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Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora

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Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora

#341

Post by crashmat »

samus wrote: post #285
scientism wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read another theory: It's because of the sun damage to their eye from using a sextant for navigation. Haven't been able to confirm it though.

Such damage is creeping and the brain can just hallucinate the blank patches in the vision away, until only like 10% of the retina is left and it just doesn't work anymore. These days, dumbass laserheads are the most likely to suffer from that problem. It's amazing how much of our conscious experience is hallucination, and yet a lot of people are disparaging LLMs for doing just the same...

probably because when humans pay full attention and think clearly they can not hallucinate for 99% of things they can sense (disregarfing optical illusion), but there is no 'pay attention and dont hallucinate' switch for LLMs.

Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora

#342

Post by bowsamic »

consp wrote: post #15

Most of Europe == Not covered by light polution. (and specific areas) (it's orange outside and it's sodium vapor related) edit: kind of whish I was at my parent's place. It's a lot less poluted but no go here; nw europe densly populated, we also have the artificial sunrise here 24/7 by means of greenhouses.

I was in middle of nowhere Sweden last week but the number of daylight hours are so high that far north that even in the dead middle of the night the sky is still blue

Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora

#344

Post by Avalaxy »

mysterydip wrote: post #65
marmakoide wrote: post #26

Wow, I just went outside (South West of France) to plug the car for charging before going to bed. I noticed unusual, faint light patterns in the night sky, like long spikes coming from the North. It was not the Milky Way, we can see every clear night. Color was mostly gray slightly pink. Wondered what was that ... My first aurora !!!

> It was not the Milky Way, we can see every clear night. I'm exceedingly jealous. I don't think I've ever lived somewhere that I could see it, no matter how clear the night. Looking at images of "north america at night" vs "europe at night" I can see why.

With the milky way it's the same thing as the auroras. I went camping in the middle of nowhere USA, and on a clear night you can absolutely not see the milkyway the way it's portrayed in photos. It looks waaaaaaaaay less clear. You need a very long exposure camera to see it the same way as on the internet. The only difference with Europe is that I saw more stars, but none of those nebulas.

Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora

#349

Post by samus »

crashmat wrote: post #341
samus wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such damage is creeping and the brain can just hallucinate the blank patches in the vision away, until only like 10% of the retina is left and it just doesn't work anymore. These days, dumbass laserheads are the most likely to suffer from that problem. It's amazing how much of our conscious experience is hallucination, and yet a lot of people are disparaging LLMs for doing just the same...

probably because when humans pay full attention and think clearly they can not hallucinate for 99% of things they can sense (disregarfing optical illusion), but there is no 'pay attention and dont hallucinate' switch for LLMs.

People are bullshitting just the same about topics they know nothing about. They often also won't shut about when others tell them and even when they themselves know that they know nothing. To some extent this is necessary for humans to function at all, and the scientific process starts out from uneducated guesses and rigorously refines them and casts away what doesn't hold up to empiric data.

Optical illusions are evidence of the pile of hacks that our senses and our consciousness use to make sense of the world. I think it is really difficult to fully disengage from the biases this induces, and we are sadly best at perceiving such flaws in others. This might be one of the reasons why humans have to socialize with other humans to maintain mental health.

Re: Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora

#350

Post by joshvm »

cinntaile wrote: post #252
joshvm wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently pretty good at the South Pole. The pink skies are wild. Green auroras are fairlty common over the winter, but it's unusual for it to be this red. If you're interested in a real time video, here's one I captured a few weeks ago from our "back yard" (excuse the Instagram link) https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6T27pEO7dQ/?igsh=eXJyOGtuY2l...

Unrelated but why are you at the South Pole?

I'm wintering for the South Pole Telescope.

https://pole.uchicago.edu/

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