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NicePoint πŸ‹ @NicePoint@octodon.social

@TheGibson Apparently, someone is attempting to draw the dickbutt meme...? That's what it looks like from this person's 1am mastodon check!

At 0609 UTC (30 min or so from now) the Cassini space probe will make its final close flyby (T-126) of Saturn's moon Titan. In September it will plunge ito Saturn's atmosphere and be destroyed

@bea

Oh, holy shit.

That could be used like bread in the water, to gauge the speed of a ship -- but in 3d, with visualization, if the network wasn't lagging so hard sometimes -- you could SEE things spread out, see the messages glowing until they die and where they stopped

and I can imagine it, it'd be like shooting stars

and it's beautiful

so thank you for this post :) it is both informative and, twee as it sounds, it was inspiring

<3

New Read for tonight:
The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream by Tyler Cowan
Heard a Podcast with this author as a guest.

fiΓ°rildi => "Fith-ril-dith"
(Close -ish pronounciation...)

*Congrats. You now know the word for "Butterfly" in Icelandic.
8)(8

@ampersand I KNOW!! Let's get Lamar Smith for Science! ( Any kind, really. He's your guy.)

@crscheid Though that isn't as hard as one might think. The population is not enormous.:-)

Fun fact: The number of #mastodon users now exceeds the population of #iceland.

specifically the trouble I have is getting beginners from the "I understand the syntax and can modify examples" stage to the "I can model problems as programs and apply my knowledge of the language to build these programs" stage. the first stage is pretty easy and most tutorials for beginners are oriented toward that kind of literacy... the second is harder to achieve and harder to teach, and it seems like most people only reach that stage with self-directed practice