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That looks very suspicious... If somebody truly wants to just read the all messages that you posted, you can't do anything with it because in the worst scenario he or she will write crawler/harvester which will visit person profile every couple minutes or seconds (script with wget/curl in a loop), parse it, and check if sonebody wrote anything new and then parse new messages and add to the database. ps. Beware of attaching photos. Remove meta-data from photos. Don't add photos from smartphone on mobile version of this site directly! Use PC. You have no idea what meta-data they contain! Always check them if you took photo. The details of the device, once automated (with millions other photos), also can be used for identification and tracking. ps2. Beware of attaching links from newsfeed or links from search engine etc. They have your personal GUID (global unique identifier) to track you and activity ("xxx was shared by yyy number of people" there is such field on FB). Always remove query string to absolute minimum (on mobile it is very unpleasant job)..

Go to your profile. On the left is a list of the people following you. Choose "Options". You can select to not allow others to follow you.

I’ve had a bunch of randos who’ve never even once posted here start “following” me in the last few weeks... I am notified when they begin following. My understanding is that the follow function is basically a subscription to get updates every time I post. My intuition is that it’s not being done for any positive purpose or because they wish to learn from me etc., and may in fact be a coordinated effort to learn more about me and plan for a social engineering attack of some sort. Maybe (hopefully) I’m wrong, but I’d simply rather not have followers. Can followers be blocked? Can I disagree to their desire to follow me, or be given an option to Approve/Deny the subscription to my posts? Can the feature be disabled entirely sitewide? Any other options available besides crossing my fingers and hoping I’m just being paranoid?

Like this ? Maybe @Sensei has some ideas ?

Given that you have specified a planet and its moon, rather than a double planet system, there is likely to be a significant difference in the gravity between the two. Presumably your moon is considerably larger than ours, else no atmosphere would have been retained (not to mention plate tectonics and geodynamos either having shut down or never started). Even so one would expect adaptation to a lower gravity. That will place the moonites (for want of a better name) at a distinct physical disadvantage if they are on the planet. Although as @swansonthas pointed out there are unlikely to be gross physical changes, there may still be significant ones. Thus the natives of Tibet and of the high Andes have both evolved characteristics that make it easier for them to tolerate the low oxygen pressure at those altitudes. Or consider the sickle cell anemia of some Africans that can cause debilitating disease, yet provides major protection against malaria. Expect something of the kind to have occurred in 5000 years. However, even larger changes may occur if either sets of natives employ gene modification. Then the field is wide open. (If that provides an unecessary side issue just have the technology lost during whatever disaster led to the separation.) In terms of changes in human behaviour just take a look at the diversity of lifestyle, attitudes, beliefs etc across the planet today. Does 5000 years bring an increase in diversity, or do we all wind up working at Mcdonalds?

Indeed, perhaps the life of brian can explain... It's the meek, that's the problem...

1) The current model of academic publishing is a #%&ing scam. Nowhere else would the creators of a product not only be expected to sign over their copy rights for free, but also perform the review and editing of others work for free, and have our institutions get financially reamed for access to the #$^ing work we created there in the first place. THEN, with the advent of open access publishing, they get to tack on fees to the tune of $USD 11,320 upfront to the %^(&ing authors. It's really no wonder that the profit margin in academic publishing is ~40%. 2) While the idea of open science is generally admirable and beneficial, oftentimes the implementation has been exclusionary, elitist and rife with gatekeeping. See "bropen science". 3) While I see the benefits of preprint servers, and I really do like the fact that money isn't changing hands when you publish an article on one, I don't believe they replace the peer review process. The explosion of really crap COVID19 studies being submitted to preprint servers highlights the problems with omitting peer review to speed up the publication process. 4) I'm a big fan of double blind review. If there was a journal in my field that a) didn't charge an open access fee b)didn't charge a viewing fee and c) implemented a rigorous double blind review process, I'd probably publish there exclusively even if they had a barrage of loud, popup ads for penis pills on every page. 5) Whoever is behind sci-hub is a gift to humanity.

All lasers eventually diverge; most can be described by gaussian profiles, so they have a minimum spot size (“waist”) at some distance from the laser. Making the beam fat actually improves the divergence issues. The laser used for the moon ranging measurement diverged to be ~2 km across by the time it got to the moon (the atmosphere’s changing density played a part in this); the beam started out several meters wide https://tmurphy.physics.ucsd.edu/apollo/basics.html We use the telescope as a gigantic (3.5 meter wide) laser pointer and also as a signal receiver. Staying close to 10 cm over 1 km would seem to be possible with good optics+optomechanics and the right laser (for example, laser diodes, such as ones found in laser pointers, have horrible inherent divergence issues)

Absolutely, yes. It will solve problem with metadata. Lens can have unique imperfections added intentionally or non-intentionally. Analyze of enough amount of raw photos can be used to determine if they came from the same device. Change of resolution i.e. rescale down more than 2x with bi-linear interpolation can help to hide them. The same is with printers, copiers and scanners. Printed page has invisible by naked eye details which can be used for identification of exact printer device and/or model and indirectly person (if he/she is unique user like in home office). If you download document from some websites e.g. government web page, there are added unique metadata to each downloaded file. If somebody will share it on-line, analyze of metadata can reveal who downloaded and from what IP and when it happened. If you download some such important file, use VPN/proxy/Tor to download it again, and compare them e.g. 7zip adds branch to Windows explorer. RMB on file, pick CRC SHA branch, then pick one of them e.g. SHA-256. Repeat with other file from alternative computer with alternative network transmission via VPN/proxy/Tor. Compare checksum. If they differ, document has unique metadata and/or was generated dynamically and they can be used for tracking leakage.

Here's a classic.

! Moderator Note This is far from acceptable for this section, and the entire site. Don't EVER try to post things like this here again. This is a science discussion forum.