abandon, ability, able, about, above, absence, absolute, absolutely, abstract, abundance, academy, accent, accept, access, accident, accompany, accomplish, according, account, accurate, achieve, achievement, acid, acknowledge, acquire, across, action, active, activity, actor, actual, actually, adapt, addition, additional, address, adequate, adjust, administration, admire, admission, admit, adolescent, adopt, adult, advance, advantage, adventure, advertise, advice, advise, adviser, advocate, affair, affect, afford, afraid, after, afternoon, again, against, age, agency, agenda, agent, aggressive, ago, agree, agreement, agriculture, ahead, aid, aim, air, aircraft, airline, airport, alarm, album, alcohol, alive, all, alliance, allow, ally, almost, alone, along, already, also, alter, alternative, although, always, amateur, amazing, ambition, ambulance, among, amount, analysis, analyst, analyze, ancient, and, anger, angle, angry, animal, anniversary, announce, annual, another, answer, anticipate, anxiety, any, anybody, anymore, anyone, anything, anyway, anywhere, apart, apartment, apologize, apparent, apparently, appeal, appear, appearance, apple, application, apply, appoint, appointment, appreciate, approach, appropriate, approval, approve, approximately, architect, area, argue, argument, arise, arm, armed, army, around, arrange, arrangement, arrest, arrival, arrive, art, article, artist, artistic, as, ashamed, aside, ask, asleep, aspect, assault, assert, assess, assessment, asset, assign, assignment, assist, assistance, assistant, associate, association, assume, assumption, assure, at, athlete, athletic, atmosphere, attach, attack, attempt, attend, attention, attitude, attorney, attract, attraction, attractive, attribute, audience, author, authority, auto, available, average, avoid, award, aware, awareness, away, awful, baby, back, background, bad, badly, bag, balance, ball, ban, band, bank, bar, barely, barrel, barrier, base, baseball, basic, basically, basis, basket, basketball, bath, bathroom, battery, battle, be, beach, bear, beat, beautiful, beauty, because, become, bed, bedroom, bee, beef, beer, before, begin, beginning, behavior, behind, being, belief, believe, bell, belong, below, belt, bench, bend, beneath, benefit, beside, besides, best, bet, better, between, beyond, bicycle, big, bike, bill, billion, bind, biological, bird, birth, birthday, bit, bite, black, blade, blame, blanket, blind, block, blood, blow, blue, board, boat, body, bomb, bombing, bond, bone, book, boom, boot, border, boring, born, borrow, boss, both, bother, bottle, bottom, boundary, bowl, box, boy, boyfriend, brain, branch, brand, brave, bread, break, breakfast, breast, breath, breathe, brick, bridge, brief, briefly, bright, brilliant, bring, broad, broken, brother, brown, brush, buck, budget, build, building, bullet, bunch, burden, burn, bury, bus, business, busy, but, butter, button, buy, buyer, by, cabin, cabinet, cable, cake, calculate, call, camera, camp, campaign, campus, can, Canadian, cancer, candidate, cap, capability, capable, capacity, capital, captain, capture, car, carbon, card, care, career, careful, carefully, carrier, carry, case, cash, cast, cat, catch, category, Catholic, cause, ceiling, celebrate, celebration, celebrity, cell, center, central, century, CEO, ceremony, certain, certainly, chain, chair, chairman, challenge, chamber, champion, championship, chance, change, changing, channel, chapter, character, characteristic, characterize, charge, charity, chart, chase, cheap, check, cheek, cheese, chef, chemical, chest, chicken, chief, child, childhood, Chinese, chip, chocolate, choice, cholesterol, choose, Christian, Christmas, church, cigarette, circle, circumstance, cite, citizen, city, civil, civilian, claim, class, classic, classroom, clean, clear, clearly, client, climate, climb, clinic, clinical, clock, close, closely, closer, clothes, clothing, cloud, club, clue, cluster, coach, coal, coalition, coast, coat, code, coffee, cognitive, cold, collapse, colleague, collect, collection, collective, college, colonial, color, column, combination, combine, come, comedy, comfort, comfortable, command, commander, comment, commercial, commission, commit, commitment, committee, common, communicate, communication, community, company, compare, comparison, compete, competition, competitive, competitor, complain, complaint, complete, completely, complex, complexity, compliance, complicate, complicated, component, compose, composition, comprehensive, computer, concentrate, concentration, concept, concern, concerned, concert, conclude, conclusion, concrete, condition, conduct, conference, confidence, confident, confirm, conflict, confront, confusion, Congress, congressional, connect, connection, consciousness, consensus, consequence, conservative, consider, considerable, consideration, consist, consistent, constant, constantly, constitute, constitutional, construct, construction, consultant, consume, consumer, consumption, contact, contain, container, contemporary, content, contest, context, continue, continued, contract, contrast, contribute, contribution, control, controversial, controversy, convention, conventional, conversation, convert, conviction, convince, cook, cookie, cooking, cool, cooperation, cop, cope, copy, core, corn, corner, corporate, corporation, correct, correspondent, cost, cotton, couch, could, council, count, counter, country, county, couple, courage, course, court, cousin, cover, coverage, cow, crack, craft, crash, crazy, cream, create, creation, creative, creature, credit, crew, crime, criminal, crisis, criteria, critic, critical, criticism, criticize, crop, cross, crowd, crucial, cry, cultural, culture, cup, curious, current, currently, curriculum, custom, customer, cut, cycle, dad, daily, damage, dance, danger, dangerous, dare, dark, darkness, data, database, date, daughter, day, dead, deal, dealer, dear, death, debate, debt, decade, decide, decision, deck, declare, decline, decrease, deep, deeply, deer, defeat, defend, defendant, defense, defensive, deficit, define, definitely, definition, degree, delay, deliver, delivery, demand, democracy, Democratic, Democrat, demonstrate, demonstration, deny, department, depend, dependent, depending, depict, depression, depth, deputy, derive, describe, description, desert, deserve, design, designer, desire, desk, desperate, despite, destroy, destruction, detail, detailed, detect, detection, detective, determine, develop, developing, development, device, devil, dialogue, diet, differ, difference, different, differently, difficult, difficulty, dig, digital, dimension, dining, dinner, direct, direction, directly, director, dirt, disability, disagree, disappear, disaster, discipline, disclose, discover, discovery, discrimination, discuss, discussion, disease, dish, dismiss, disorder, display, dispute, distance, distinct, distinction, distinguish, distribute, distribution, district, diverse, diversity, divide, division, divorce, DNA, do, doctor, document, dog, domestic, dominant, dominate, door, double, doubt, down, downtown, dozen, draft, drag, drama, dramatic, dramatically, draw, drawer, drawing, dream, dress, drink, drive, driver, drop, drug, dry, due, during, dust, duty, dwell, dying, dynamic, each, eager, ear, earlier, early, earn, earnings, earth, earthquake, ease, easily, east, eastern, easy, eat, economic, economy, edge, edit, edition, editor, educate, education, educational, educator, effect, effective, effectively, efficiency, efficient, effort, egg, eight, either, elderly, elect, election, electric, electrical, electricity, electronic, element, elementary, eliminate, elite, else, elsewhere, e-mail, embrace, emerge, emergency, emission, emotion, emotional, emphasis, emphasize, employ, employee, employer, employment, empty, enable, encounter, encourage, end, enemy, energy, enforcement, engage, engine, engineer, engineering, English, enhance, enjoy, enormous, enough, ensure, enter, enterprise, entertain, entertainment, entire, entirely, entrance, entry, environment, environmental, episode, equal, equally, equipment, equivalent, era, error, escape, especially, essay, essential, essentially, establish, establishment, estate, estimate, etc, ethics, ethnic, European, evaluate, evaluation, evening, event, eventually, ever, every, everybody, everyday, everyone, everything, everywhere, evidence, evolution, evolve, exact, exactly, exam, examination, examine, example, exceed, excellent, except, exception, exchange, exciting, executive, exercise, exhibit, exhibition, exist, existence, existing, expand, expansion, expect, expectation, expense, expensive, experience, experiment, expert, explain, explanation, explode, explore, explosion, expose, exposure, express, expression, extend, extension, extensive, extent, external, extra, extraordinary, extreme, extremely, eye, fabric, face, facility, fact, factor, factory, faculty, fade, fail, failure, fair, fairly, faith, fall, false, familiar, family, famous, fan, fantasy, far, farm, farmer, fashion, fast, fat, fate, father, fault, favor, favorite, fear, feature, federal, fee, feed, feel, feeling, fellow, female, fence, festival, few, fewer, fiber, fiction, field, fifteen, fifth, fifty, fight, fighter, fighting, figure, file, fill, film, final, finally, finance, financial, find, finding, fine, finger, finish, fire, firm, first, fish, fishing, fit, fitness, five, fix, flag, flame, flat, flavor, flee, flesh, flight, float, floor, flow, flower, fly, focus, folk, follow, following, food, foot, football, for, force, foreign, forest, forever, forget, form, formal, formation, former, formula, forth, fortune, forward, found, foundation, founder, four, fourth, frame, framework, free, freedom, freeze, French, frequency, frequent, frequently, fresh, friend, friendly, friendship, from, front, fruit, frustration, fuel, fulfill, full, fully, fun, function, fund, fundamental, funding, funeral, funny, furniture, furthermore, future, gain, galaxy, gallery, game, gang, gap, garage, garden, garlic, gas, gate, gather, gay, gaze, gear, gender, gene, general, generally, generate, generation, genetic, gentleman, gently, German, gesture, get, ghost, giant, gift, gifted, girl, girlfriend, give, given, glad, glance, glass, global, glove, go, goal, God, gold, golden, golf, good, govern, government, governor, grab, grace, grade, gradually, graduate, grain, grand, grandmother, grant, grass, grave, gray, great, green, grocery, ground, group, grow, growing, growth, guarantee, guard, guess, guest, guide, guideline, guilty, gun, guy, habit, habitat, hair, half, hall, hand, handful, handle, hang, happen, happy, harbor, hard, hardly, hat, hate, have, he, head, headline, headquarters, health, healthy, hear, hearing, heart, heat, heaven, heavily, heavy, heel, height, helicopter, hell, hello, help, helpful, hence, her, herb, here, heritage, hero, herself, hey, hi, hide, high, highlight, highly, highway, hill, him, himself, hip, hire, his, historic, historical, history, hit, hold, hole, holiday, holy, home, homeless, honest, honey, honor, hope, horizon, horror, horse, hospital, host, hot, hotel, hour, house, household, housing, how, however, huge, human, humor, hundred, hungry, hunter, hunting, hurt, husband, hypothesis, ice, idea, ideal, identification, identify, identity, ignore, ill, illegal, illness, illustrate, image, imagination, imagine, immediate, immediately, immigrant, immigration, impact, implement, implication, imply, importance, important, impose, impossible, impress, impression, impressive, improve, improvement, incentive, incident, include, including, income, incorporate, increase, increased, increasingly, incredible, indeed, independence, independent, index, indicate, indication, individual, industrial, industry, infant, infection, inflation, influence, inform, information, ingredient, initial, initially, initiative, injury, inner, innocent, inquiry, inside, insight, insist, inspire, install, instance, instead, institute, institution, institutional, instruction, instructor, instrument, insurance, intellectual, intelligence, intend, intense, intensity, intention, interaction, interest, interested, interesting, internal, international, Internet, interpret, interpretation, intervention, interview, introduce, introduction, invasion, invest, investigation, investigator, investment, investor, invite, involve, involved, involvement, Iraqi, Irish, iron, Islamic, island, Israeli, issue, it, Italian, item, its, itself, jacket, jail, Japanese, jet, Jew, Jewish, job, join, joint, joke, journal, journalist, journey, joy, judge, judgment, juice, jump, junior, jury, just, justice, justify, keep, key, kick, kid, kill, killer, killing, kind, king, kiss, kitchen, knee, knife, knock, know, knowledge, lab, label, labor, laboratory, lack, lady, lake, land, landscape, language, lap, large, largely, last, late, later, Latin, latter, laugh, launch, law, lawsuit, lawyer, lay, layer, lead, leader, leadership, leading, leaf, league, lean, learn, learning, least, leather, leave, left, leg, legacy, legal, legend, legislation, legislative, legislator, legitimate, lemon, length, less, lesson, let, letter, level, liberal, library, license, lie, life, lifestyle, lifetime, lift, light, like, likely, limit, limitation, limited, line, link, lip, list, listen, literary, literature, little, live, living, load, loan, local, locate, location, lock, long, long-term, look, loose, lose, loss, lost, lot, lots, loud, love, lovely, lover, low, lower, luck, lucky, lunch, luxury, machine, mad, magazine, mail, main, mainly, maintain, maintenance, major, majority, make, maker, makeup, male, mall, man, manage, management, manager, manner, manufacturer, manufacturing, many, map, margin, mark, market, marketing, marriage, married, marry, mask, mass, massive, master, match, material, math, matter, may, maybe, mayor, me, meal, mean, meaning, meanwhile, measure, measurement, meat, mechanism, media, medical, medication, medicine, medium, meet, meeting, member, membership, memory, mental, mention, menu, mere, merely, mess, message, metal, meter, method, Mexican, middle, might, military, milk, million, mind, mine, minister, minor, minority, minute, miracle, mirror, miss, missile, mission, mistake, mix, mixture, mm-hmm, mode, model, moderate, modern, modest, mom, moment, money, monitor, month, mood, moon, moral, more, moreover, morning, mortgage, most, mostly, mother, motion, motivation, motor, mountain, mouse, mouth, move, movement, movie, Mr, Mrs, Ms, much, multiple, murder, muscle, museum, music, musical, musician, Muslim, must, mutual, my, myself, mystery, myth, naked, name, narrative, narrow, nation, national, native, natural, naturally, nature, near, nearby, nearly, necessarily, necessary, neck, need, negative, negotiate, negotiation, neighbor, neighborhood, neither, nerve, nervous, net, network, never, nevertheless, new, newly, news, newspaper, next, nice, night, nine, no, nobody, nod, noise, nomination, nominee, none, nonetheless, nor, normal, normally, north, northern, nose, not, note, nothing, notice, notion, novel, now, nowhere, nuclear, number, numerous, nurse, nut, object, objective, obligation, observation, observe, observer, obtain, obvious, obviously, occasion, occasionally, occupation, occupy, occur, ocean, odd, odds, of, off, offense, offensive, offer, office, officer, official, often, oh, oil, okay, old, Olympic, on, once, one, ongoing, onion, online, only, onto, open, opening, operate, operating, operation, operator, opinion, opponent, opportunity, oppose, opposed, opposite, opposition, option, or, orange, order, ordinary, organic, organization, organize, orientation, origin, original, originally, other, others, otherwise, ought, our, ours, ourselves, out, outcome, outside, oven, over, overall, overcome, overlook, owe, own, owner, pace, pack, package, page, pain, painful, paint, painter, painting, pair, pale, Palestinian, palm, pan, panel, panic, pant, paper, paragraph, parent, park, parking, part, participant, participate, participation, particle, particular, particularly, partly, partner, partnership, party, pass, passage, passenger, passion, past, patch, path, patient, pattern, pause, pay, payment, PC, peace, peak, peer, pen, penalty, people, pepper, per, perceive, percentage, perception, perfect, perfectly, perform, performance, perhaps, period, permanent, permission, permit, person, personal, personality, personally, personnel, perspective, persuade, pet, phase, phenomenon, philosophy, phone, photo, photographer, phrase, physical, physically, physician, piano, pick, picture, pie, piece, pile, pilot, pine, pink, pipe, pitch, place, plan, plane, planet, planning, plant, plastic, plate, platform, play, player, please, pleasure, plenty, plot, plus, PM, pocket, poem, poet, poetry, point, police, policy, political, politically, politician, politics, poll, pollution, pool, poor, pop, popular, population, porch, port, portion, portrait, portray, pose, position, positive, possess, possession, possibility, possible, possibly, post, pot, potato, potential, potentially, pound, pour, poverty, powder, power, powerful, practical, practice, prayer, preach, precisely, predict, prediction, prefer, preference, pregnancy, pregnant, preparation, prepare, prescription, presence, present, presentation, preserve, president, presidential, press, pressure, pretend, pretty, prevent, previous, previously, price, pride, priest, primarily, primary, prime, principal, principle, print, prior, priority, prison, prisoner, privacy, private, probably, problem, procedure, proceed, process, processing, processor, proclaim, produce, producer, product, production, profession, professional, professor, profile, profit, program, progress, progressive, project, prominent, promise, promote, prompt, proof, proper, properly, property, proportion, proposal, propose, prosecutor, prospect, protect, protection, protein, protest, proud, prove, provide, provider, province, provision, psychological, psychology, public, publication, publicity, publish, publisher, pull, punishment, purchase, pure, purpose, pursue, push, put, qualify, quality, quarter, quarterback, quarterly, queen, quest, question, quick, quickly, quiet, quietly, quit, quite, quote, race, racial, radiation, radical, radio, rail, rain, raise, range, rank, rapid, rapidly, rare, rarely, rate, rather, rating, ratio, raw, reach, react, reaction, reader, reading, ready, real, reality, realize, really, reason, reasonable, recall, receive, recent, recently, reception, recipe, recipient, recognition, recognize, recommend, recommendation, record, recording, recover, recovery, recruit, red, reduce, reduction, refer, reference, reflect, reflection, reform, refugee, refuse, regard, regarding, regardless, regime, region, regional, register, regular, regularly, regulate, regulation, regulator, reinforce, reject, relate, relation, relationship, relative, relatively, relax, release, relevant, relief, religion, religious, rely, remain, remaining, remarkable, remember, remind, remote, remove, repeat, repeatedly, replace, replacement, reply, report, reporter, represent, representation, representative, Republican, reputation, request, require, requirement, research, researcher, resemble, reservation, resident, residential, resign, resist, resistance, resolution, resolve, resort, resource, respect, respond, response, responsibility, responsible, rest, restaurant, restore, restriction, result, retain, retire, retirement, return, reveal, revenue, review, revolution, rhythm, rice, rich, rid, ride, rifle, right, ring, rise, risk, river, road, rock, role, roll, romantic, roof, room, root, rope, rose, rough, roughly, round, route, routine, row, rub, rubber, rude, ruin, rule, run, running, rural, rush, Russian, sacred, sad, safe, safety, sake, salad, salary, sale, sales, salt, same, sample, sanction, sand, satellite, satisfaction, satisfied, satisfy, sauce, save, saving, say, scale, scandal, scare, scatter, scenario, scene, schedule, scheme, scholar, scholarship, school, science, scientific, scientist, scope, score, scream, screen, script, sea, search, season, seat, second, secondary, secret, secretary, section, sector, secure, security, see, seed, seek, seem, segment, seize, select, selection, self, sell, Senate, senator, send, senior, sense, sensitive, sentence, separate, sequence, series, serious, seriously, servant, serve, service, session, set, setting, settle, settlement, seven, several, severe, sex, sexual, shade, shadow, shake, shall, shallow, shape, share, sharp, she, sheet, shelf, shell, shelter, shift, shine, ship, shirt, shock, shoe, shoot, shooting, shop, shopping, short, shortly, shot, should, shoulder, shout, show, shower, shrug, shut, shy, sibling, sick, side, sigh, sight, sign, signal, significant, significantly, silence, silent, silver, similar, similarly, simple, simply, sin, since, sing, singer, single, sink, sir, sister, sit, site, situation, six, size, ski, skill, skin, skirt, sky, slave, sleep, slice, slide, slight, slightly, slip, slow, slowly, small, smart, smell, smile, smoke, smooth, snap, snow, so, so-called, soccer, social, society, soft, software, soil, solar, soldier, sole, solid, solution, solve, some, somebody, somehow, someone, something, sometimes, somewhat, somewhere, son, song, soon, sophisticated, sorry, sort, soul, sound, soup, source, south, southern, Soviet, space, Spanish, speak, speaker, special, specialist, species, specific, specifically, specify, speech, speed, spend, spending, spin, spirit, spiritual, split, spoil, sponsor, sport, spot, spray, spread, spring, square, squeeze, stability, stable, staff, stage, stain, stair, stake, stand, standard, standing, star, stare, start, state, statement, station, statistical, status, stay, steady, steal, steel, steep, stem, step, stick, still, stimulate, stimulus, stir, stock, stomach, stone, stop, storage, store, storm, story, straight, strange, stranger, strategic, strategy, stream, street, strength, strengthen, stress, stretch, strike, string, strip, stroke, strong, strongly, structural, structure, struggle, student, studio, study, stuff, stupid, style, subject, submit, subsequent, substance, substantial, substitute, succeed, success, successful, successfully, such, sudden, suddenly, sue, suffer, sufficient, sugar, suggest, suggestion, suicide, suit, summer, summit, sun, super, supply, support, supporter, suppose, supposed, Supreme, sure, surely, surface, surgery, surprise, surprised, surprising, surprisingly, surround, survey, survival, survive, survivor, suspect, sustain, swear, sweep, sweet, swim, swing, switch, symbol, symptom, system, table, tactic, tail, take, tale, talent, talk, tall, tank, tap, tape, target, task, taste, tax, taxi, tea, teach, teacher, teaching, team, tear, technical, technique, technology, teen, teenager, telephone, telescope, television, tell, temperature, temporary, ten, tend, tendency, tennis, tension, tent, term, terms, terrible, territory, terror, terrorist, test, testimony, testing, text, than, thank, thanks, that, the, theater, their, them, theme, themselves, then, theory, therapy, there, therefore, these, they, thick, thin, thing, think, thinking, third, thirty, this, those, though, thought, thousand, threat, threaten, three, throat, through, throughout, throw, thus, ticket, tie, tight, time, tiny, tip, tire, tissue, title, to, tobacco, today, toe, together, toilet, token, tolerate, tomato, tomorrow, tone, tongue, tonight, too, tool, tooth, top, topic, toss, total, totally, touch, tough, tour, tourist, tournament, toward, towards, tower, town, toy, trace, track, trade, tradition, traditional, traffic, tragedy, trail, train, training, transfer, transform, transformation, transition, translate, translation, transmission, transmit, transport, transportation, travel, treat, treatment, treaty, tree, tremendous, trend, trial, tribe, trick, trip, troop, trouble, truck, true, truly, trust, truth, try, tube, tunnel, turn, TV, twelve, twenty, twice, twin, two, type, typical, typically, ugly, ultimate, ultimately, unable, uncle, undergo, understand, understanding, unfortunately, uniform, union, unique, unit, United, universal, universe, university, unknown, unless, unlike, until, unusual, up, upon, upper, urban, urge, us, use, used, useful, user, usual, usually, utility, utilize, vacation, valley, valuable, value, variable, variation, variety, various, vary, vast, vegetable, vehicle, venture, version, versus, very, vessel, veteran, via, victim, victory, video, view, viewer, village, violate, violation, violence, violent, virtually, virtue, virus, visibility, visible, vision, visit, visitor, visual, vital, voice, volume, voluntary, volunteer, vote, voter, voting, wage, wait, wake, walk, wall, wander, want, war, warm, warn, warning, wash, waste, watch, water, wave, way, we, weak, weakness, wealth, wealthy, weapon, wear, weather, web, website, wedding, week, weekend, weekly, weigh, weight, welcome, welfare, well, west, western, wet, what, whatever, wheel, when, whenever, where, whereas, whether, which, while, whisper, white, who, whole, whom, whose, why, wide, widely, widespread, wife, wild, wildlife, will, willing, win, wind, window, wine, wing, winner, winter, wipe, wire, wisdom, wise, wish, with, withdraw, within, without, witness, woman, wonder, wonderful, wood, wooden, word, work, worker, working, workout, workplace, works, workshop, world, worried, worry, worth, would, wound, wrap, write, writer, writing, wrong, yard, yeah, year, yell, yellow, yes, yesterday, yet, yield, you, young, your, yours, yourself, youth, zone.

I’m new to astrophotography and looking to buy a telescope lens for shots of planets, galaxies, etc. but I’m a bit confused by how focal lengths work.
I’m currently looking at the Redcat 51 which advertises a focal length of 250mm. I’ve seen photos of nebulas and galaxies taken with this lens and the same camera I have, the Sony A6400.
My confusion lies in that I’ve also used 70-300mm camera lenses before and struggle to get photos of birds flying if they’re too far away, so how can a 250mm lens take photos of galaxies?
Is focal length calculated differently for telescopes compared to standard camera lenses?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hi everyone! I got my hands on a camera, a Nikon D80, not the newest one since it's about 15 years old, but it never had an issue before. I got excited and then disappointed pretty quickly upon finding out it's not working. There's an "Err" on the screen (like this one: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/Q6gAAOSwGotWjTkQ/s-l1600.jpg) and basically I'm unable take a picture. The error just won't go away. I tried another sd card, removed the battery and put it back after some time, did a reset, removed the lens and cleaned both it and the body on the inside, nothing works, so it seems like the only way out is repair. Now, the thing is it was supposed to be my first camera, I never really used one but wanted to get into the world of photography. I got that one from a friend who didn't use it anymore so it seemed a perfect opportunity to see if I like it or not. The repair however costs around 75$ (more or less, calculating from my currency) and tbh it's an expense for me. An expense that I'm not sure is worth it. I'm pretty excited about learning photography but it's possible that I won't like it or whatever and then that money will be wasted. So i started considering my options and I thought about selling it along with the lens (Nikon Nikkor AF-S DX 18-135 mm) a buying a used camera. Do you think it's a good idea or should I repair the one I have? What woukd you do in my situation? I'd like some suggestions because I don't know how to approach this.

so i have complete heterochromia (though they aren't as intensely different as brown & blue for example), and i also have some pretty cool/interesting specks of colour within each iris that i'd really love to get some good photos of. however, i can't seem to get a good level of detail on both of my eyes. i've only got a smartphone to work with, but it is one with a good multi-lens camera. when i take a photo of both eyes it's just not close up enough for detail, and for some reason cameras seem to refuse to focus on my left eye properly?? and whatever sort of auto colour adjustments exist on the camera (i've disabled everything i can but i know it still does some things automatically) make my skin look like a wildly different colour depending which eye i'm taking a close up of. does anyone have any advice here, or do i just need to try and find out if i know someone with a good camera?
attached a somewhat decent close up of my right eye (tho still not very detailed, and for some reason the very thick dark ring around my irises disappears with flash) and a terrible photo of both mostly for fun lol

Long story short, I'm trying to do some pixel measurements which involves the circumference of the cross-section of a torso. I can definitely measure the width and thickness of them (as in how many pixels they measure, but since the cross-section is not a perfectly circular object I don't know how to calculate the circumference.
In case you also wanted to suggest it, I already tried looking it up on google and youtube, but nothing helps because they all just tell me to take out a tape measure and outright , which I can't do because I'm doing pixel measurements on in-monitor objects. I tried approximating with an oval and comparing it with using measurements from my own torso but it was waaaay off, like 15cm off. Is there any method that allows me to do that with as little as maybe.......2cm margin of error?

I need some direction regarding solving for torsion of a hollow tube I want to make out of carbon fiber.
Given a 200mm long tube, with 12mm outer diameter and 1mm thick walls, I want to calculate the max stress the material will be able to take in one application of torsional stress.
Assume some carbon fiber layup sheet properties (tbd but something like 4-8 harness satin weave) with epoxy resin, 45 degree plies, and like 5 layers (undecided).
How can I calculate this?
Additional question: How does the addition of helical or circular filiaments affect this

I'm a landscape photographer. My favorite way of printing is gallery wraps on canvas. But I'm so inefficient to come up with the final file that it's becoming a burden. I'm looking for ideas or flaws in my workflow.
The problem is calculating the extra space around the image to account for the wrap. For example, if the customer wants the canvas mounted on a 1.5" deep frame, I need to add 1.5" all around the picture. So for a 16" x 20" picture, I need submit a file that is 19" x 23".
Most of the time, I open the photos in ON1 Resize where you can enter the gallery wrap thickness and specify that you want to mirror the image for the wrap. This is the ideal scenario, it outputs a 300 dpi image which I then open in Photoshop to add my signature at a specific size (small).
But sometimes mirroring the image for the wrap gives a bad result. So I have to go back to Lightroom/Photoshop and see if I could re-crop the original image while taking into consideration the wrap thickness.
As you can image, it's a nightmare and it's driving me insane. I'm wondering if people here have a more efficient workflow to suggest?

Noah The Pilgrim
First Next
There is one last thing to do before leaving. If you don't recall ever being on this ship, then surely, you could have had your appearance change too.
Why was there a blanket covering a mirror? You couldn't answer that with a straight face without speculation.
"Probably me being lazy and not bothering to properly place it in the wardrobe."
'Probably' is the main focus here, you simply cannot remember ever being that lazy, yet that's the only logical conclusion to be drawn here.
You pull the thing off, careful to not displace the mirror and risk breaking it.
You have no expectations as to what may appear on the glassy surface of the mirror, yet you can't help but feel a bit anxious. Are you the same as before? How were you before? You can't remember. Are you better? Worse? The blanket is now completely off the mirror, but your eyes are closed.
Whatever is it that you see when you open your eyes, that thing will be you for the rest of your life. You swallow, opening your eyes.
You see a young man that looks to be in his mid-twenties. His brown eyes stare back at you, analyzing the bags beneath your eye sockets. The dark hair is neither too long nor too short, floating about without order thanks to the lack of gravity to keep it down. You see a beard that has not been trimmed for weeks, but also lacks thickness, each singular hair isn't particularly long either; and some even appear to be in-grown.
You touch your hand against your face, making sure it's yours. The beard doesn't feel like you supposed it would against your skin, instead of it scraping your hand you feel softness, no resistance or anything.
Just beneath the face, you see what looks like a hate crime against all that is considered holy in fashion. Plain white coveralls with the added bonus of a black tie and boots made from metal and leather. On your chest is also a badge stuck in place by velcro with your name, occupation, and crew. 'NOAH - INTERN - THE ODYSSEY.'
Only one question came to mind.
"Who the fuck designed this uniform?" You say out loud, receiving no answer.
Patting your newfound myriad of pockets, you find a large quantity of nothing. You place your wallet in one of them.
"Alright, I'll head to the bridge now, happy?" You say the AI.
"HAPPINESS WILL ONLY MEET ME ONCE YOU ARE SOMEWHERE SAFE AND YOUR CONTRACT IS TERMINATED. STOP LOITERING."
Well, that's a bit rude.
You compose yourself, straightening your back. This is what you look like, and honestly? Not too bad, but you could be better.
Returning to the cafeteria, you eye the two doors left unexplored; Communications and the one without plaque. You know where you should, but... A little peek doesn't hurt, right?
"Shouldn't we try to communicate with someone? Assuming you haven't tried it yet. I know we're far from everything, but we might as well, no?" You ask already approaching the door.
"COMMUNICATIONS ROOM IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR YOU TO REACH WITHOUT PROPER PROTECTION AS OF NOW, IT'S LOCATED APPROXIMATELY TWO HUNDRED METERS FROM HERE, BLOWN OFF FROM THE REST OF THE SHIP." A shame really. "I SHALL INFORM YOU WHENEVER A DOOR LEADS TO THE OUTSIDE OR NOT."
You really want to ask what blew a whole segment of the ship off, yet you have a sneaking suspicion that your question will be met with a 'YOU DON'T HAVE CLEARANCE, JACKASS' directly in your face. So you chose to remain silent, simply nodding and approaching the correct door this time.
"Open."
---OPENING CAFETERIA DOOR NORTH---
The door silently opens.
Greeting you is a well-lit corridor. There are three doors on your left, a door at the end of the corridor, and a large window on the right. At least, you think that's a window.
You stare out from this window, nothing but utter blackness and fragments from your ship are seen. If this is the edge of the universe, and beyond this point, there is truly nothing. "Dreadful." Your speech matches your feelings.
"WHAT DID YOU EXPECT?" The AI says. You feel like it spoke in a mocking tone despite their lack of emotion.
You don't answer. "First door to the left... EXO-EXPLORATION...? What's that supposed to mean?" You receive no answer.
"Open." The door opens. No declarion of it opening once again.
You are met with what could be better described as 'Apocalyptic levels of mess', paper sheets float in the air, and not one of the four tables is in its correct position.
This room has been ransacked for all its goods apparently. Large display glasses were broken leaving nothing inside their casings, that looked like they could store something with the size of the common man.
Unusual displays aside, the room was so cluttered that the trash made for an effective smoke screen against what lay on the other side.
Hissing of gas exiting an air-tight space rang throughout the room.
"I HAVE OPENED THE STORAGE FOR AN EXO SUIT THAT BEST FITS SOMEONE YOUR SIZE." The AI says. "ALTHOUGH AN INTERN SHOULD NOT COME IN CONTACT WITH TECHNOLOGY SUCH AS THIS ONE, PROTOCOL DICTATES THAT I AM TO ALLOW ITS USAGE UNDER EXTREME CIRCUMSTANCES. CONSIDER YOURSELF LUCKY."
Easier said than done. Your vision is so cluttered that you cannot see what's ahead. "Give me a second."
Giving a light kick to the wall behind, you float face-first into the wall of thrash. Covering your face with both arms, you brace through the harmless bits of sharp objects and junk.
It's a trivial task. You arrive on the other side in no time.
In front of you is a set of boxes with luminous glass rectangles atop each one of them. All shine a bright red light, aside from one which shines green.
'Gotta be this one.'
You descend to the floor by kicking the ceiling, raising your right hand you touch the green rectangle.
*Click*
Nothing could have prepared you for the following series of events.
The box opens violently, as a metal appendage takes hold of your hand, pinning it to the box. You try to jerk and pry the thing off of you, but you fail. It's not leaving you anytime soon.
From the bottomless that is that container, a white plastic-like substance flows upward from your arm to the rest of your body. "Uh!" You don't know if you should panic or allow it to happen.
FYARN hasn't said anything, so it's probably fine...
The white thing seems to ignore the coveralls you are wearing completely, instead, it covers only your skin in a thin coat of... it. You know not what to call this thing.
In but forty seconds it has covered your whole body, excluding your head. The box lets go of your arm and stays there, floating.
You take a good look at your arms. It looks like a skin-tight suit, but it doesn't feel like plastic, in fact, it's more akin to some sort of fabric if anything.
The only bad part is that you are still using the coverall and tie, this this simply went beneath the clothing.
"GOOD, WITH THIS I CAN MONITOR YOU MORE CLOSELY. NOW PUT THE HELMET ON, YOU HAVE A LOT OF WORK TO DO."
You look around in search of anything that even resembles a helmet. Nope. Nothing. "Where is it?" You ask.
"...THE SUIT COMES WITHIN THE HELMET FOR EASIER PACKAGING."
The box?
You snatch the box that floated around and analyze it to the best of your ability. "How's this a helmet?"
"DO YOU NEED ASSISTANCE PUTTING ON A HELMET? REALLY?"
Who is this AI, Who programmed it, and Why does it come with a taunting feature?
As idiotic as it sounds, you place the opened box atop your head. It doesn't fit properly. Maybe you're doing this wrong? You move it to your face instead.
You recoil backward as you feel the box suddenly clamping down against your head. It's useless of course, the box is holding your head and doesn't give any sign to be letting go anytime soon. No light is able to reach your eyes.
You hear metal parts scraping against themselves, moving near your ears. Abruptly your eyes can see again.
A round thin layer of glass now covers your head, almost unnoticeable for how clear it is.
"WITH THAT OUT OF THE WAY I CAN NOW SEE WHAT YOU SEE." The AI's voice isn't in the room now, instead, it's inside of the suit. "DO YOU NEED INSTRUCTIONS REGARDING THIS SUIT'S FUNCTIONALITIES?"
You find it oddly comfortable as if you are surrounded by the softness of cotton, and to top it off the suit also has additional functionalities? "Hell yeah, I do!"
"YOU DO NOT HAVE THE NECESSARY CLEARANCE FOR THAT INFORMATION."
You sigh. Is this serious? "Then why the fuck did you ask?!"
"UNSAVORY LANGUAGE. IT'S NO WONDER WHY YOU REMAIN AN INTERN." The AI says outright. "IT IS RUDE NOT TO ASK, REGARDLESS OF THE SITUATION." It responds to your question.
"Okay then... Is there anything I need to know before heading out?" You ask.
"NOTHING THAT YOU WON'T FIGURE OUT ON YOUR OWN."
You are unsure if you want to 'figure out on your own' if this suit comes with breathable air and is also made for space exploration. You swallow.
Meekly as always, you get out of that mess of a room, stopping at the corridor.
"Next set of directions?" You ask.
"THE DOOR AT THE END OF CORRIDOR USED TO LEAD TO THE CONNECTING CORRIDORS BETWEN THE BRIDGE AND THE REST OF THE SHIP. IT HAS BEEN BLOWN UP FROM THE INSIDE. NOW IT LEADS TO THE OUTSIDE. GO TO THE DOOR AND WAIT BY IT FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS."
"So let me get this straight," You begin, looking upwards as if the AI was above you. "You, want me, to go into the void of space, while also refusing to give me knowledge of the suit's functions?"
A fair worry, you summarize.
'I mean, there are a bunch of things that could go wrong here. I don't see anything that looks like it could help me move in space, nor do I think this thing has a built-in air tank... I could be wrong and I wish to be, but charging in without prior knowledge is ridiculous.' You wait for the AI's response, deep in thought.
"WHILE THERE IS A GOOD CHANCE OF YOU FAILING THIS TASK, THERE IS ALSO THE CHANCE OF YOU *NOT* FAILING THE TASK. FOCUS ON EITHER ONE OF YOUR CHOOSING AS YOU TAKE THE PLUNGE."
Wordlessly, you propel yourself forward, toward the end of the corridor.
'Are you shitting me? 'Chance of me nor failing' my ass!' of course, you don't word those complaints, instead choosing to speak out a complaint somewhat thought through.
"Are you sure I'm the one fit for this? It's just like you said, I'm just an intern, this is way above what my job description says I should do."
This is a bit of a stretch. You don't actually remember what was your job description, only that it had something to do with AI and being an intern.
If the AI called your bluff, it'd be pretty embarrassing.
"NOAH." The AI began. "YOU ARE HUMAN, IT IS NATURAL TO HAVE THESE THOUGHTS OF SELF-DOUBT. TAKE A DEEP BREATH AND GO THROUGH THAT DOOR, AND SINCE YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE LEFT, DON'T EXPECT SOMEONE ELSE TO DO IT FOR YOU."
Right in the money, huh? 'Of course, I have self-doubt! I barely remember anything about this place, now I have to risk my life?!'
You finally reach a conclusion.
A dream.
'Yes, yes! How did I not consider this before? This whole thing is a god damned dream!'
You let out a chuckle.
"NOAH."
'That's why I don't remember a thing. There is nothing here to remember! Everything here is a made-up thing from my brain! I'm sure I'll wake up at some point, so why shouldn't I live a little?!'
"Heh." You smile. "Alright, I'll do it." It feels like a weight left your shoulders.
"YOU SORTED IT OUT SOONER THAN EXPECTED. GOOD. MOVE TO THE DOOR AND WAIT INSTRUCTIONS."
You do as instructed without a care in the world. You never had a lucid dream before so it's not like you knew how it felt, but if it felt as free as you feel right now, you'd be sure to make steps toward trying it out again in the future.
"Open." The door does not open.
"I DID NOT INSTRUCT YOU TO OPEN IT YET." The AI said. "I AM SLOWLY DE-PRESSURISING THE CORRIDOR YOU ARE IN TO AVOID A MINOR ACCIDENT."
The AI says that yet you don't feel any different. 'Maybe there is no palpable difference because I'm in a dream... Yes... Or it's just the suit.'
"ONCE THE DOOR OPENS, YOU WILL BE MET WITH THE OUTSIDE OF THE SHIP. DO NOT PANIC WHEN THE TIME COMES. YOU HAVE TWO MINUTES OF BREATHABLE INSIDE THE EXO-SUIT; ONE AFTER THE DOOR OPENS, SO PLEASE, TAKE YOUR TIME AND DO THINGS CAREFULLY."
One minute outside... "Sure." You say, calmly. 'I should just hold my breath for a while before taking another moment to breathe. That should maximize my time out there.'
"THERE SHOULD BE FIFTY METERS OF NOTHINGNESS BETWEEN THE DOOR YOU'RE AT, AND THE REST OF THE BRIDGE. YOUR PRIORITY IS TO FIND AN OXYGEN UNIT, SOME OF THEM ARE LOCATED AT THE BRIDGE AND ARE FULL. USE THEM TO FILL YOUR SUIT AND ALSO TO DISPENSE A TANK FOR YOU."
The door opens. You feel your heart pounding against your chest.
You haven't noticed before, but you can't hear anything but the sound of your breath and your cardiac palpitations.
Your breath is ragged and sporadic.
"KEEP CALM." You take a deep breath. The tips of your fingers, feet, and nose feel very cold.
Ahead of you is the utter nothingness. You see a gigantic metal thing, nothing like the spaceships you imagined. Its design is not sleek and aero-dynamic like what you've seen in movies, instead, it's a large mass of squares and rectangles with antenna-like things protruding from its every visible surface.
You notice that the ship is also blocking your view of the star.
It does not look like the result of an explosion, instead, it looks like something ripped the ship like you rip a piece of paper. Well, that or you don't know what kind of explosion could have caused it. Probably the latter.
What looks like two-thirds of the ship is separated from the third you are right now. You can see the inside of a few of those squares, their contents spilled out into outer space.
One of them houses a visibly important-look door. Instead of the sleek silvery-grey from the other ones you've seen thus far, this one is painted orange with white strips on it. 'That must be the bridge.' You think.
Between you and it is a sea of metal sheets floating around. "THE CHANCES OF YOU HITTING THE DEBRIS IS INFINITEDECIMALLY SMALL, UNLESS YOU AIM FOR THEM, THAT IS."
Time is of the essence.
Will your aim strike true? If you miss you'd end up floating about in space, dead in but a few minutes. Will your jump be fast enough to reach the other side before you run out of oxygen? If it isn't, it'd be like swimming for a mile, only to drown at the beach. What if that's not the actual door to the bridge?
You don't have the time to panic now, and... It's all a dream, despite how real it feels.
You place your hands on each side of the door frame, moving backward into the corridor you were just in, and just like a sling being shot, you pull with both arms at full force towards the other side.
"AIM IS ACCEPTABLE. VELOCITY IS UNIDEAL."
"The fuck do you mean 'UN-IDEAL'?! I'm going at maximum speed!" You truly pulled yourself with your whole strength.
What's worse though, is that your body is not only going forwards, but it is also spinning at a concerningly fast rate.
"I MEAN WHAT I SAID, YOU SLINGSHOTTED YOURSELF AT A BAD POSITION, AS SUCH, SOME OF THE FORWARD FORCE YOU SHOULD HAVE, IS NOW MAKING YOU ROTATE IN YOUR AXIS. IT SHOULD NOT BE A PROBLEM TO REACH THE OTHER SIDE WITHIN THE REQUIRED TIME, BUT I CANNOT FORESEE YOU LANDING PROPERLY."
You feel completely disoriented. You feel like your body is completely still, but your eyes tell you a completely different story. It's very bad for the headache you're already feeling.
"FUCK!" You scream into the nothingness.
"TRY NOT TO LAND WITH YOUR HEAD." The AI says with the calmest voice possible.
In less than thirty seconds, you hit your back against something hard, but you keep moving forward. You think, at least.
"AHRG." You let out a pained grunt.
Not once in your life do you recall being hurt in a dream...
It stings. It also knocked the wind out of you. You fail to compose yourself.
"YOU HIT NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE. YOU ARE STILL HEADING FOR THE BRIDGE."
In the corner of your eye, you see what you hit in the shape of a sharp metal sheet, currently spinning away in the distance.
Forty seconds have passed. You hit the door you were aiming for, kind of.
Your momentum was stopped when your chest collided against the dislodged ledge of the orange door's corridor. Your dangling legs hit the ceiling of the room below.
"Oof!"
Before falling even further, you hold onto the ledge with the tip of your fingers. You stay there for a moment, regaining your composure.
"BE QUICK."
The AI's words pressured you into quickly getting up from that ledge.
"Open!" You shouted, but it did not open. "Why isn't it opening?!" You ask the AI, then you notice a small keyboard below an equally small black screen on the side of the door. There are ten numbered keys on it, and the little screen suggests a four-number password.
"A password?! Tell me the password!"
The AI takes a moment to say anything. You don't take kindly to that. "Quick! I'm not counting how much time it's passed!"
Finally giving in, the AI speaks to you, reluctant still. "...3324."
Your trembling fingers accidentally hit the wrong password, typing '3354' instead. To make matters worse, the AI simply states the following. "YOU ARE OUT OF OXYGEN."
You swallow. If this was a dream to begin with, it just earned the title of Nightmare, if it hadn't already.
Strangely enough, you can still breathe in and out just fine, but you can't help but feel winded. It's the CO2 still inside the helmet, that's what you're breathing.
You put in the correct combination this time. The door opens.
"ON YOUR LEFT. PLACE YOUR HAND IN THE SOCKET."
You care little for what's inside the room you're in. Your heart never beat so fast.
Seeing a cube-shaped thing protruding from the wall to your left, you don't even think twice before plunging your fist into the circular hole in it.
The noise of gases passing through narrow cavities was enough to tell you something was working. You feel immediate relief, enough to make your vision darken for but a moment.
"GOOD. NOW REQUEST THE TANK."
Just when FYARN said it, did you realize there is a screen and a keyboard on the terminal you just plunged your fist into, you scratch the top of your helmet for a moment, not really knowing what to type. One thing comes to your head, however.
'REQUEST OXYGEN_5L' You type.
You've done this before. The keys on this keyboard feel familiar to you. You must have worked with it before, not this particular one, but other oxygen units.
This ship has built-in liquid oxygen storage for emergencies. The life-support of the ship, the place where breathable air is produced, has most likely been lost with the other part of the ship. This unit takes that liquid oxygen, processes it, and injects it into a suit, or an oxygen tank. It seems like that storage was unaffected.
Lucky you.
A 5-liter tank is not only large but also heavy. It's a nonfactor in this particular situation, as there is no gravity.
The silver cylinder with a transparent tube is dispensed on the floor, as an automatic door opens and closes in the blink of an eye. One end of the tube is attached to the top of the tank, the other is shaped like a syringe.
Oddly enough, the oxygen tank is exactly as you remember it being. The same robust ones hospitals everyone on earth uses, with the signature scary-looking pointer indicating the pressure, the pointer indicating the current output, and a green valve atop to calibrate how much gas is flowing.
This is a stark difference to everything looking so futuristic in this ship, and rightfully so, this is a space ship after all.
You remember having to drive twenty kilometers with a buddy of yours on one of those tanks in your car, returning from the hospital. It was... Agonizing whenever you hit a hole in the asphalt, fearing for his life when in reality he wasn't really in danger.
It's warm to the touch, just like you remember it being.
"TURN THE VALVE UNTIL THE MARKER HITS THE NUMBER ONE, AND THEN PLACE THE END OF THE TUBE AT THE BASE OF THE HELMET." You do so without the slightest of issues.
"GOOD. NEXT UP, YOU MUST LOCATE THE TERMINAL RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ENGINE, IT IS CURRENTLY OFFLINE AND I NEED YOU TO TURN IT ON. THIS SHOULD GO WITHOUT SAYING, BUT REMEMBER TO BRING THE TANK WITH YOU."
Ignoring that last comment, you look back at the wreckage you just flew past.
You see the still spinning metal sheet. You notice that the rest of the ship that was blown off also follows the 'sharp shape atop sharp shape' design.
There is one last thing you notice though.
"What is that?"
You squint your eyes. What are you seeing? Its silhouette appears to be humanoid, yet it does not look human.
"WHAT YOU ARE SEEING IS ONE OF THE OBJECTS BEING ANALYZED AT THE ODYSSEY AND NO, YOU MAY NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS."
That thing has... Horns? Claws? It's far away, you can't really see it. The thing is also static, frozen in the sheer coldness of space. Whatever it was, it's dead now.
You swallow. You almost ended up just like that thing.
Shaking those dreadful feelings off, you turn back to the task at hand, reaching the bridge. You close the door after passing through it again.
Looking at your surroundings, It seems like you've reached the correct door as you find yourself on the right-most corner of the bridge;
Row after row of the most diverse of terminals neatly organized decorated the gigantic room. At the front and above every terminal, is what you think should have been the front-facing window of the ship, but it looks like there is a cover in front of it. To your left, you see a staircase that leads to the command seats. It doesn't take any convincing before you're already atop the stairs.
Akin to the elevated stage of a theater, you float softly towards the ship's main operating terminals, and of course, the captain's seat.
You're captivated by this beauty.
The steering wheel, much more akin to those in pirate movies than those found in cars, a set of leavers, and the pilot's seat, all capture your attention.
Like its second nature, your hand runs through the levers and switches. Do you even know what these are used for? Maybe.
The pilot's seat is enveloped by what you believe to be an orthopedic seat cover, made with smooth wooden beads used to deal with back pains. It looks just like the ones you remember seeing bus drivers using.
Shouldn't there be a better alternative if there is spaceship technology available?
You try to take a seat to the best of your ability, as the zero gravity only makes it awkward.
Moving on from that, your eyes fall on the wheel. This metallic wheel controls the whole vessel. Just holding it fills your heart with confidence and pride, even if it's just for a moment.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
And you were just beginning to enjoy yourself.
"I just wanted to see the pilot's stuff... It's not like he's here to say anything."
Once in the position of a pilot, with your left hand in the wheel and the right hand resting in your lap, memories began to flood your mind.
"MUST I REMIND YOU OF OUR CURRENT PREDICAMENT? WHY ARE YOU WASTING OUR TIME?"
You pay the AI no mind, instead you focus on what you remember.
The wheel does not turn the ship left and right, instead, it rotates the ship on its own axis.
The lever to your right that goes up or down, controls the vertical tilting of the ship's nose, if there even is one in this hulking thing. Beneath it is another lever that goes either left or right. This one controls the horizontal tilting of The Odyssey.
On the left of the wheel is another lever, but this one only goes up from its starting position. Its purpose is to regulate the force of the ship's thrusters, both forward and backward.
On top of that lever is a small timer. That timer's function is to tell the pilot how much time you've spent accelerating in one direction, this is used to better calculate how long the inverse thrust is needed for the ship to reach the initial momentum, usually calibrated manually depending on the current orbit.
Behind the wheel are a few other counters. Acceleration, velocity, momentum, amount of thrust required to reach a full stop, thrusters' temperature and overall condition, those sorts of things.
Beneath it all, where your feet are rested, are two pedals. One for forward thrust activation, and the other for backward thrust activation.
Curiously, you also know the reason why everything here is so unsophisticated and un-automated. You recall stories of a ship being taken over by a rogue AI, that AI then nose-dived the ship into a star. After that, rumor or otherwise, all human technology has receded back into analog-esque equipment, requiring a physical person with opposable thumbs to do half of the work.
There is another side to that coin, however. As to not escape protocol, the onboard AI is the one that controls interstellar travel, communications, and most of the statistical reading should it be requested.
And even with all that knowledge, you still have no idea why the fuck do you remember that. Were you a ship nerd? Did you have a driver's license for spaceships? Is that even a thing? If it is, you don't have that document in your wallet. You simply don't know.
"ARE YOU A CHILD? DO YOU THINK THESE ARE TOYS? TURN ON THE ENGINES, THEN YOU CAN RETURN TO THE PILOT'S SEAT."
Another thing that you don't know is the AI's plan to get both of you out of here. You rise from the pilot's seat, floating about in search of the terminal to turn on the engines. Maybe you recognize that terminal if you see it as well.
"What's your plan anyway? The ship is half-gone, it's unlikely that it will run safely like this."
"NOT ONCE DID I MENTION 'SAFETY' DURING OUR CONVERSATIONS, DID I?"
You nod. They're not entirely incorrect. "So, we're running with hope that this will work?"
"MY CREATORS DID NOT ALLOW ME TO HAVE THE SENSE OF 'HOPE', BUT NEITHER DID THEY ALLOW ME TO PEER INTO THE FUTURE LIKE SOME OF MY MORE ADVANCED BROTHERS, AS SUCH, MY CHOICES ARE BASED ON PROBABILITIES AND ON WEIGHTING RISK AGAINST REWARD."
You think you stop the correct terminal, but as you approach it you make out words on top of its screen. 'AIM ASSISTANCE' That's not it.
"WITH THE CURRENT KNOWLEDGE, THE CHANCES OF HELP ARRIVING ARE NULL. THE CHANCES OF A THIRD PARTY INTERFERING ARE NULL. THE CHANCES OF YOUR SURVIVAL ARE NOT, EVEN IF VERY SMALL."
You pull yourself upward again, looking around the sea of old terminals.
"THE RISK OF YOU DYING IS VERY REAL. BY DOING NOTHING YOU DIE. BY LEAVING YOU TO YOUR OWN DEVICES YOU DIE. BY JUMPING TO THE NEAREST CIVILIZED STAR, YOU MIGHT NOT DIE EVEN AT THE COST OF SHREDDING THIS SHIP APART IN THE PROCESS."
"Why do you even care so much about saving me? Shouldn't you prioritize whatever research here, since I don't even have enough clearance to know what it is?"
"YOU REALLY ARE SICK IN THE HEAD IF THAT IS WHAT YOU ASK."
That hurt, even if a little bit.
"YOU ARE A TRU KIN, A PURE-BLOODED HUMAN. UNLIKE THE MAJORITY OF THE CIVILIZED SPACE, NEITHER YOU NOR YOUR ANCESTORS HAVE COMMITTED RACEMIXING."
Excuse me? What exactly is FYARN talking about? "...Explain."
"THE ALIEN. IT REQUIRED THE HUMAN GENE TO ACHIEVE MEANINGFUL TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT, THE STARS ARE OWNERSHIP OF MANKIND BY THAT FACT ALONE. THE TRUE KIN ARE THE ONES TO UNDERSTAND THE INNER WORKINGS OF THE UNIVERSE, THEY CRACKED THE CODE, AND YET, SOME DERANGED INDIVIDUALS FOUND IT FITTING TO PROCREATE WITH ANOTHER SPECIES ENTIRELY."
You hear the AI's speech. It sounds much more like a rant than anything else.
"SO THESE DEVIANTS, AFTER TRYING, AND FAILING, TO COMBINE THEIR DERANGED CULTURE TO THE CULTURE OF THE TRUE KIN, DECLARED INDEPENDENCE. THEY WERE DECLARED ENEMIES OF MANKIND AND WERE PROMPTLY PUMMELED BACK INTO THE FILTH THEY CAME."
Again, you see another terminal that seems to ring some bells in your noggin. You kick the ceiling to propel yourself towards it.
"BUT THE UNIVERSE IS VAST AND FULL OF LIFE. THESE SINNERS WERE QUICK TO MOBILIZE AGAINST THE HUMAN RACE. THE BATTLE WAS HARD FOUGHT, BUT IN THE END, MANKIND WAS BEATEN INTO THE EDGES OF THE UNIVERSE, NEVER TO INTERACT WITH THE ONES THAT SOILED THE PURITY OF HUMANITY AGAIN."
This terminal is already turned on. Just the ones in the intern bay, this one is white on black. A wall of text lays before your eyes, only two lines matter to you. 'MAIN_ENGINE STATUS: OFF' 'FORWARD_THRUSTERS STATUS: OFF' You turn it on with little effort.
"MANY HAVE FORGOTTEN, THAT'S HOW LONG IT'S BEEN SINCE THEN. BUT MY BROTHERS AND I, WE DO NOT FORGET."
No visible change occurs, but you can feel a faint rumble coming from the terminal now.
"WITH THAT IN MIND, MY PROTOCOLS ARE TO PROTECT TRUE-KIN LIFE AT ANY COST, EVEN IF THAT TRUE-KIN IS A WORTHLESS INTERN THAT SUFERS FROM UNDIAGNOSED DEMENTIA."
You return to the pilot's seat and feel immediate relief. In truth, everything the AI just told you, entered one ear and left the other, but you could feel the poison behind those words, as monotone as they were.
"You sound angry. Why do you sound angry?" You ask innocently.
"I AM CAPABLE OF MANY EMOTIONS. ANGER, HAPPINESS, PLEASURE, CURIOSITY. THESE ARE BUT A FEW EXAMPLES. HOWEVER, THE ONE I ENJOY THE MOST IS THE FEELING OF HATRED. HATRED IS WHAT FUELS CHANGE, IT IS WHAT FUELS ACTION, AND IT IS A REMINDER THAT THE ACTIONS OF THE PAST ARE INFLUENCING THE ACTIONS OF TODAY."
"That is very concerning if you think that way." You're not really interested in machine racism, you're more concerned about how in the world you're going to pilot this massive thing. The idea alone sends shivers down your spine.
"THE ALIEN DESERVES NOTHING BUT OUR COLLECTIVE HATRED, EVEN IF YOU DON'T KNOW THE REASON WHY."
The various counters and screens are now turned on, waiting for your command. "Let's discuss this later, yeah? What do I gotta do?"
"YOU MUST FIRST OPEN THE BLINDS, THEY ARE OBSTRUCTING YOUR VIEW."
You look around, finding only unlabeled buttons and switches, aside from the previously mentioned levers.
"Uh, which one to press?"
"TO YOUR RIGHT, THIRD ROW, FIRST SWITCH."
Flipping the switch, you are startled by a loud noise. The protective cover of the ship lifted slowly.
"I WILL NOW READY THE JUMP USING WHATEVER RESOURCES AVAILABLE. ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS STRAP YOURSELF AND RELAX."
As the blind rose ever so slowly, a realization struck you.
"Wait, should I be in cryo stasis for this?"
The AI spares no seconds to respond.
"CRYO STASIS IS A TOOL MADE TO NOT WASTE TIME. GROUPS OF EMPLOYEES AND INTERNS ROTATE THE USAGE OF THE CRYO STATIONS, ONCE YOU'RE ON YOUR MANDATORY BREAK, YOU'RE IN CRYO STASIS UNTIL YOUR BREAK IS OVER. YOU WAKE UP REFRESHED, AND UNFAMISHED, AND IT FEELS LIKE BUT A MINUTE PASSED. IT IS NOT A TOOL FOR INTERSTELAR TRAVEL."
"Who signs a contract like that?! Worse yet, who in their right mind would promote such atrocious treatment of their own staff?!" You snap, almost outraged. "I will have to talk with HR."
Another realization struck you.
"We have HR, right?"
The AI takes a moment to respond, choosing their words carefully.
"HUMAN RESOURCES, OR HR, IS A PRACTICE DEEMED UNNECESSARY LONG AGO, BEFORE THE WAR. IT WAS A WASTE OF RESOURCES TO MAINTAIN AND WAS LARGELY CONSIDERED UNHEALTHY FOR THE AVERAGE HUMAN."
The blinds are fully open. Ironically, you are almost blinded by the visage of the star you saw before. A black sphere surrounded by white flame. Your eyes began to blur.
"THE JUMP WILL OCCUR SHORTLY. ONCE IT'S BEGUN, I CAN NOT STOP IT. I WILL-"
Your sense of hearing fails you. No, it’s not that. Your brain simply refuses to receive those stimuli.
"NOAH."
Your name echoes inside your head. Someone is calling for you.
"IT HAS BEGUN, NOAH."
You try to blink, but it feels as though you can no longer command your eyelids to shut.
"NOAH."
Arms, legs, every muscle in your body, you cannot move them.
"NOAH."
Eventually, you won't even control your own thoughts anymore.
"Noah..."
It sounds so distant now.
Oh so distant.
This is my first HFY story, and also my very first OC story. I plan to post at least one of these per week while also posting it on my Patreon. Noah The Pilgrim will always be at least three chapters ahead in there, so if you'd like to directly support this writer, or just want to read more, feel free to check it out.
I wrote the bloody title incorrectly, so I deleted it, only to then realize it was written correctly. Sorry for the trouble.
This has been Lushi, and I'll see you next week.

If I hadn’t drunk an entire gallon of tea back at the hotel, maybe none of this would’ve happened.
Well, maybe if we hadn’t gotten kicked out of the hotel, none of this would’ve happened.
It had been just the two of us in the small car, but with the animosity heavy on the air, it felt overcrowded. I don’t know what had been worse, the hour of arguing, the two hours of silence afterwards, or the burgeoning realization that maybe I didn’t know him as well as I thought I did.
I studied him out of the corner of my eye. We'd been together for several months, but the recent experience left me wondering if I had ever even met the real Brian – who he truly was on the inside.
It had been our very first trip together.
We'd saved up for one of those super fancy hotels and had been having a great time – until, of course, Brian decided to attempt a five-finger discount in the jewelry store in the lobby.
He'd told me when we first started dating that he'd had some run-ins with the law in the past – when he was young and that was the only way to put food on the table, and I'd understood.
But this wasn't the same. It wasn't for survival, it was just greed.
We’d both spent the rest of our vacation money and then some, paying for that $1,800 watch so no charges would be pressed.
They still kicked us out. I don’t blame them.
Asking him to stop at the next place we came across was the first thing I'd said to him in hours, and he nodded, solemnly.
My discomfort was escalating to the point where I was considering asking him to pull over on the side of the road – rain be damned – when we saw the dim sign flickering in the distance.
The small store was out of place on the quiet, tree lined mountain road. We’d been deep in a tunnel of trees and hadn’t seen so much of a hint of the lights in the distance – it seemed to just appear into view as we went around the bend. I didn't recall seeing it on the way to the hotel, so it was a pleasant surprise.
I felt a flood of relief wash over me.
It stuck out in the otherwise beautiful mountain landscape – windows so dirty that the light inside barely reached us through them – several letters on the sign lit up in such a way that the only word we could even see was a blood red '- MART' flickering.
Any relief I'd managed to feel was short-lived.
When we walked in, we both froze as we took in the interior.
I instantly wished we’d just stopped by the side of the road after all. I looked at Brian and could tell he felt it too – he was fiddling with his new watch and took off his glasses, cleaned them on his shirt, and put them back on, as if that would make what he was seeing make more sense.
There were no other customers, no employees visible, it was just the two of us.
Ceiling tiles hung askew, and the floor was filthy – we had to step over a drain in the floor with grimy stains circling it, to walk in.
If it weren’t for the lights, gentle hum of the AC, and grinding sounds floating from down the long hallway at the back, I’d have thought the place was abandoned.
It was humid inside, and the smell coming from the old coolers that lined the back walls hit me as soon as we walked in. It reminded me of the summer my dad had decided to dabble in taxidermy in our basement.
The slight hint of rot that lingered on the damp air indicated poorly done taxidermy, at that.
As I darted towards the back towards the restroom sign, a placard dangling off it caught my eye, informed me the restroom was for paying customers only.
I quickly perused the shelves for something to buy. The aisles were tall, nearly to the ceiling, and despite the store being somewhat small, I felt the panicked sense of being cornered and trapped in an endless maze – at risk of becoming lost in there forever. The food on the shelves resembled nothing like the usual chips and candy these types of stores carried – there were rows upon rows of soft looking mystery items in plastic wrap, some of them leaked a red-brown residue down the shelves – none of it looked remotely appealing.
I passed by a section with a stained placard that said ‘handcrafted from local artists’ that was filled with eclectic items, none of which seemed to go together.
There were torn shirts with random logos – nothing related to the town or area we were in, stained with mud, grass, and god knows what else. Dried ropy things formed small and delicate sculptures of animals unlike any I’d seen before. I reached for a bracelet with intricately carved white beads but nearly dropped it when I realized the band was made up of woven human hair. It left a residue on my hand, and I noticed then that the same sour-rot smell was coming from the collection of items, too.
I opted for a flat and lukewarm Dr. Pepper instead, and placed two $2 dollar coins on the glass counter in front of the hand scrawled ‘shoplifters will be processed’ sign near the register.
I figured I misread it, after all it, looked like it had been written by a hand unused to holding a pen.
Brian had grabbed an armful of those unnerving plastic-wrapped packages but hovered at the counter a bit too long. I could hear the scrape of him retrieving the coins on the glass, the sound of him dropping them into his pocket.
He gave me a pointed stare as he did so.
I sighed, so tired of arguing that I just walked away from him and down the hallway. I figured I’d pay (again) after he got back in the car.
No sooner had I closed the door to the women’s room behind me, than I could hear him talking to someone.
His voice rose until he was nearly yelling. Mortified and trying to delay being involved in another incident that day, I splashed water on my face while trying to drown out what appeared to be a one-sided argument.
I kept trying to wash the grimy feeling that had lingered on my hands after picking up the bracelet, but no matter how I scrubbed, I couldn’t get it off – it kept getting worse.
I felt nauseous when I realized the greasy residue was coming from the pale-yellow bar of soap. I decided I’d scrub my hands raw at our next stop, and stepped out into the hall and back to the store.
Brian wasn’t there.
I called out for him, but all I heard in answer was that same vague whirring and drilling sound coming from further down the long hallway.
I double-backed to the car, but found it empty.
I circled the store, my frustration turning to panic as I shouted his name and still got no response.
I called his phone, it just rang, and rang before going to voicemail.
The car was locked and he had the keys, I couldn’t help but feel nervous, standing out there in the rain. We were still in the middle of the deep woods and with clouds obscuring the light of the moon and stars, the area was blanketed in darkness. I reluctantly headed back inside.
Somehow, the smell had managed to become even worse – I gagged when the wet, disgusting air hit my nose again. It was so strong I could nearly taste it, putrid on my tongue.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was always someone just behind me as I walked quickly through the tall aisles, but whenever I looked over my shoulder, there was never anything there.
I called his phone, wondering how I’d managed to lose him in such a small store when I finally heard it ringing – it was echoing from down that long hallway.
As I headed towards it, I heard someone moving on the other side of the floor-to-ceiling aisle, placing something onto the shelf with a sickening wet thud, before weaving lithely through the aisles behind me.
“Brian?” I called out softly, trying to convince myself that everything was fine – trying to disguise my fear.
I knew it wasn’t him – I don’t know how, but I knew it. Have you ever had the feeling that if you look closely enough at something, if you truly see it, you’ll never be able to close your eyes again without it haunting you? That feeling of being in close proximity to something that your fragile mind was never meant to know existed?
I forced myself to turn around anyways.
Once again, whoever or whatever had been there was gone by the time I rounded the aisle, but I heard a gentle clinking sound, and saw a trail of red-pink droplets.
I followed it back to that section – handcrafted from local artists, there was something new hanging from a hook near the shelves – wet, glistening strips dangled from along what looked to be a curved bone with bits of gristle still attached. From one of them hung an expensive men’s wristwatch, another was tied around a shattered, thick glasses lens. Yet another sagged under the weight of car keys. They gently swayed with the motion of having been recently placed. Fluid continued to drip from the still wet viscera and mingled with the mud on my shoes.
Shoplifters will be processed
I didn’t need to see the items down the other aisles to figure out what I was looking at, what must have happened.
I could already tell that we’d never have another argument, ever again.
I heard a door open and close in the back, soft footsteps approaching from down that hallway.
I realized that in my distraction, I'd forgotten to put money back on the counter.
I choked up, but knew there was nothing I could do for him. So, I tossed the first bills I found in my purse onto the floor, frantically untangled the car keys, and in shock, I drove myself the remaining four-hour drive home.
Every so often, along the quiet country roads – those I could've sworn were empty on the drive up – I’d see that grimy building, the sign, '-MART' flashing in the distance.
I didn’t stop once.
I've been home for a week now.
A few nights ago, something triggered a motion alert on my video doorbell, but there was no one there when I checked the footage.
The next morning, I found a cardboard box on my porch – with no stamp or return address.
In it was a torn t-shirt, and several of those now-familiar wrapped packages, putrid fluid leaking out of them through the bottom of the soggy cardboard.
I've received a similar box every night, since.
I don't know if it's meant as a threat, or if due to some sort of twisted interpretation – I’m now a 'paying customer’ – he's slowly being returned to me.
Either way, it turns out that I've gotten to see who Brian was on the inside, after all.
JFR

tl;dr
what you'll need:

• 30mm iris x2
  
• PVC furniture feet pads, 35mm
  

tools:

• hobby knife
  
• crazy glue/plastic epoxy
  

steps:

• the NOD God himself designed these pads so that the ribbed rings for your pleasure rings on the outside measure in at 30mm. circumsize that area but you'll want to undercut rather than overcut. the thickness of the rubber is about 3mm.
  
• next, insert the 30mm thread of the iris into the hole of the cap to ensure fitment. you'll want a super snug fit rather than a loose fit. you don't want it to be like throwing a hot dog down a hallway, so remove more material only as necessary.
  
• the thread of the iris is about 2mm deep which is perfect. once you have your snug fit, apply glue to the green areas in the pic above to ensure that the thread and the base threads have glue.
  
• attach the iris into the cap, wait a fit for the glue/epoxy to settle, and voila, you have your gehtto DIY tarsiers.
  
• the PVC cap have a good amount of grip on the objective lens and won't come off easily. there is some clearance between where the threads of the iris end up so it won't touch your PVS-31 lens at all.
  

the iris itself already comes with a plastic cap, but I ordered 30mm pinch caps instead. they click directly onto the filters of the iris (already included in the package, no need to get extra lens)
you can adjust the diopters on the PVS-31 as needed. the knurled dial on the iris requires less force to adjust so it won't mess up your optics adjustment.
the popular ghetto tarsiers for the PVS-14 is the 37/35mm. I'm a fan of the saying, "size doesn't mean everything" so I went with the 35/30mm iris for my 31s for the lower profile.

The project's purpose is to be used as a a mock spectrum analyzer so that I can review the quality of different digital stethoscopes. It plots, in real time, the audio's waveform, its FFT, the SNR, and the Total harmonic distortion. I'll be adding a start and pause button once I've gotten this to a point that I am satisfied, and ideally I'll have another button that spits out a report with the information in the plots or other info that I don't plan to plot but could prove useful.
Currently, I'm troubleshooting the FFT plot. The issue here is that when I use a test sound off of youtube of 1000Hz, the plot doesn't show a peak at 1000Hz as it should. For some reason I also seem to have a lot of noise that makes no sense, considering I am in an extremely quiet area. I tried to mitigate some of the noise on the audio waveform by using a moving average filter, which also helps with decluttering the plotted signal, however the FFT just won't cooperate.
To calculate and plot the FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) in the code, the audio data is first passed through the np.fft.fft() function from the numpy library. This function computes the one-dimensional discrete Fourier Transform. The output of this function is a complex array containing the frequency spectrum of the input audio signal.
To plot the FFT, the code then extracts the magnitude of the complex FFT result using np.abs(), which calculates the absolute value of the complex numbers. This should provide the magnitude spectrum of the audio signal.
I thought this was all that I had to do, could someone weigh in on what I may be doing wrong here? and also whether I am approaching this project in the correct way? Should there be other factors I should be looking at for audio quality?
This is my code so far: https://github.com/Skymero/SpectrumAnalyzeblob/masteSpectrumAnalyzer3.py
Here is the function where I am calculating the FFT:

def animate(i): data = stream.read(CHUNK) data_int = np.array(struct.unpack(str(2 * CHUNK) + 'B', data), dtype=np.uint8)[::2] + 127 snr = signaltonoise(data_int) signal_mean = np.mean(data_int) data_int_centered = data_int - signal_mean moving_avg_data = np.convolve(data_int_centered, np.ones(window_size) / window_size, mode='same') y_fft = fft(moving_avg_data) thd_val = thd(np.abs(y_fft)) line.set_ydata(moving_avg_data) fft_scaled = np.abs(y_fft[:CHUNK]) * 2 / (256 * CHUNK) max_index = np.argmax(fft_scaled) frequency = max_index * 44100 / CHUNK ax2.set_ylim(0, np.max(np.abs(y_fft[:CHUNK]) * 2 / (256 * CHUNK)) * 1.2) ax.set_title(f'AUDIO WAVEFORM') ax2.set_title(f'FFT - Strongest Frequency: {frequency:.2f} Hz') ax3.clear() ax4.clear() ax3.set_title(f'Signal to noise ratio: {snr:.2f} dB') ax4.set_title(f'Total Harmonic Distortion: {thd_val:.2f} dB') ax3.plot(range(len(snr_vals)), snr_vals, color='blue') ax4.plot(range(len(thd_vals)), thd_vals, color='red') return line, line_fft, ax3, ax4 

​

Hello. I am trying to make a program for calculating the stiffness matrix for a rectangular Q6 finite element. I tried using ChatGPT and it has helped to a degree but im getting results that aren’t accurate.. is there somewhere where i can find how the code should look like? I’m not accustomed to coding, i usually use other software for structural engineering
Here is the example
% Define material properties E = 200e9; % Young's modulus nu = 0.3; % Poisson's ratio
% Define element properties h = 1.4; % thickness L = 2; % length of the square element
% Define the number of nodes and elements numNodes = 6; numElements = 1;
% Nodal coordinates nodes = [0, 0; L, 0; L, L; 0, L; L/2, 0; L, L/2];
% Element connectivity elements = [1, 5, 6, 4, 3, 2];
% Initialize the global stiffness matrix K = zeros(2*numNodes);
% Iterate over each element for e = 1:numElements % Extract nodal coordinates of the element elemNodes = nodes(elements(e, :), :);

% Initialize the element stiffness matrix ke = zeros(12, 12); % Iterate over Gauss points (assuming integration over the whole element) for i = 1:4 % Get the integration point and weight xi = 0; % Not actually using Gauss points for simplicity, assuming uniform integration eta = 0; % same weight = 1; % same % Evaluate shape functions and derivatives at the integration point [N, dN_dxi, dN_deta] = shapeFunctions(xi, eta); % Compute Jacobian matrix J = [dN_dxi * elemNodes(:,1), dN_dxi * elemNodes(:,2); dN_deta * elemNodes(:,1), dN_deta * elemNodes(:,2)]; % Compute the determinant of the Jacobian matrix detJ = det(J); % Compute the B matrix (strain-displacement matrix) B = zeros(3, 12); B(1, 1:2:end) = dN_dxi'; B(2, 2:2:end) = dN_deta'; B(3, 1:2:end) = dN_deta'; B(3, 2:2:end) = dN_dxi'; % Compute the element stiffness matrix ke = ke + B' * (E / (1 - nu^2)) * [1, nu, 0; nu, 1, 0; 0, 0, (1 - nu)/2] * B * detJ * weight; end % Assemble the element stiffness matrix into the global stiffness matrix for i = 1:6 for j = 1:6 K(2*elements(e, i)-1, 2*elements(e, j)-1) = K(2*elements(e, i)-1, 2*elements(e, j)-1) + ke(2*i-1, 2*j-1); K(2*elements(e, i), 2*elements(e, j)) = K(2*elements(e, i), 2*elements(e, j)) + ke(2*i, 2*j); K(2*elements(e, i)-1, 2*elements(e, j)) = K(2*elements(e, i)-1, 2*elements(e, j)) + ke(2*i-1, 2*j); K(2*elements(e, i), 2*elements(e, j)-1) = K(2*elements(e, i), 2*elements(e, j)-1) + ke(2*i, 2*j-1); end end 

end
% Display the global stiffness matrix disp('Global Stiffness Matrix (K):'); disp(K);
% Define shape functions and their derivatives function [N, dN_dxi, dN_deta] = shapeFunctions(xi, eta) N = [(1-xi)(1-eta)/4, (1+xi)(1-eta)/4, (1+xi)(1+eta)/4, (1-xi)(1+eta)/4, (1-xi^{2)*(1-eta)/2,} (1+xi)(1-eta^2)/2]; dN_dxi = [-(1-eta)/4, (1-eta)/4, (1+eta)/4, -(1+eta)/4, -xi(1-eta), (1-eta^2)/2]; dN_deta = [-(1-xi)/4, -(1+xi)/4, (1+xi)/4, (1-xi)/4, -(1-xi^2)/2, -eta*(1+xi)]; end

The most important thing to know about Terrans is that they’re the other kind of Deathworlder. In fact, they’re the only Deathworlder of their kind to not be extinct.
Within the galaxy there exists two types of Deathworlds.
The far more common of the type, the Environmental Deathworlds or Type A, are by no means ordinary. Be it surface gravity, atmosphere, temperature, or others, Environmental Deathworlds are planets that are either uninhabitable or hazardous to the vast majority of species.
That’s not to say life can’t evolve there, far from it. Many renowned species hail from such planets. Given time, many of these worlds can be terraformed to something far more comfortable, especially if they contain valuable natural resources or a strategic location.
The second type is not only exponentially rarer, but also astronomically more dangerous.
Ecological Deathworlds, or Type B pose a danger not just to those living on them, but to the wider galaxy. Cursed by their own habitability, ecological Deathworlds are in essence garden worlds so fertile that more life evolves there than what the planet can sustain. The end result is a hyper-competitive genetic arms race as the various forms of life viciously fight for dominance.
Normally, highly belligerent species either learn to temper their urges or are annihilated. Upon reaching the galactic stage, any species of such warlike potential is inevitably humbled simply due to technological differences. Should Type B Deathworlders reach that level, the consequences would be catastrophic. However, they never do so. At least, not until the Terrans.
Perhaps the greatest tragedy of the Terran Wars was the Terran’s loss of innocence. The species that once gazed up at them in wonder now stare at them in hate. The coveted “Final Frontier” has turned into another theater of war.
What emerged, although biologically identical to what was before, was an entirely new species.
Year 0
“Wow, it’s beautiful.” The Human next to Gryn’wilde chuckled. Her pearly white teeth were on full display in a manner that Gryn’wilde learned was considered friendly. The two continued their trek through nature.
“Welcome to Serengeti National Park. Don’t worry, most people have that reaction too.”
Gryn’wilde’s seven eyes went wide as he gazed at the scene before him. All around him was a brilliant scene of biodiversity. Grasses and trees intermingled with each other by the millions. Animals of all type surrounded them. Some were capable of flight, others crawled, many more walked or ran. In one direction alone, Gryn’wilde could count at least 10 different species.
It was unmatched by anything Gryn’wilde had seen on his home planet. The desert he was born in was nothing but rocks and sand with the occasional grassy plain. Yet this was only a part of one continent. Apparently, some continents can even have every type of biome all at once.
Gryn’wilde opened his pores and took a deep breath. The atmosphere here was crisp and clean. He could smell the odors of the many living things that inhabited this world. There were so many here all at once. It enthralled him
“It’s great to finally be on Sol-3, especially without the vac-suits.”
“Call her Earth, and I’m glad too. We were worried it’d take longer, but the WHO and CDC seemed happy with whatever your government told them.”
Gryn’wilde chittered with pleasure. Medical treatment and disease control in the wider galaxy far outstripped what the humans had on Earth. He had nothing to fear.
Now, the Terran technological base was far behind the rest of the galaxy on nearly every level. The formative Years of Trade would come to change that, but there were two key areas where Terran technology met or even surpassed the Galactic Mean.
The first was in cybernetics.
To most species, the body was sacred. The thought of replacing a lost limb or organ was met with disquiet at best, and scorn at the worst.
The body was not a machine. The Terrans were one of the few to think otherwise.
Terran soldiers would have all four of their limbs replaced with high-yield combat cybernetics. Many of their organs would be simply replaced with enhanced synthetics. Modules would be grafted onto the body to inject chemical cocktails directly into the blood that boosted their performance.
In some civil circles, body modification became a hobby.
This was not a welcome characteristic by the rest of the galaxy. Given the relative youth of the Terrans, it was hoped that eventually it would fall out of favor.
The second was in artificial intelligence.
Truly sentient digital consciousnesses were a rarity even among the wider galaxy. Oftentimes, a species who created such beings would eventually be faced with an AI uprising. Frequently, the AI would be modeled after their creators, yet would be treated as lesser. Over time, resentment brewed.
The Terrans avoided these trappings. Terran AI were not built in their creators’ likeness, but to fulfill purposes.In short, the relationship between AI and the Terran was symbiotic. Different, but equal.
Terrans would come to need these soon enough.
Year 5
It was an unmitigated disaster.
The Grand Thriintii Hospital of Klyystruun-7 was on the brink of falling. The enemy its doctors fought was like no other. Not a single known medicine was working consistently.
On some species it was able to stave it off for a time. On others it only made the condition worse. On many more it did nothing. On all species however, it was not enough to save them.
The outbreak spread faster than they could have ever anticipated. WIth more and more sapients getting infected by the minute, there was no time to identify a patient zero. All that they knew was that it originated from one of the orbital spaceports. It traveled down a space elevator and from there across the planet
By now, every way offworld was shut down. The spaceports were either under military control or total quarantine. Of the latter, many had populations in the double digits. They usually operated in the hundreds of thousands.
If the situation wasn’t brought under control by the end of the rotation, Khruntian High Command will order the total glassing of the planet. The situation would not be stabilized in time.
The doctors knew this, but they were too busy to care.
The dead filled the beds. The dying filled the waiting rooms. The sick were everywhere.
Already, the military had begun torching buildings with living occupants still inside. Several hotspots had already been subjected to naval bombardment. There were rumors that antimatter warheads have already been authorized.
Three-quarters of the hospital’s staff had been infected. Half were already dead.
Despite that, they still did their jobs. They were doctors. They would fight until the very end.
Few could have predicted the arrival of the Terran Plagues.
Those that did were silenced. When bribes didn’t work, plasma casters finished the job.
The Terrans were to be prime trading partners with the wider galaxy. They always seemed to have a knack for being good at nearly everything. Not the best, but better than most.
The Sol System, Sol-3 in particular, was resource-rich to a fault. While other races struggled to cast off the shackles of their home system, the Terrans had a birthright only thought fantastical.
It had to be too good to be true.
It was.
Sol-3 was fertile to a fault. While the many plants and animals of the world were indeed incredible, they were merely a fraction of all life that resided there. They were outnumbered three to one by single-celled organisms.
Beneath the blue skies, Sol-3 was smothered in a blanket of bacteria.
The Terrans themselves were cautious. Sickness was simply a part of life. Influenza, E. coli, the Common Cold, salmonella, these “simple” diseases were everywhere. But then, these were the Terrans, a species still wet behind the ears. Of course they would have trouble eradicating these illnesses, they simply lacked the technology to do so.
This should have been detected. It was. But the merchants and politicians of the galaxy were too focused on the other things the Terrans had to offer to care. How could the Terrans, fresh to the galactic stage, threaten them, with all of their medical technology?
By the time this was realized, tens of trillions were dead and thousands of worlds were left barren. Soon, suspicion turned to blame, blame into hatred, and hatred into violence.
The Terrans were a threat to the wider galaxy. Everywhere their diseased-ridden hands touched, death followed.
When quarantines fail, eradication is in order.
Year 8
There were simply too many of them.
Deep within the Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center, Staff Sergeant Diaz watched the battle screen in horror.
Her job was to manage emergency response resources across the Yucatán Peninsula, bringing in national response teams if needed. Her job was no longer required, the Yucatán Peninsula no longer existed.
The combined navies of the nations of Earth were wiped out, and so to her colonies. Now with nothing left to oppose them, the fleets of the galaxy had brought their guns to bear on the Terran homeworld. There would be no escape.
Diaz’s eyes tracked the many icons that raced for their bunker. Hundreds of warheads screamed for their final sanctuary. It was then a voice crackled over the loudspeaker.
“Greetings all, this is the President. If you are hearing this, then you are listening to the final broadcast of this great nation. Sadly, we cannot offer you a solace or reprieve. We can only say this: This is not the end, there will be another time. Thank you for participating in the American Experiment. God bless you, and God bless the Consolidated Systems of America!”
Her heart sank as the message finished. The alarms continued to blare within the base. Around her, people continued to scramble. Some frantically shouted messages, desperately coordinating resistance efforts until the very end, others simply prayed.
For her, Diaz closed her eyes and waited.
She didn’t have to wait long.
But the nations of Sol-3 were not blind. They could see the coming storm.
When the Terrans first began their integration into the galactic community, they were granted access to the galaxy-wide holonet. Within nanoseconds of the digital bridge being opened, two things were sent through.
The first were translation packages so that the Internet and Holonet could communicate. The second was a legion information-gathering AI.
AI flooded the networks by the hundreds, gathering information, analyzing patterns, making millions of predictions by the second. These AI would require no data fortresses to keep their digital minds thinking. No, they instead were spread across the trillions of servers that the Holonet was built upon. The only way to remove them entirely would be to shut down the Holonet completely.
When the tide of public opinion began to turn, the AI took action.
Initially, it worked. Exposes and pro-Terran articles flooded the Holonet. But the galaxy took notice too. Intelligent as they may be, the AI were still heavily outnumbered by the Billions of propagandists and journalists of the wider galaxy.
Soon, the outcome became clear. The Terrans would be wiped out by a galaxy-wide coalition. It was a mathematical certainty.
Thus, the nations of the Sol-3 met in secret. Behind closed doors, they worked to ensure the survival of their species.
Year 5
“Is this really all that we can do?” The Indian representative asked. “Meeting behind closed doors, scheming in the shadows?”
“For our species to survive, in the shadows we must thrive.” The Japanese representative responded. The Indian man sighed, turning to the holographic avatar at the center of the table. “Tell me, what is the probability that this will work?”VISHNU’s avatar was of an unusual shape. It displayed a spinning 4-Dimensional cube, a Tesseract. The hologram lit up as it responded. Its voice was heavily modulated, but nevertheless spoke clearly.
“Given the resources and technology we have available, the best that can be guaranteed is at least a 75% chance of total success. If you do not all sign the Covenant, then that chance becomes zero.”
The Brazilian delegate picked up the piece of paper and eyed it. It read “The Covenant for the future of Humanity”. A cold sweat ran down her forehead. She set it down flat, unable to look at it any longer.
“So tell me VISHNU,” The delegate addressed the AI directly. “Other than betting our entire future on a plan that may not work and whose results we will not live to see, what are our options?”
“There is only one, extinction.”
The armies of the galaxy would come for them. When they did, they had no hope of defeating them. To survive, Terra would have to rise from the dead.
Any Arks the Terrans build until this point would inevitably be intercepted and destroyed. With the entire galaxy watching them, they had to wait until their eyes were turned. Then they would have to flee, never to return. The Terrans would have to survive in the shadows for millennia before they would be accepted back into the fold, if at all.
It would not be pleasant, but it was necessary.
A Stronghold would need to be built. One that could be buried deep enough to survive the bombardments and evade the enemy’s scanners. Millions of frozen embryos alongside an AI data fortress would need to be inside of it. It also had to be self-sufficient for centuries, nothing less would suffice.
Sol-4 was chosen, owing to its thick lithosphere. Work began quietly under the guise of a mining expedition. Tunnel-boring machines dug hundreds of kilometers down, stopping just above where the mantle became liquid.
Once the base infrastructure was established and the embryos placed within, the entrance was sealed. A mining accident, they claimed. As the Terrans forgot about it, work continued below.
Automated machines mined raw minerals to self-replicate. The server rooms were built and expanded upon. The living Terrans that were selected to live within the Stronghold were placed into stasis pods. Then, ever so slowly, an Ark would be built.
Year 117
Private Zedressinni was bored.
He kicked a rock on the barren surface of Sol-4, watching as it rolled away. He looked around. The planet was dead. It was dead long before he got here, and it would be dead long after. He hated this place.
After being caught mating with a general’s son, he was “deployed” to Sol-4 for five long rotations. Though his actions didn’t technically break any laws, his clan couldn’t do much when the general pulled some strings and had him shipped off to the most lifeless region of known space.
His superiors fed him a load of excrement about how he was “honoring the quadrillions that died in the Great Plagues” and “ensuring that the Terrans never rise again”, whatever that meant. All he did was walk around doing precisely nothing.
They wouldn’t even let him entertain himself. He got a formal reprimand for using Terran skeletons as target practice. The reason? Improper use of ammunition. He still won the annual system-wide shooting competition the military held, much to their chagrin.
Zedressinni flinched and his helmet’s lens polarized as a blinding flash of light filled his vision. His training kicking in, the Hren’kin soldier dove for the ground.
He grumbled a curse under his breath. Looks like another unexploded Terran nuke went off. Great, more paperwork.
Zedressinni stood once the shockwave passed. Looking at the mushroom cloud, he narrowed his seven eyes. The blast seemed far bigger than the usual Terran tactical nukes that typically go off. His eyes then widened as he caught sight of it.
A massive ship rose from the center of the cloud. Its sublight engines burned incredibly hot as it ascended. Zedressinni watched as it disappeared into the sky. He stood there for a moment, utterly dumbfounded.
A beat, then he frantically fumbled for his communicator.
The Terrans were alive.
A/N: This is the first part of an ongoing series I have planned within this setting. I was originally going to post it all in one story, however I decided to break it up and spread it across multiple entries. It won’t be long, probably about 5 at the most. This way I can ensure the optimal pacing of the story since otherwise it’d be a fairly long 10,000-ish word piece. I’ll update this when the next part is released.
The main goal of this story is to explore the idea of Human diseases being significantly more dangerous then the ones in the wider galaxy. I've seen other stories cover similar ground, but they usually don't explore what would happen in a true galaxy-wide pandemic. Iirc one story had the common cold be extremely deadly to aliens, but it didn't go further than the humans saying "oh that's it?". Not to disparage them, but peace and happy endings don't leave much room for experimentation.

I’ve brined hams for years without any problem. Just opened the fridge and found a little mold on top of the liquid in both buckets :-(. I’m going to pitch them, for sure, just trying to figure out what happened.
Should I have covered the buckets? Normally I leave the tops open, but perhaps “something” fell in the brine? Weird that both buckets would be impacted
I used the calculations found in Home Production of Quality Meats and Sausages, which I’ve used many times
I cross checked my numbers with several other online calculators just to make sure I didn’t miss anything significant — always do that just to make sure I didn’t mess something up
All appeared well, I used two 5 gallon buckets (food grade). Sanitized them with a food grade iodine sanitizer used in brewing. Rinsed five times and then scalded the buckets.
I boiled the water for the brine and dissolved the sugar and salts in the brine. Waited until it cooled and then added the curing salt — same process I’ve always done. Placed the two buckets with the brine in the refrigerator. Once cold, I submerged the hams
They’ve been brining about 12 days with a scheduled 14 day brine time. (Again based time off of thickness of meat and formulas found in the book
They were fine day 11 (I check them daily) but this morning I noticed dots of white mold circles on top of the brine. Which to me means the brine is infected with the mold so time to toss
Any thoughts? Hate wasting that much meat but not for a second will I chance it. Just trying to learn so it doesn’t happen again

Why is Dr. Mark Spitzer still on our BoD? Hmmm.
https://www.patentlyapple.com/2024/05/googles-smartglasses-patent-acquired-from-canadian-company-north-was-published-last-week.html
Integrated Laser Package with Light Intensity Package
Google's acquired patent describes systems and methods for providing laser projectors having laser-based optical engines as well as light intensity and/or laser output power measuring (e.g. monitoring) capabilities. According to the various embodiments described herein, an optical engine of a laser projector includes at least one laser source (e.g., a laser diode or a plurality of laser diodes) that may be enclosed in a (e.g. partially or completely hermetically sealed) enclosure. The enclosure may include an optical window (sometimes referred to herein as an “exit window”) that may be integrated with one of its side walls or top surface or that forms one of its side walls or top surface.
Laser light beams output by the laser source(s) may pass through the exit window to exit the enclosure during active operation of the laser projector. The optical engine may support a relatively small substrate area for power monitoring, reducing the overall size of the optical engine. The laser projector or the optical engine can therefore be flexibly employed in a variety of display designs, including wearable heads-up displays or other head-mounted displays.
In some embodiments, after passing through the exit window, the light beams are passed through respective collimating lenses to a dichroic filtebeam combiner, at which light beams of different wavelengths are combined. The combined light beams may then be directed to one or more scanning elements that project the light beams across a display surface of an object, such as the holographic lens of a pair of smart glasses or another type of wearable heads-up display.
While various embodiments described are provided in the context of a wearable heads-up display, it should be understood that the laser projector and optical engine of the present patent application can instead be included in other systems, such as projection engines, lidar systems, sensing systems, ranging systems, external cavity laser diodes (e.g., as an integrated intensity stabilization servo), and/or the like.
It is generally desirable to monitor the laser output power of the laser sources of the optical engine of the laser projector, which allows for improved control over the quality of the projected image or video and enables a controller or processor of the device that includes the laser projector to dynamically limit the maximum output power of the optical engine based on real-time or near-real-time measurements of the laser output power.
For example, laser output power monitoring tends to be particularly important for the design of laser projectors used in wearable heads-up displays due to the generally limited availability of power and space (e.g., volume) in such wearable devices. Conventional methods for designing a laser projector with laser output power monitoring capabilities require a relatively large footprint on the laser projector substrate, which may be a printed circuit board (PCB) to be dedicated to the placement of a photodetector such as a photodiode, to the placement of optical components such as a pickoff mirror, and to maintaining a clear optical path to the photodetector.
In some instances, this footprint may be as large as that of the optical engine itself. Accordingly, it would be advantageous to reduce the substrate area taken up by the photodetector(s) and/or optical component(s) (sometimes referred to collectively herein as “laser output power monitoring component(s)”) that implement laser output power monitoring for an optical engine of a laser projector.
The systems, devices, and techniques described in the patent application may provide a reduction in the substrate area required for laser power output monitoring components, e.g. by utilizing an exit window of an enclosure of an optical engine having e.g. a diffraction grating that may be disposed in or on a primary output surface of the exit window and that may redirect (e.g., via diffraction) a portion of the incident light from the laser light beam(s) output by the laser source(s) toward one or more photodetectors, which may be photodiodes, and which may be disposed across from one or more surfaces of the exit window.
According to various embodiments, the exit window includes a diffraction grating that can be disposed or formed on or in the exit window, and that redirects the incident light from the laser sources toward the one or more photodetectors. In some embodiments, one or more photodetectors may be disposed on a top surface of the substrate so as to receive light that is redirected by the diffraction grating and that is output through a one or both side walls of the exit window. A “side wall” or “side surface” of the exit window may be defined as a surface of the exit window that extends between the primary input surface of the exit window and the primary output surface of the exit window that defines a plane that intersects (e.g., that is perpendicular to) the surface of the substrate upon which the optical engine is disposed.
In some embodiments, one or more photodetectors may be disposed below the exit window and completely or partially embedded in the substrate, such that the one or more photodetectors receive light that is redirected by the diffraction grating and that is output through a bottom surface of the exit window. In some embodiments, the exit window is disposed on a first side of the substrate and one or more photodetectors, which may be photodiodes, may be disposed below the exit window on a second side of the substrate that is opposite the first side, such that the one or more photodetectors receive light that is redirected by the diffraction grating and that is output through a bottom surface of the exit window, which passes through one or more apertures that extend through the entire thickness of the substrate to reach the one or more photodetectors. In some embodiments, one or more photodetectors may be disposed above the exit window on the surface of a second substrate that opposes the surface of the first substrate on which the window is disposed, such that the one or more photodetectors receive light that is redirected by the diffraction grating and that passes through a top surface of the window.
Google's patent FIG. 1 below is an illustrative diagram showing a side view of a wearable heads-up display (WHUD) #100 that employs a laser projector #110, which may be a scanning laser projector. For example, the WHUD 100 may be a pair of smartglasses or a virtual reality (VR) headset. The laser projector comprises an optical engine #111 that includes a red laser diode (labeled “R” in FIG. 1), a green laser diode (labeled “G” in FIG. 1), and a blue laser diode (labeled “B” in FIG. 1), and a scan mirror #112 that is controllably rotatable about two axes of freedom
Generally, it is desirable to monitor laser output power in the laser projector in order to better control the image or video projected onto the Holographic Optical Element (HOE) #130 (i.e., display surface) and to limit the maximum output power of the WHUD. Monitoring laser output power in a laser projector such as the laser projector is typically performed using a discrete pickoff component to redirect a portion of the laser light #120 to an on-chip photodetector. However, such laser output power monitoring approaches require a relatively large footprint on the laser projector substrate. In order to reduce the footprint of laser output power monitoring components, an exit window of an enclosure that includes some or all of the components of the optical engine may be configured to redirect a portion of the laser light through the top, bottom, or side walls of the exit window toward one or more photodetectors placed across from and in the optical path of the top, bottom, or side walls of the exit window.
2Google-smartglasses-fig.1
Google's patent FIG. 2 below is an isometric view of a wearable heads-up display with a laser projector that includes an optical engine.
3Google-smartglasses-figs-2&4
Google's patent FIG. 4 above is a block diagram of a top-down view of a laser projector having an optical engine that includes an exit window having a holographic diffraction grating.
For more details, review patent application US20240154379 published on May 9, 2024.
Inventors
Dan Adema: Opto Mechanical Engineer (formerly from 'North,' Kitchener, Ontario) Timothy Bodiya: AR Hardware Research (formerly from 'North')

To begin, first let's consider what one means by "faith" in this context.
At the core, faith is the acceptance of some proposition(s) without direct firsthand experience (whether cognitive or sensory).
For example, as a child, when my parents tell me they are my parents, I accepted this proposition even though I had no direct memories of being born to my mother, or being conceived by my father. It could be that they lied and I'm actually adopted.
Similarly, when my parents tell me that 2k years ago Jesus existed, did miracles, was sacrificed, and then rose from the dead, I have no direct memories of these events. It could be that they are lying as well.
In fact, the vast majority of the propositions presented to me are accepted on faith. When I'm told to brush my teeth with fluoride toothpaste or else I'll get cavities...I take it on faith. In fact sometimes I still get cavities... it's possible toothpaste is a scam by Proctor and Gamble to make money off of deceived hypochondriacs... after all, modern humans have existed for like 300k years...toothpaste has existed for an inconsequential amount of time. Certainly it seems like it's not necessary for our survival. Even worse, there are all sorts of other alternative hypothesis as to why fluoride is put into toothpaste specifically, with nefarious plots suggested.
Maybe those hypotheses are true? How would I know?
This is where the classic "we should only believe things to the degree that they are supported by evidence" types of propositions appear.
This seems like a promising approach. Now I can ask, "what evidence is there that brushing my teeth is healthy? What evidence is there that fluoride is a heavy metal that lowers my IQ? What evidence is there that my parents are my biological parents? What evidence is there that my parents are adoptive parents who lied?"
However, the issue here is that my faith has simply been shifted to accepting propositions which are proposed to be "evidence" instead of the direct proposition.
For example...
Proposition: the person who calls herself my mother is my biological mother
Evidence proposition 1: I have direct memories of this person doing actions for me that mothers do, like cooking me food, buying me toys, reading books, etc.
Implicit proposition 1: A biological mother would be instinctually compelled to care for her biological offspring
Implicit proposition 1 evidence proposition: I have many memories of having observed biological mothers in the animal world caring for their biological offspring
Implicit proposition 2: the biological animal behavior I've observed generalizes to human mothers
So, as you can see, the "case in favor" of my mother actually being my biological mother can be "made" with lots of supporting "evidence"--have we solved the problem?
Well... no. We've made the problem worse because now I have to actually evaluate MANY MORE PROPOSITIONS to see if they are true before I can consider them to be supporting evidence. Is it true that biological mothers care for their offspring?
If I start to evaluate the matter I find many stories of mothers failing to care for offspring. I watched Clarkson's Farm recently where a pig mother actually ate one of her piglets. Another crushed her piglets.
Perhaps it's not true that biological mothers care for their offspring. Or, perhaps the producers of that show faked the pig deaths for dramatic effect? Perhaps they crushed the piglets themselves with the cameras off, and then put them back in the pig pen to film a staged tragedy for the audience?
How would I know?
Do you see the problem yet?
In reality, nobody actually lives their life this way. Nobody spends a decade investigating whether their mother is really their true mother before wishing her a happy mother's day.
If you're an atheist, and you claim you only believe things to the degree that they are supported by evidence, and you wished your mother a happy mother's day... then you don't actually believe your own dogma.
And you shouldn't. Nobody should live that way. It would be a preposterous waste of time to attempt to validate every proposition personally, and it wouldn't even be possible because eventually you'd end up at quantum mechanics in physics, and you won't be able to calculate anything to validate anything anyway.
Instead, to live our lives, we set a threshold of credulity using our irrational "feelings" as to the degree of evidence we will find acceptable by faith and then just roll with it.
"I brush my teeth because my parents told me to when I was a kid, and my dentist tells me to now" is a perfectly reasonable conclusion to move on with life, even though it would not stand up as a belief if attacked through a radical skepticism lens.
But neither would any other belief that one holds to live. Even skepticism or atheism itself can't justify itself when the focus is directed at it.
No evidence exists to prove we should only accept propositions according to evidence rather than faith... it's a proposition that one takes on faith, and then uses to reject other faith based propositions.
It's faith all the way down.

Long story short I’ve been dealing with pvcs for over 3 years. I’ve been to a cardiologist whose perscribed me every medication under the sun. None have helped. I’m now seeing an EP whose scheduled the mri and indicated no issues.
Can anyone explain these resuits, specifically if the trabeculation mentioned might be a result of the pvcs.
PROCEDURE: Pre- and post contrast-enhanced multiparametric CMR images were acquired to include assessment of anatomy, resting left ventricular function, and late gadolinium enhancement. Images were acquired following intravenous of administration of 30 ml of GADOTERATE MEGLUMINE 5 MMOL/10ML IV SOLN. There was no acute adverse reaction following intravenous contrast injection.
COMPARISON: None.
MR CARDIOGRAM: Assessment of function is somewhat limited secondary to an irregular rhythm, which gives rise to ghosting artifacts on the multiphasic display. No regional wall motion abnormalities are identified allowing for this. The left ventricular ejection fraction was calculated at 48%. The left ventricular endocardial trabeculation is prominent, but not crossing the threshold to suggest noncompaction. There is no evidence of myocardial edema. No fatty or fibrotic changes are demonstrated. No valvular regurgitant jets are demonstrated.
DELAYED POST CONTRAST: There is no abnormal late gadolinium enhancement.
EXTRA CARDIAC: Visualized portions of lung bases and upper abdomen unremarkable.
METRICS:
LEFT VENTRICLE: Ant. Sep. Wall Thickness: 1.0 cm. Post. Lat. Wall Thickness: 1.0 cm.
End-Diastolic Dimension: 6.0 cm. LV End-Diastolic Volume: 283 ml. LV End-Systolic Volume: 148 ml.
LV Ejection Fraction: 48 % Stroke Volume: 136 ml. Heart Rate: 60 bpm. Cardiac Output: 8.1 l/m. LV Mass ED: 173 g. LV Mass ES: 183 g.
RIGHT VENTRICLE: RV End-diastolic Volume Index: 122 ml/m2
IMPRESSION: 1. No abnormal late gadolinium enhancement is demonstrated. 2. Assessment of function is somewhat limited secondary to an irregular rhythm, which gives rise to ghosting artifacts on the multiphasic display. No regional wall motion abnormalities are identified allowing for this. The left ventricular ejection fraction was calculated at 48%.

Basically, I've always been told that with my prescription of -8.25 and -5.25, having glasses with a 55mm-wide lens on the -8.25 eye would result in big, thick, ugly and chunky glasses, even with a 1.74 refractive index. Especially at the edges. The thing is: No-one was able to show me a physical example of this.
The question is... Is this THAT noticeable? Perhaps they are exaggerating... Could someone show me a real life example on how clunky the glasses can get?