Rivalarrival
@Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
- Comment on xkcd #3161: Airspeed 22 hours ago:
Balloons don’t carry such instruments, but they do experience airspeed. Balloons can climb and descend at over 500fpm. We experience vertical “wind” at those speeds.
Balloons are tall enough that the envelope can be above a wind shear, while the basket can be below. I’ve experienced 15kt shears, enough to deform the bottom of the envelope into a “question mark”.
- Comment on xkcd #3161: Airspeed 22 hours ago:
Randall isn’t a hot air balloon pilot.
Most balloons are about 100’ tall. The difference in wind speed between the surface and 200’ AGL can be 15kts. It is not at all unusual to descend through a shear such that the envelope is in 20kt winds, while the basket is in 5kt winds. It’s rather scary, actually, because our aerostatic aircraft start experiencing aerodynamic effects: “False Lift”. These forces only exist while the balloon is crossing the shear. Once it passes through the shear, all that lift disappears, and the balloon starts sinking like a rock.
- Comment on What are some good uses the new ballroom can have after the Trump regime is over? 6 days ago:
Guillotine museum.
- Comment on Apparently Palantir can access the content of social media accounts that were deleted a decade ago. 1 week ago:
Once upon a time, we understood that “putting something online” meant releasing it to the public in perpetuity. Any claim otherwise was gaslighting.
Facebook, et al, have somehow managed to convince people that privacy is something you can get back after they’ve coerced you to give it up.
- Comment on Logitech CEO Hanneke Faber wants an AI agent in every board meeting 1 week ago:
Not with that attitude.
Be the change you want to see in the world.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 week ago:
Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender.
“I’m not stalking you. You’re to ugly for anyone to stalk. Quit stalking me!”
- Comment on Does anyone else notice an up tick in hostility on Lemmy lately? 2 weeks ago:
Yeah? Well, so’s your face!
- Comment on Investors are making up the highest share of homebuyers in 5 years 2 weeks ago:
The entire concept of “rent” needs to die in a goddamn fire. There are much better arrangements to fill the niche you are talking about. What is lacking is a regulatory environment making those arrangements preferable to rent.
“Rent” is typically a year-to-year arrangement. Every year, the deal is renegotiated and the tenant ends up paying more.
A “Land Contract” is (initially) similar to rent, but it is negotiated only once, and the monthly fee is fixed for the life of the agreement, like a mortgage.
For the first three years of the agreement, you pay your monthly fee, and you live in the home. You are free to walk away at any time.
If you stay longer than three years, the entire agreement automatically converts to a private mortgage, with your first three years of payments considered the down payment. You continue to make the same payment, but now you are earning equity.
All that is well and good, but landlords won’t offer land contracts, because land contracts favor the tenant/buyer.
Not to worry. We’re going to restructure property taxes. We’re going to have landlords begging tenants to switch to land contracts. The way we do it is by offering an owner-occupant exemption to property taxes. This is called a “homestead exemption” in some states. Basically, if you occupy a home, you pay a tiny fraction of the property taxes that you would owe if you didn’t occupy that home. Or, more accurately, if you are an investor, your property tax rate is going to the moon.
Land Contract tenants/buyers are considered “owners”. The property you are living in is owned by the occupants, and financed by the landlord/seller. The property taxes are at the owner-occupant rate, not the investor rate. Property taxes on “rentals” melt all the profits the landlord could be earning, so they are incentivized to switch to land contracts.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 weeks ago:
Long ago, yes, but not by 1989.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 weeks ago:
Agreed. Seems we’re losing the distinction between “one-to-many” (broadcast) and “one-to-one” (streaming) transmission models.
- Comment on kya 3 weeks ago:
Self defense is predicated on the “reasonable person” standard. Anyone finding themselves (or another) imperiled by what they reasonably believe to be a machine gun is justified in doing anything they reasonably believe necessary to end the threat.
- Comment on Can someone fact check this 3 weeks ago:
So 20 miles per hour across 24 hours gets us a distance of 480 miles.
Going from Europe to the Americas by way of Scotland and Iceland is going to be a bit of a problem for that bird, as it can expect pretty consistent 10-20kt headwinds for the entire journey. America to Europe by that route is a comparatively easy trip.
I doubt that owls are capable of effective dynamic soaring, but that would drastically reduce the energy requirements.
- Comment on ICE to Buy Tool that Tracks Locations of Hundreds of Millions of Phones Every Day 4 weeks ago:
They don’t need the cooperation of telecom providers. They receive the same signal you send to the cell tower. Even if the signal is encrypted so they can’t see what you are sending, they can identify that you are sending.
With enough receivers listening, they can identify your location to a pretty high accuracy.
- Comment on ICE to Buy Tool that Tracks Locations of Hundreds of Millions of Phones Every Day 4 weeks ago:
Privacy policies are irrelevant here. They are picking up unique data as your phone communicates with a cell tower. You can do it with a $15 RTL-SDR receiver.
Get a hundred receivers and you can pinpoint anybody in a city.
- Comment on Finally I understand it 4 weeks ago:
Go back like generations, and see how many times people had to have fucked just to make you. 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + 16…
- Comment on Necessary post procedure care for vasectomy 4 weeks ago:
30, you say? Ok doc. See you Wednesday.
- Comment on Acetaminophen-American 4 weeks ago:
That might be the worst salute I’ve ever seen.
- Comment on Say it slowly. 5 weeks ago:
Some context might provide the distinction.
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Adam: "Jane told me that he licked her asshole."
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- Jane: “I never said he licked my asshole.” <-- He never licked my asshole, and I never claimed that he did. Adam is lying about both parts.
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- Jane: “I never said he licked my asshole.” <-- He licked my asshole, but I never told anyone that he did. Adam learned about the asshole-licking from someone other than me.
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- Comment on Acetaminophen-American 5 weeks ago:
Saluting in the US, your hand should be rotated so that the palm of your hand is toward your own face. The person in front of you should be able to see the back of your hand, not your palm. Also, the tips of your fingers should be touching the outside corner of your eyebrow, or the outside corner of your glasses, or the corner of the brim of your cap. The middle of the forehead is right out.
- Comment on Say it slowly. 5 weeks ago:
I never said he licked my asshole. <-- Someone else said it. I never said he licked my asshole. <-- I was accused of having said it; I’ve never said it. I never said he licked me asshole. <-- He licked my asshole, but I didn’t talk about it. I never said he licked my asshole. <-- Someone licked my asshole, but it wasn’t him. I never said he licked my asshole. <-- He did something with my asshole, but it wasn’t licking. I never said he licked my asshole. <-- He licked an asshole, just not mine. I never said he licked my asshole. <-- He licked some part of me, just not my asshole.
- Comment on proof of wormholes 5 weeks ago:
Paracetamol" takes the “para” part, and then a few other random letters that don’t really make sence.
Because it actually comes from a different chemical name for the same compound: para-acetylaminophenol
- Comment on proof of wormholes 5 weeks ago:
Americans know “paracetamol” about as well as you apparently know “acetaminophen”.
They are the same compound.
“Paracetamol” is the generic term used in Europe and Australia. “Acetaminophen” is the generic term commonly used in the Americas.
- Comment on "Pro-life" and "pro-choice" aren't actually opposite positions 5 weeks ago:
I’m pro-abortion with few limited exceptions.
If you’re under 30 in today’s society, statistically, you are not economically prepared to adequately provide for a child. Choosing to have a child before 30 is tantamount to neglect, both of that child and of any future children you may decide to have.
All children deserve to be planned and prepared for. Finding yourself unexpectedly pregnant, the only reasonable decision is abortion.
- Comment on It'S tHe SaMe PiCtUrE!!! 5 weeks ago:
A contradiction in terms.
- Comment on Don't get mad, get even 1 month ago:
I’m going to start putting those signs on public microwaves…
- Comment on User "threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works" is banning users for downvoting his posts. 1 month ago:
Depends on how exactly it’s implemented, sure. That obviously isn’t the result I’d be looking for.
My point, though, is only that a “downvote” need not mean “hide this kind of post away from the general public”. A downvote can mean something more like “This pissed me off and more people should read it.”
- Comment on It'S tHe SaMe PiCtUrE!!! 1 month ago:
Communism/socialism requires some mechanism to compel cooperation with the collective’s objectives. The greater the degree of central planning, the greater the authoritarianism required to implement it. When you reach a level of centralization sufficient to justify the “communism” label, you’re well into the “authoritarian” quadrants.
- Comment on User "threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works" is banning users for downvoting his posts. 1 month ago:
Your position is reasonable if down votes are suppressive, but I wouldn’t develop a content algorithm that treated them as such.
I would use an “engagement” algorithm. Upvoting increases engagement, commenting increases engagement, down voting increases engagement, reporting increases engagement. The viewing time - the time between initially accessing it and viewing a new page - increases engagement.
The most suppressive thing you can do to a piece of content is click away in less than 20 seconds.
- Comment on Are Cars Just Becoming Giant Smartphones on Wheels? 1 month ago:
Indeed.
Unfortunately, no matter how well you tune your carburetor, just a change in atmospheric temperature is enough to throw off your mixture.
The only feasible way to adjust it fast enough to keep up with atmospheric changes is with some kind of fuel injection, an ECM, and an O2 sensor to provide the feedback needed for closed-loop mixture control.
Fortunately: speeduino.com
- Comment on Are Cars Just Becoming Giant Smartphones on Wheels? 1 month ago:
Lean burning produces nitrous oxides.
Rich burning produces carbon monoxide, which eventually converts to CO2 in the atmosphere.
Unit for unit, NOx emissions are 265 times as damaging as CO/CO2.
…ucar.edu/…/some-greenhouse-gases-are-stronger-ot…
To successfully convert NOx, catalytic converters need a stoichiometric or slightly rich fuel/air mixture to the engine.