It's Almost Here! North American Solar Eclipse, 2024
As I mentioned in that other post, it will be visible as at least a partial eclipse to most of North America, with the path of totality cutting a diagonal from Sinaloa, Mexico to Newfoundland, Canada, including 15 US states from Texas to Maine.
Don't be fooled by how we just had one back in October, and another one a few years ago in 2017: total solar eclipses are rare! They only happen when the Sun, Moon, and Earth line up just perfectly--and only for a small portion of the Earth's surface each time.
It's a wild coincidence that North America/the US has gotten three in such a short span of time; the last one before the recent trio was in 1979, and the next one won't be until 2044. (We do have a big partial coming to us in 2033!) The Northeastern US won't see another until the 2070's.
(Note: If you are not in North America, you can use these maps to see when your continent will have its turn!)
This eclipse is also really special in that its path of totality sweeps across a lot of heavily-populated areas. About 31 million people live within the path of totality, and millions more are expected to visit.
So, it's a pretty big deal, and now's the time to get ready!
If you live in the path of totality:
Lucky you! Look up your location on these maps to get the exact time and duration of totality.
Be ready for extra traffic & crowds--especially if you live somewhere with stuff for tourists, or a place that people outside the immediate area will have heard of.
Totality times are in the afternoon, ranging from about 1:30 in Texas to 3:30 in Maine (local times), so if you'll be at school, or at work in a setting where you can't choose your own break times, now's a good time to talk to whomever you need to. It's not unreasonable to ask to step out into the parking lot for the three minutes that people will be coming from far and wide to see--but depending on your setting, it may take some arranging ahead of time. (If you're in school, hopefully your science teachers have already thought of this, but if not, ask them. And if your science teachers are jerks, try other teachers.
If you live near the path of totality:
Try to go! As the American author Annie Dillard says, "Seeing a partial eclipse bears the same relation to seeing a total eclipse as kissing a man does to marrying him, or as flying in an airplane does to falling out of an airplane."
(Link is to the Atlantic; if you hit a paywall, the 12-foot ladder works.)
Here's a map of approximate driving distances to the path of totality, in the US (from this page).
If you're close enough to think about going, here are some Google maps with eclipse overlays for more detailed planning. (I like the Xavier Jubier one.)
Once you're inside the path of totality, anywhere you can see the sun is a valid viewing location, but if you're making a day of it and you want to find a special spot, check local visitor's bureaus or tourism offices for the area you'll be in. They'll probably have a list of parks and other places. For instance, here's what Erie, Pennsylvania has.
Seriously, If you are able to drive/have a car, live within day-trip distance of the path of totality, and can be away from work/school without losing your job/being arrested for truancy, you should go. This is a once-in-a-lifetime type of thing, and there's still loads of time to plan a day-trip.
(Note: If you aren't in day-trip distance, but now you want to go, you don't have a lot of options: hotels and flights have been full for ages. However, if you're in two-days-driving distance, you might be able to find a Sunday-night base camp, from which you can get up on Monday morning and drive several more hours to the path of totality.
For instance, in Pennsylvania, there are still reasonably-priced hotel rooms to be had in State College, which is--in normal traffic--three and a half hours from Erie. (You might even be able to get a little closer than that; I just checked State College because they have a lot of hotels for the Penn State football crowds.} So if you're coming from, say, Maryland or Virginia, that could work, and there may be similar creative options for other regions.
Again, if this is something that's feasible for you to do, without bankrupting yourself, getting fired, or other long-term consequences, I would strongly consider doing it!
If you live in North America, but have no way to get to the totality:
A partial eclipse is still pretty cool! And again, it'll be a while before you have another chance to see one, so it's worth it to make the time.
All of the 48 contiguous US states will be able to see some amount of eclipse. So will Hawaii, Mexico, Central America, and most of Canada and the Caribbean islands, plus a little bit of South America. (Alaska and part of the Yukon are SOL, but you will have your turn in 2033!)
Use these maps to look up the time and extent of the eclipse in your location.
As of this writing, you can still get eclipse glasses here, among other places. If you run out of time to get them, check for eclipse-viewing events at local parks, libraries, etc.--they may also have some to give away ahead of time, but even if not, if you go to an event, there will almost certainly be some to share.
The plus of a partial eclipse is that you have a fairly relaxed viewing window--as much as a couple of hours, depending how far you are from the middle of the eclipse zone--rather than a standout moment that you want to make sure you're in position for.
That makes it pretty easy to get a chance to see it even if you're at work--everybody can take turns stepping outside for a look. You can share eclipse glasses, too.
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PSA for all of my disabled folks
You are allowed to take up space
You are allowed to take your time
You are allowed to make people wait up on you
You are allowed to be angry at people when they don't wait up on you
You are allowed to ask the grocery store manager to move the fucking shopping carts out of the way so that you can park your car with enough space to get out
You are allowed to use the electric shopping cart
You are allowed be late because you can't run to class in a hurry or take a shorter inaccessible route
Make the world work for you, whether people like it or not
This is your life
You are allowed to live it
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This is a friendly reminder to never, ever publish your book with a publishing company that charges you to publish with them. That is a vanity press, which makes money by preying on authors. They charge you for editing, formatting, cover art, and more. With most of these companies, you will never seen a cent of any royalties made from sale of your book. A legitimate publishing company only makes money when you make money, they will never charge you to publish with them. If a company approaches you and says "Hey, we'll publish your book, just pay us X amount of money," tell them to go fuck themself and block them.
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I'm aware that this is a pretty big blog, so I try to avoid putting people on blast- mostly cause I don't want anyone tracking folks down and dogpiling on them for the unforgivable sin of "being wrong about a thing",
Because we are all hilariously, ridiculously and unabashedly incorrect about things at times, and that doesn't deserve the embarrassment of a thousand jeering, judging strangers with their careless mockery and casual insults,
That being said
BITCH THAT SHIT DO KILLS PEOPLE
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PSA: bot comments are taking over ao3
The above examples have been provided with the authors' permission to demonstrate what these look like.
Basic rundown:
They are all 3 sentences long
Perfect grammar, capitalization, and punctuation
Like absolutely flawless English teacher-style writing with only a single exclamation mark, ever
No mentions whatsoever of character names, settings, situations, or anything that could be tied to the story
The usernames may be identical to people who exist on ao3, but the name is not clickable, and no profile is associated with it EXCEPT when you directly search for that name. What this means: the comments come from an unregistered (not logged in) reader, bots scrape the site for real usernames, attach that to the comment, and post
Please spread the word about this so authors can filter comments and report them accordingly
There has been some speculation about why this is happening at all, and the best guess is that this is a feature that AI-training story-scraping tools are implementing to try and make their browsing traffic look legitimate
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