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Astronomers, amateur or otherwise, have been complaining about "light pollution" forever. Traditionally, it's about night-time lighting on Earth that isn't shie

Astronomers, amateur or otherwise, have been complaining about "light pollution" forever. Traditionally, it's about night-time lighting on Earth that isn't shielded from transmitting light upwards. It startled me to find (in a long ago HN thread) that people, presumably nerdy types, are not generally sympathetic to the complaints. I somehow assumed that universal lukewarm quasi-environmental feelings would mean people would go "yeah, lighting the night sky is inefficient and dumb, and astronomy makes pretty pictures" but apparently "fuck astronomers" is a popular opinion.

saalweachter 6y ago
> ...but apparently "fuck astronomers" is a popular opinion. They know what they did. (Leap seconds.)
- Uke 6y ago
  fun fact - mars has great time zones. No silly country borders and also had them even before we had time zones on earth https://marscalendar.com/time-zones https://marscalendar.com/time-zones
morlockabove 6y ago
The kinds of people who like building things will be less sympathetic to environmental concerns when those concerns are 'don't build that, leave the world untainted by human hand'- there's a difference between polluting by building/placing something of value somewhere and polluting as a pure stupid ugly externality. Engineer-y people might be inclined to hate the latter but not the former.
- perl4ever 6y ago
  The aspect of amateur astronomy culture that discouraged me was the awful code published in Sky & Telescope back in the late 80s or early 90s. They used to have a policy that in order to be compatible with the least common denominator of their readers, they required published programs to be in BASIC. And not just BASIC, but basic BASIC, with line numbers. As far as I was concerned, it was unreadable and obsolete since about 1985. It also probably influenced me away from ever learning Forth by association. Not to mention, that when I got a book on astronomical computer algorithms, it turned out that the available implementations were in Fortran, which to my taste was as bad or worse.
  - Uhrheber 6y ago
    Fortran is still popular in scientific computing, and modern compilers are pretty good.
    - titzer 6y ago
      Not only that, but modern compilers are insanely good at compiling numerical Fortran code. The very first optimizing compiler was for Fortran and it's consistently been on the forefront of compiler techniques ever since.
      - perl4ever 6y ago
        I know that's the cliche, but I don't think that something like VSOP87 would be noticeably faster compiled with Fortran vs. C, in the early 90s. If there even was a Fortran compiler available for Mac or Amiga, it was probably priced obscenely, too.
- titzer 6y ago
  Well, that, and with modern machinery, a global investment economy, and so many construction jobs depending on infinite growth, "build that junk" is the no-brainer solution to everything. Problem is, just a couple "build that junk" people can do so much damage, unless checked by an unusual, overwhelming backlash, we're not slowing down in any measurable way any time soon.
Uhrheber 6y ago
We now know that light pollution also kills insects, which will in the long term also kill us. Reducing it should therefore be a priority. Instead, it's increased worldwide, mainly thanks to cheap power LEDs.

saalweachter 6y ago

> ...but apparently "fuck astronomers" is a popular opinion. They know what they did. (Leap seconds.)

Uke 6y ago
fun fact - mars has great time zones. No silly country borders and also had them even before we had time zones on earth https://marscalendar.com/time-zones https://marscalendar.com/time-zones

morlockabove 6y ago

The kinds of people who like building things will be less sympathetic to environmental concerns when those concerns are 'don't build that, leave the world untainted by human hand'- there's a difference between polluting by building/placing something of value somewhere and polluting as a pure stupid ugly externality. Engineer-y people might be inclined to hate the latter but not the former.

perl4ever 6y ago
The aspect of amateur astronomy culture that discouraged me was the awful code published in Sky & Telescope back in the late 80s or early 90s. They used to have a policy that in order to be compatible with the least common denominator of their readers, they required published programs to be in BASIC. And not just BASIC, but basic BASIC, with line numbers. As far as I was concerned, it was unreadable and obsolete since about 1985. It also probably influenced me away from ever learning Forth by association. Not to mention, that when I got a book on astronomical computer algorithms, it turned out that the available implementations were in Fortran, which to my taste was as bad or worse.
- Uhrheber 6y ago
  Fortran is still popular in scientific computing, and modern compilers are pretty good.
  - titzer 6y ago
    Not only that, but modern compilers are insanely good at compiling numerical Fortran code. The very first optimizing compiler was for Fortran and it's consistently been on the forefront of compiler techniques ever since.
    - perl4ever 6y ago
      I know that's the cliche, but I don't think that something like VSOP87 would be noticeably faster compiled with Fortran vs. C, in the early 90s. If there even was a Fortran compiler available for Mac or Amiga, it was probably priced obscenely, too.
titzer 6y ago
Well, that, and with modern machinery, a global investment economy, and so many construction jobs depending on infinite growth, "build that junk" is the no-brainer solution to everything. Problem is, just a couple "build that junk" people can do so much damage, unless checked by an unusual, overwhelming backlash, we're not slowing down in any measurable way any time soon.

Uhrheber 6y ago

We now know that light pollution also kills insects, which will in the long term also kill us. Reducing it should therefore be a priority. Instead, it's increased worldwide, mainly thanks to cheap power LEDs.