xkcd

DanD

I had, fortunately, managed to avoid all knowledge of the emoji movie until this thread. Even on first reading, I thought it was a joke. It is not. :( However, given the plot, it sounds more like it could be derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Men than the emojis themselves. While this is...

DanD

* the three secrets to French cuisine (butter, butter, and butter (no, butter shouldn't be yellow)) Depends. The original yellow color of both (some) butter and cheddar cheese was naturally occurring, when cows grazed particular mixtures of plants that were high in beta-carotene. You are correct th...

DanD

I would read this as referring to things that are generally selected by color, rather than by flavor. (With a partial exception for chocolate). Jellybeans, skittles, etc. No one asks for "lime" skittles, they say "can I have a green one". In particular, given the time of year, je...

DanD

Astronauts have better than average healthcare and they were selected for not having any health problems when they became astronauts. I don't know if the graph takes that into account. But they also tended to be test pilots, with the associated lifestyle (hard drinking, hard partying, etc). And eve...

DanD

This reminds me of the (novel) sequel to E.T. which I read decades ago. E.T.'s home planet is described as the "Green Planet" as it's covered in plant life, by contrast to Earth, the Blue Planet. Much later I wonder whether that was fair. Plant life obviously depends on the water cycle, b...

DanD

But you know what's worse than the e-mail provider filtering out what they think is spam? The e-mail provider sending you spam Hotmail went through a phase of spamming me with emails about how good their spam protection was. I don't know whether that stopped or if their own filters are catching it....

DanD

A disappearing bug on an electrical or mechanical system is typically something loose. A wire, a joint, whatever. Correct reassembly eliminates this without the disassembly step revealing it. (It's not always obvious that a plug is not seated when you pull it). However, most of these are not true he...

DanD

http://www.medicaldaily.com/cat-bites-pose-risk-infection-1-3-patients-bitten-hospitalized-teeth-inject-bacteria-joints-tissue Now, admittedly, this is just for those patients who seek medical attention for cat bites, so it's not clear what percentage of total bites are serious, but it is clear that...

DanD

Thanks for this comic. Seeing it just added a "TO DO" for me... talk about abusive relationships with my 12-year-old daughter (and probably son too now that I think about it). I grabbed this for talking points: http://www.ywca.org/atf/cf/%7BC783A7F4-5C12-4A12-ACCF-0C665D3DA10C%7D/Red%20Fl...

DanD

Maybe it's just your workflow that is broken.

DanD

Is it bad that I initially thought it was about suicide? There might be perfectly reasonable reasons for you to initially link it to suicide. There might also be not. It's hard to tell when you don't voice your whole environment, relations, identity, history and more. :roll: Do you use a Facebook a...

DanD

EDIT: Since I'm not exposed to the whole US election thing as much as the locals are: is this comic almost definitely still about the election? I initially interpreted it as being about things like war, rape, oppression etc. in general. I think for most on the left side of the US political spectrum...

DanD

For the few people voting for Trump to "bring the jobs back" -- well, the jobs are fucking gone, due to automation. Bringing them back will, at best, be heavily subsidized, mostly unproductive, and lead to a lot of disaster, as with the proposal to bring back coal mining. Better solutions...

DanD

Trump got about 60 million votes, so there are 30 million KKK members in the USA? You're assuming that all 60 million people who voted for Trump actually support him. As Michael Moore stated, that is simply not true, for the majority of people he's a protest vote, a Human Molotov to blow apart the ...

DanD

What's with the title? A normal native speaker would say "Map of Britain". Was he trying to avoid the whole England/Britain/UK minefield? I say again, did he accidentally invent real place names? The real Cadbury is pretty small, but Braintree, Essex is a place I was well aware of. I coul...

DanD

ramblinjd wrote:I see a few categories emerging... feel free to edit/rearrange/discuss:
[...]

Others:
[...]
Blandford
[...]

Put that one on the list of real places. Heck, if the dot were on the other side of the name, it would be in just about the right spot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blandford_Forum

DanD

But it does remind me of one of my favorite lines. Extra bonus internetz to anyone who recognizes the source. " I don't get it captain. How come we fell up ?" " Well, in this sector of the galaxy, gravity is not so much a law as more of a local ordinance." I'll admit to it being...

DanD

By many accounts, the Mt. Everest experience of today is positively dreary – just shuffling along in an overcrowded lineup of rich people. Perhaps that will be the ultimate fate of the true "interplanetary experience"? (I bet there's a good short story plot in there somehow.) I liked Futu...

DanD

Which series is it? In safehold the battlefleet is pretty much Ancient history by the time the story opens. Though it sounds like a similar concept. I am talking about Safehold, "Off Armageddon Reef" has a prologue that sets up the history and Nimue's back story. ETA: Although, thinking a...

DanD

In the David Weber Safehold series, the "Church" had enforced Roman numerals as part of their ban on technological development. I think it was basically that Roman numerals were so cumbersome to use that it would basically prohibit the development of advanced mathematics since running lon...

DanD

Plus Scrabble games rarely come down to who knows the biggest words with the most high-value tiles in them. At least in my experience, which admittedly doesn't include the pro scene. The two and three letter word-lists (and knowing what to do with them) are vastly more important. Back when I play W...

DanD

thunk wrote:At least what the comic said is true, neither fungi nor animals photosynthesize.

Neither do a very limited number of plants.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotropa_uniflora

There's a reason why similarity in features has fallen out of favor for classifying life.

DanD

In an ideal world that would be true, but we all know that in reality, no one in the industries actually cares. I'm guessing you've never actually worked in "the industries"? And aren't an engineer in general? Okay, it really was wrong of me to say, and you're right - an insane amount of ...

DanD

As for non-coffee-drinkers entertaining guests, I like how my parents did it: they acquired a coffeemaker and a can of Folger's, and when their brother-in-law is there, they just have him make the coffee. I know how to make it. But my only concession to it is a hand me down two cup pot and a small ...

DanD

I would suggest that that's the main problem with your own argument. "It exists, therefore it can be automated" is what I see it boiling down to. Um, yeah. Because it can. Sometimes it's simple. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's economical, sometimes it's not. But yes, it can be automate...

DanD

No, I am saying there is substantial operational expense. When that kite fails to fly itself, somebody has to reel it in. Somebody has to clean it. Somebody has to fix it if it tears. Somebody has to monitor the weather and wind and make decisions about when to deploy it. Even an "automated&qu...

DanD

The bigger point is that even if you can get these ideal figures the company claims and even if the cost is justifiable, it is still just 4 percent savings. It does not substantially change the picture of pollution from shipping. If a company wants to do this, that's fine. But I would not put much ...

DanD

The bigger point is that even if you can get these ideal figures the company claims and even if the cost is justifiable, it is still just 4 percent savings. It does not substantially change the picture of pollution from shipping. If a company wants to do this, that's fine. But I would not put much ...

DanD

I highly doubt that robotic space probes are a good model for affordable cargo ships. Automation is always great, and when possible to do so with savings, is wonderful. That doesn't negate the fact that sailing ships require more people than powered ships. Even if reverting to the age of sail were ...

DanD

Just like Spirit and Opportunity needed human intervention? Spirit and Opportunity and the rest don't trail tethers all over the sky. Curiosity safely disposed of its trailing chords used in various stages of descent (parachute, sky-crane umbulical) away from it. It has been strongly suspected that...

DanD

A computer controls the kite and flies it in a rough figure eight. The attachment point is low enough so it doesn't cause the ship to heel, which is at least one problem with a mast of any type. Whilst safely in flight (though even simple and uncomplicated flight needs some complexity of sense/cont...

DanD

omgryebread wrote:So if you put sails or turbines on top of a cargo ship, where do you put the cargo?

Same place you did on a sailing cargo ship. Above it. In the specific case we were discussing, the sail is a kite, and the feed mechanism is a small structure in the bow, forward of efficient cargo space.

DanD

I think this might be a US/UK thing, although it may also be regional in the US. In the US a stove does mean the complete unit, to a point, specifically, we still have wood stoves or pellet stoves. You might buy a stove or an oven at the store if you want the complete appliance with both. However, a...

DanD

Heat is yet another reason to buy LED bulbs. Although it is actually the same reason as the main reason: LEDs are efficient. Sure. For those of you who see with what you laughably call visible light. For those of us who see in the IR... Oh wait. Forget you read that. The invasion isn't until next w...

DanD

Heat is yet another reason to buy LED bulbs. Although it is actually the same reason as the main reason: LEDs are efficient. Sure. For those of you who see with what you laughably call visible light. For those of us who see in the IR... Oh wait. Forget you read that. The invasion isn't until next w...

DanD

How do they make metal shapes like that lamp anyway? Is it pressed? I'm no metal worker, but the internet implies it's mostly pressing/stamping and spinning. It seems to me that spinning is more of a quality/luxurious method though, since a good press is done in a couple of seconds whereas spinning...

DanD

In an ideal world that would be true, but we all know that in reality, no one in the industries actually cares. I'm guessing you've never actually worked in "the industries"? And aren't an engineer in general? I'm not actually on the consumer products side of things, but I routinely work ...

DanD

My point with MFL is that it is set in a place and time where "racial culture" was practically unheard of: the poor underclass and the wealthy ruling class were both white Brits. Racial discrimination in such a setting is impossible. I would suggest you double check the status of Indian i...

DanD

The fact is that feasible alternatives exist. We have existing carbon-free power generation, but I keep seeing people pushing wave power and solar roads and other patently inefficient alternatives. We have nuclear ships and biodiesel, but people still want to put rotors on their ships. This can be ...

DanD

Some people seem to be missing that you can travel faster, tacking, than you can directly downwind. In fact, many racing vessels will tack even when sailing downwind, because their net speed is faster. This is because windpower is the cube of wind speed. The sail can never travel faster than the wi...

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