History, Politics And Current Affairs

I was going to say "says the man who doesn't know much about Sparta" but yours is better.

let me guess, operator was on phone.

measured gravimetric energy density is 409 Wh/kg

For comparison lead acids are around 30 Wh/kg, my shiny new LIFePo batteries are about 140 (in cases, the Donut number is for bare cells no doubt).

When you get dragged into the inevitable investigation, maybe suggest some sort of brake light thingo attach to the load? It doesn't need to be wired in, battery operated with a g sensor and ideally a speed sensor, red light comes on when slowing and flashes when stationary.

So effectively EMALS doubles the fatigue life of the aircraft. Sounds good.

So far as the jolt goes, what is it like compared with the controlled crash at the end of each flight? Apparently the airframes don't have a defined number of takeoffs before being torn down or replaced, unlike say civil airliners where the number of pressure cycles is logged.

The steam catapults are a lot bigger than the EMALS and need a steam buffer, and a lot of pipework. So retrofitting steam catapults is essentially a complete redesign between the flight deck and the keel. So 10 years. Fun factoid each launch uses the same energy as 4 gallons of diesel. The steam is ...

Just Facts (which seems to have a conservative slant) tested the big 4 LLMs with some reasonably well designed questions. The LLMs got about 3/4 of them right, but lied, made up references, and used webpages that stated the opposite to support their answers. https://www.justfacts.com/news_artificial...

I think you'll find that 2.5 years is a reasonable estimate for the redesign, even though it is known tech.

You can certainly design a house to be comfortable in 35 deg C heat, but it has to be deliberately designed that way. Overhanging eaves to block direct sun (or window shades) double glazing on all the main glass and insulation up the wazoo. We got by without a/c, just relied on ceiling fans, but suc...

The Met office continues to publish claims of 'estimated excess deaths', eagerly repeated by the usual suspects. Oddly enough the bureaucrats actually count how many people die each week. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/deathsregisteredwee...

Just looking at the weather stations, the highest temperatures are being reported from Class 4 and Class 5 sites.

Brilliant presentation.

Last month I had cloudflare challenges from many regularly visited websites, but for the last 2 weeks, not so much.

They had a segment on their ABC about the price of cinema tickets, inspired by $60 ($40) Imax tickets. An economist pointed out how weird it was that in general you pay as much to see a crap, short, film, as opposed to a long good one. The interviewer seemed to think it was a lot to pay for 3 hours....

Great book. Funnily enough Bill Gibson knew little about computers when he wrote it.

In the USA market if you divide the cost of a new base Toyota Camry by the median full time wage in 2005 and 2025 you find that the alarmism about car prices is overdone. Same with F150. Admittedly they aren't getting much cheaper because they have a bunch more expensive stuff in them. In Australia ...

Thing is if you are buying a new car fuel cost is such a tiny proportion of the true cost of ownership it doesn't have much impact*. Hell my 2 ton 4WD gets slightly better fuel consumption than my 1300cc 1973 Escort wagon which weighed 800 kgf. *However the targets for a new car place enormous weigh...

I'd forgotten about oil viscousity. Certainly a factor to consider. Having said that I've been running ecoboost 2.0 litre biturbo engines for a decade with no oil related problems. But they are fully serviced, whereas in the past I've been running old cars on 20/50W with a fairly lax servicing sched...

It could be they have reduced piston ring contact pressure to get less friction, or possible even the valve guides (dubious). I'd be a bit surprised, spark plugs don't much like oil and the cats won't either, the platinum will get poisoned by the metal in the oil.