solrize
@solrize@lemmy.ml
- Comment on Starlink Alternative that can't be blocked 2 days ago:
In military systems it’s done with e.g. frequency hopping with encrypted sequences. That’s also how GPS anti-spoofing works (that’s for the military segment of GPS). The idea is say there are 1000 frequencies and you keep switching between them. Since the jammer doesn’t know which one you’re using at any moment, they have to jam all 1000 of them. So that increases their power requirements by 1000x compared to jamming just one frequency.
It’s not feasible for a mass market consumer product like Starlink. Even if it was, it would be thrown under sanctions or military suppression faster than you can say boo. And it would run at quite low bit rates to again maximize the ability to get through jamming. It would be useless for Netflix or transmitting video.
Maybe an activist cell in a place like Iran could put something together for its own members on the quiet, but it would be low bandwidth and would presumably be very dangerous for the users if they got caught.
I wonder sometimes if people overestimate the usefulness of stuff like this. Suppose Iran’s efforts to jam Starlink had failed, so Starlink still worked there. What would be different for anyone? We’d see more video getting out, but it’s not clear to me that it would have any effect other than to stoke up more internet rage. It’s unclear to me if that’s of any help any more.
Starlink was apparently believed to be unjammable until recently, when we found out that it wasn’t, fwiw.
- Comment on The Resistance Libs Were Right 4 days ago:
Wait, who are or were the resistance libs? I’m confused. The article quotes several writers who I’ve never heard of.
- Comment on [deleted] 6 days ago:
Air filtration? Lookup Corsi-Rosenthal box. It’s an air cleaner you can make from a box fan and 4 furnace filters.
- Comment on Easily available 940 nm transparent films? 1 week ago:
You want it opaque in the visible spectrum but transparent to infrared? Unexposed (but developed) Ektachrome slide film works for that. I had a piece of it around here from some years back but can’t find it now. If it turns up I can send you some. It’s from when I was fooling around with the night vision feature on an old camcorder.
- Comment on Climate change has turned Greenland into a target for Trump 1 week ago:
Wait Trump says there’s no climate change.
- Comment on Trump Administration Live Updates: President Expects Impeachment if G.O.P. Falters in Midterm Elections 1 week ago:
I’d expect Trump’s 3rd and 4th impeachments to go like the first two, i.e. he stays in office. Also, it would be very hard to find charges against Vance as VP.
If Trump did somehow get removed, Vance would take over as President, and it would take him a while to do enough bad stuff to get impeached and removed. And by then, he would likely have gotten his own VP confirmed, who would then inherit the office from Vance. So all this stuff about removing Trump and making things good again is wishful thinking.
- Comment on Trump Administration Live Updates: President Expects Impeachment if G.O.P. Falters in Midterm Elections 1 week ago:
It gets easier after the first few times.
- Comment on Trump Administration Live Updates: President Expects Impeachment if G.O.P. Falters in Midterm Elections 1 week ago:
He’s already been impeached twice and should be used to it by now. What’s the big deal? Wake up, brush teeth, go to Capitol, impeach Trump, go home, watch TV, sleep, repeat.
- Comment on I’m not saying that I agree with right- or center-wing views, and I do condemn transphobia. However, do you think there should be a distinction between critiquing beliefs held by transgender people, and engaging in transphobia? 1 week ago:
I don’t see a question here.
- Comment on Should I get the Measles and/or Mpox vaccines if I had them as a child? 2 weeks ago:
I didn’t realize mpox vaccine had been a thing for that long. Regarding measles vaccine, obviously ask your PCP, but I don’t see anything about getting a renewed vax in the wikipedia article (I wouldn’t believe cdc.gov at this point). I did get some kind of repeat vax a few years ago and half remember that it was MMR but I’m not sure of that at all. Depending on your age you might also get the shingles vaccine (two shots a few weeks apart).
There was apparently a period in the mid 1960s when they gave a killed measles vaccine instead of a weakened one, and CDC says if you were born in that period you should get another shot.
- Comment on People who have eaten since December 31st, 2025, why are you trying to start new shit? 2 weeks ago:
It’s January 1 here now. I’d like a coconut macaroon please.
- Comment on Do I have extreme anxiety? 2 weeks ago:
How long has this been going on? As many others have said, this sounds medical. Tbh I’d try to see an MD first, rather than therapy. They might refer you of course. Have you checked your temperature, blood pressure, hydration and all that kind of stuff? Anyway I have no clue and am just mentioning obvious things. If you had a viral illness recently (flu, covid) that can leave lingering symptoms too.
- Comment on What're your strong opinions from an aged / dead fandom? 3 weeks ago:
Your post made me realize B5 is nowhere near dead. It’s just resting. Lensman series anyone?
- Comment on What're your strong opinions from an aged / dead fandom? 3 weeks ago:
What? I have no idea what any of that is. I was thinking of Babylon 5.
- Comment on What’s up with Myrrh being more prevalent? 3 weeks ago:
It’s mentioned in a well known Christmas carol that is often heard at this time of year. I’m not into it myself. Its bitter perfume breathes a life of gathering gloom. Too emo for me.
- Comment on Why do personal knowledge base applications like Obsidian have all these bells and whistles for querying and parsing metadata/frontmatter but nothing similar for the actual content of notes? 3 weeks ago:
Just use a text editor that can search.
- Comment on Can anyone recommend a logging blood pressure cuff that doesn't require an app or account? 3 weeks ago:
This looks promising, it lets you collect data from Omron devices. It’s from a quick web search so idk any more about it.
One way this is better than manual logging is that it can run while you sleep. That is, you could have it take your BP once an hour all night or whatever. That’s done in hospitals all the time. It’s uncomfortable so I wouldn’t do it routinely, but it might be worthwhile if you suspect something might be up. Obviously, discuss it with your Dr too.
- Comment on How do we know that the ratio between the circumference and the diameter of a circle is preserved across radius sizes? 3 weeks ago:
In math, it’s a theorem based on certain assumptions and definitions about the distances between points, and what length means. You start with human-made assumptions and follow them to wherever they lead.
Those assumptions are pretty well justified based on local observations of the real world. Are they true on a bigger scale, say at astronomical distances? People began to wonder this in the 1800’s, in the era of Gauss and Riemann. There’s another theorem that the interior angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees, and Gauss (an astronomer as well as a math whiz) actually proposed testing that on astronomical observations. I don’t know if hey tried any experiments though. A deviation from 180 degrees would mean that space was curved.
Lo and behold, it turns out that space actually is curved, in the presence of gravitational fields. That was figured out by none other than Einstein, who became world famous when Eddington did an observation during a solar eclipse in 1919 and saw the apparent motion of distant stars when they got lined up with the edge of the sun. The eclipse was needed for the observation since otherwise the sun would have drowned out the distant stars. But, it was quite a sensitive experiment, maybe not possible in the era of Gauss.
Anyway, the “big” answer to your question is that the ratio being constant is in the end an empirically observed fact, but that on a cosmic scale is only a close approximation, and (even Einstein didn’t foresee this) falls completely apart near very extreme ragions like black holes.
Einstein’s theory (“general relativity”) was still an incredible work of genius. As the saying goes, they didn’t call him Einstein for nothing!
- Comment on what was the worst enemy of feudalism? 3 weeks ago:
This isn’t my area at all but I thought that the traditional picture involved feudalism eroding due to technological development empowering the merchant and industrial classes. In both cases, the serfs or peons didn’t get much of a say, but it wasn’t really an ideological conflict, more of a natural economic shift.
- Comment on Trump’s Top Aide Acknowledges ‘Score Settling’ Behind Prosecutions 4 weeks ago:
Wow, wonder if there’s conflict between Trump and Wiles now.
- Comment on California Hires Former C.D.C. Officials Who Criticized Trump Administration 4 weeks ago:
One is Susan Monarez, a former director of the C.D.C., who was fired by the White House in late August after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tried to remove her from her position and she resisted leaving. The other is Dr. Debra Houry, a former chief medical officer of the C.D.C., who quit partly in protest over the firing of Dr. Monarez.
I doin’t know anything about either of those, but Monarez was apparently appointed by Trump then fired a month later for resisting RFK idiocy. A good way to go but a not so promising way to enter.
- Comment on should I go back to my old job now that several people, some of them more knowledgeable than me have told me they don't understand my decision to quit it? 5 weeks ago:
Just be honest about why you quit and what you’re getting out of it, and that the pay at the new job is almost the same. Say you can think about going back if they offer you a big pay increase and other stress relief.
- Comment on How to deploy a satellite and what are the costs? 5 weeks ago:
Start by joining amsat.org I guess.
- Comment on Once a Gamble in the Desert, Electric Grid Batteries Are Everywhere 1 month ago:
Even with the gift code but now blocks reader mode and tells you to turn it off. Bah. Article is ok though.
- Comment on Could there be additional forces at super low energies? Could a new fundamental force be discovered anytime soon? + other questions relating to forces 1 month ago:
Currently known forces splitting at low energies, and hidden 5th force: nobody knows. Physics is an observational science and right now there aren’t any observations that require such observations, but never say never.
Star wars force: come on, it’s fiction.
Gravity incompatible with QM: basically, quantum field theories are developed by starting with classical field theories (say electromagnetism) and doing some mathematical transformations called “canonical quantization” and “second quantization” (these have wikipedia articles). In the 1920s through mid-1940s this worked well for electromagnetism, and made good predictions except it broke down at very small scales, giving “infinity” as the answer to calculations that should have been finite. In the late 1940s a scheme called renormalization was developed, that allowed cancelling out the infinities and getting very precise answers. That was called quantum electrodynamics (QED). Later this was extended to the strong and weak nuclear forces, giving the standard model (SM). That was harder, but same basic idea.
The trouble with gravity is that when you perform quantization and then renormalization, the infinities still don’t go away. That’s what the incompatibility means. There are a lot of proposals like string theory to quantize gravity, but it’s all very speculative.
As for detecting gravity waves but not gravitons, it’s similar to the situation with visible light. As far back as the 1700s(?) it was possible to combine light beams and see interference patterns, thus confirming the existence of light waves. Light “particles” (photons) are much harder to detect and I think this was first done convincingly by Einstein’s explanation of Brownian motion around 1900 (before relativity).
Disclaimer: I’m no expert and I haven’t made any progress in understanding this stuff beyond the handwaving level that you see above.
- Comment on What does it mean when someone says they're a "targeted individual"? 1 month ago:
It means they look like this:
- Comment on Is there a word for when someone is not capable of, or doesn't try to understand verbal communication in a language, they are fluent in similar to functionally illiterate but for speech? 1 month ago:
You mean the person can read and write, but is bad at voice communication? Maybe a hearing problem?
- Comment on Marjorie Taylor Greene Says She Plans to Resign in January 1 month ago:
“I believe in term limits and do not think Congress should be a lifelong career or an assisted living facility.” Woah lol, shots fired.
- Comment on Can we have a healthy life only with fruits or fruits and plants combined alone, and if not why? 1 month ago:
Being vegan takes a bit of nutritional awareness but it’s not that difficult. You might want some vitamin supplements as people have said. Note that fruit isn’t that much different from candy in terms of the sugar hit. I’m not vegan myself in terms of intentionally sticking to such a diet, but often my eating patterns end up going that way anyway, and it works out ok, at least for a while.
- Comment on Trump Berates One Reporter and Tells Another,‘Quiet Piggy’ 1 month ago:
Do you mean moi? Oooh! He noticed me!
