Thalfon

@Thalfon@sh.itjust.works

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨On the seventh day, god created uranium⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  So, from what I understand, living things maintain (or at least prior to the industrial revolution did maintain) a predictable ratio of C-14 to C-12. I’m not super familiar with the mechanics of this, I imagine it’s a case of the amount of C-14 lost matching the rate it was replaced via respiration.

  Once the organism dies, it stops controlling that ratio and we can measure the decay using a sample of the material.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨On the seventh day, god created uranium⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s not that it breaks down differently (in fact, we rely on it being consistent), it’s how much it has broken down. Carbon-14 has a half-life of 5700 +/- 30 years (per Wikipedia), so if you see 1/2 the expected amount of carbon-14 then something would be around 5700 years old, with 1/4 the expected amount you’d predict 11400 years old, etc.

  This relies on the amount of carbon-14 originally being predictable. This worked well in the past for living things (which from what I understand tended to maintain a consistent ratio of C-14 to C-12) or objects made from their organic material, but stopped being true around the industrial revolution when we started pumping the atmosphere full of carbon.

  We use other isotopes, or other techniques in general, for very recent objects, or for things more than 50-60 thousand years old.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The real 3d chess⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve also seen a variant where the king isn’t (necessarily) the real king. Each player before the game secretly marks the bottom of whichever piece they want to be their actual “king” that game, and the game is won when a player captures their opponent’s marked piece. Pieces otherwise move normally though I think this mode is typically played without the rule that you just not end your turn with your king (the secret or public one) in check.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Theories on Theories⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  In fact, the entire foundation of math – its system of axioms – has had to be fixed due to contradictions existing in previous iterations. The most well known perhaps being Russell’s paradox in naive set theory: “Let X be the set of all sets that do not contain themselves. Does X contain itself?”

  In fact, there have been many paradoxes that had to be resolved by the set theory we use today.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Programming socks?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  With HJKLYUBN unlike these modern savages with their arrow keys.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Emperor of overpromising Peter Molyneux says he's done with games after Masters of Albion, which is also his 'redemption title'⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  A redemption arc this late would’ve had to have been quietly making a great game, no big announcements in advance until it was done or nearly so and playable, and then letting it speak for itself.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Humble Choice for November has Persona 4 Golden, Warhammer Darktide, Cassette Beasts and more⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m personally skipping because I already have what I’d want from this one, but I will say P4G is my favorite of the Persona series, and one of the few long JRPGs I’ve actually finished in the last several years. (P5R is also great, but 4’s more grounded story and characters, relatively speaking, give it the edge for me.)

  And Cassette Beasts is a truly great Pokemon-like that has so much going for it. If you feel out of love with the Pokemon franchise, or if you still enjoy it but would want more, this is a really fun game with its own take on a lot of the mechanics. Lots of depth combined with customizable difficulty.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Black Lion Stolen Goods Recovery Event - Your Rewards⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago⁩:

  I picked Caithe’s Bloom (I think it’s called, the dark purple dagger), since it fit my ele outfit. I got the reading glasses skin which a couple weeks before I’d been complaining about being unavailable in the gem store, so I guess for once the RNG gods chose kindness lol.