What people seem to not be able to conceptualize, consciously or not, is that there really is no "before" the Big Bang in the standard model (Lambda-CDM), if time itself exists only after t=0.
This goes back to when my daughter was little, many years pre-covid. Whenever we went to a pizza restaurant that had a mini arcade with games and vending machines, she would check all of the change return trays. And inevitably, she would come back with a quarter or two. Every time. I figured maybe it was luck coming from her Irish ancestry.
Glad to meet someone else with this problem. People would talk to me as if I was not old enough to be taken seriously, even though I had been working professionally in the field since my 18th birthday. One time, I was told that I should be at the company for at least 6 months before offering an opinion. It's understandable when someone is just inexperienced, but by rendering a judgment on someone's expertise based on perceived age, I can't help but call it reverse ageism.
Now closing in on 50 with my share of life experience (good and bad) and some gray hairs setting in, it has gotten better, although people often mistake me for being 10-15 years younger than I actually am.
Thank you for this. I am a lifelong swimmer but never a lifeguard. Took me a couple tries to get an idea what to look for and then I could reliably pick up on the cues. However, that's with someone staring at the video closely; I can only imagine trying to keep up a scan through a long hot day in the sun with hundreds of people swimming.
It matters to me, in the sense that I prefer to have some bezel left so I can actually hold onto the phone without accidentally pressing things on the screen.
Better to think through these scenarios ahead of time so that you already have a plan if you find yourself in this situation, as others have. Tree landings can be survivable especially if you let the trees bend and absorb your energy.
I would love to hear specifics if you can share them.
Personally, I've used articles obtained through Sci-Hub to guide my approach to managing my own rare health condition. I wouldn't say it saved my life, but I've found the information very useful in figuring out the relative merits of new treatment options.
In particular, there is one specialty journal that's only available by institutional subscription at a cost of more than $2,000 per year. The publisher was particularly unhelpful in trying to find a way to enable access for patients. So despite trying to do the right thing, I just go to Sci-Hub to get this info.
I could totally see this as a museum exhibit. Where I work, we regularly have people dial in from a downtown office and almost every call features sirens in the background. Needs more sirens.
You're not the only one. When I was younger (20s), I used to say I thought days should be about 25 hours long. Now that I'm in my 40s with kids, 24 hours seems plenty.
Coincidentally, I'm watching The Martian right now after reading the book last week. I have to agree, the movie just does not capture the same sense of surprise and careful attention to detail as described in the book. The sets are nice though, and it's pretty cool to see how the production team visualized the scenes and hardware compared to how I had imagined them. Seems like there could be some scientific inaccuracies too (e.g. hab repairs with only hardware store plastic film and duct tape).
Overall, I'd say Interstellar works much better in movie form, although perhaps that is partly due to the scale of the concepts it employs compared to The Martian, which is smaller and more technical.