I first used Linux in the late 90s, and it was just something that worked better on an older box. I installed Red Hat on an old 286 and the fun part was honestly getting it to work and learning about computers. Then one day I realized that I was spending all my free time working inside on this thing, but I was living on the water, in the Florida Keys, with access to boats and jet skis and pretty much anything. That had been my dream my whole life and all of a sudden I was living it. And I didn't even have to be at work, right next door, until 10am. I was on a break from school then, and that's actually what caused me to change my major from CS. I didn't think it would be helpful to spend my whole life indoors!

Now I'm a physics teacher and I sometimes teach my 9th graders how to use Python for simple things like graphing. I love my life and I'm really thankful I keot computers as a hobby rather than as my profession.

Can you call it an observation if the lens you are using may be faulty?

If you use many lenses you can assure yourself that they are not all faulty in the same way. This is why we can safely say that dark matter is observed fact, because we observe it in so many different ways.

The mass is definitely detectable--it's just not visible. And it's detectable in several different ways that all match, that's the key here. This is definitely an observation.

I think it CAN be harmful to some dogs though!

It's an interesting idea, but it assumes that physical forces are getting WEAKER over time, and that's a pretty big assumption. It's not very parsimonious.

By being a life-long learner! Seriously, learning is an active thing, it's not something we have to be sitting in a room to receive. So as we read and learn more, we realize that some of the things we learned are different from what we thought. It's something we should all be doing as we learn and reflect.

I'm not going to argue with astronomers about how they define planets. I do my job, they do theirs!

You wouldn't call a person a dwarf, period. So don't do that. If you ever meet a little person, they'll probably refer to themselves as a little person. You should just follow their lead

A dwarf planet is not a category of planets. It is a category of sub-planetary objects. This is how the term "dwarf planet" was adopted by the IAU in 2006. It did used to mean "type of planet", but there are just too many of them, and they're really too different from planets, so it literally does not mean that anymore. At least to astronomers.

I think you're getting confused with dark energy. There is very little debate about dark matter--it's an observation that many many many people have made.

Dark energy is the name for whatever is causing the explanation expansion rate of the universe to increase. There's quite a bit of debate about whether the expansion rate even IS increasing. And the amount of increase is different according to how you try to observe it. So yeah, there's a lot of debate about whether dark energy is actually a thing, but there is very little debate on whether there's more matter than we're able to observe, something that we call dark matter but which we don't really understand. Similar names, but totally different concepts!

Some classics:

• lactic acid buildup makes your muscles hurt after a workout
• blood that's returning to the heart and lungs is blue, blood that's leaving your heart to go do it's thing is red
• sugar makes kids hyper

All three of those things have been thoroughly debunked, and are demonstrably false, and yet we teach them all the time. Sometimes it's even SCIENCE TEACHERS that are repeating these things, and sometimes it's right in the textbook!

An even better idea: make your OWN list! Don't expect someone else to tell you the truth if you're not working to search for it yourself!

This was heartbreaking to watch! I mean she's already an Olympic champion twice-over, and she's been hurt this year--she'll have some more chances. But it was just so shocking! I felt so bad for her watching her try to control her emotions at the end there.

The kind of writing they do is it try to explain in English why their incorrect answers doing actually work. It's a really great way to get them thinking, and to get me some insight into how they understand the concepts.

But also kids just need to practice writing! It's a superpower! And it's an important part of gathering info and explaining it to yourself!

It may not be intentional, not plenty of women feel harmed, belittled, and ignored by the use of language like that. So we should stop using it. It doesn't add anything, and it does, in fact, harm people.

And for the record, it's not the meme, it's the title of the post. I just think that making the explicit or implied assumption that you're talking to a bunch of dudes whenever you post online is just not helpful, that's all.

I teach kids how to do physics, and how to write about doing physics.

I mean we're not all fellas. No need to refer to a specific gender, right?

Avoiding casual misogyny is also important. You should avoid using gendered language like that when there's really no need.

"Fellas"? Do you not want any input from non-fellas?

This binary system, T. Coronae Borealis, is 2500 light years away. That means the event we're about to witness actually occurred 2500 years ago, and the light that it emitted is just about to reach our solar system.

Unitarian-Universalists don't have a problem at all with masturbation, and they encourage you to explore and accept your body. That sounds pretty masturbation positive to me!