Somewhere between “I want to play sci-fi video games all day,” “I want to invent everything ever,” and “I want to go on a 6-month backpacking trip in the wilderness.”

  • 1 Post
  • 28 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 14th, 2023

help-circle







  • I feel like, at their core, most religions boil down to two things, for most people:

    • Giving you purpose/security/scapegoats (“I’m living a good life so I can go to heaven,” “the Lord has a plan/is watching over me,” “Satan/sinners/demons tempted me”)
    • Dissuading you from inquisitive, critical thought (out of self-preservation, I’d imagine)

    Personally, I prefer to define my own purpose, live a more “dynamic” lifestyle than is traditional, think critically, and question authority. Doesn’t make me “better” than religious folks, in fact they’re probably overall happier than I am. But I can’t imagine living that way, regardless of whether or not I believe in a magical sky Santa who can’t decide whether he loves us unconditionally or whether or not he’s actually omnipotent.


  • Yes BUT…there is a difference between platonic socialization and flirting/courtship. Some people can flirt naturally. Some people have to learn it. Some people can’t turn it off. Which is why blanket advice for how to treat other people isn’t particularly helpful.

    So yes, most PUAs are creepy and gross. But also, for those who don’t understand flirting innately, it’s not like there are a ton of obvious reputable resources available on how to do it. And some PUAs do explain some of the key bits of psychology behind flirting. Things like tension and release, light teasing, managing eye contact, reading body language, escalating physical touch…things that you should be approaching differently if you’re trying to flirt with someone vs being friendly. Things that people expect you to do if you’re interested in them, that aren’t inherently obvious.

    And I say this as an ASD guy who confused a LOT of girls in high school by not courting them like I was “supposed” to, then started doing real research in my 20s into things like body language, flirting styles, love languages, attachment styles, etc, and coming to a lot of epiphanies about how stupid I had been, and am now in my 30s reasonably successful at dating.

    For those curious on some actual resources, The Definitive Book of Body Language and The Five Flirting Styles are good places to start on learning the differences between platonic and romantic socialization!___




  • In the Star Trek universe, if you’re intent on “glassing” a planet, it’s in one of two scenarios:

    1. The planet inhabitants can’t fight off a single star ship, in which case you could just park in orbit and bombard to your heart’s content, with the option of either precision strikes or complete annihilation, without expending anything other than the energy it takes to power the ship.
    2. The inhabitants can fight off a star ship, in which case they likely have the technology to detect such a weapon at sufficient range to intercept/destroy/redirect it, or planetary shielding powerful enough to stop it.

    In the latter case, you could put the effort into adding a cloaking device to the weapon to get around that. But in that case, why not just use a regular cloaked ship to delivery some other payload? There are tons of examples in TNG of narrowly-averted planet-killing disasters only prevented by careful engineering. Probably way easier to actually cause the disaster. Examples include igniting the atmosphere, causing geographic instability/earthquakes/volcanic reactions, exploding the system’s star, crashing a natural moon into the planet, unleashing a biological weapon…





  • Oh no, it totally matters. In the case of a receiving tank, rated for 300 psi internal pressure vs 1 atm external. The limiting factor there would be tensile strength, or how well the material resists being pulled apart. Sticking it underwater with 1 atm internal would test a combination of compressive and tensile strength, but more compressive (if it were a perfect sphere, it would just be compressive). Good news is, steel is a relatively good choice for both.

    Which was one of the complaints about the material choice for the Titan; Carbon fiber has high tensile strength, but low compressive strength. The strength of the hull had more to do with the resin than the carbon fiber itself. In fact, I’d be curious to know if there was even a benefit to using carbon fiber over regular fiberglass. That and it’s hard to inspect for fatigue compared to other materials like steel.

    Case and point: Deepsea Challenger, the sub used by James Cameron to go to the bottom of the Marianas Trench, had a pressure hull made of steel.


  • I mean, today, entirely seriously, I spent about an hour looking at used prices for air receivers for this exact purpose. You can totally get 250 gallon tanks rated to 300 psi that are about the right size to fit one person and all the electrical components inside. Cut off one end and replace it with an acrylic/poly-carbonate dome, add a keel, ballast system, and thrusters on the outside, cover it all with a fairing, and you’re good to go!

    I’m thinking I could prototype a functional sub rated to 150 m for around $10k. Totally worth it.

    Trust me, I’m an engineer as well lol