Gandalf’s Balrog fell in a pretty narrow crevasse though, right? The real question there is if they could VTOL

Do you think of life as being an ordered system? It seems pretty chaotic to me.

Anyway, if I relate my concept of a ‘natural system’ to biology, then I’d point out that there isn’t really an upper limit to how fast animals go. I mean, sure, they’re limited by their size or aerodynamics, but a cheetah doesn’t have a ‘top speed’ that it bottoms out at, it could push harder or be induced to move faster.

If I think of it as a force of nature, I’d think about how water flows. The speed of a river isn’t constant, and it could be manipulated or induced to move faster.

So from that lens, it just seems odd that there are universal constants, like the speed of light. You’d think some lights would move faster or slower than others based on their composition, because that’s the behaviour we seem to experience in nature.

This isn’t a serious debate or belief of mine. I accept the laws of science because they’re testable, demonstrable, and repeatable. But when you contemplate the unknowable (what does God look like, anyway?), it’s a fun diversion.

Also we’re such an infinitesimally small part of the universe that I’m inclined to believe that if we are in a simulation, we’re the bug that crawled into the computer.

I’ve often had the thought that the universe is a simulation.

Like, why are there hard physical limitations on things like the speed of light? That doesn’t make a lot of sense for a natural system. Also what kind of bullshit is it that if you move super fast time goes slower?

The universe is a simulation, but it’s not very well put together.

Lots of markings on roads follow this pattern. I think the logic is that the closer (bottom) text comes into focus first.

But yeah, when you look at it, it just looks backwards

Let’s be real, Satan would be a shitposter

There’s an empty lane RIGHT THERE

So close

Personally, I like the southern twang.

It feels almost lyrical

My favourite gag is how Willie keeps dying

Pour tea
Wait to steep
Look at empty cup
“Huh, I thought I filled this…”
Pour tea
Wait to steep
Look at empty cup
Repeat as needed

TIL, thanks

I’m skeptical of the scalability.

On paper, it sounds like a good idea. Competing in air freight for medium speed / cost makes sense. Fuel for an airship is probably easier on emissions than bunker fuel used for freight ships.

Buoyancy is what I’m struggling with. We don’t have an unlimited supply of helium. Thermal airships don’t seem to be any faster than cargo ships. Hydrogen is too combustible.

So maybe this does have potential to carve out a small part of the market, but I can’t foresee this being a huge disruptor in the global supply chain

I had to look up the game, I’d never heard of it: Conkers

The runner up alleges that the winner was cheating by swapping their chestnut for a steel one. It sounds like a hole needs to be drilled through the nuts in order to play, so I wonder if the steel one was rigged so you could actually play with it. Otherwise it’s just a whimsical knick-knack.

However, the alleged cheater is also a judge in the competition. You have to be especially careful about perceived biases when you’re the judge. For most events I can think of, a judge simply wouldn’t be allowed to play. The same often goes for event organizers

If he didn’t cheat, then good for him. He’s been trying for 50 years and he finally did it.
And if he did cheat, well, after trying for 50 years and never taking home the title, I understand the motivation even if cheating is contemptible.

As the other comments will tell you, I’m mistaken on the language

It’s just something I heard before the internet. It could be total baloney

I think the only game that’s given me a hard time with linux is Call of Duty

And that’s not to say that you couldn’t get it to work, it was just more than one click to set up so I couldn’t be bothered.

Honestly, probably better of without CoD anyway

My favorite Christopher Columbus fact:

In his time, the world was widely regarded as round. You might have heard some myth about him proving that it is, but this had been surmised by the ancient Greeks.

The story that I had heard was that Christopher Columbus couldn’t get funding for his expedition because nobody believed him that the world was round. The real reason he couldn’t get funding was because he wanted to go to India by sailing west from Europe. No land was known to be between Europe and India, so this would have been an unfathomably long journey doomed to failure.

He only ‘discovered’ the new world by dumb luck - and for the people living there, I’d say it was very bad luck indeed. And after he did, he maintained that he had found the east coast of Asia.

The man was delusional but somehow kept failing upward into colonialism

In a similar vein

If the company admits that the cost of wrongdoing might be worth a billion dollars, and then still engages in a billion dollars worth of wrongdoing, maybe the fine ought to be two billion

This one goes out for all the dudes out there

Psh, Shakespeare did it first, what a lazy hack. Get your own material!

/s (please don’t crucify me in the ent wood)

Did anybody else have parents who made too much money to qualify for student loans, but never put away money for college?