thebestaquaman

u/thebestaquaman@lemmy.world
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I'm no expert, but a quick Wikipedia search was enough for me to not immediately brush it off as pseudoscience.

It's not claimed to be exact of course, but it does appear to me that consensus is that it can be done with reasonable accuracy.

Beauty of handwriting is that it doesn't even need to be consistent for an expert to determine with pretty high accuracy whether or not it's coming from the same person. A physical signature is actually a pretty decent way to verify that a specific person really did sign something.

So much this. They've basically figured out that if they burn enough money, they get the equivalent of billions of meth-charged monkeys on typewriters.

Anything with a security hole (so... basically everything) will eventually be broken into if you throw a data center worth of computational power at trying every conceivable hack. That's basically what they were doing here. The only mildly impressive part about it is the amount of resources they're willing to throw at this.

on Skynet is Inevitable · c/memes · 1 pts · 3d

You make a good point, however you need to remember that the power system, both power storage and motors, need to go somewhere.

I could easily argue that the power storage is just as critical a part as the central processing unit, but takes up a lot more space. So why not put the CPU in a hardened "head", and the battery pack in the torso?

on Hard choice · c/memes · 32 pts · 5d
  • Woman is charged for killing her three kids.
  • Evidence is real shabby.
  • Regardless, she was clearly out of her mind.
  • Loads of people hop on the case as an example of a person that should not be punished due to their mental state.
  • The case gains loads of media attention.
  • "This is misogyny."

When the compression is large enough to be relevant to whatever you're calculating or discussing. Part of my job is literally to develop models that, for instance, predict the compressibility of water. For pretty much all practical purposes I can attest that the isothermal compressibility of water is completely negligible.

The countries in power didn’t change much in size, but the countries they controlled did.

Sorry, but this is just a strange thing to say. The size of any place on a map can only be measured relative to other places on the map. "The countries in power didn't change much in size" just doesn't make any sense.

At the time when the Mercator projection was invented, we already had plenty of maps that gave a more accurate picture of the size of different land masses. The countries in power were actively colonising a lot of the world, so you better bet they would want to amplify their achievements.

The Mercator projection wasn't "just handy". It was literally the first widely used map projection that lat people sail across open seas and get where they wanted. That's a life/death matter. It's literally an integral part of the power of navigating the world seas.

The fact that it compresses the equator is directly a result of where the magnetic poles of the earth are aligned relative to the geography of the continents.

The map is extremely accurate in the sense that a course plotted on the map can be followed by following a compass course. The same does not apply for earlier maps, or by far most modern maps that are designed to match real-world sizes.

The reason the Mercator projection became the standard is that it was, for a long time, the only map you could use to safely navigate long distances, especially across oceans.

I've been a bit busy at work, but I'll deliver on my promise of numbers :D

I've used the Darcy-Weisbach equation for the pressure drop / flow rate relationship, and assumed

  • We have laminar flow in the hose (which is reasonable)
  • You're delivering water at 1 bar (can't go below that without suction on the receiving side)
  • Viscosity of water: 1.0518 mPa s
  • Viscosity of air: 18.03 micro Pa s
  • Your hose is indestructible, and can therefore tolerate arbitrarily large pressures.
  • You have the pump ready at day 0, and the hose is already stretched out at day 0.

The biggest pumps I could find (1, 2, 3) can deliver water at 400 MPa, with pretty high flow rates (much larger than what we can support with our hose). We're talking about pumps that draw on the order of 1 MW of power.

We start pumping water into the air-filled hose at 4 000 bar on day 0.

After two days, the water front has moved about 1000 km along the hose. Flow rate is at about 1.2 L/s, and pressure at the water front is at a solid 450 bar. This is looking good.

After one week, the water front has moved about 2000 km along the hose. Flow rate is now at about 0.6 L/s, and pressure at the water front has fallen to 200 bar. You begin to worry.

After two weeks, the water front is now at 3100 km. Flow rate has further fallen to 0.4 L/s, and pressure is at 150 bar. The pressure on you to deliver is substantially higher.

After three weeks, water has been pumped 3900 km, and is moving at a speed of 1.15 m/s. Pressure at the water front is around 100 bar. The guys that loaned you money for the massive pump and indestructible hose are lurking around your house.

About 100 days later, the first water starts flowing out of the hose in LA at a flow rate of about 0.5 L/s. It would take you about half an hour to fill the 1000 L tank at this rate. Too bad the tank was impounded by the guys that loaned you the pump and indestructible hose. You have gone into hiding.

Nah, your reading comprehension is just fine, I just worded myself in a pretty verbal way. I totally get how it could be misread, I was thinking along the "salesman making a pitch" line:

"Want something that folds perfectly to A4? A3. Want an extra fold before you get there? We have A2!"

Oh, let's also remember that A4 is a member of beautiful variant of an "SI system for paper". Want a paper the size of an A4 folded double? We have A85. Want something that folds perfectly to A4? A3. One more fold? A2.

  • Statement: "I want a piece of paper that I can fold twice to get exactly a US letter size."
  • Response: "You must be crazy."

Edit: Did a fat-fingering