swansont

I’ve got a space weather app that alerts me to flares and CMEs and whenever Kp hits a certain threshold. Seen a couple of aurorae because of the alerts.

Do phones have motion-activation capabilities? You might look for an app that takes pictures at regular intervals. Time-lapse with a large gap. Most phones nowadays have a feature that records several seconds of pictures with each shot, which improves odds of capturing something.

“Sunspot region 4366 produced the most powerful flare of 2026 on Monday, unleashing an X8.1 and associated coronal mass ejection (CME)—a massive explosion of plasma and magnetic field from the Sun’s outer atmosphere.“ https://gizmodo.com/this-earth-facing-sunspot-region-is-absolutely-popping-off-2000717888 Probably more to come, since 4366 just came into view a week ago

This wasn’t true last year when you claimed it and it’s still not. Germany’s oil imports are lower than when they started shutting down nuclear, and basically none of it is from Russia. So this is not only not a fact, it is a lie - a repetition of an untruth that was pointed out to you, yet you’ve repeated it https://www.scienceforums.net/topic/135990-anti-democratic-political-decisions-in-the-western-countries/#findComment-1290436 It’s also something whose connection to “less freedom” is unclear to me. Your survey quote lacks an actual link, but here it is https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/two-thirds-germans-against-shutting-down-last-nuclear-power-plants-point-survey “32 percent of those surveyed were in favour of the remaining reactors continuing to run for a limited period, and an additional 33 percent were in favour of an unlimited runtime extension. Only 26 percent fully support a complete phase-out nuclear power at this point in time” So it’s the timing that’s the issue. Only a third wanted an unlimited extension. The shutdown plan predates that; it was made under Schröder and the first shutdown occurred in 2003. Merkel initially delayed it until Fukushima caused a pivot and she accelerated the plan.

Thanks. So it’s a location issue, not a size of demand issue. i.e. any power plant situated where the solar is would face the same problem.

It might, but it’s paywalled so I don’t know what the explanation is. edit: But electrical generation in the EU has been falling slightly (through 2023, at least), so it seems that it’s not increased demand causing this, it’s location and other issues https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Electricity_production,_consumption_and_market_overview

The issue is that you write fiction too much of the time. Unsubstantiated claims deserve little weight in these discussions.

Increased use is largely untethered to the means of production, AFAICT - grid problems would affect any source in the same location. And solar/wind supplanting e.g. coal doesn’t increase load on the grid. In addition, rooftop solar reduces load on the grid.

It’s true that new EU solar has contracted slightly, but it still installed ~65GW of capacity each of the last 3 years. More of a flattening as compared to the US. ~400 GW of installed capacity at end of ‘25, while the US was at ~240GW at the end of ‘24, yet the US uses about twice as much. So the EU is pretty far ahead in this. https://www.solarpowereurope.org/press-releases/new-report-eu-hits-2025-solar-target-but-market-contraction-puts-2030-goal-at-risk

If you don’t have a point for discussion, the appropriate place would have been the “Today I learned” thread (or science news if it was news)

“By the end of the year, wind and solar energy combined are projected to account for about half of China’s total installed power capacity, while coal’s share falls to around one-third, according to the China Electricity Council.” Solar alone set to overtake next year. https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/china-solar-power-capacity-coal-first-time-b2912940.html This, amid other reports of places where renewables are occasionally accounting for all generated electricity. (Makes the US position all the more painful, though the courts have reinstated some renewables projects)

Confusing, because the map in the Wikipedia page shows a coefficient <30 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient It also points out that the coefficient changes whether you are taking tax and public assistance into account, and that demographics has an effect. It also doesn’t appear to distinguish between overall standard of living - it’s possible to have a high value with everyone above some “poverty level” of minimum income covering basic needs, or everyone below that level.

Trust, perhaps? It’s a rather open-ended assertion, since the amount of supporting evidence one has when they “say something” is not addressed. To the extent this happens in science, it happens in other areas, too. Religion being one that leverages it heavily

I’ll second the call - what’s your point?

What’s the terminology in Russian? Thus, Credit Suisse and UBS report that the proportion of wealth held by the richest 1% of Russians equals 56.4% and Russia tops the world’s list by this indicator. As measured by the Gini coefficient for wealth, Russia (86.9) shares 10th place with the United Arab Emirates among the 164 countries surveyed behind several African countries, as well as Sweden and Brazil. https://econs.online/en/articles/opinions/super-wealth-in-russia-uneven-and-invariable/ Maybe it’s not democracy that’s the problem

Yes. The unspoken issue is: what better system is there? It’s not helped by having technologically unsophisticated geriatrics making the decisions about how to rein in the technology. The law is usually already playing catch-up, and that’s an additional handicap

Allowing free speech does mean that one can spout propaganda, but giving the government the power to censor or decide what the truth is, is inherently authoritarian. The problem as I see it is not the system, it’s that authoritarians exist. And to the point of the OP, if we didn’t have sociopaths we wouldn’t have a lot of the billionaires exerting influence. People are going to try and game the system, regardless of the system that’s put in place. Blaming the system is a red herring, IMO, because the problem is inherent in any population of people.

Still >50 years old, and they did not measure zero. Surely it’s been attempted in other ways. This article suggests that it has (paywalled, so the five specific references are unavailable) and by describing the issue as controversial it suggests no consensus. It also confirms that the Schiff and Barnhill model is by no means accepted as true. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0375960120307003

The logical inference from this is that there has never been a smart and honest person to hold office which I think trivially dismisses your premise as false. If voters can only choose bad candidates but desire good ones, surely the voters will choose the better one in a subsequent election, which happens all the time. Even if the financial elite choose the candidates. But if the financial elite did choose, why would politicians that hold the elite accountable get elected, and how could they get legislation passed that limits their power, unless a majority of elected officials agreed to do so. Propaganda is not a credible source of information. How about you do your own research and use it to buttress your ideas, rather than requiring us to do it? It might require that you spell the names correctly. DeSantis. People can disagree on political points and priorities without hating each other. That’s a fair point, but it’s also not a feature of the system, it’s a choice. Which means that we can choose to fix both the inability to sue federal officers for rights violations (we can sue state and local ones) and the scope of qualified immunity. Which underscores the distinction I was trying to make between whether it’s inherent in the system or if it can be fixed within the system The OP seems to be based on (or possibly even actively promoting) poorly constructed propaganda, and proceeding under an unproven/unwarranted premise.

Conjecture and an inconclusive experiment from the 50+ years ago hardly seems like something to cite.

It’s not hidden, though, and in light of the thread title, the “mechanism” is not built in to the system, but is coming about because the powers that be have decided not to follow the rules - not respecting rights and not holding transgressors accountable. The collaboration by various non-governmental entities - e.g. the press and businesses, is another part of the mechanism which is not hidden. It’s very much out in the open.

I find that text size is a big issue. But the OP asked specifically about color, so here’s a study but it’s specifically about “negative polarity” i.e. light text on dark background, which is “night mode” The paper points out fatigue can come from bright screens in a dark environment, so matching brightness levels is important. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11175232/ One might search further using “visual fatigue” and “polarity” as keywords

For most cameras, it’s the latter. Silicon sensors only work out to 1.1 microns, other common ones not much further, and thermal is out in the 10-15 micron range. Thermal imaging uses different technology. In the lab I worked in, we used cheap black-and-white surveillance systems, since they had no filter to begin with. A rate example of the cheaper commercial option being the right tool, rather than boutique lab stuff. I once modified a webcam by removing the IR filter to take pictures in the lab. It had to be manual focus, because autofocus is calibrated with the filter in place

Good choices? No. But that wasn’t your claim. You said there was no choice. In the 2016 Republican primary there were 17 candidates. That’s a lot of choice. The system is not at fault that they couldn’t beat Trump, nor is the system at fault for Republicans caving to him and being complicit in his wrongdoings. The system doesn’t enforce itself The flaws are not in democracy as a concept, but there are flaws in some specific ways it’s been implemented (e.g. the electoral college, not expanding the number of representatives in the house to keep pace with the population) Stupid, lazy, indifferent, sexist, actively rooting for Trump’s bigotry, and more. Lots of factors in play.

Ties in with what was discussed earlier - attacking the credibility of legitimate science and people losing trust in it, opening the door for the conspiracies to spread. Media becoming entertainment and going for “clicks” rather than quality journalism makes that worse.