I think we can all agree that "use humans for raw energy" is a really stupid idea, and sounds exactly like someone dumbed stuff down. FFS, a small Rickover fission reactor the size of a van (1950s tech) produces the same amount of heat as, what, 200 000 human bodies? (And why humans, with all the complex support systems? Why not a heap of compost, if one insists on bio-source?)
Whereas using our brains for compute (in the background, or during REM sleep) makes perfect sense; power efficiency is excellent.
nono...it's "combined with a form of fusion", you see, so it's obviously based in science.
People obviously know this stuff is absurd on some level, but it doesn't stop them from cherry-picking the parts they "like" (i.e. fear) and ignoring the rest.
Simplifying from memory, light propagation in medium can be treated on two levels (some phenomena require the 2nd, quantum, level):
- classical (Maxwell): electrons in the medium oscillate out of phase in response to the incident wave; this results in a new wave, propagating somewhat slower
- quantum (QED): incident photon couples to matter excitation (an exciton), producing a pseudo-particle called a polariton; it has a non-zero effective mass, resulting in propagation slower than c
As mentioned above, it absolutely isn't "absorbing and re-emitting". If that was the case, transparent materials would not exist (only milky/clouded ones), as re-emission is in random direction. However, photon propagation in the Sun is just that, a (very long, counting from the core to photosphere) random walk.
Thank you, that is very interesting!
I remember seeing something about absorption/emission and seemed to make some logical sense. But indeed if emission is in a random direction then transparent materials wouldn't make sense.
I wouldn't say "violence", rather, an opportunity to demolish something on (good) purpose. Same reason children will be glued to the window if workers outside are going at it with jackhammers, or, better yet, an excavator is crushing and scraping off the asphalt. (Yeah, I remember exactly how awesome that was.)
I also loved the video. But I'd think if one wanted to deploy "simple" mechanical projectile weapons at scale, pneumatic launchers would be easier, more compact and more reliable (way less cool-looking and operating, though!).
I helped design the "reloadable" part of a golf-ball shooter that used acetylene as the accelerant. I don't think it went supersonic, though. There's videos (embarassing ones) on youtube. He eventually designed one that can shoot full cans of monster energy hundreds of yards.
the reason i bring it up is we used to design and build pneumatic ones, that could send C and D batteries thousands of feet if you arced it right. that was with ~125psi, we always wanted to build out to 200+ psi, but instead went into accelerant-based cannons and he got a job doing machine drawing with autocad. the rest is history.
Sorry to be a bore [that's a firearms joke], but -- while I encourage everyone and their family to experiment with building such devices, with safety in mind of course, it is a lot of fun -- please don't dispose of your old batteries in the natural environment!
Really not trying to call you out here, as a teenager I once had the idea to load up my marble cannon with dead AAs (they're free!) and got a "do you really think that's a good idea?" from an environmentally conscious adult when I went asking for dead batteries.
We moved on to oranges really fast after realizing that batteries coming out of the sky randomly was probably a bad idea, even if there were no apparent people around.
Don't get me wrong, oranges are dangerous too, coming out of the sky at terminal velocity, but at least when they hit the ground they disappeared into a fine, 3 meter wide mist.
I think the cycle time on this would be far superior to a pneumatic system: cycling this system effectively means lifting ~100 pounds ~8 feet, which a reasonably fit person (who could reach that high) could do several times a minute for extended periods.
He got an efficiency over 40% (if memory serves, I watched this video yesterday) -- I wonder between pumping and discharge how efficient a pneumatic system would be, but I can't imagine that it's higher.
If the pump were operated by a bicyclist and the projectile feed automated I imagine the pneumatic system would win out by a very wide margin regardless of any reduction in overall efficiency.
Isn't it a simple matter of sustained energy output scaled by the overall efficiency? I'm saying that a human cycling can sustain much much higher energy output for much longer than most other forms of exercise. Running probably comes close and swimming likely exceeds both of those but in the latter two cases I'm not clear how you could productively harness energy from the activity with any sort of efficiency so it doesn't apply here.
Basically anyone can go buy a pellet rifle that will easily and consistently clear 1500fps. They're still pretty cool, and will go through both doors of a car
I dunno, takes a lot of energy to get a pneumatic system up to the same speeds that this trebuchet can accomplish. I see it really as a super-efficient machine requiring very little effort to load ..
But yeah, the fact that it's super cool looking - and sounding - is a key factor in my willingness to play with one too, one day. ;)
What a coincidence: just earlier today I noticed that normal search with "Tools/Past month" does not in fact filter by date (last time I used it some weeks ago, it had always worked fine). A temporary bug, I hope.
Oh, I thought it's about AI companies asking people to wear those little head-mounted cameras, in hopes of gathering data to train future robot-electricians.
On a related note, there's an annoying mistake in one of the Fatalities in "Mortal Kombat 1": Liu Kang teleports with his opponent into outer space, summons a black hole with a snap of his fingers, and throws the poor sod in. But the accretion disc is red where it rotates towards camera, and blue where it rotates away!
> Poland's elite GROM commandos have become legendary (...) in this episode, we explore (...) the covert war between Poland and Russia, and why Polish-speaking commandos are appearing inside Russian territory.
Whereas using our brains for compute (in the background, or during REM sleep) makes perfect sense; power efficiency is excellent.
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