hbrav

The discussions section describes a solution to the opposite problem, where you optimise a surface for high splashback to deter people from peeing on it. Whether this makes the authors Lawful Evil or Chaotic Good is a matter of personal opinion, but they're definitely one or the other.

I think I'd appreciate a compilation of such surprising facts, if anyone has a list.

I feel like the "falsehoods programmers believe about [thing]" is a little similar, but about correctness and never about performance.

Tech divers are also probably gonna be having a Bad Time. Helium mixes are already pretty expensive, I assume this will make it far worse.

This generates a really annoying features with some browsers. Suppose I want to select "United Kingdom". I open the drop-down and there are all the countries in alphabetical order, plus "United States" at the top of the list. I hit the 'U' key. It does not take me to the alphabetically listed countries beginning with 'U', it takes me to the "United States" entry at the top of the list. I might be able to type 'U-N-I-T-E-D-K' and get to the "United Kingdom" entry, but there are browsers where that does not work. (Nor does repeatedly hitting 'U' bring me to the later 'U' entries.)

This is extremely disappointing. The insurer in question has a very good reputation within the dive community for acting in good faith and for providing medical information free of charge to non-members.

This sounds like a cultural mismatch with their lawyers. Which is ironic, since the lawyers in question probably thought of themselves as being risk-averse and doing everything possible to protect the organisation's reputation.

Well how confident would you be that this part isn't exposed to temperatures above that glass transition temperature? It is installed near the engine.

Well they'll end up with higher prices at night. I wonder if we'll see a shift to energy-intensive processes being run during the daytime.

And before that with gears! (With limited success.)

This article is quite frustrating, since all that it really tells me is that their system "generates thrust without using any propellant and without expelling reaction mass, by directly converting electrical energy into thrust through controlled electromagnetic impulses".

That's rather non-specific. My first thought was that they're using photon momentum, but thinking about that a little harder rules it out. The ratio of energy to momentum doesn't change with any properties of the photon (they're both proportional to frequency) so there's nothing to really develop there: so long as you waste very little power as heat, you might as well be shining a well-collimated flashlight.

Options 3 and 4 from [this paper](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.21743), _magnetic sails_ and _solar sails_, seem more promising. Is that what Genergo are doing? I have no idea. The article doesn't tell me.

> But if you offer paid servies, collect money from UK citizens, you must have a business representation in the UK

I don't think that's true at all. You be taking payment by credit card, which doesn't require you to have any local presence.

I think your bigger risk is that you get a judgement made against you by a UK court, which a court that has jurisdiction over you is willing to enforce. I'm not sure under what circumstances that is the case, but I believe that it being the case with libel judgements has been an issue for a while (since plaintiffs can 'forum shop').

How, if at all, would you fund the federal government?

Are you suggesting you don't think the current way taxpayers interact with the IRS is very functional, or you'd like to actually get rid of having any agency responsible for federal tax collection?

Mazdas do lock the screen when in motion.

Actions can be accomplished using a 'big knob' button that can be turned or pressed. The driver can still distract themselves, but I believe it's to a lesser extent that the touch screen.

This is one of my pet peeves: people saying they accept risk/responsibility that they don't have the ability to accept.

It's like co-signing a $1M loan when you only have $100 to your name.

I also did my first one out of cardboard!

Mighty bold of them to assume that most of engineering would be above most of legal.

> about a decade later

Practically the blink of an eye to a cosmologist!

That second idea (cosmic primordial soup causing universal similarity / compatibility of life) could be a great component of a sci-fi story.

This article is a little bizarre, in that it leaves a lot unsaid. On reading it my first thought is "the government could simply forbid its department from considering bids from Fujitsu". This seems like a perfectly reasonable response. The company has shown gross incompetence, coupled with great arrogance. There is every reason to think that it would do so again. Further, being barred from bidding would act as a deterrent to similar behaviour from other companies in future.

I assume there is some reason this cannot be done. Do procurement rules prevent the outright banning of a company from making bids?

That seems like it would be very difficult. For a telescope mirror you want a very good surface finish, and that's one thing that 3D printing does very poorly.

Or in natural units: three very tall men stood on top of one another, wearing a top hat.

I've sent you a message.

I have a background in fluid dynamics and may be interested in helping with this. Is there a way for me to contact you?

> with the same engine and code

Presumably they would be selling the IP rights, so at least some kind of rewrite would be required, possibly without utilizing staff who worked on Chrome.

Great lecturer - when I took Part III he stepped in for a few sessions when the regular lecturer for QFT broke her arm.

His notes are always pretty clearly explained. Equally importantly, I've found he's always really responsive if you think you've found an error. (And very patient if the original is correct, and your "correction" is a mistake!)

Yeh, the quoted commentary is hyperbole. My homeland (the UK) has such a law. I do think that law isn't great. But my country isn't shitty, and it's certainly a democracy.

If we start being perfectionist, we pretend there's no difference between most nations in the rights their citizens have. And that's not even remotely true.

An article about Admiral Rickover appeared here a few days ago, and I think it's apt to quote him in this context: "Complex jobs cannot be accomplished effectively with transients."

Wait, I'm curious about why you think it's "grotesque"?

Do you think it's just not useful as a consumer product for enjoying nature, and that they're conning their potential customers?

Or are you thinking something more along the lines of "this application waste, these _should_ be used to assist the disabled and elderly"?

In the latter case, I think your reaction is misplaced. If a piece of technology is useful to a small segment of the population, it's beneficial to them if it also gets adopted as consumer technology. I claim this because the price of the devices should fall as more of them are manufactured (Wright's Law).

I don't believe this is creating £14B of value. It's transferring £14B from people (I suspect largely poor people) to those firms.

We should crack down on these firms. They're a net negative for Britain.

So if I understand this correctly, this company gets certain information about 911 calls, and then sells it to third parties?

I wonder how much information they get, because this could get a lot darker. Imagine if calls to the police reporting domestic violence resulted in advertising material from divorce lawyers. (A domestic violence victim might well want a divorce lawyer, but unsolicited material showing up in their mailbox may put them at risk by enraging their already-violent spouse.)

I bet you're right about there being value to the spirit. But if I understand correctly escape was also regarded as a matter of duty. By escaping you would not only stand a chance of making it back to Allied lines, but you would also tie up German forces searching for you.