I picked this up at the market. Now if you see that baby again, or one like him, you can help.”

“Skye, it worked!” she proclaimed, triumphant, a short time later “I ran into some poor little capybara this morning who looked as singed as I was the other day. I made sure his parents could see me, carefully poured the fizz on him, and he immediately perked up. Thank you so much!”

“They called me a hack who couldn’t write my way out of a paper bag!” Skye told Betty, tears leaking out of xir eyes despite xir best efforts to prevent it. “I know its silly to get all worked up over one or two negative comments, but it really hurts. I work so hard on my articles!”

“I know you do” she sympathized “I also know how it feels. I get heckled all the time when I’m out preforming. I have to be professional and not give those jerks the piece of my mind they deserve, but there are days…” she shook her fist in the air.

“Anyway” she went on “I think I know just the thing to cheer you up!”

As they sat laughing over a game of Thumbs Up! they found themselves smiling at each other across the small table. They may not have done the best job keeping their promise to focus on their long-distance relationships, but in that moment neither of them felt much regret.

Want To See More?

View The Full Story of My Not So Berry Challenge Here

#sims 4 #sims 4 challenge #sims4 #sims 4 legacy #sims 4 nsb #sims 4 not so berry #sims4nsbstraud #sims 4 let's play #sims 4 gameplay #sims 4 lets play

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spacetimewithstuartgary · 6 months ago

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Credit: Wolfgang Steffen, UNAM

Helical magnetic fields: A universal mechanism for jet collimation?

New observations from the National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory's (NSF NRAO) Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (NSF VLA) provide compelling evidence supporting a universal mechanism for the collimation of astrophysical jets, regardless of their origin.

The new study, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, reveals the presence of a helical magnetic field within the HH 80-81 protostellar jet, a finding that mirrors similar structures observed in jets emanating from supermassive black holes.

Jets, powerful, highly collimated outflows of matter and energy, are observed across a vast range of scales in the universe. From the supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies to the young stars in our own Milky Way, these jets play a crucial role in the evolution of their host systems. However, the precise mechanism that guides these jets and prevents them from dispersing into space has remained a long-standing puzzle.

"This is the first solid evidence that helical magnetic fields can explain astrophysical jets at different scales, supporting the universality of the collimation mechanism," said Adriana Rodríguez-Kamenetzky, of Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Astronomy (IATE), Argentinian National Scientific and Technical Research Council and National University of Córdoba (CONICET-UNC) and leader of the work.

Previous research using the NSF VLA, highlighted by NSF NRAO press releases in 2010 and 2021, showed the existence of magnetic fields in some protostellar jets and established the importance of helical magnetic fields in collimating jets from supermassive black holes.

However, until now, definitive evidence confirming the presence of helical magnetic fields in protostellar jets had been elusive. The challenge lies in the fact that the emission from protostellar jets is predominantly thermal, making it difficult to trace the magnetic field structures.

"Back in 2010, we used VLA to detect non-thermal emission and the presence of a magnetic field, but we couldn't study its 3D structure," said Carlos Carrasco-González, of the Institute of Radio Astronomy and Astrophysics (IRyA) of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

This new study overcomes these limitations by utilizing the enhanced capabilities of the upgraded NSF VLA. The high sensitivity and broad bandwidth of the NSF VLA allowed astronomers to perform an unprecedentedly detailed Rotation Measure (RM) analysis of the HH 80-81 jet. The RM analysis allows researchers to correct for Faraday rotation—the rotation of the polarization of light as it passes through a magnetized plasma—revealing the true orientation of the magnetic field.

"For the first time, we were able to study the 3D configuration of the magnetic field in a protostellar jet," said Alice Pasetto, of IRyA-UNAM.

Key results

This study marks the first time RM analysis has been successfully applied to a protostellar jet, providing a unique insight into its three-dimensional magnetic structure.

The analysis definitively reveals a helical magnetic field configuration within the HH 80-81 jet. This result mirrors observations of helical magnetic fields in extragalactic jets, strongly suggesting a common mechanism for jet collimation across vastly different scales.

By analyzing both the approaching jet and the receding counterjet—a feature readily observable in protostellar jets, unlike those originating from supermassive black holes—researchers confirmed that the helical magnetic field is intrinsic to the disk-jet system and not a result of interactions with the surrounding medium.

These findings provide robust support for the hypothesis that helical magnetic fields are a universal mechanism for collimating astrophysical jets, regardless of the scale or origin of the jet. This unifying theory helps unravel the complex physics governing the launch and evolution of these important cosmic structures.

Results of the Rotation Measure analysis in the HH80-81 jet. The left image shows the streamline image of the component of the magnetic field parallel to the plane of the sky. In the middle panel, the color scale of the RM indicates the direction of the magnetic field along the line of sight, i.e., red, away from the observer, and blue, towards the observer. The right panel shows a scheme depicting the 3D configuration of the magnetic field, exhibiting a helical topology. Credit: The Astrophysical Journal Letters (2025). DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ad9b26

#science #space #astronomy #physics #news #nasa #astrophysics #esa

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thisweekingundamwing · 9 months ago

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This Week in Gundam Wing 1-6 October 2024

Here’s the roundup for October 1st - October 6th, 2024!

Remember to give your content creators some love! Be sure to join in on the events at the bottom! And remember to send in any new works you see or make this next week!

~Mod Hel

Fanfiction/Ideas/Snippets:

@angelselene

The Psychic Equivalent of a Human Faraday Cage (And the Medium Who Has to Live with It) https://archiveofourown.org/works/59409259/chapters/151508266

M/M, Duo Maxwell/Heero Yuy

Teen And Up Audiences, Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Prompt Fic, Duo is a Medium, Psychic Abilities, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Loosely Inspired by The Dead Files, Only with more supernatural stuff, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, English

Duo is an extremely powerful medium, which makes living with Heero Yuy, the psychic equivalent of a Faraday cage a particularly interesting experience.

And by interesting, Duo definitely means frustrating. Heero's lucky Duo loves him so much.

@cuteciboulette

Hopeful is not enough https://archiveofourown.org/works/59517493

M/M, Duo Maxwell/Heero Yuy

Duo Maxwell, Heero Yuy, Relena Peacecraft

Teen And Up Audiences, Major Character Death, suicidal attempt, Insanity, Dark, Dark Magic, Magic, New types, Shinigami, English

Be careful what you wish for, and don’t come knocking on Death’s door…

@janaverse

https://www.tumblr.com/janaverse/760813057983348736/duo-ver-heero-was-suddenly-tongue-tied-he-had

Heero Yuy + Duo Maxwell

@ms-miserable-misery

https://www.tumblr.com/ms-miserable-misery/763363899464695808/day-1-that-was-good-work

Day 1 “that was good work”

Heero Yuy/Duo Maxwell

https://www.tumblr.com/ms-miserable-misery/763364068615684096/day-2-its-been-a-long-time

Day 2 “it’s been a long time”

Heero Yuy/Duo Maxwell

https://www.tumblr.com/ms-miserable-misery/763374195072794624/day-3-i-know-you-better

Day 3 “I know you better”

Heero Yuy/Duo Maxwell

https://www.tumblr.com/ms-miserable-misery/763452980162887682/4-no-were-not-doing-that

Day 4 “no, we’re not doing that”

Heero Yuy/Duo Maxwell

https://www.tumblr.com/ms-miserable-misery/763527579551629312/5-its-a-new-day-lets-go

Day 5 “it’s a new day, let’s go”

Heero Yuy/Duo Maxwell

Arts/Crafts/Photo Manips:

@seitou

https://www.tumblr.com/seitou/763452451856809984/gundam-wing-halloween-charms-now-available

Gundam Wing Halloween Charms, fanart, merchandise

Photosets/Gifsets/Screenshots/Manga Pages:

@janaverse

https://www.tumblr.com/janaverse/763471344423813120/sexy-clothes-for-a-sexy-man

Duo Maxwell, Sims, screenshot

https://www.tumblr.com/janaverse/763546737026777088/zero-two

Duo Maxwell, Sims, screenshot

Calendar Events:

@gwcocktailfriday

Cocktail Fridays!

Post responses on Friday, during Happy Hour between 3 & 5 pm in your own timezone.

Here’s the prompts for Friday, October 11th: https://www.tumblr.com/gwcocktailfriday/763499360150568960/cocktail-friday-post-responses-on-friday-october

In need of prompts!

@gwoc-october

Prompt List 2024: https://www.tumblr.com/gwoc-october/763150907755134976/gw-oc-october-is-back-going-a-bit-more-generic

@thisweekingundamevents

Events Calendar https://thisweekingundamevents.tumblr.com/post/730188053636841472/updated-events-calendar

If you are hosting an event currently, or are planning on one, hit us up with links and dates! We’ll add them to the Calendar and reblog your notices to get the word out!

GW Holiday Gift Exchange 2024

Participant List: https://thisweekingundamevents.tumblr.com/post/763152631083433984/gw-hge-participant-list

GW Hallows 2024

https://thisweekingundamevents.tumblr.com/post/763151583438618625/gw-hallows-2024

#Gundam Wing #This Week in Gundam Wing #Weekly Roundup #1-6 October 2024

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mariacallous · 7 months ago

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Black Friday is not just about cheap TVs, cut price gaming consoles, and saving money on laptops; it’s also about getting a bargain on Faraday cages to stop 5G from melting your brain, grabbing a great deal on biblically inspired diet pills, and securing that hot-pink T-shirt with a picture of president-elect Donald Trump on the front.

This year, far-right extremists, MAGAworld, and conspiracists are all jumping on the Black Friday bandwagon to try and persuade their followers to buy untested health supplements, unfunny novelty mugs, and guns—lots and lots of guns.

Rather than advertising on mainstream online marketplaces offered by sites including Google or Facebook, these groups are targeting their audience where they live, on fringe and alternative online platforms with little or no moderation. Spaces like Gab, a white-supremacist-friendly social network run by a christian nationalist. Or Telegram, where election deniers and neo-Nazi groups happily sit side-by-side despite new privacy changes being introduced this year. And of course,Trump’s own Truth Social, where his most devoted followers can be found.

Gab and Truth Social did not immediately respond to a request to comment. Telegram spokesperson Remi Vaughn said that ads placed through the Telegram Ads platform are vetted before they are shown.

For those feeling a little drained after Thanksgiving, alternative health company Exodus Strong is offering discounts on a dietary supplement which has “7 Biblically-inspired ingredients and a molecular hydrogen generating blend that optimize your Mind and Body to function the way God intended.” The tablets, which are currently being advertised up to 60 percent off on Truth Social, include, among other biblical ingredients, frankincense and myrrh. Those who purchase one of these supplements will even get a free gift: a prayer plan.

Undermining the boasts about the product slightly, however, is the disclaimer on the company’s own website that reads: “These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.”

Launched just in time for Black Friday, the new online store from right-wing YouTube-alternative Rumble features a who’s who of conspiracy theorists and conservative agitators on its front page, including Trump confidante Laura Loomer and underpants-wearing baptiser Russell Brand.

The store itself is a cornucopia of unimagined gems, everything from Faraday cages for your phone to stop 5G melting your brain, to nuclear fallout preparedness kits for the bargain price of $349. Rumble did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Many far-right and conspiracy newsletters and subscription services are offering huge discounts to lock in their audiences for the next 12 months. Gab for example is offering 50 percent discounts on yearly subscriptions to its AI service, whose racist chatbots have been trained to deny the Holocaust.

An antisemitic Irish blogger who is a close ally of white supremacist Nick Fuentes is offering 40 percent off his Substack subscriptions directly to his existing readers, showing that the effort to cash in on Black Friday hype is not limited to extremists in the US.

By far the most popular Black Friday ads on these platforms are from gun manufacturers, who are offering huge discounts on everything from high-powered rifles to a pink “no drill cheek rest” for your scoped long gun. (The “MAGA Patriot,” a Trump-themed AR-15 that was created in the wake of the president-elect surviving an assassination attempt by the same gun, is not discounted for Black Friday.)

Some of these promotions are simply flogging pro-MAGA paraphernalia. On Truth Social, Fox News host Sean Hannity is promoting the Black Friday deals available in his own merch store. From coffee cups with the phrase “leftist tears” to a “Daddy’s Home” T-shirt featuring a picture of Trump in front of the White House wearing a hot-pink jacket, Hannity has something for all tastes—as long as those tastes align with a pro-Trump, MAGA, Christian nationalist view of America.

For those Trump supporters who may be missing the glory days of 2020 when they could come together online to rage against the voting machines for stealing the election, conspiracy group Audit the Vote PA has got you covered with a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “election denier,” advertised on Gab.

And the biggest election denier of them all, pillow salesman Mike Lindell, is, of course, having a massive Black Friday sale. The man who has sponsored huge swathes of the far-right media ecosystem with promotional codes for the last four years is now offering a two-pack of “We the People” pillow covers for just $25.

On these alternative platforms, discussions about Black Friday are not only about getting 50 percent off “Make Christmas Great Again” T-shirts. Those promotions are interspersed with incredibly antisemitic and racist posts about the day, including several featuring children in black face.

Some users of Gab and Truth Social are also pushing back against Black Friday, calling out the “deranged libtards who turn into dangerous NCPs” during the event (misspelling NPC, which is used to describe someone who is predictable or robotic.) Others insist they are “boycotting Black Friday” because it’s a cash grab by the globalist elite.

And of course, conspiracies are never far away.

One user on Trump’s Truth Social, who calls themselves “Trust the Plan” (spelled like trusttheplqn), believes they have uncovered a secret message in one store’s Black Friday promotional material based on “intel” provided by another Truth Social account called Entheos. The conspiracy theory centers on the store promoting a “storewide blackout” for Black Friday, which “Trust the Plan” believes is code for something sinister taking place, though they fail to say exactly what this is.

“Black friday is on the 29th, but their sale starts on 27th (date that Entheos gave). And why would there be a ‘blackout storewide’ for black friday? You want complete opposite of a blackout...so people can actually shop.”

For others however, the situation appears much more dire. One Gab poster shared an article from a conspiracy site discussing a “global escalation” on Friday. The piece suggests that recent comments by Russian president Vladimir Putin related to launching a nuclear strike signal a looming apocalypse. “Stay Armed, Stay Safe, Patriots,” the poster wrote on Gab.

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justforbooks · 4 months ago

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‘It’s human conceit to think we’re alone’: life must extend beyond Earth, leading space scientist says

It is imperative humans expand their understanding of space, argues Dame Maggie Aderin-Pocock

Life must exist beyond Earth, a leading space scientist says, adding it is yet another example of human pride to suppose otherwise.

The British space scientist Dame Maggie Aderin-Pocock, who will be giving the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures this year, said that while science had made giant leaps in the understanding of space, including the sheer size of the universe, there was still much to learn – not least whether humans were alone.

“My answer to that, based on the numbers, is no, we can’t be,” said Aderin-Pocock. “It’s that human conceit again that we are so caught up in ourselves that we might think we’re alone.”

It is not the only outstanding question.

“The fact we only know what approximately 6% of the universe is made of at this stage is a bit embarrassing,” she said, noting the vast majority of the universe was made of dark energy and dark matter – mysterious substances people still did not understand.

It is this contrast of startling revelations and unanswered conundrums that Aderin-Pocock is due to unpick in the 2025 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures – a prestigious series of public talks initiated by the chemist and physicist Michael Faraday in 1825.

“It’s that sense of wonder and exploration, and the sense that there’s so much more to discover,” she said, emphasising that scientific progress was not one eureka moment after the next, but a journey in which some theories fell by the wayside while others were taken further.

As Aderin-Pocock noted, the idea that the Earth was at the centre of the universe – championed by the philosopher Aristotle – lasted for centuries before being overturned, while it was the work of Henrietta Swan Leavitt in the 19th century that gave astronomers the means to understand the scale of the universe.

“And then suddenly we realised that we were so much more insignificant than we ever thought,” said Aderin-Pocock, adding that the astronomer Edwin Hubble subsequently showed the universe was expanding, while the eponymous Hubble space telescope later revealed there were about 200bn galaxies out there.

This is a big year for the Royal Institution, marking the bicentenary of three of Faraday’s triumphs: the Christmas Lectures, the discovery of benzene and the Friday Evening Discourses – now given once a month as the Ri Discourses and not always on a Friday.

The organisation is launching a year-long celebration called Discover200 that will feature a candlelit discourse and recreations of past lectures, a new demonstration show and the release of all past filmed series of Christmas Lectures on YouTube. In addition, the Royal Institution is asking people to share their memories of attending the Christmas Lectures and Ri Discourses.

Aderin-Pocock is also hoping to mine the institution’s archives for clips from previous years, including the lectures by the American astronomer Carl Sagan, to explore how understanding of space has changed.

Key among the missions challenging current theories is the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which was launched on Christmas Day 2021. With its huge 18-segment mirror the telescope acts like a time machine, capturing light from distant galaxies that – because light travels at a finite speed – was produced when the universe was still young.

“One of the things that it’s discovering is that galaxies seem to be bigger than we anticipated in the early universe,” said Aderin-Pocock. The discovery has thrown up a host of questions, including whether the laws of physics are constant and whether dark matter really exists.

For Aderin-Pocock, the JWST is personal: she worked on one of its instruments known as the Near-Infrared Spectrograph.

But the mission is facing budget cuts of up to 20% – and that is before the US Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), overseen by the tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, has finished scrutinising Nasa.

For Aderin-Pocock the role of Musk – who is CEO of the space technology company Space X – in assessing the agency is a conflict of interest.

“It’s an odd stance to take to have Musk looking at this, because you need someone independent, you need someone with distance from this. And to me, ideally, someone from a different arena, so that they aren’t caught up in all the baggage that we carry around when we work in an industry, but bring a new light to it,” she said. “And so the fact that Elon Musk is involved in this seems like a bad idea to me.”

And while Aderin-Pocock is excited that the commercialisation of space –something she labels the “battle of the billionaires” – could hasten her dream of space travel, she said legislation is crucial.

“Sometimes it feels a bit like the wild west where people are doing what they want out there, and without the proper constraints I think we could make a mess again,” she said. “And again, if there is an opportunity to utilise space for the benefit of humanity, let it be for all of humanity.”

Yet, like Musk, she is keen for crewed missions to other planets. “I won’t say it’s our destiny because that sounds a bit weird, but I think it is our future,” she said. “We live on our planet and, I don’t want to sound scary, but planets can be vulnerable.”

Aderin-Pocock notes that an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs, and while humans are now keeping an eye on space rocks coming close to Earth, they are not the only hazard that could decimate humanity.

“So I think it makes sense to look out there to where we might have other colonies – on the moon, on Mars and then beyond as well,” she said.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

#just for books #Maggie Aderin-Pocock #Space #Royal Institution #Nasa #SpaceX

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