Solar eclipses on other planets

As seen in the Earth's sky, the Moon and Sun are very close to the same size. I've seen it asserted a handful of times that this situation is unique in the Solar System (example). But is that actually true? It always sounded a little suspicious to me, so I decided to take a closer look. …

Could all the planets fit between the Earth and Moon?

Maybe you remember that viral internet graphic from a few years ago showing how the other 7 major planets in the Solar System could fit neatly between the Earth and the Moon. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be surprised by that, but it's a mildly interesting coincidence that the distances are so close. …

The cpio trailer problem

cpio is an archive file format, similar in concept to ZIP or tar. It combines multiple files (which I'll call the "member files") together in a single .cpio archive file. It is an old format, designed to be useful with magnetic tape drives. Here's a demonstration, using a Unix shell, and the GNU cpio utility. …

The curious case of small caps in Unicode

Small caps is really just a text display style, and as such it should be outside the scope of Unicode. But what if you want to Bᴇ Cᴏᴏʟ and use small caps in a post on an internet forum that supports Unicode, but not small caps styling? You could do that if Unicode had a special …

An insignificant GIF specification error

I study a lot of file formats, and sometimes I come across a quirk in a format, or its documentation, that isn't worth making a fuss about, but which might still be interesting to two or three people in the world. I suppose this one doesn't even meet that criteria, though it is in a …

We’re probably alone

I didn't want my first real post here to be about file formats, so I'll go with the next best thing: space aliens. I don't know whether extraterrestrial intelligent life (ETI) exists in the observable universe. A lot of very smart people think it does. But based on humanity's current observational and theoretical knowledge, it …

First post

Hello all you happy people.