Valgrim

Kids? I would probably have the time of my life organizing an expedition with 5-6 full grown adults where the goal would be to go out there with nothing but our brains and hands, no device or ruler or anything like that, and figure out the length of a meter.

Wild guess: you don't measure a second. A second is defined as 1/86400 of a day, or 246060.

Lets say a pendulum can swing for about 2 minutes. You just take a 2 minute hourglass, make a bunch of pendulums of different lengths, and assign someone to count the number of swings between the moment you turn the hourglass and the moment the sand has passed trough. The one closest to 120 is the correct length.

Now this solution is mathematically elegant but comes with a lot of problems. First you must rely on a less-than-perfect time measurement device which may suffer from day to day variations due to temperature.

On the contrary, to calculate the distance from the poles to the equator, all you need is a good angle measurement device, from which you can triangulate a distance.

The basis for the metric system was not defined by some arbitrary prototype at first, but by measurements everyone on the planet could reproduce using the sun and a bit of water, at least to a very acceptable approximation.

The kilometer was based on 1/10000 the distance between the poles and the equator. The liter was based on the meter, the kilogram was based off the weight of water in a liter, the celcius was based off the freezing and boiling point of water at sea level, etc.

The reference meter was put in place to fix the problem arising from the error margin in measurements, but for practical purposes, the definition was all that was needed for a country to join the metric system.

I've got the same vibe, starting at "consciousness collapses under the reductionist process currently employed in the scientific method." Uuuhh yeah, like most abstract things, consciousness is an emergent property of simpler processes, so naturally if you look at it the other way and decompose the world to understand it, at some point it will collapse.

The next part about the scientific framework being a data structure used by our consciousness blabla quantum particles...seems like just a complicated way to say: we are conscious, even if we don't know everything.

Then, language being necessarily insufficient? Boy you like using lots of complicated words so much, you must be an expert at communicating things. Basically what I get here is: words represent concepts. (Wanking represents wanking insofar it doesn't represent anything else besides a wank. Except when I use the word 'wanking' as a metaphor for mental ejaculation).

Then we start again making dubious links between particle physics and humanities (and of course declaring that one is impossible because of the other, for some reason.) This is the signature move of pseudo-science: using scientific words to appear as an authority to an audience, but then dismissing the pursuit of truth for reasons unrelated to the actual challenges of scientific research.

Honestly I am so excited about this, it could litteraly be a way to eliminate deadly allergies, like foods and insects of course, but also medication and seasonal allergies

Maybe the answer is multi-step: first use curated primary sources, e.g. scientific papers. Then reinforce using well written summaries, perhaps by actual models or well graded student papers. Finally, somehow apply negative weights using wrong answers only. Bonus points if you can automate the whole process

Or the assembly line could be in a ship itself

As a satellite launcher, Starship would be incredibly cheap on shared payloads, and refueling would not be necessary there.

I'm curious.

What makes a soil suitable for growing vegetables?

What can we grow in a soil that isn't?

Is it possible to transform an unsuitable soil into a good one?

Charcoal is pyrolized biomass, not fossil fuel, which means it's approximately carbon-neutral. The problems with it are more associated with deforestation.

I read the book recently, there are some interesting details in there:

-The operator of the telegraph does not know the meaning of the signals he transmits.

-The operator had a fixed break time every day, and could never leave his post. If he missed a signal or sent a single wrong signal, he had to pay a fine worth a large chunk of his annual salary.

-The pay was really bad, but it was an easy job which required no physical or intellectual skill at all, and lodging was included. Also if the weather was bad, you just had a paid day off.

-The count essentially offers the operator early retirement with full pension, all in exchange for sending a few different signals, no questions asked. The cost of this bribery is almost nothing compared to the monetary loss to his enemy.

Is there any chat app which puts the user to contribution by generating two parallel answers side by side, and the user chooses which one it wants to respond to?

Same with me, it gives me the same feeling of "Living in a science fiction world" that I once felt when cell phones or Google maps came out.

Of course even tough I still use both profusely every day, the feeling of novelty wore out. I expect the same will happen with this.

That's absolute bullshit. Even if you can technically secure or transmit a billion dollar using crypto, if it is illegal in your jurisdiction, using crypto doesn't make it less illegal.

There's probably less chance for you to get caught, but there's no difference between that and other 'normal' ways of avoiding taxation.

Question: does the ability to absorb energy necessarily means that any deformation will be permanent, or do metal foams that absorb energy get back to a preferable shape, like a memory foam mattress?

Obviously the solution would be to send two of them next time, and add the ability for both to be used as a relay.

Compared to other fuels, what are the advantages of hydrogen?

It's not really sharing tough, is it? No source code, no models, no demo... just a couple pages of text, a couple of vague formulas, insufficient to reproduce results (which by the way should be the whole point of research papers). This is not sharing, this is just showing off.

This is an example of a real, yet illegal use of cryptocurrency (in the sense that it is used to circumvent the local laws). Also said cryptocurrency has to remain hidden like a treasure in a chest inside a secret cave, or it can be seized, and if the owner does not comply with the seizure, he can be jailed.

If the top image of the article is real, then I guess illumination would'nt be a major problem, especially in the morning and evening when the sun is low.

If anything, piracy is counterfeit.

I think the appeal in this NeRF tech in in the ability to use both real capture information, like traditional filmmaking, AND the ability to reframe, refocus, recompose images, like in 3d scenes.

Sorry if I seemed to imply a productivity gain of 350-700 times. This is a very rough estimate for only the tasks accomplished by a combined harvester, which happens in a very narrow timeline in the season. I was certainly not talking about the overall productivity of the farms.

You might check your math here buddy. Sure a combine (which is called that because it does three jobs all at once, reaping, threshing and winnowing) may cost 100$/hr over it's useful lifespan, but it replaces much more than one person (more like 150-300 people), especially when you consider that harvesting is extremely time-sensitive, sometimes in a matter of hours...

Edit: after some research and calculations, my estimate is that a single modern combined harvester can replace between 350 and 700 men.

It's also pretty common to use solar fields for pasturing, especially where the slopes are too steep for heavy machinery.

What the hell has 'cancel culture' anything to do with it? It's basically boycott wrapped up in a boogeyman costume.

The cryocooler assembly on the JWST is one of the coolest marvel of engineering ever built (pun intended).

I think it's interesting as a learning tool. The stories it regurgitates are crap, but forcing yourself to describe why it's crap is the real benefit here. It's a fancy rubber duck.

I'm curious about the claim that the panel can be installed on ungraded ground. What kind of slope are we talking about? Would it make sense to dig long shallow trenches and adjacent mounds to orient the panel a bit more toward the sun?

Anyone knows what the mystery catalyst might be?