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trentlott

517 karma · joined May 10, 2012

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trentlott··on A Harvard Astronomer on the Interstellar Object ‘Oumuamua
Other similar things are asteroids. It's doing a thing an asteroid would do.

It's much more likely that it's ejecta from some event from outside our solar system. Or a redirected Oort body.

trentlott··on Wife of Norwegian billionare kidnapped, €9M crypto ransom
Yes, for native speaker would not happen that they change writing from normal fluency. What gain can be from changing normal grammatics or to use left hand?

Verily the poorly-skilled can never write better, and the better never poorer.

But are there known 'kidnap ransomers' that could be deduced through language? It seems unlikely, I guess, unless Norway has enough local variances that would give a native speaker away through dialect.

trentlott··on Slate's Newly Unionized Writers and Editors Give OK to Strike
And generally journalists are aware of their biases and good ones actively work against their impulse to favor one side.

The idea that journalists can be biased is not something the profession was somehow unaware of previously.

In the same way that scientists understand that they probably can make up data plausibly, they realize that they make their name with their credibility.

But of course society is presently at the adolescent phase of realizing you can physically say and do whatever you want...whether bad science and bad journalism are confronted by the social analog of thr prefrontal cortex is uncertain. Maybe repercussions will help (collapse of democracy and global warming being the two most likely)

trentlott··on Whats thw crazyest thing ur goats have eaten? (2012)
The problem is finding them.

Back in the day, if I typed in "Radiohead" or "guitar pedal schematics" I would find forums or personal sites about these topics.

Now I will find (1.) Stores (2.) Content aggregators

Those niche forums and websites likely still exist, but it isn't obvious how to find them.

The ones I frequent are insulated from the wider internet. The fact that these places are absorbed into the structure of Reddit is a shame: while it's easier, the discussion is constrained by what is possible on the platform. Static content is difficult to maintain, like discussions of album errata or the history of some circuit.

This is probably just bias for the late-90s.

trentlott··on Silent and Simple Ion Engine Powers a Plane with No Moving Parts
I mean, it would be a hell of a benefit if you can hear a ship explode behind you while you look at the the one in front of you or at a screen

If you don't have that, you're a little more limited to relying on visual information for everything

trentlott··on What Car Thieves Think of the Club (2010)
Yeah, I think I can cut through my steering wheel with a razor blade and a lot of time, or a pair of bolt cutters and a second or two.

Then just slide the Club off

trentlott··on Band faked a fanbase, got booked for a European tour that nobody attended
Well, no:

Article: "...they told the venue they sold 150 tickets (a sell out) and only one person actually showed up who bought a ticket."

Even if they pay the band only after the show, the venue might get $16 for several hours of staffed operation.

People attending a show buy tickets, food, and drinks from the venue.

So, the band's payment is typically easily recouped because the venue expects a minimum guaranteed income (say 40% capacity, average of $6/attendee spent on incidentals).

If zero people show up, they have the expense without the income, having sacrificed the night that could have gone to a more popular band, while also paying workers and incurring utility expenses.

trentlott··on Build Your Own Professional-Grade Audio Amp on the Sort-Of Cheap
Basically a model kit that inhibits your ability to generalize.
trentlott··on Spice is throwing up problems not seen with other drugs
Does that mean Spice, or does that entail breeding higher potency strains with new smells and various levels of CBD or whatever?

As a non-pot user, Spice seems to lack the 'fun' of marijuana- the herbology, aesthetics, and equipment.

Very few people enjoy beer or whisky and decide they will start drinking isopropanol or Everclear to satisfy their interest. They dive deeper, going for IPAs and single malts and tend to be pretty single-minded about their preference.

It's a strange argument, and goes back to the question of how Spice/legalization correlate.

People mostly do research chemicals as a stand-in for their drug of interest. I sincerely doubt legalization would cause "considerably more" than prohibition, and I'd like to see any evidence that it does.

This is the 'gateway drug' canard repackaged.

trentlott··on Millennials Are Causing the U.S. Divorce Rate to Plummet
The concerted effort to shut down Planned Parenthood, probably.

When you remove and important and often sole provider of family planning, the planning part goes astray.

My biggest question is who profits from eliminating places like that? I don't buy that it's just about abortion and religion (and therefore politics, in the US.)

trentlott··on Qualcomm accuses Apple of giving its chip secrets to Intel
On your final point, I hope the engineer realized how obviously dumb the move was.
trentlott··on Welcome to Armageddon: On MUDs (2017)
Somehow I expected a Batman MUD.
trentlott··on Unimania: I Need Your Facebook Data, Location, and Your Browsing History
Why can't someone develop a sandbox app that feeds in network connectivity while faking inputs?

Twitch just needs to display video and a button that autoprints the Donger.

trentlott··on What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD
A PhD is nothing like undergrad.

If you spend time working in a lab with grad students, listen to them. Heed their points about the field and their boss.

Research is research, and maybe you'll have some idea of what the technical details of the field are. But the only way you know what your life will be like is to pay attention. It's not bad, but you're trading something real to have "Dr." on your magazine subscriptions.

My biggest concern is more people getting PhDs, and the process becoming the New Bachelor degree, particularly in STEM.

trentlott··on What You Need to Know Before Considering a PhD
Yeah. As a chem PhD, the average tends toward 4.5-5.5ish.

Between classes, teaching, and genuinely getting things done, it's not a fast experience.

Also, you probably arent making a ton more unless you go for an industry job...which is a little bit the opposite of the Platonic independence supposedly at the heart of the training method.

But very few people I know want to be a PI.

trentlott··on Either This Data Is Incorrect or These Physicists Just Changed the World
It reports on the problems and summaries the current going on with comment from the authors and Skinner, who found the reproduced noise.
trentlott··on Absolute Hot
So how does 'invisible' kinetic energy (say, that of a ball traveling on the planet) change its mass?

If we cancelled out that movement (relative to the Milky Way), does the mass change?

Is how much do the various relative movements affect our mass, and would it be possible to pull tem apart? (Solar System, Relative to galactic center, other galaxies, etc)

trentlott··on Absolute Hot
> there is a family of systems of "negative temperature" which become less uncertain as you add more energy to them . . .

I'm no physicist, just a chemist. What are they?

trentlott··on LHC physicists embrace brute-force approach to particle hunt
It is physically, but not scientifically.

Before they outlined what they were looking for. Now they're just sifting.

Most science doesn't allow you to propose "We will expose A to X and see what happens", but rather expects a hypothesis: "We expect Z following X>A because of [rationale]."

trentlott··on Strawberry Pop-Tart Blow-Torches (1994)
I think an excellent use of someone's time would be to curate a website that corrals as such old/classic 'project' webpages and protoblogs.

I would love to spend hours clicking around on the twenty-years-past internet of my youth.

I particularly miss an old game called Vagabonds Quest; essentially just a perl chatroom with basic DnD classes/leveling built in for competition.

trentlott··on Japanese students create VR experience of Hiroshima bombing
And easy to continue it, when the costs are so readily ignored.

Iraq/Afghanistan have been much longer than Vietnam for a very obvious reason.

trentlott··on Mechanical Characterization of Structured Sheet Materials
I do materials research and I'm more blown away by the novelty that Disney is doing basic science.

Am I misunderstanding something?

trentlott··on Lab Spend – Pricing Search Engine for Research Chemicals and Supplies
I started entering a number and it automatically ran a search before it was completed (mobile chrome). Then I put in a chemical that it didn't find...now I'm outta tries.
trentlott··on “An almond doesn’t lactate:” FDA to crack down on use of the word “milk”
It's closer to dairy butter than apple butter, at least.
trentlott··on “An almond doesn’t lactate:” FDA to crack down on use of the word “milk”
I doubt that has anything to do with the startup du jour. Are you connected to them somehow?

If you pay attention to shelves, almond and soy milk are gaining in popularity. The dairy industry is attempting to slow the momentum of an extant product class.

trentlott··on A record-breaking microscope
It wouldn't work well at deep depths because it's interacting with the electron shell. After a few nanometer or two of tissue you'd have no signal. If you'd figured out a way to put a brain in the microscope. They tend to want samples in a vacuum, a few cm square and no more than a few mm thick including the sample mount.

You'd have to use something like neutrons, which don't interact with electrons and can be used to image internal structure. Those tend to have side-effects, though, like inducing radioactive decay in nuclei.

trentlott··on WeWork Tells Employees Meat Is Permanently Off the Company Menu
The argument is thermodynamic: meat will never provide more calories than it requires.
trentlott··on WeWork Tells Employees Meat Is Permanently Off the Company Menu
Take a picture of the menu after you double check your receipt, I guess. Or don't order risky items.

I doubt any restaurant would list a veggie burger as "Burger". There'd be a "V" or something, to explain why it was $2 extra.

trentlott··on Why local US newspapers are sounding the alarm
Yes. I think the last US Presidential election is a small taste of the future rather than an aberration.
trentlott··on Microsoft announces Surface Go
So, their claim to MP3 players is in the grand tradition of the American pioneer.
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