merc
@merc@sh.itjust.works
- Comment on Don't poop in the 13 minutes ago:
Just rotate the paw marks 90 degrees and they suddenly look a lot more like capital 'E’s. That’s a lazy designer.
- Comment on Anon gets corrected 6 days ago:
“Would y’all like a coke?”
“Would all y’all like cokes?”
- Comment on Anon gets corrected 1 week ago:
Depends on the context.
“Hey Brian, were you making out with a dude last night!?”
“Haha, no, that was Annie, she’s a chick, she just has short hair.”
Dude(s) and Guy(s) can be gender neutral or male-only. Girl can mean a female child, or it can mean a woman, depending on the context.
- Comment on Anon gets corrected 1 week ago:
In parts of the south “y’all” is singular. “All y’all” is plural.
- Comment on Man trapped inside driverless car as it spins in circles 1 week ago:
I don’t know, I doubt it.
- Comment on Anon buys a TV without researching 1 week ago:
How does one do that? Which brands are dangerous?
- Comment on Man trapped inside driverless car as it spins in circles 1 week ago:
Please stop bending over backwards for the corporations.
Who’s bending over backwards?
The customer shouldn’t have to control the taxi when they’re calling for emergency support like this
I agree. The car also shouldn’t drive in circles around a parking lot, but here we are. In that situation, you do whatever works. If the fastest or easiest way to resolve the problem is to do something with the app on their phone, then so be it. It does no good to complain about what the solution should be when you’re trying to resolve that. Save that for later once the problem has been resolved.
He was on his way to a flight. Flights are expensive.
Yes, and again, that’s something to address after you fix the problem. Stop interrupting the person who’s trying to help you to ask about compensation for a flight you haven’t yet missed (and probably won’t miss) rather than just do what they say to resolve the problem.
He has no idea for how long he’s going to be continually going in circles
But, it’s going to be a lot longer if he keeps interrupting and bringing up the cost of his flight rather than just doing as the person trying to help him asks.
This is a customer in distress
No, this is a guy trying to make a viral social media post, who obviously cares more about an exciting story than trying to fix the situation. If he cared about fixing it, when the agent asked him to bring up the waymo app on his phone he’d have done it. Instead, he needed to keep his phone in hand so he could keep recording for social media.
Waymo comes out of this looking incompetent, as they should. But, this guy didn’t do anything to make the situation better.
- Comment on Anon buys a TV without researching 1 week ago:
There are plenty of smart TVs that you just don’t have to connect to the internet
AFAIK many of them will continue to nag you to connect them to the Internet if you don’t do it. Those nags can be just as bad as ads.
- Comment on Man trapped inside driverless car as it spins in circles 1 week ago:
How did he not allow them to help?
He kept talking over the woman who was trying to help. He brought up his flight about 3x. When she asked him to bring up the Waymo app he pushed back rather than just doing what she asked.
He’s right that it’s dumb if he has to use his phone to do something. But, if she thought that would work, why not try it? I suspect the reason he didn’t want to do that is that he was using his phone to record his social media post, and was more concerned with getting his viral post ready vs. trying to actually resolve the situation.
This doesn’t make Waymo look good. Their car getting stuck looping a parking lot is ridiculous. The passenger not having an obvious button to push to get the car to immediately stop (or find a safe place to pull over and stop if it’s on a highway or something) seems like a big oversight too. The person answering the phone also didn’t seem to know how to handle the situation either. Like, this seems like one of the primary things someone on support should know how to do: stop the car and let the passenger get out if there’s a problem. But, she seemed to be fumbling to find a solution.
Having said that, the guy seemed to be making the situation worse instead of trying to resolve it and get to the airport.
- Comment on Man trapped inside driverless car as it spins in circles 1 week ago:
“Spins in circles” makes it sound like the car was drifting, when it was just doing laps around the inside of a parking lot. Also, this guy starts talking about them “taking care” of his flight when this has been happening for what, 5 minutes? I get that it’s annoying, but if 5 minutes circling a parking lot would have made him miss his flight, he’d also have missed it if there was even a hint of bad traffic. He also doesn’t even allow the customer service person to help him.
Also, the screen in the car has a “pull over” button on it. I guess he missed that? Or, maybe he hit it and it was stuck in a loop trying to find a safe place to pull over? It seems to me that a software button on a touch screen isn’t good enough though. They should have a physical big red button that a passenger can’t miss and can hit if something is going wrong. But, that’s just me.
- Comment on I'm seriously proud of this 2 weeks ago:
Reddit doesn’t allow title edits and GBoard is shit at producing the words you want
That doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to change them before you hit “submit”.
- Comment on YEET 3 weeks ago:
Yeah, “fall into the sun” was sort of hyperbole. If it truly got out into space and was going fast enough to escape Earth’s gravity, it would start orbiting with earth’s orbit plus some delta. Out of all the possible angles it could leave the earth, there are probably 2 angles where it would directly hit the sun One is the angle that cancels out all the orbital velocity of the earth and sends it directly at the sun, the other is the one that does the same but sends it directly away from the sun. Of all the possible trajectories on the surface of a sphere, only those two tiny solutions would end up with it contacting the sun, everything else would result in an orbit.
Of course, given enough time, it’s pretty likely that if it isn’t collected by a planet, it will eventually end up in the sun. There isn’t much friction in space, but there’s a tiny bit: solar wind, micrometeoroids, etc. Eventually its orbit would decay and it would stray too close to the sun.
- Comment on I've had roommates like that. 3 weeks ago:
In the real world they probably stop when they can no longer hear the rushing water. So, I assume if you’re continually playing the sound of rushing water, they’ll never stop.
- Comment on I've had roommates like that. 4 weeks ago:
Yeah, or at least there’s a running water sound nearby. If you play a recording of a sound of running water near a beaver, it will build a dam. It doesn’t even have to feel the running water. I’m not sure if it even has to be at the closest point it can get to the sound, or if it uses other cues like a narrowing of the area so that a dam will be the most effective.
In this case, the hallway may be seen like a “choke point” for flow, so it’s a good spot for a dam.
I’m curious what the thinking is for dam building. You’d think that a beaver would only build when it was actually in flowing water, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. But, what other things are they considering. Do they try to find the lowest point in an area at least? Do they consider how narrow the area is?
- Comment on Anon is a math prodigy 5 weeks ago:
As one step of building a bigger project that demonstrates something web-ish.
- Comment on Anon is a math prodigy 5 weeks ago:
If the web server is implemented in any of the languages that require semicolons.
- Comment on Anon is a math prodigy 5 weeks ago:
Any programming language that runs on the web server and doesn’t gracefully handle its errors. There are many web servers implemented in Javascript, but it could also be Java, it could be Perl, it could even be C/C++ if someone is being masochistic.
- Comment on YEET 1 month ago:
Hit the gym, delete the lawyer, face the book.
- Comment on YEET 1 month ago:
For one thing, the Apollo shield started in the very thin upper atmosphere, and they came in at an angle that meant they bled off as much speed/energy as possible in that thin upper atmosphere before going into the thicker atmosphere.
I don’t know that that makes a huge difference to the physics involved, though it certainly may have.
Of course it will make a difference. The whole challenge is about managing the heat build-up, which is the energy per second (i.e. power). If you hit the thin upper atmosphere you’re encountering less material, so less friction / pressure, so less heating. It means you can keep the heat on the heat shield in a manageable range, rather than putting it at a temperature where it would melt or explode.
the air cushion begins heating itself up instead of the object, reducing the amount of heat the object receives.
No, both heat up. The air cushion transfers its heat to the object next to it. At the kinds of pressures we’re talking about, you might even be getting nitrogen plasma rather than just nitrogen gas.
But it would also tail off as the bore cap heated, reducing stresses on it as it went higher.
If it went high enough for that to matter. If it disintegrated in the lower atmosphere it wouldn’t matter that the air got thinner in the upper atmosphere.
chunks of meteorites bigger than a meter have made it through the atmosphere, for instance
Is a metre the original size, or the final size? Also, reverse meteors (something starting with its maximum speed in the lower atmosphere) are doing things the hard way. Rather than getting slowed down initially by the thin upper atmosphere and then only hitting the thick atmosphere once they’re slower, they start out in the thickest atmosphere. OTOH, a meteor is a random collection of rock and metal formed by gravity in space. A pure metal plug cast on Earth is probably going to be a lot less prone to breaking apart.
the bore cap starting at the bottom of the atmosphere means that it’s likely it experienced less fracture stress, since the air would’ve accelerated with it rather than being static.
That doesn’t make sense to me. Something in a thicker medium is going to experience more stress. Try pushing a cracker through the air vs. through water vs. through gelatin. Which medium will cause the cracker to crack first? Obviously it’s the thicker medium.
- Comment on YEET 1 month ago:
Exactly. It’s the minimum speed required to get into orbit assuming you get the direction correct. If you launch vertically, you’ll almost certainly come back down, no matter how far out into space you go. The only consideration is that if you go far enough out you might be influenced by the gravity of something else like the moon which could change your trajectory.
- Comment on YEET 1 month ago:
I don’t think you can compare the Apollo heat shields to a bore cap being launched into space. For one thing, the Apollo shield started in the very thin upper atmosphere, and they came in at an angle that meant they bled off as much speed/energy as possible in that thin upper atmosphere before going into the thicker atmosphere. In fact, one of the engineers said that if they came in too steep they’d generate too much heat and probably not survive the re-entry.
The layer of air you’re talking about at the front of the spacecraft was what heated up the heat shield. Instead of causing heating via friction, the heat was the result of compressing the air. The amount of compression you’re talking about would be orders of magnitude higher for something starting at 40 km/s in the thick lower atmosphere.
Also, the Apollo heat shield did heat up to 5000F or 2800C but was designed to be ablative, so that the hot layers burned off and flew off to the sides leaving new material to be heated up and burned off. This concrete and metal plug wouldn’t have been designed the same way. Concrete apparently melts at 1200C, and steel is approximately the same, so it’s very likely some of it melted or vaporized, the question is how much.
I don’t know where you’re getting the maximum of 22MJ of energy. The whole point of Apollo not going directly into the atmosphere was to take as long as possible to slow down, going through the thinnest part of the atmosphere for as long as possible. The whole point would be to reduce their energy-per-second as low as possible by taking as many seconds as possible. One reasonable first approximation of the energy would be to integrate the entire energy per second / power for Apollo’s re-entry over the entire 7 minutes (or however long it took until parachutes deployed) and then divide that energy by 2 for the 2 seconds the plug was in the atmosphere.
My guess is that that would have been temperatures well in excess of 1200C which would have made the outer surface start to melt, and most likely a temperature where it just turns to plasma. Would it all have melted / vaporized / plasmafied away? I don’t know, it’s a huge plug. Since it was launched vertically, anything remaining would probably have come right back down. But, that’s assuming it stayed in one piece. I’m guessing it broke apart due to the stresses on it, and breaking apart would have meant more surface area, which would have meant more areas exposed to massive heating, which would have meant more breaking apart.
TL;DR: I doubt it made it out of the atmosphere.
- Comment on YEET 1 month ago:
It isn’t speed.
- Comment on YEET 1 month ago:
Throw it into water or gelatin. At thousands of metres per second the air is going to seem much more dense.
- Comment on YEET 1 month ago:
That’s 11.2 km/s and 42.1 km/s.
Also, even if the manhole cover was going at above 12 km/s the trajectory has to be right for that to result in orbit. Most paths it would take would result in it going up and then coming back down again. Similarly, if somehow it did manage more than 50 km/s and wasn’t destroyed in the atmosphere, it might have the velocity to escape the sun’s gravity, but probably wouldn’t be on the right path to do it. Most likely it would fall into the sun.
So, assuming the 125,000 mph (55 km/s) velocity is correct, the most likely outcome is that it was a reverse-meteor, something that burned up going up through the atmosphere, not down. And even if it did have enough speed to get out of the atmosphere, and there was enough of it left, it most likely fell right back down through the atmosphere somewhere else, either burning up on re-entry or hitting the ground (or the water) somewhere else.
- Comment on Causes of Death in London (1623) 1 month ago:
It’s interesting how there’s a hint of science here, but so much non-science.
Like, trying to categorize things is a bit scientific. Trying to distinguish between similar but different things is a bit scientific. At the same time, so many of these causes of death are symptoms not causes. And, there are too many cases where they didn’t bother to try to find a cause, like the “Planet” cases or “Suddenly”. Also, almost all of the deaths are in children / infants, but in those cases they don’t try to figure out the cause of death, they just note the age.
- Comment on Causes of Death in London (1623) 1 month ago:
Olde Modern Count Abortive, and Stillborn Abortion and Stillbirth 445 Affrighted Fear? Possibly a heart issue? 1 Ague Malaria, or a disease involving fever and shivering 43 Apoplex, and Meagrom Stroke and severe headache, migraine 17 Bit with a mad dog Rabies 1 Bleeding Blood loss 3 Bloody flux, scowring and flux Dysentery and cholera 348 Bruised, Issues, sores and ulcers Bruising, open sores, either as a symptom of something else (hemorrhagic fever) or because they got infected 28 Burnt, and Scalded Same 5 Burst, and Rupture Probably an externally visible rupture 9 Cancer and Wolf Cancer and Lupus 10 Canker Mouth sores, maybe from herpes? Probably not the underlying cause of death 1 Childbed Death following complications from childbirth 171 Chrisomes, and Infants Babies less than 1 month old and Infants 2268 Cold, and Cough Same (but probably a symptom of something worse) 55 Colick, Stone, and Strangury Gallstones, kidney stones, and other intestinal and urinary blockages 56 Consumption Tuberculosis 1797 Convulsion Seizure, possibly caused by epilepsy 241 Cut of the Stone Died during surgery to remove kidney / gallstones 5 Dead in the street, and starved Exposure, hypothermia, starvation 6 Dropsie, and Swelling Edema, fluid retention, possibly caused by heart failure 267 Drowned Same 34 Executed, and prest to death Executed is obvious, “prest to death” is accidental death while being tortured (via pressing) to force a confession 18 Falling sickness Epilepsy, perhaps “petit mal” seizures vs “grand mal” which went under Convulsion 7 Fever Same, interesting that it’s distinct from Ague 1108 Fistula Same, horrific, distinct from childbed – I guess the women lived a bit longer? 13 Flocks, and small Pox Smallpox and other diseases causing pustules 531 French pox Syphilis 12 Gangrene Same 5 Gout Gout, or inflammatory arthritis, not the underlying cause of death, but a clear symptom 4 Grief Modern medicine would be more specific but… 11 Jaundies Jaundice, liver disease 43 Jawfaln Fallen jaw, lockjaw, tetanus 8 Impostume Abcess, a symptom of an infection 74 Kil’d by several accidents Trauma, I assume 46 King’s Evil Scrofula or Mycobacterial cervical lymphadenitis 38 Lethargie Chronic fatigue, a symptom of something else 2 Livergrown Swollen liver, possibly cirrhosis from drinking 87 Lunatique Lunatic, mental illness – curious about the actual cause of death though 5 Made away themselves Suicide 15 Measles Same 80 Murthered Murdered 7 Over-laid and starved at nurse A smothered baby, either accidentally or on purpose, starved from lack of milk 7 Palsie Paralysis, Parkinson’s, similar things 25 Piles Hemorrhoids, not a cause of death, but a source of infections and an obvious symptom 1 Plague same 8 Planet Sudden death thought to be related to something astrological (planet alignment) 13 Pleurisie, and Spleen Pleurisy (chest infection), apparently it can sometimes be caused by damage to the spleen? 36 Purples and spotted Feaver Bruising and spotted fever (tick borne disease), distinct from bruising, listed earlier 38 Quinsie Quinsy, Peritonsillar abscess, can cause many other things 7 Rising of the Lights Fluid in the lungs, possibly caused by croup 98 Sciatica Same, possibly caused by spinal disc herniation 1 Scurvey, and Itch Ye Scurvy dogs! Ye been sailing with yer limes! 9 Suddenly um… 62 Surfet Surfeit, overeating, overdrinking, not fatal on its own, but perhaps blamed when it was the underlying reason 86 Swine Pox Possibly a euphemism for “French Pox”? 6 Teeth Probably children dying at an age when their permanent teeth were coming in. Similar to “Chrisomes” named for the cloth used when christening a child. Either that or serious tooth infections that led to complications. 470 Thrush, and Sore mouth Thrush (Candidiasis) could make it hard to eat or drink, or lead to other infections 40 Tympany Excess gas in the gastrointestinal tract making the belly like a drum, many potential underlying causes 13 Tissick A wasting disease, often associated with a cough 34 Vomiting Long term vomiting can cause dehydration, might also have been used for someone choking on vomit and dying from asphyxiation 1 Worms Ugh. 27 - Comment on This world is cruel… 1 month ago:
Cool stuff, I live in a city. Not a huge city, but big enough that I only see the major stars at night. It would probably take me at least 45 minutes of driving to get somewhere dark enough to take a picture like yours (assuming I had all the equipment and skill to take that kind of picture at all).
- Comment on This world is cruel… 1 month ago:
I’m sure you know other people spending thousands on their gear. Anyhow, many of these hobbies can be done relatively cheaply, but I imagine the woman picturing the man doing it as someone who wasn’t going the ultra-cheap route.
Nice picture btw. How far do you have to travel to get somewhere where there’s a low enough level of light pollution that you can take a picture like that?
- Comment on This world is cruel… 1 month ago:
A leather shop as in fetish gear, or a leather shop as in a place for leatherworking hobbyists?
- Comment on This world is cruel… 1 month ago:
Does listening to something count as reading? Hmm… I’m going to have to go with a no here.