Thanks to NASA ...

[fivemack]

You will observe that getting a Mac has neither endowed me with a steadier mouse hand, nor greater graphic design skills. Do not tempt me with Wacom tablets of inordinate cost.

mobbsy: looking at this map of city lights, the Pennines are much more an obstacle to the growth of the Liverpool conglomeration towards the Nottingham-Sheffield and Birmingham conglomerations than anything much in the Frankfurt region manages.

meirion: I don't have any very useful citation information for the database I'm using, but I suspect Manchester is counted as tiny (400k) because the city itself insisted on not being counted as part of the Mersey-and-parts-east blob; Liverpool (city) is marked as 450k, Liverpool (area) as 3.6 million

Comments

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Sometimes Wacom tablets of not-so-inordinate cost may be had through eBay. FWIW.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

Don't tempt him!

Bet light pollution is cutting into enjoyment of the sky in all those areas.

When my astronomy club was seeking a new dark-sky observing site, the leaders got a bright (sorry) idea: they went out on cloudy nights, and drove around mapping out the places with the least reflected glow. This gave them a good idea where to concentrate in further surveys, seeking out astronomy-friendly farmers in reasonable driving distance from here...

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Clever astronomy club you have there. Hate to have anything happen to it...