Its Trouble...: 02/01/2021

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Some photos from running around town

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Tuesday, February 23, 2021

Pay it to Payphones or don't

So, I went down a short rabbit hole when I saw a payphone in a movie review for Secret Obsession. Of course, payphones aren't common any more, so seeing one featured in a new movie was a bit of a surprize.

So, first, Secret Obsession is a really bad, in my opinion. I tried to watch, but had to stop. This movie review does a good job at explaining why:

The movie shows the protagonist stopping to use a payphone to call 911. Unfortunately, she didn't have change (coins) or phone card. There's a problem with this scene. I tweeted this, thinking that was all I was going to do:

If, by some weird series of events, you end up needing to call 911 but your #cellphone isn't available AND you happen to be near an archaic #payphone (in the US), you can still use that payphone to call 911 without the need for money nor a phone card. #psa #themoreyouknow
— fcsuper (@fcsuper) February 23, 2021

That wasn't the end of it, though. I remembered that there's still some payphones in service, so I looked it up. That's when I ran into the fact that there's still over 100K payphones in the US, and that each payphone can still earn a profit with as few as three 50¢ calls per day.

Was that the end? No. I remembered that I somehow ended up at the movie theater to see Phone Booth back in 2003. It's about this guy of questionable morals who is trapped in a phone booth by a sniper out to prove a point. The guy is played by Colin Farrell. The movie was made near the end of the payphone era. Had this movie come out just a few years later, it would've already been too dated for people to relate to it.

So, that brings me back to start. Secret Obsession was released in 2019. The entire plot is built upon the conflict that starts with the main character who gets out of her car while being chased to run to a payphone in a phone booth to call 911 (emergency services in the US). She doesn't have change, so the phone doesn't work. It's 2019. Why doesn't she have a cellphone? Even if that option was somehow not available, all payphones in the US allow 911 calls without payment, as noted in my tweet (and the movie review shown above). For who was this movie made? ...in 2019?

Friday, February 12, 2021

Recent news tour of our Solar System from Mercury to FarFarOut

Some recent news tour of our Solar System:

Mercury: Study Reveals MESSENGER Watched a Meteoroid Strike Mercury - Combing through data from NASA's MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER) mission to Mercury reveals it likely watched a meteor slamming into the planet.
Venus: Life on Venus? The Picture Gets Cloudier, doubtful - After a sensational announcement about the possibility of life on Venus, new doubts arise.
Earth: Astronomers Think They've Found Another Trojan Asteroid Lurking in Earth's Orbit - A recently discovered object sharing Earth's orbital path around the Sun could actually be a trojan (shares a planet's orbit) asteroid, astronomers have found.
Mars: Mars Mission From the U.A.E. Begins Orbit of Red Planet - U.A.E.'s probe arrives to Mars soon.
Asteroid Belt: The Asteroid Belt: Wreckage of a Destroyed Planet or Something Else? - Samples of asteroids that have fallen to Earth reveals that the Asteroid Belt likely wasn't formed from planet that was smashed a part.
Ceres and other Dwarf Planets:Top 10 Giant Facts About the Dwarf Planets - "Despite being the smallest of the five dwarf planets, Ceres was the first one discovered."
Jupiter: Jupiter Is Bigger Than Some Stars, So Why Didn't We Get a Second Sun? - Jupiter and Sun have a lot in common, so how did Jupiter end up not being a planet?
Saturn: Saturn's moon Titan: Largest sea is 1,000-feet deep - "Far below the gaseous atmospheric shroud on Saturn's largest moon, Titan, lies Kraken Mare, a sea of liquid methane. Cornell University astronomers have estimated that sea to be at least 1,000-feet deep near its center -- enough room for a potential robotic submarine to explore."
Uranus: 35 Years Ago: Voyager 2 Explores Uranus - 35 years ago, Uranus was examined by Voyager's 11 instruments.
Neptune: Next-generation planetary missions could hunt for gravitational waves, say astronomers - "Spacecraft heading to Uranus and Neptune in the next decade could be used to investigate gravitational waves as they venture into the outer Solar System."
Pluto: Pluto's atmosphere gets its blue haze from icy organic compounds, study suggests - "The haze shrouding Pluto might be made up of ice crystals possessing cyanide hearts, a new study finds."
Quaoar: How 50000 Quaoar changed the way we look at our solar system - "The ball-shaped planetoid, approximately half the size of Pluto, is the largest object found in the solar system since Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930."
"FarFarOut": Astronomers Just Confirmed The Most Distant Known Object in The Solar System - "The most distant known object in the Solar System is now confirmed. FarFarOut, a large chunk of rock found in 2018 at a whopping distance of around 132 astronomical units from the Sun, has been studied and characterised, and we now know a lot more about it, and its orbit."