Thursday Things: Sky High Noon Edition
20 August 2020. Vol 2 No 34 By Dan McGirt. #54
Welcome to Thursday Things! This week we take to the skies, look at the past, find what was missing, and correct what is wrong. Let’s go!
Blue skies. Nothing but blue skies. And a yellow tree. Caption Photo by Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash
Whose sky? My sky! The eagle flies alone. 'Brazen' bald eagle attack sends government drone to watery grave
Since the dawn of drones, a quiet war has been raging, and drones are losing. A Michigan bald eagle didn't take kindly to the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE, appropriately) operating a drone in its territory last month.
According to a Thursday statement from EGLE, drone pilot Hunter King, an environmental quality analyst, was flying the $950 Phantom 4 Pro Advanced drone to investigate shoreline erosion along Lake Michigan on July 21. He had called the drone back after a short flight when the eagle "launched an airborne attack."
Read the article for the outcome of this showdown in the sky.
A lost colony is always the last place you look for it. ‘The mystery is over’: Researchers say they know what happened to ‘Lost Colony’
The fate of the settlement at Roanoke is one of those great mysteries of history and a staple of books and TV shows about the strange and unusual. It ranks right up there with Oak Island, Bigfoot, the Bermuda Triangle, and D.B. Cooper. What strange fate befell those 16th-century colonists? Why did they vanish? Where did they go? What does CROATOAN mean?
Were they abducted by aliens? Probably, it was aliens. It’s usually aliens, right? Or some vast conspiracy involving Templars and the Illuminati. Or lizard people. The possibilities are endless.
The most likely, realistic, and — let’s face it — boring explanations were always that the colonists either died of starvation, were wiped out by hostile Indians, or moved in with friendly Indians. According to the researchers highlighted in the linked article, the answer is C:
BUXTON, N.C. — The English colonists who settled the so-called Lost Colony before disappearing from history simply went to live with their native friends — the Croatoans of Hatteras, according to a new book.
“They were never lost,” said Scott Dawson, who has researched records and dug up artifacts where the colonists lived with the Indians in the 16th century. “It was made up. The mystery is over.”
Way to ruin all the fun, researchers.
Can you really blame the Moon for wanting a little distance? Is the Moon drifting away from Earth? Laser beams unravel a new mystery
On several occasions during the last decade, scientists have fired laser beams at reflector panels placed about 240,000 miles (385,000 kilometers) away from Earth, on the Moon. By measuring how long it takes laser light to return to Earth — about 2.5 seconds on average — researchers calculate the distance between Earth laser stations and Moon reflectors.
The signals they received back this time indicate that the Earth and Moon are slowly drifting apart at the rate at which fingernails grow or 1.5 inches (3.8 centimeters) per year.
Maybe it’s better this way.
OldNYC: Mapping Historical Photos from the NYPL: “OldNYC shows 40,000 historical images from the New York Public Library's Milstein Collection on a map. Find photos of your apartment, work, or favorite park!”
This site is like catnip for lovers of history, old photos, maps, and New York City. It is hosted by the NY Public Library. Let me just walk you through what you’re seeing when you click the link. It’s a map of New York City covered with red dots. Each dot, when clicked, reveals a historic photo of that location. You can adjust the slider to show only photos from particular years or ranges of years between 1800-2000. You’re welcome.
Fear not, foolish physicists, Quantum Cat is here to correct your errors! Quantum researchers create an error-correcting cat
Yale physicists have developed an error-correcting cat—a new device that combines the Schrödinger's cat concept of superposition (a physical system existing in two states at once) with the ability to fix some of the trickiest errors in a quantum computation.
The article suggest there is some sort of device that helps scientist correct errors in quantum computation. I choose to believe it is an actual cat.
“You put the decimal in the wrong column, foolish human.” Photo by Manja Vitolic on Unsplash
Thanks for reading Thursday Things! See you next Thursday!