SpookyVanguard64 [he/him]

  • 177 Posts
  • 83 Comments
Joined 6 years ago
Cake day: July 26th, 2020
  • SpookyVanguard64 [he/him]@hexbear.nettoChapotraphouse@hexbear.net•“I, John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.” - Novo General Megathread for the 9th-15th of May 2026English
    10·
    27 days ago

    Finished my Intro to Materials Science course, pretty cool class overall. Don’t know what my final grade is gonna be since not everything has been graded yet, but I’m guessing it’ll probably be around a B+. Not too bad, but I’m slightly disappointed since I thought I’d do better.

    Aside from that, I recently got a job as an Amazon delivery driver, mainly so I can save up some money to take more classes in the fall semester. Starting pay is $21 an hour, so not too bad tbh, especially since it took no effort to actually land the job. Like, I had an “interview” that basically consisted of the person saying “hey this job fucking sucks, do you actually want to do it?” and then immediately hiring me when I said yes. Then today, something funny happened: I got an email from a company with jobs relevant to my education, saying they want to do a phone screening for a job I recently applied to. Out of all the jobs I’ve applied for over the past couple years, this would be the first time I’ve gotten something even resembling an interview for a position where I could actually use my physics degree, and it happens right after I become formally employed for the first time in my life lmao.

  • SpookyVanguard64 [he/him]@hexbear.nettomusic@hexbear.net•Dom & Roland - Imagination (dnb 2002)English
    1·
    2 months ago

    Posted a mix on YouTube a few months ago that I closed out with this track. Brought it into the mix as a double drop with the D.Kay VIP of “The Rukus,” which was a bit of a problem 'cause I’m honestly not sure where the drop on Imagination actually starts lol. It’s either at 2:50, or 4 beats prior, but it weirdly kinda worked regardless of which of those two points I picked to sync up with the drop on The Rukus.

  • SpookyVanguard64 [he/him]@hexbear.nettoGames@hexbear.net•Sunday is Gaming Day: What Are You Playing Weekly ThreadEnglish
    2·
    2 months ago

    Been playing MOUSE: PI For Hire

    Pretty decent game. I like the combination of noir detective story with steamboat willie era cartoon artstyle, along with it being a nice mixture of serious and parody. There’s also some leftist undertones to it, especially with a lot of the bad stuff going on seeming to be connected to the in universe fascist/nazi party.

    The gameplay’s a bit underwhelming though ngl. Haven’t figured out exactly why, but something about it just doesn’t feel as tight as other games in the “boomer shooter” category. Though arguably it should maybe be grouped in more with something like Bioshock rather than Doom or DUSK, so maybe I’m just coming in with the wrong expectations.

  • SpookyVanguard64 [he/him]@hexbear.nettoChapotraphouse@hexbear.net•Julius Nyerere - Novo General Megathread for the 11th-18th of April 2025English
    10·
    2 months ago

    I’m currently taking a graduate level intro to materials science course as a non-degree seeking student, in order to see if it’s something I’d be interested in getting a masters degree in. So far my impression is that it’s a very interesting and useful field of study, but at the same time it also feels kinda silly in just how broadly applicable it is.

    Like a big part of the field is obviously stuff you’d expect, i.e. polymers or transistors or carbon nanotubes or whatever else. But it’s often also like “here’s a brief overview on the atomic structure of clay pottery” or some other material humans have been working with for thousands of years, and it just feels kinda strange to have that level of insight into something many people had already mastered ages before atoms were even widely know/accepted to exist lol.

  • SpookyVanguard64 [he/him]@hexbear.nettoScience@hexbear.net•Chinese scientists develop new nickel-based superconductorsEnglish
    2·
    2 months ago

    Another thought I just had:

    Idk enough about superconducting materials to know if this is actually wild or not, but it definitely feels kinda wild that scientists were able to turn a ceramic into a superconductor just by fucking with the crystal structure a bit. Like ceramics in general aren’t good conductors of electricity, and from what I could find on Wikipedia, NiO in particular apparently has some properties that turn in into an insulator even though it could/should theoretically be a conductor.

  • SpookyVanguard64 [he/him]@hexbear.nettoScience@hexbear.net•Chinese scientists develop new nickel-based superconductorsEnglish
    6·
    2 months ago

    High temperature superconductor

    Looks inside

    50 kelvin

    On a serious note, it would be pretty cool to see a more in depth looks at what exactly is going on with the atomic structure. Based on the graphic in the article (which idk how accurate it is to what’s actually going on), it looks like the nickel oxide is in a fairly standard ceramic crystal structure, except there’s a discontinuity on one layer where everything’s been shifted half the length of a unit cell in both the x and y directions. Plus that discontinuity is also missing the oxygen atom and 4 nickel atoms you’d normally expect to be there.

  • SpookyVanguard64 [he/him]@hexbear.nettotraingang@hexbear.net•What's this about polarised sunglasses being bad for cyclingEnglish
    2·
    2 months ago

    Yeah, the whole sky darkening should also be related to Rayleigh scattering, since all sunlight that gets scattered by the atmosphere will get polarized to some extent. The effect is just most intense 90 degrees from the light source.

    The shimmery foil effect is likely due to birefringence. Basically some materials have a different index of refraction depending on the polarization and direction of travel, causing the light passing through to get split based on its polarization. Not sure exactly where the color shimmer comes from though tbh. I’m thinking it’s some sort of interference pattern created by the polarized light components recombining out of phase or something like that, but I could be wrong about that. It’s been like 4 years since I graduated with my physics degree, and optics was never my strong suit lol.

    (I am taking an intro to materials science class right now though, and one of the main ways to create birefringence is passing light through a non-cubic crystal structure, so I imagine we’ll probably cover that once we cover optical properties in the next few weeks. Speaking of which, martensite is the only microstructural variant of steel that I’m aware of that has a non-cubic crystal structure, so I wonder if those manhole covers you’re seeing are made of martensitic steel.)

  • SpookyVanguard64 [he/him]@hexbear.nettotraingang@hexbear.net•What's this about polarised sunglasses being bad for cyclingEnglish
    9·
    2 months ago

    Some LED screens look dark at certain angles as well

    For anyone curious as to why this happens, it’s 'cause a lot of screens have a polarization filter on them as well, and the difference between the polarization angles of the two filters determines how much light from the first filter (i.e. the screen) makes it through the second filter (i.e. your sunglasses).

    Longer (but still oversimplified) explanation:

    Photons are emitted with random polarization angles relative to one another, and a polarization filter will selectively let photons through based on how closely they match the filter’s polarization angle. If the difference between the polarization angle of the photon and filter is 0 degrees, the photon passes through without problem. If the difference is 90 degrees, the photon is completely blocked. And of course, there’s a gradient on anything in between. The end result however is that all photons that pass through the filter will now have a polarization angle that matches the polarization angle of the filter.

    So when you have light passing through two polarization filter (i.e. an LED screen and polarized sunglasses), the amount of light that makes it through the second filter is entirely dependent on it’s polarization angle relative the the first filter. If the two filters are perfectly aligned, then 100% of the light coming through the first filter will make it through the second filter, since all of the light coming through the first filter will be polarized at the same angle as what the second filter will allow through. But if that second filter is then rotated 90 degrees, suddenly none of the light from the first filter will make it through the second, since all of the light that makes it through the first filter will be polarized at a 90 degree angle from what the second filter will allow through. And naturally, any angular difference that’s between 0 and 90 degrees will allow between 100% and 0% of the light through.