• 0 Posts
  • 267 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
cake
Cake day: June 17th, 2023

help-circle

  • In my experience as someone who rarely gets up for sunrise, they are not really different. I’m sure there is variation caused by rising vs diving temperature, humidity, cloud patterns caused directly by solar radiation, etc. But, functionally, pretty similar. And no, pollution does not make sunsets prettier. (will explain below)

    The main difference is my perception and my ability to predict what comes next. When the sun is setting, I have lots of warning because I can see the sun, obviously. With my spot at the beach, I can watch the sun go all the way down. I know exactly when it disappears and then I watch it a little while longer as the oranges turn even redder. I’m coming from my daytime perception of color and staring at the sun, further delaying my dark adaptation.

    Sunrise, on the other hand, is more of a surprise. The sky colors are morphing, but I can’t quite tell when the sun will pop up. I’m in relative darkness so my color perception is different. Last one I watched I had my star app open to better predict the sun’s appearance and it made it feel a little more like the sunsets I watch at the same spot. As the reds and oranges fade, I continue to normalize the white balance, so to speak, so it seems like a faster event as it approaches normal daylight color.

    Pollution. No, those pretty, dramatic sunsets are not caused by pollution. That’s a myth you can look up, so here’s my observations of why we perceive it as truth. I’ve spent a week at a time a few times a year for a decade watching just about every sunset on an ocean-like horizon over the rest of my country. The sun is creating a massive, flat rainbow of color. The reds get pulled down towards earth due to refraction in the atmosphere than the blue end. On cloudless evenings, the sky, being a poor reflector, turns a sort of yellow-orange hue while the sun itself is the only thing visibly turning red. That flat rainbow array still exists every time, but it’s lost to space as it skims the atmosphere without hitting anything more solid. Think of the classic prism refraction rainbow being projected tangentially onto a basketball. But, if there’s some spotty cloud cover between you and 1000 miles west, that rainbow will be blocked and reflected by some clouds instead of flying miles overhead and missing you. Just about all pretty sunset photos have clouds. The solid orange and Orange-yellow portion of the rainbow will be bouncing off the clouds in a patch of sky that still looks blue or pale white. That’s where the drama comes from.

    I’d also add sunsets blocked at the final stages by very distant cloud banks have made what seem to be the reddest finales I’ve ever seen, a few minutes after sunset, because the light is still being refracted, reflected, and refracted again from even lower than before. I never pack up and go in for these, unlike most people at the beach. On the opposite end, I don’t mind the boring cloudless sunsets because it means I’ll have at least a few hours of clear night skies most times. Stargazing is what I’m really there for.






  • Super models aren’t somehow wired to only like other super models. A person’s outwards looks don’t tell you what they find attractive. When you see gorgeous celebrity couples, they’re only getting that coverage because they’re both gorgeous (Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt). Some remaining romance coverage goes towards couples where one is gorgeous and the other is talented/accomplished (Aubrey Plaza and Jeff Baena). The other 99% of couples don’t get any media attention because it’s not fun to talk about #4 sexiest woman of 2021 and her husband, extra #4.

    It’s completely normal to be attracted to super models. They are literally chosen as excellent candidates for conventionally attractive builds and then dolled up to close the gap on perfection. Keep in mind, you’re probably ignoring a huge swath of models that aren’t your flavor of perfection as that varies between cultures and ethnicities. What you can hopefully realize is those perfect images have a ton of work done to the “base” person by makeup, lighting, camera angle, and photoshop. They’re generally not real. Such gorgeous celebrities are so far from their perfected image that they often go unrecognized in public if not for some unique visual trait. Even just having an unfamiliar accent makes people doubt the identity.

    You want a real shock (assuming you’re a straight male)? Look up your favorite porn stars without makeup. The picture is out there.

    You don’t need to change your lust for super models, just hopefully come to realize they’re a fantasy. And more than anything, those perfect 21 year old looks won’t last. They may be perfect for 30 or perfect for 40, but not for 21. And that’s OK. Your opinion will change as you age yourself. 8th grade me though high schoolers were adults. Now I don’t even want to be seen with the babies called “college students”.

    You never know who will walk into your life. You’ll never know what they’re thinking.











  • I’m with you. Revenge is an incredibly common motivator in stories. Often literal killing, but just as often character assassination. Star Wars, Lion King, Oedipus are all about getting revenge on the “uncle” for killing the father. Every literary work spends the first 1/3 or the story telling you what wronged the character and why they’re going to be justified in reversing the act. I can agree there’s a shift in the amount of killing (which gets softened by making the horde of enemies masked and unidentifiable) but it’s still a massively pervasive motivator.

    Or about finally getting laid.

    This sounds like the same people mad that there’s no original movies anymore without realizing it’s simply the case that sequals have more funding for advertising.

    For both the revenge and the originality points, the latest movie I’ve seen is The Order. It’s an original movie (adapted from a book) and I’d call it mild action. It’s a detective thriller, I guess. There’s a gunfight. But it’s a hunt, not revenge.