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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 17th, 2023

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  • My minion is still too young for that. I plan to wind them up mercilessly however. Right now, dad jokes are the height of humour to them.

    • “I’m hungry”
    • “Hi hungry, I’m dad!”
    • “Nooooooo, I’m not called hungry!”
    • “So why did you tell me your name was hungry?”

    I’ll be a little sad when it finally gets old.


  • I know a few teachers, the “cringy and bad” is the goal, not a mistake. It’s apparently quite therapeutic watching the “cool kids” squirm. How bad can you make them, but not make it obvious what you’re doing?

    The fact that it also helps a lot of kids remember it is almost just a bonus.





  • My head canon, at least with Superman, is his powers. He doesn’t have multiple unrelated powers, but only 1 main one. Instinctive momentum control.

    • Flying - Momentum control

    • Bullet proof - Momentum stopped at the point of contact.

    • Heat beams - Changing the momentum of particles he’s focused on.

    • Holding a plane by a thin aluminium sheet - Adjusting the momentum of the plane directly.

    • No sonic booms, or massive wind - momentum nulling on the nearby air.

    In this case, catching a falling person safely makes complete sense. He just nullifies their momentum before they hit.


  • It was tried, quite extensively, early on in the reprap movement. No-one managed to get it working reliably. The issue is that the pellets don’t feed consistently enough. This means the flow is inconsistent. This massively messes with the quality of the print.

    There are theoretical ways to compensate. Unfortunately, most result in a huge jump in complexity and weight on the head. Neither is a good thing.

    Basically. The benefits aren’t generally with the costs, outside of a few, very niche areas. It’s also now easier to source filament most places, compared to pellets. So even that isn’t a game changer.



  • cynar@lemmy.worldtomemes@lemmy.worldBeep beep
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    21 days ago

    I was rear ended, HARD once. That distance gave me the space to control both my vehicle, and the one that hit me. It turned a potential multi car, multi lane pileup into a 2 vehicle wreck, either 1 more dinged car.

    The space isn’t for the 99.999% of the time, but that 0.001% OH FUCK time.




  • That wouldn’t work. You would need to change the orbital sizes, bonding forces (EM strong and weak, at least), and flow of time exactly in lockstep. Any deviation would show up in quantum mechanical experiments. None of these appear to have simple relationships to each other. It would be a huge new lump of physics to allow this to happen.

    The more likely explanation is that space has a very slight tendency to expand. It would need intergalactic (not just interstellar) distances to be detectable. We also know that (very strongly suspect) that space expanded rapidly in the very early universe. Space then collapsed into a cooler, more stable state. It was initially thought the expansion tapered off to zero, but it might be slightly positive still.




  • There’s a particular particle, the kaon, which can be created. This particle is highly unstable, and so, decays rapidly into other particles. Ever so often, it doesn’t decay down the normal route but instead decays into a pion. This is extremely rare (6 in a billion).

    In physics, we have what’s called the “standard model”. It’s our best guess as to how physics works at the fundamental level. It’s incomplete, however, with multiple slight variations. This decay pathway is interesting because it is quite sensitive to differences between these models. By measuring the energy and ratio of the resulting mess, we can disguard some variants of the model (their predicted energy is too high or too low).

    By using a large number of little measurements, like this, scientists can home in on the most accurate “standard model” variant. This, in turn, informs work on a deeper understanding of physics.

    Basically, a decade’s work to put a single new point onto a graph. A point that only theoretical physicists care about, and might, or might not be useful down the line. Welcome to modern physics.




  • cynar@lemmy.worldtoFunny@sh.itjust.worksClever guy
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    1 month ago

    My university basically gave up with a couple of professors. They hired a personal assistant, full time, just to try and keep them organised. They apparently settled on 3 phone calls, to make sure they made lectures on time. It even extended to things like reminding them to actually get their wives birthday presents, and personal book keeping.

    It seems the human brain has a capacity limit. The more specialist knowledge shoved in, the less room for more normal knowledge. Eventually it displaces even the most basic common sense.



  • We have “family film nights”. We all have dinner together, then get out some beanbags, on the floor. We then all watch a film together, cuddled up on the beanbags.

    The films are ones our daughter hasn’t seen, and can often push her boundaries. E.g. we watched “Monsters Inc” together. She was a little bit scared, but with mummy and daddy there, she loved it.

    It’s definitely one for building memories together. We are too often distracted, even when present. Having dedicated family time makes a huge difference.

    Oh, and she also doesn’t watch much paw patrol, even when around friends. Apparently “Daddy doesn’t like it” is quite enough to put her off it. A classic “respect over fear” situational win for me.

    On a side note. The screen time correlation goes away, when you correct for the child’s parenting and lifestyle situation. It’s not “screens are bad” but that kids in worse situations watch more TV, etc. The causation is backwards.