That’s how alot of these discoveries seem like. Partly it’s just science reporting hyping up anything that happens, but then for many of these astronomical discoveries, it’s just a couple of pixels on a screen. And then somehow they can infer all sorts of things about it based on that. It’s just mind-blowing to think of all the data they can get from that about stars that are millions of light years away.
I would like to understand how they infer these things without becoming a science major. Is it just math equations based on what they think is the distance to the planet and then more math based on what they think the atmosphere is, and so on? Because they can’t actually see the planet.
I can’t explain this one, but I’d like to offer some other identifiers used. When searching for likely planets, they observe stars for wobble in their position. Large planets like jupiter and Saturn have some hefty pull on our own star. The common orbital point between them, called the barycenter, is still inside the sun, but their great distance apart pulls that barycenter closer to the edge of the sun. Our sun has a pretty notable wobble as a result. That’s the kind of thing they look for elsewhere. If there’s no other star causing the wobble in a binary system, then it must be a planet pulling it.
By estimating the mass of the star by various observations of color, brightness, and brightness variation, they can do some “easy” algebra to calculate the size of the affecting planet. From there, they can scan for radiation frequencies in the darkness where they think a planet is sitting. Water has a frequency, hydrogen has a frequency, oxygen has a frequency, helium, etc. By stuffing objects close to home, we can extrapolate that info and apply it to further objects with some confidence. This is how organic compounds were discovered in Venus’ atmosphere.
A lot of it is based on what we have at home, meaning we’re largely looking for what we have and then identifying it as the same. There is uncertainty about some details, but that’s how it always goes with science. It’s always being updated. It’s takes a lot of creativity to imagine what else might be out there and to devise how to look for it. Black holes are a pretty notable example. Since they’re not observable directly, what do you look for? Well, you look for other things being eaten and hope the matter is hot enough to throw a lot of radiation. 80 years ago, they were just an idea. Now we have images of a few galactic-center black holes. Some have been observed free floating through space by distorting the apparent position of stars behind it. Do we absolutely know it was a black hole? No, but that’s what solid theories can identify it as given the darkness and huge mass required to cause that kind of effect. But, as a result, estimates for dark and cold objects vary greatly because they’re the hardest to observe. There’s talk of finding more “hot jupiters” than expected, but it’s totally valid that maybe wevre just missing the cold Jupiter’s because they’re hard to see.
I also feel like we don’t need to have more beautiful games than Last of Us 2
Remember when FarCry was released, and people were compairing the ingame screenshots with real photos? We all thought “Man, this is it. It can’t get any better than this”.
Well I’m not against games becoming more impressive visually per se, but against the fact that because of this games are becoming way more expensive to produce and companies are now risk averse.
But yeah I might have said « this is it » in front of quite a few games 😅
I don’t support a company that decided to increase price instead of reducing it. Also PS games are expensive. Then there was also non available and you had to put yourself on a year long waiting list, when at then end I said “nah, I don’t need it”. It’s Sony’s own fault I don’t have a PS5 yet.
No, there hasn’t been, but there is a distinction between currently experiencing high inflation and previously experiencing high inflation in the middle of a hardware product’s life cycle.
No it’s not. PlayStation costs money if you want to go online, PC not. PlayStation games are a lot more expensive than on PC and you lose access to your gamed with every new generation unless you want to store your old console. Also generally PC sales are much deeper then on the controlled PlayStation store. To believe your console is cheaper is really not true.
Why should the PC not have a blu-ray drive, it has all the freedom a console lacks. But I don’t remember the last time I needed one, because I can get just a few month old games for 5 bucks. So I didn’t even bother buying a drive. I buy games for 45 bucks while on console they cost 80 and more, on release day.
Yeah add the cost for the week PC on top, another reason why PC is cheaper, as you’ll likely need a PC regardless.
Not playing online would be the only reason why PS is cheaper and if you buy no games and only lend them from others. Price of PlayStation plus PS+ gets you a good PC if you use it for 5+ years, which most do.
Maybe if you see it that way. But just thinking about how much you need to upgrade your PC or tinker with it for everything to work is too much for me.
I already don’t like the fact that on ps5 you have to choose between performance and fidelity modes, so imagine if I had to choose settings on a pc.
Also on consoles, you just know a game is gonna work perfectly, which is not always the case on pc.
But PC is better for some players and console are better for some others.
I sometimes consider jumping to PC gaming, but I see too many inconveniences for now.
I just recently bought a PS4 for $150. So being able to play most modern games (with the exception of any new games 2025 or later) is a pretty good deal :)
Yeah, I’m planning to get a PS4 or maybe PS4 Pro as well. It’s a great deal considering the large library of games, many of which can be bought physically for relatively cheap.
Something to keep in mind: Official support for the PS2 was only 12 years. The PS4 is now at 11 years.
It will most likely have a longer officially supported life than the PS2.
It’s definitely easier to have that degree of support when you’ve got a common architecture now. There has never been a console generation before this where you had literal years of overlap with games releasing on previous and current gen, because it didn’t require much extra work to maintain additional versions. They were already doing that with the “Pro” consoles before anyways.
Hell, PS4 players are still going to get the highly anticipated Shadow of the Erdtree DLC for Elden Ring in a few weeks.
iirc it’s a “fault” of the PS3 architecture which makes it practically impossible to emulate. We’ll have to see if the second part of the remastered MSG collection will eventually port it.
Well I don’t see why you couldn’t emulate it on a ps5. People are doing it on pc so I guess it’s more that Sony doesn’t care and don’t want to invest in it.
It’s one side where Microsoft is better than Sony, retrocompatinility.
I’m still playing a lot of ps4 and ps3 games, so I hope my ps3 is gonna stay fit for purpose in the long term 🤞
If any of you guys have a PS4 lying around gathering dust, consider jailbreaking it. Depending on the firmware, it is pretty easy to do and opens up a lot of possibilities. Surely better than being neglected :)
Edit: Firmwares up to 11.00 are jailbreakable as of recently. 11.00 is from around late 2022, so if you have a console that hasn’t been in use since then, there’s a good chance you can jailbreak it. Base model, Slim, or Pro - doesn’t matter
Sadly, only around 40ish fps on a base model but very cool nonetheless. The framerate and semi-smoothness kinda puts it in an uncanny valley territory for me since it looks smoother but also not smoother at the same time coming from PS5 performance. Lies of P runs a lot better in comparison even though it’s graphically more demanding, I assume
Well, obviously piracy if you’re into that. Apart from that, using cheats for games, dumping your physical games and having a permanent copy you can use without the CD and an active license (probably possible with a digital game too I assume? not sure), applying patches like a 60fps patch for Bloodborne, emulation of PS1, PS2, PSP and a bunch of other consoles etc etc.
Well, obviously piracy if you’re into that. Apart from that, using cheats for games, dumping your physical games and having a permanent copy you can use without the CD and an active license (probably possible with a digital game too I assume? not sure), applying patches like a 60fps patch for Bloodborne, emulation of PS1, PS2, PSP and a bunch of other consoles etc etc.
Actually not anymore. There’s been a recent breakthrough that led to a new exploit up to 11.00 being possible now. 11.00 is from, like, late 2022 I think? Obviously not an option if your PS4 has been in regular use recently, but I lucked out and got an 11.00 console from a friend of mine who hadn’t been using the PS4 for a while.
If you’re on a newer firmware, there is no way of reverting back to 11.00, unfortunately, unless you’re up for some soldering.
The article states that the PS5 is responsible for significantly more gaming hours, so a large number of PS4 users are likely mainly using their device for streaming or similar. Hell, I still have my PS2 and 3 in my closet since they're my only dvd and blu ray players.
I have yet to buy a PS5 because there isn’t a game I want yet. Also, Sony tends to release improved consoles with lower price points and smaller footprints after a few years.
For some reason that doesn’t surprise me. When I got a PS4 there were like at least 10 exclusives I wanted. This gen seems it’s mostly remasters and remakes. So ignoring that Sony games come to PC now it doesn’t even meet my criteria of number of exclusives to justify picking one up.
arstechnica.com
Aktywne