Yes! For a while, I thought I had lost my mind, my decrepitude had finally arrived, and I was no longer remembering my teenage calculus.
451 karma · joined June 5, 2019
∂x would have a problematic definition, as it would require selecting from its components based on information not supplied. E.g., let x = y+z. Then dx = dy + dz. But ∂x (by extension) = ∂y + ∂z, but at least one of these terms on the right is identically zero, depending on whether y or z is held constant. So ∂x doesn't have a meaning.
Ball milling to shove gas into nanoparticles seems counterintuitive, as ball milling is typically used to grind particles smaller.
I could imagine if we really had nanodust of BN+20H2 (or whatever) that it'd be (a) potentially very combustible (b) potentially dangerous to lungs when inhaled. (Presumably, at some temperature, hydrogen begins to be released, and if you then ignite that hydrogen, I could imagine a runaway reaction.)
I really want this or something similar to work.
Maybe the simpler thing to do is to develop a solar cell that produces methanol (or ethanol) directly from sunlight, CO2, and water, and then just have a methanol engine. Should be able to burn methanol and produce CO2/water exhaust only.
Good point about subtle defects. Hmm. That I do not have an answer for, especially if the seller is not aware.
Maybe it's just not possible to trust the Ferengixxx humans...
Yes, that would have been difficult to scale, but then you'd not need a fraud department at all as both sides would be able to verify the transaction.
Seems like a business opportunity here.
Problem with that is the deciders in these states don't reflect the population of the state in general.
Another problem with that is what if the State's decision is egregious, e.g., slavery is permitted again, Hispanics are not allowed to vote, etc., etc. ?
I am bemused at the marijuana thing -- I suspect there's a huge untold story there involving the DEA, the FBI, large sums of money, etc., etc. .
Once we allow States to decide things and overrule the government arbitrarily, we're possibly on the road to the balkanization of the United States. Sure, a slippery slope argument, but I've read enough science fiction to think this has a non-zero probability of happening.
Yes, extremism to me does feel orthogonal to political orientation. "Delusional centrist" is closer to what I had in mind.
Here's the thing that I think is important: you can't talk to extremists rationally. Their mental world model doesn't match reality in big chunks, so there's no shared world view to agree on.
Perhaps I am redefining "extremist" but that's just my mental model.
From my viewpoint, it's a fetus until it can survive outside the womb, which seems to be around 22-24 weeks with current tech. Prior to that point the mother's rights must be paramount. After that, it's a more difficult problem that really needs to be answered by society (and it isn't now.)
There should be no doubt as to what is real and what isn't, independent of political ideology.
The thing to realize is that the view from outside shows the object falling in and getting dimmer and dimmer and more and more red shifted. You never actually see the object disappear.
From the viewpoint sitting on the object, you fall right through the event horizon and get turned into mush, pretty quickly.
So, black holes can be created as the matter can clearly fall past the event horizon and add to the black hole mass.
It's true you'll make far more money starting your own company, if it is successful. Unfortunately, I don't have specific advice on how to do that.
Learning to invest, however, always works.
Right now, there's a translation layer in the way -- your controller, keyboard/mice, wands all get translated into in-game actions, and in different ways from game to game. You always have to spend time learning this translation. Ugh.
Come on, folks. Build me a haptic suit or something similar that I can use to control my avatar. It'd track my fingers, obviously. Of course, a good high-resolution VR faceplate with no cables dangling is a requirement.
Every game would have an obvious interface, and you'd get some exercise also!
Build this for me before my time passes!
(It's probably dangerous for me to say this, but I could fund this endeavor.)
That is, the water/steam cycle is extracting heat from the surrounding rock. That can only be extracted at a rate that matches the heat inflow, or ideally, ever so slightly less, so as to maintain equilibrium over decades over cubic miles of rock.
Yes, I understand that larger temperature differences increase thermodynamic efficiency. But if the energy produced is constant, efficiency may not matter as much as ease of construction etc.
Generally speaking, you don't build a multi-billion transistor chip, and manage to ship the A01 spin without doing some magic.
The Nvidia GPU i/o interface is a remarkable mechanism where the resource manager (the code that sits at the very lowest level) can patch the hardware interface to get around hardware issues and give the appearance of a chip that is working perfectly.
I'm not claiming the blobs work well or anything. I'm just saying there's a reason Nvidia does blobs.
Typically, an A01 chip will ship with about 50 bugs that are worked around in the resource manager and driver. They really do not want to tell you about these bugs -- because they are WORKED AROUND. You don't need to see the sausage made, so to speak.
Per the Ringworld not being stable, I think the same math applies to the sphere as well as the Ring, so the sphere will need attitude jets to maintain position with respect to the central sun.
Dyson swarms seem drastically easier to construct. We could build one example of that habitat fairly soon!
Speaking for my family, my normal-hearing brother connected just fine with our very deaf parents. He learned sign language and what he had to do to communicate well.
As a counterpoint, may I suggest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Man%27s_Burden as a variation on the theme.
Take up the Black Man's burden -- Send us the best ye breed!
1. The Roaring Twenties market peaked in August 1929 with a ~6100 Dow.
2. Market low in November 1929 at ~3800, a ~38% drop. The "big crash" was just ~4400 to ~3800.
3. Then it RECOVERED to ~4700 by March 1930, a ~24% gain.
4. It then dropped over a year to ~3000 by March 1931, a ~37% drop.
5. Then the real crash to ~900 in June 1932, a ~70% additional drop.
People had a LOT of time and a LOT of additional information about the economy to decide to get their funds out of the market.
I have finally drilled into my skull that I am unable to time the markets with reliability. So I hold across corrections. In 1930 I wouldn't have done anything -- I wasn't born yet.