ryannathans

The Horsehead Nebula

Here is my version of the Horsehead Nebula! It is one of the most famous nebulas after its dark dust shape, which blocks starlight behind it. The nebula, found in the constellation Orion, has a red glow coming from hydrogen gas and is part of the star forming region called Orion Molecular Cloud Complex.

A majestic silhouette, isn’t it? 😄

About the pic: color composite of the B, V, R, Ha filters with additional dark, bias, and flat field frames; combined exposure time 63 min; Andor camera, University of Liège TRAPPIST-North 60 cm telescope

There is no valid logical rational reason why any normal US citizen should own a machine literally designed for no other purpose than to kill human beings.

I own several guns and have shot literally thousands of rounds over the last couple of years, yet I haven’t killed or even harmed a single living creature.  Huh…  I guess my guns must be broken since they can’t even fulfill their “only purpose”.

A disgustingly huge amount of people are DYING to these things every month, just trying to go about their normal lives.  That trumps your ill-chosen hobby.

Many anti-gun advocates will point out that there were 33,000 people killed by guns in 2013.  While this is a terrible number, we must also put this number into perspective against the grand scheme of things.  There are an estimated 340-370+ MILLION legally owned guns in America, not even including illegal black markets that we cannot effectively track.  This means that, even if we use conservative estimations, literally over 99.99% of the guns in America didn’t kill a single person in 2013.

When we look at the big picture, your chances of being harmed by a gun are actually very low.

Chances of being shot or killed based on firearm deaths and population count:

Death by gun, suicide excluded: 0.0032%

Death by gun, suicide included: 0.0095%

Death in a mass shooting alone: 0.000032%

Injury by gun, no death: 0.024%

Death of injury by gun including suicide: 0.033%

Gun deaths and injuries etc based off general stats used by anti gun people, rather than exact numbers from each year because its faster and easier to do. Going by exact yearly figures would result in very little change to the average numbers used above.

Guns compared to other ways you can die:

Unintentional fall deaths:

Number of deaths: 26,009

Deaths per 100,000 population: 8.4

Motor vehicle traffic deaths:

Number of deaths: 33,687

Deaths per 100,000 population: 10.9

Unintentional poisoning deaths:

Number of deaths: 33,041

Deaths per 100,000 population: 10.7

All poisoning deaths:

Number of deaths: 42,917

Deaths per 100,000 population: 13.9

All Drug poisoning deaths:

Deaths per 100,000 population: 12.4 (2010)

All firearm deaths (suicide included):

Number of deaths: 31,672

Deaths per 100,000 population: 10.3

All firearms deaths (suicide excluded):

Number of deaths: 12,664

Deaths per 100,000 population: 3.6

Firearm deaths broken down completely:

3.6 for homicide 6.3 for suicide 0.30 for unintentional 0.10 undetermined

10.3 for deaths total in general of 3.6 for homicide only. You are more likely to trip and die than be killed by a gun. Cars kill more than guns but are not even protected by the constitution and isn’t a right, and are less regulated than guns!

[Sources are FBI and CDC]

Many people will also cite mass shootings as a reason that guns are evil and should be banned, but this assertion also falls flat and looks ridiculous when put into perspective.  While these stories draw media attention and are absolutely horrible, you seem to have casually and conveniently left out the part where these attacks account for less than even one quarter of 1% of America’s overall murder rate.  About 0.2% to be more exact.

Now, let’s compare this, how often guns are used to harm innocent lives, to how often guns are used to protect innocent lives.

Guns help protect innocent lives FAR MORE OFTEN than they help to harm innocent lives.   There are literally hundreds of thousands of defensive gun uses in this country alone every single year.

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/category/defensivegunuseoftheday/

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/cdc-study-use-firearms-self-defense-important-crime-deterrent

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/cdc-study-use-firearms-self-defense-important-crime-deterrent

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/02/defensive-gun-ownership-gary-kleck-response-115082.html#.VcYed_lRK1w

Quite simply put, guns save innocent lives.  And they do so far more often than they hurt them.  When guns are harming more innocent lives than they are protecting, it could be argued that it might make sense to further limit guns.

But for now, it’s not even close.  Moving on…

There is no solution better than the one that several European countries and the Australians have proven works, anything else is a less-effective compromise so that you, again, can get off on owning a literal killing machine.

Sorry, but strict gun control has been an absolute failure in both Australia, The UK, and everywhere else it has tried.  It has done nothing to effectively reduce murder, violent crime, suicide, or even gun violence rates.  It has done nothing to achieve its desired goal of creating a safer society.  It is, and always will be, a complete failure.

Australia:

[this segment brought to you by lee-enfeel]

People die Australia as a result of firearms violence at almost the same rate they did prior to the firearms act, and some sources state that more than a quarter million illicit firearms exist in Australia currently.

The total firearms death rate in 1995 - the year before the massacre and the laws introduced - was 2.6 per 100,000 people. The total firearms murder rate that year was 0.3/100,000. From 1980-1995, Australian firearms deaths dropped from 4.9/100,000-2.6/100,000 without the implementation of firearms laws. This is a rate of decline that has remained fairly constant; Looking at 1996-2014, in which the rate has dropped from 2.6-0.86, it shows that the decline has been slower in a longer period of time since the law’s passing. Likewise, homicides declined more quickly in the 15 years prior to the firearms laws (0.8-0.3) than in the 18 years since it (0.3-0.1). This just indicates that firearms deaths haven’t been noticeably affected by the legislation you’ve claimed has done so much to decrease gun crime.

It should also be noted that around the same time, New Zealand experienced a similar mass shooting, but did not change their existing firearms laws, which remain fairly lax; even moreso than some American states like California, New York, or Connecticut. Despite this, their firearms crime rate has declined fairly steadily as well, and they haven’t experienced a mass shooting since.

The “australia banned guns and now they’re fine” argument is really old and really poorly put together. Gun control is little more than a pink band-aid on the sucking chest wound that is America’s social and economic problems. It’s a ‘quick fix’ issue used by politicians to skirt around solving the roots of the violence problem in the United States, which are primarily poverty, lack of opportunities, and lack of education.

You could ban guns tomorrow nationwide and gun violence and overall violent crime would not be reduced at all.

[this segment brought to you by cerebralzero]

In 2005 the head of the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, Don Weatherburn,[37] noted that the level of legal gun ownership in NSW increased in recent years, and that the 1996 legislation had had little to no effect on violence

In 2006, the lack of a measurable effect from the 1996 firearms legislation was reported in the British Journal of Criminology. Using ARIMA analysis, Dr Jeanine Baker and Dr Samara McPhedran found no evidence for an impact of the laws on homicide.[40]

A study coauthored by Simon Chapman found declines in firearm‐related deaths before the law reforms accelerated after the reforms for total firearm deaths (p=0.04), firearm suicides (p=0.007) and firearm homicides (p=0.15), but not for the smallest category of unintentional firearm deaths, which increased.[43]

Subsequently, a study by McPhedran and Baker compared the incidence of mass shootings in Australia and New Zealand. Data were standardised to a rate per 100,000 people, to control for differences in population size between the countries and mass shootings before and after 1996/1997 were compared between countries. That study found that in the period 1980–1996, both countries experienced mass shootings. The rate did not differ significantly between countries. Since 1996-1997, neither country has experienced a mass shooting event despite the continued availability of semi-automatic longarms in New Zealand. The authors conclude that “the hypothesis that Australia’s prohibition of certain types of firearms explains the absence of mass shootings in that country since 1996 does not appear to be supported… if civilian access to certain types of firearms explained the occurrence of mass shootings in Australia (and conversely, if prohibiting such firearms explains the absence of mass shootings), then New Zealand (a country that still allows the ownership of such firearms) would have continued to experience mass shooting events.”[44]

We see the same trend in The UK.

And Ireland and Jamaica…

And on and on and on…  Gun control simply does not create a safer society and often times actually has the opposite effect.

At this point I should also probably point out that Australia’s gun laws have not even reduced gun ownership in Australia.  In fact, gun ownership in Australia is actually higher now than in 1996.

All of these inconvenient facts aside, we haven’t even touched on the cost of implementing Australian style gun control in America.

I keep hearing people say that the US should adopt Australia’s gun control policy and I don’t think they have really thought about the big picture of that plan.

Australia had far less guns per person and people in their country did not live in a society that was brought up respecting The 2nd Amendment.  The culture of Australia is very different than that of the culture of America when it comes to gun ownership and self defense.

Because of this, the Australian government was able to buy back 631,000 guns at the estimated price of about $500,000,000.  You read that correctly, 500 MILLION.

And even after all of that, it still did nothing to prevent violent crime and criminals in Australia still have access to illegal guns, despite being an island country that isn’t bordered by other countries with high violent crime rates and rampant with illegal drug cartels.

There are over 360,000,000 legally owned firearms in America.  If we go by Australia’s numbers ($792.39 per gun), these guns would cost our government $285,261,489,698.89 to buy back.  Almost 300 BILLION dollars, assuming that every gun owner voluntarily turns in their guns…  Which is a very slim to nothing chance.

Who’s going to pay for that?  Anti-gunners?  I think not.

So, in closing, you want America to put in place gun legislation that will cost the country hundreds of billions of dollars AND has already been proven time and time again to be completely ineffective at protecting innocent lives or creating a safer society?

Seems pretty silly.

Get dunked on, nerd.

Maybe not a mandatory federal one, no.  But government gun buybacks are most certainly a thing here in America.

Also, cars are registered, which is reasonable.

You know that guns are not cars, right?

Gun shows have too many loopholes.

What loopholes would those be?  Please enlighten us.

Not sure anything we do will make people feel truly safe, but reasonable measures are worth a try.

The fact is, WE HAVE TRIED STRICT NATIONAL GUN CONTROL.

Does the year 1994 or the name Clinton ring a bell to anyone?  Anyone?

From 1994 - 2004, there were strict national gun control laws in place in America.  They included most of the laws that are being proposed now.   An “assault weapons” ban.  Magazine capacity limits.  All of that.

Guess what?

IT WAS A COMPLETE FAILURE.

Thorough background checks are reasonable.

We already have mandatory federal NICS background checks, where the buyer’s criminal and mental healthy history are reviewed and have to be approved by the FBI, for every FFL purchase.

Taking away all guns? Not so much. Good thing is, very few advocate for that.

However, me owning a gun is not merely a hobby.  It is the most effective tool at protecting my life, the lives of my family, and the lives of innocent lives around me.  I’m sorry, but self defense and self preservation are not “hobbies”.

If you truly believe that acquiring an automatic weapon in America is as easy as “picking up a prescription”, then you are simply ignorant to the subject of automatic weapons and just do not know what you are talking about.

https://www.atf.gov/qa-category/national-firearms-act-nfa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Act

Gas giant Jupiter is the solar system’s largest world with about 320 times the mass of planet Earth. Jupiter is home to one of the largest and longest lasting storm systems known, the Great Red Spot, visible to the left. The spot is so large it could swallow Earth, but it has been shrinking. No one knows it’s future, including the possibility that if the shrinking trend continues, the Great Red Spot might one day even do what smaller spots on Jupiter have done – disappear completely.

This man was once the darling of the leftists (and small-government, privacy-minded libertarians who still like him). When he rightly exposed the criminal corruption of the Bush administration and awakened people who were unaware of the death and destruction being signed off on their behalf in Iraq and Afghanistan, Democrats championed him.

When he exposed Putin’s dirty laundry, the media largely ignored it.

But, when he exposed the corruption of the Democratic Party with emails given to him ultimately through Seth Rich, the Democrats started incorrectly calling him a “Russian agent.”

This man has sacrificed so much of his own life’s happiest moments to give everyone more transparency in a world full of duplicitous, deceitful governments.

Now, his Internet access has once again been cut off. It has been 1 month.

Never forget the role Wikileaks has played in exposing corruption.

Not once have they ever lost a court case against their many enemies.

Why? Because they vet their sources and the information they put out.

They don’t publish lies. They don’t defame. They don’t risk their solid reputation.

Iapetus is the third-largest natural satellite of Saturn, eleventh-largest in the Solar System, and the largest body in the Solar System known not to be in hydrostatic equilibrium. Iapetus is best known for its dramatic “two-tone” coloration. Discoveries by the Cassini mission in 2007 revealed several other unusual features, such as a massive equatorial ridge running three-quarters of the way around the moon.

Iapetus was discovered by Giovanni Domenico Cassini, an Italian astronomer, in October 1671. He had discovered it on the western side of Saturn and tried viewing it on the eastern side some months later, but was unsuccessful. This was also the case the following year, when he was again able to observe it on the western side, but not the eastern side. Cassini finally observed Iapetus on the eastern side in 1705 with the help of an improved telescope, finding it two magnitudes dimmer on that side.

Cassini correctly surmised that Iapetus has a bright hemisphere and a dark hemisphere, and that it is tidally locked, always keeping the same face towards Saturn. This means that the bright hemisphere is visible from Earth when Iapetus is on the western side of Saturn, and that the dark hemisphere is visible when Iapetus is on the eastern side. The dark hemisphere was later named Cassini Regio in his honor.

The original dark material is believed to have come from outside Iapetus, but now it consists principally of lag from the sublimation of ice from the warmer areas of Iapetus’s surface. It contains organic compounds similar to the substances found in primitive meteorites or on the surfaces of comets; Earth-based observations have shown it to be carbonaceous, and it probably includes cyano-compounds such as frozen hydrogen cyanide polymers.

source

Me: It will be necessary to meet for multiple fittings throughout the process to ensure the best fit.

Client: Sure!

After the initial meeting where I gathered her measurements the client refused to meet with me:

Client: Just work off the measurements you already have.  

In the six weeks, it took to complete the project, my client managed to gain nearly 20 lbs. Of course, there was no way for me to know this as she refused to come to the fittings.

Of course, the client blamed me because the costume didn’t fit and refused to pay me the $1200 I invoiced her for.

Client: The deposit should more than cover your materials. I won’t be paying labor since you didn’t make the outfit in my size.

One thing that should be understood is this client has limited vision and uses a screen reader.

Client: my friends say it looks good but when I go on it I see a combo box. I don’t want that combo box.

Me: What do you mean by combo box?

Client: The combo box. It’s right there! I don’t like it.

I did some research and found that this was her screen reader’s name for a drop-down menu. It came up whenever that particular theme had to be shrunk down to a 640 by 480 screen size.

Client: Get rid of it.

Me: Honestly, I’m not sure how to remove that, but it shouldn’t be a problem because no one is going to see this drop-down menu unless they use the screen resolution you do, which is VERY uncommon these days.  

Client: But I see it, and I hate it. Get rid of it.

Since she wouldn’t be moved, I found a theme that didn’t look nearly as nice, but didn’t create a drop-down menu for the main topics when it resized which got rid of the “combo box.”

She was about to approve the site but had another complaint.

Client: I don’t want the site to say index. Why does it say index? It’s a website. I want it to say website.

Me: (thinking it was her screen reader again) Where do you see that?

Client: At the top.

After some back and forth, I figured out she meant the URL.

Me: That’s the way the internet is structured. The main page on a site will often have a URL ending in “index.” That’s perfectly normal.

Client: I don’t want it to say index. It needs to say website.

So now her site address says “http://clientsitenamehere/website.”

Client: Hello?

Me: Yes, hell-

Client: Is anyone there?

Me: Yes, I’m here.

Client: I just got a new TV and there’s a big f***ing problem.

Me: What’s the issue?

Client: I need a setting.

Me: Excuse me?

Client: A SETTING!

Me: What setting?

Client: There’s a f***ing problem and I need a SETTING!

Me: If you could tell me what the issue is, it will be easier for me to help…

Client: I. Need. A. SETTING!

Me: Yes, but FOR WHAT?

Client: The PROBLEM with the TV!

Me: BUT WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?

Client: There are some hieroglyphs in the corner, and they move to the other side.

Me: Okay.

Client: So I need a setting.

Me: I’m sorry, what do you mean hieroglyphs?

Client: I need a SETTNG.

Me: What do you mean? Do you mean you need a technician to come install your TV?

Client: No, I want HELP!

Me: These “hieroglyphs” – do these glyphs show up on all channels?

Client: The hieroglyphs are in the corner, and they move to the other side.

Me:  Can you read what they say or describe them in any way?

Client: IN THE CORNER.

Me: Yes, but are they text, or numbers, or?

You can almost feel the heat! 🔥

The demonstration of SpaceX Falcon Heavy, the most powerful rocket built so far is a sensation in spaceflight history. Here are some of my favourite images of the successful feat, which took place on Tuesday, 6th Feb.

The rocket can put more than twice as much weight into Low Earth Orbit than any other operational rocket, more precisely 63,800 kilograms or 140,700 lb (for example, this could make building a space station much easier), and launch heavier equipment and people into deep space!

Falcon Heavy’s first stage comprises three nine-engine cores. What’s more, the core boosters are designed to be reusable. During the test launch, one booster crashed, but two of them returned in synchrony.

Who else screamed like there’s no tomorrow during the livestream? 😂 You can rewatch it here ⬅