Amusing Science
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Re: Amusing Science
Ah yes. The good ol' Wanker!
You can lead them to knowledge, but you can't make them think.
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Re: Amusing Science
Not really science, but a technology I found amusing:
Somewhat repetitive timelapse:
Somewhat repetitive timelapse:
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Re: Amusing Science
I guess this goes here.

Exactly how big are these? It's a little hard to tell because there's no people up on top to give a point of reference, but each one of those blades is longer than a football field. 117 yards long to be precise (107 meters). Those fences are probably about as tall as a person.
They are rated to generate 12 MW of electricity.

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environm ... rgy-blades
There's some interesting talk about capacity factors:

Exactly how big are these? It's a little hard to tell because there's no people up on top to give a point of reference, but each one of those blades is longer than a football field. 117 yards long to be precise (107 meters). Those fences are probably about as tall as a person.
They are rated to generate 12 MW of electricity.

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environm ... rgy-blades
There's some interesting talk about capacity factors:
This quote from the Department of Energy’s 2016 Wind Technologies Market Report shows how wind capacity factors have evolved over time: “The average 2016 capacity factor among projects built in 2014 and 2015 was 42.5%, compared to an average of 32.1% among projects built from 2004–2011 and just 25.4% among projects built from 1998 to 2001.”
By way of comparison, in 2016 the US nuclear fleet had an average capacity factor of around 92 percent. (Given current markets, nuclear is only economic when running continuously, as baseload.) Coal and natural gas were 55 and 56 percent respectively. (Natural gas is that low because it frequently ramps up and down to follow swings in demand. Coal used to be up close to 80, but it is less and less economic to run coal plants at all.)
So modern US wind is up to 42.5 percent and natural gas is at 56 percent. The Haliade-X, according to GE, will have a capacity factor of 63 percent. That is wackadoodle, though it wouldn’t be the highest in the world — the floating offshore turbines in the Hywind Scotland project hit 65 percent recently.
Add all that up and, at a “typical German North Sea site,” GE says, each Haliade-X will produce about 67GWh annually, “enough clean power for up to 16,000 households per turbine, and up to 1 million European households in a 750 MW windfarm configuration.” (Suffice to say, the number would be smaller for energy-profligate American households.) That’s “45 percent more energy than any other offshore wind turbine available today,” according to the company.
A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.
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William Shakespeare
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Re: Amusing Science
These comparisons ...
Therefore, for every unpredictable KW of wind that you build, you have to build a KW of something reliable to back it up. As such, you pay for your power twice even if you only need the energy once; every KW/h of energy produced will have two KW of potential behind it. What you save in fuel may pay for that but the energy bills certainly don't reflect any savings.
Make it appear that wind is on par with coal and natural gas. But in fact the comparison is at best apples and oranges. Coal for example has a lower capacity factor because one decides to turn it down. Wind has a lower capacity factor because the wind stops blowing. A coal plant with any given nameplate capacity can be run at >100% as necessary and any downtime can be scheduled. Same with nuclear, natural gas, hydroelectric, and even geothermal. Decidedly not so with wind unless the wind decides to cooperate; it is unpredictable.By way of comparison, in 2016 the US nuclear fleet had an average capacity factor of around 92 percent. (Given current markets, nuclear is only economic when running continuously, as baseload.) Coal and natural gas were 55 and 56 percent respectively. (Natural gas is that low because it frequently ramps up and down to follow swings in demand. Coal used to be up close to 80, but it is less and less economic to run coal plants at all.)
Therefore, for every unpredictable KW of wind that you build, you have to build a KW of something reliable to back it up. As such, you pay for your power twice even if you only need the energy once; every KW/h of energy produced will have two KW of potential behind it. What you save in fuel may pay for that but the energy bills certainly don't reflect any savings.
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Re: Amusing Science
https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.03748arXiv.org wrote:The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record?
Gavin A. Schmidt, Adam Frank
(Submitted on 10 Apr 2018)
If an industrial civilization had existed on Earth many millions of years prior to our own era, what traces would it have left and would they be detectable today? We summarize the likely geological fingerprint of the Anthropocene, and demonstrate that while clear, it will not differ greatly in many respects from other known events in the geological record. We then propose tests that could plausibly distinguish an industrial cause from an otherwise naturally occurring climate event.
Amusing article on the subject: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arc ... on/557180/
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Re: Amusing Science
OK, that's fun.
What's the trick?
Oh. Nevermind!
What's the trick?
Oh. Nevermind!
You can lead them to knowledge, but you can't make them think.
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Re: Amusing Science
Weird. It almost looks impossible without some sort of trickery.
You gotta watch to the end of the gif to briefly get a glimpse of the actual shape of whatever that is.
You gotta watch to the end of the gif to briefly get a glimpse of the actual shape of whatever that is.
A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
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Re: Amusing Science
It's a matter of perspective. Any other angle save the one it was photographed at would give it away immediately.
You can lead them to knowledge, but you can't make them think.
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Re: Amusing Science
It's still fucking awesome
still working on Sophrosyne, but I will no doubt end up with Hubris
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Re: Amusing Science
Fun with tuned circuits! One of my personal favs.
You can lead them to knowledge, but you can't make them think.
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Re: Amusing Science
Science is fun
still working on Sophrosyne, but I will no doubt end up with Hubris
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Re: Amusing Science
No argument here. 
Just a damn shame I'm too stupid to have done something great, be set for life as a result, and retire early to my personal island. (One of the larger islands in the Scotch Archipelago)

Just a damn shame I'm too stupid to have done something great, be set for life as a result, and retire early to my personal island. (One of the larger islands in the Scotch Archipelago)
You can lead them to knowledge, but you can't make them think.
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Re: Amusing Science
I hate to break it to you, but a close friend went to Islay and told me the locals don't drink the local whisky.sparks wrote:retire early to my personal island. (One of the larger islands in the Scotch Archipelago)
On the bright side that's more booze for you…


Hydrodynamics, surface tension/capillarity, minimal surface, reflection on a sphere (the droplets) and surface waves. The whole bunch.
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Re: Amusing Science
Seeing light move, sorta (annoying music):
Details & other vids: http://web.media.mit.edu/~raskar/trillionfps/We have built an imaging solution that allows us to visualize propagation of light at an effective rate of one trillion frames per second. Direct recording of light at such a frame rate with sufficient brightness is nearly impossible. We use an indirect 'stroboscopic' method that combines millions of repeated measurements by careful scanning in time and viewpoints.
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Re: Amusing Science
Pretty good shit. What's the trick?
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Re: Amusing Science
What are those, colored marbles? I see them being sorted into colors, but I can't think of how they would do that. It looks kind of like a pachinko game. Are the weights and sizes all the same? Maybe they aren't really being sorted by color but by something else that isn't apparent from the gif.
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Re: Amusing Science

Spoiler:
A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
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Re: Amusing Science
Anaxagoras wrote:What are those, colored marbles? I see them being sorted into colors, but I can't think of how they would do that. It looks kind of like a pachinko game. Are the weights and sizes all the same? Maybe they aren't really being sorted by color but by something else that isn't apparent from the gif.
Spoiler:
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Re: Amusing Science
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/machi ... red-balls/Rob Lister wrote:Anaxagoras wrote:What are those, colored marbles? I see them being sorted into colors, but I can't think of how they would do that. It looks kind of like a pachinko game. Are the weights and sizes all the same? Maybe they aren't really being sorted by color but by something else that isn't apparent from the gif.Spoiler:
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Re: Amusing Science
Waste heat into the sea will cause teh dreaded sea level rises and shit!Anaxagoras wrote:
Spoiler:
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Re: Amusing Science
Worse, it will infect the sea.
--J.D.
--J.D.
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"Doctor X is just treating you the way he treats everyone--as subhuman crap too dumb to breathe in after you breathe out." – Don
DocX: FTW. – sparks
"Doctor X wins again." – Pyrrho
"Never sorry to make a racist Fucktard cry." – His Humble MagNIfIcence
"It was the criticisms of Doc X, actually, that let me see more clearly how far the hypocrisy had gone." – clarsct
"I'd leave it up to Doctor X who has been a benevolent tyrant so far." – Grammatron
"Indeed you are a river to your people.
Shit. That's going to end up in your sig." – Pyrrho
"Try a twelve step program and accept Doctor X as your High Power." – asthmatic camel
"just like Doc X said." – gnome




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Re: Amusing Science
Indeed. The World Oh-See-Un will become self aware and in a hissy fit temper tantrum over all that plastic we dumped in there, will destroy us all!!
We are doomed.
We are doomed.
You can lead them to knowledge, but you can't make them think.