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from the headlights,-white-lines-and-black-tar-rivers dept.
A new atlas has illustrated that 80% of North Americans are prevented from seeing the Milky Way's bulge by light pollution:
The luminous glow of light pollution prevents nearly 80 percent of people in North America from seeing the Milky Way in the night sky. That's according to a new atlas of artificial night sky brightness that found our home galaxy is now hidden from more than one-third of humanity.
While there are countries were the majority of people still live under pristine, ink-black sky conditions — places such as Chad, Central African Republic and Madagascar — more than 99 percent of the people living in the U.S. and Europe look up and see light-polluted skies.
The country with the worst light-pollution is Singapore, where researchers found that "the entire population lives under skies so bright that the eye cannot fully dark-adapt to night vision." Other countries with large percentages of people living under skies this bright include Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.
The new world atlas of artificial night sky brightness (open, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1600377)
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Saturday June 11 2016, @04:06AM
*beep* wrong!
Social media is just a new form of socialization, on a weird scale. People have always been navel gazers, largely concerned with the banalities of life. He said she said, didja hear about??
If most do not care it is probably because most do not even realize what they are missing. When people see the images on WHATSPOPULAR they mostly are amazed and upvotelike it.
We haven't reached the stars because the technology has been lacking. New technologies are helping, but we still need a more efficient method than rockets to open the stars... Social media was a brand new phenomena, but it is peaking and will level out soon enough.
On a personal note, I attended University in a major urban area. One night, when tired at a party, I went outside to lie in the grass and do some star watching. I counted three in my somewhat limited field of vision (buildings, trees). It made me sad, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. I'm not the most amazing person in the US, one out of a billion would make it unlikely there is another who dislikes social media yet likes looking at stars ;)
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 1) by Francis on Saturday June 11 2016, @04:13AM
I like social media. It keeps the idiots away from me when I'm offline.
Thanks FB, I salute you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 11 2016, @04:25AM
Nope, doesn't help. If I'm busy coding on my tablet, people around me ask if I'm texting. If I happen to hold the screen too close to my face, people around me ask if I'm taking a selfie. Everything is social to them. Everything.
(Score: 3, Touché) by maxwell demon on Saturday June 11 2016, @08:12AM
Well, you are texting — to your compiler. ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 11 2016, @04:20AM
When people see the images on WHATSPOPULAR they mostly are amazed and upvotelike it.
Amazing graphics!! Is that a new game? Which app do I download?? +like +like +like
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday June 11 2016, @08:23AM
Yeah, this "outside" game has really great graphics; you cannot even discern the pixels. And it's full immersive 3D! Also the sound dynamics is incredible (although sometimes they do things a bit too loud, you also can overdo realism). And it has even force feedback!
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 11 2016, @08:45AM
The mechanics are kinda wonkie, like the developers threw the shit together at the last moment. Leveling is haphazard and grindy, and I'm pretty certain some people have cheat codes ("there's no way you became a level 67 guild master with only two hours in").
I could do without the smell-o vision as well.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 11 2016, @09:52AM
Yeah, this "outside" game has really great graphics; you cannot even discern the pixels
Pfff... You can tell it's shopped. Everything smoothed out and blurred and I would know because I've seen quite some 'shops in my time...
Now where did I leave my glasses?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 11 2016, @06:32AM
Zz.... this right here, SN, is the only social media I mess with. I do not mess with facebook or twitter.
I did have a group on Yahoo Groups once, but it got deleted. For people who have sthenolagnia. Guess they considered it porn.