I never once submitted an assignment on a course with TurnitIn turned on, it makes you agree to their terms of service, which I disagree with and I'd just sed my work to the teacher through email, explaining what was my issue with TurnitIn, and most times they'd just turn it off, which I think speaks loads about that "tool".

But when I go and buy booze, I just show my ID and that's it, it isn't stored in a database with what I bought and then leaked on the internet.

The card you might have paid with is though. I can’t remember any instances of a card hack revealing transactions of customers though (I might be wrong, just doesn’t ring a bell).

It’s not a given that digital record must lead to compromise.

They could have paid with a cash, crypto, store credit. You are trying to salami slice the point being made.

Not really, that would probably be the north of Chile on the Atacama desert, there's a reason why the Extremely Large Telescope, Giant Magellan Telescope and Vera C. Rubin are being built there.

Can confirm, was there in 2001. The clarity of the air owing to lack of moisture and no light pollution means you get amazing views of the milky way.

Watching this footage of the Very Large Telescope in Chile was the first time I really grasped that we're all together on a rock tumbling through the vastness of space: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFpeM3fxJoQ

i'm going to assume that commoners like us don't have access to that telescope.

It wouldn't give you the bombastic views you are used to from press realeases.

Those are all longer exposure, at different wavelengths, stitched together digitally.

With your bare eye in the focal point of that thing you'd just see Jupiter and some of its moons, the Rings of Saturn, some extrasolar nebulae and some galaxies better than with common amateur telesecopes. Otherwise just more and brighter stars, with some more hints of color.

You'd have more immersion by using binoculars with a wide field of view, and low magnification, like 10 to 20, maybe 30 times. But the latter with a wide field of view are rather heavy, so bring a foldable camping chair to lie down on, and some contraption to have the binoc hanging down on you, easily movable, but not shaky. Or a tripod, but they are impractical for looking straight up. (with common binocular eye-pieces)

Pretty sure you can rent telescope time it's just booked so you might have to wait.

You can still go physically, there's tours and such. But it doesn't make sense for a physicist to go there when all the imagery is captured by a computer anyway.

Also, if you've been to those altitudes you know it's not a walk in the park either!

There are plenty of remote telescope services you can make use of. The one at http://telescope.live/ is probably one of the best known in the astrophotography communities I am a member of, but there are many others.

Another thing I figure they might be trying is anticipate suicides, so they can stop them before they happen. But it's probably just to sell you a grimace shake or whatever.