PlasmaGryphon's Comments
I rather dislike the "centrifugal force is not a thing." It certainly is a thing, and has many practical uses in analyzing various situations. The only problem is that such inertial forces that come about from being in an accelerating frame have some caveats and are easy to make simple mistakes with. Some care needs to be taken when teaching circular motion, to make sure students learn the actual concepts and not something superficial. But somehow this has evolved into the idea that "centrifugal force does not exist" instead of "centrifugal force is handled differently than what was previously covered." Not surprisingly, people don't seem to attack the Coriolis force, despite being another fictitious force just like the centrifugal force.
Abusive comment hidden.
(Show it anyway.)
Cooking is a hobby to me, so I try to challenge myself from time to time. Sometimes that involves making something new and complex, other times it involves doing something simple very well (the latter tends to be much more difficult...). How frequent I do something more elaborate waxes and wanes as I have enough other interests and overtime at work, but probably averages at least every other month, or at least once a month if you count the similarly labor intensive efforts to try variations on a simpler recipe to improve it.
And I can appreciate cooking on a budget, as my interest in cooking really picked up while in grad school, and I still try to keep a almost as tight food budget now to save up for higher priorities. There are some ingredients, tools, and techniques that will not be accessibly to a certain budget, and even more not accessible to a certain budget and restrictive free time. But outside of those, there are still infinite variations to try and learning to cook lets you get things you normally couldn't afford (or get things not available period). Of course, if you want those things without taking the time and effort yourself, the costs can add up quick.
And I can appreciate cooking on a budget, as my interest in cooking really picked up while in grad school, and I still try to keep a almost as tight food budget now to save up for higher priorities. There are some ingredients, tools, and techniques that will not be accessibly to a certain budget, and even more not accessible to a certain budget and restrictive free time. But outside of those, there are still infinite variations to try and learning to cook lets you get things you normally couldn't afford (or get things not available period). Of course, if you want those things without taking the time and effort yourself, the costs can add up quick.
Abusive comment hidden.
(Show it anyway.)
The story of that incident is here. Other fishermen knew they anchored there and failed to wake them by yelling at them, so they assumed they were passed out from drinking. After being killed, they were buried in shallow graves that were easy to find from the air.
Abusive comment hidden.
(Show it anyway.)
I grow my own strawberries, most of which get eaten raw. But I still use some to make things like pie, ice cream, and candy.
Abusive comment hidden.
(Show it anyway.)
"I'm sure it's tasty enough" Isn't that the prime motivator to try to cook or eat something, and often more than enough?
Motivation for food comes primarily down to taste, with some component of texture, presentation, health, and novelty mixed in. Motivation for making something yourself can come down to anything you get from the food, plus saving money, learning something, or just fun. It shouldn't be difficult to see why something like this would hit at least some of those notes. And although some people use novelty to cover up lack of ability to execute the other components, that it is a bit difficult to judge from a video.
Motivation for food comes primarily down to taste, with some component of texture, presentation, health, and novelty mixed in. Motivation for making something yourself can come down to anything you get from the food, plus saving money, learning something, or just fun. It shouldn't be difficult to see why something like this would hit at least some of those notes. And although some people use novelty to cover up lack of ability to execute the other components, that it is a bit difficult to judge from a video.
Abusive comment hidden.
(Show it anyway.)
A grill gets hotter, and a lot of western stoves or ovens don't get hot enough for what some consider optimal for various techniques. Places that more traditionally use such techniques have such equipment outside or nearly outside to reduce problems from the oil making a mess of anything near by.
Abusive comment hidden.
(Show it anyway.)
With gas it is easy enough to add other flavors by putting a small tray of moist wood chips below the grill. You can get the best of both worlds in the cases where it matters, although some times it won't make much of a difference. And if you actually want flavors from wood, you should use actual wood, not charcoal. Depending on what type of charcoal you have, it could be just carbon and ash, or might have a bit of saw dust mixed in to make it easier to light. Even in the latter case, the amount of wood compounds it is going to give off is going to be pretty minimal compared to a handful of actual wood, as otherwise, the point of charcoal is that the volatile compounds have been removed or broken down.
Arguing the wood compounds in charcoal add a lot to the flavor seems to me like someone arguing grain alcohol is better than water because it has some traces of the grain left, but ignoring whiskey.
Arguing the wood compounds in charcoal add a lot to the flavor seems to me like someone arguing grain alcohol is better than water because it has some traces of the grain left, but ignoring whiskey.
Abusive comment hidden.
(Show it anyway.)
Or alternatively you could do this at home for not much money, and get practice at a bunch of techniques at the same time. I didn't have audio, but most of it seems pretty straightforward, short of maybe some manual skills that would affect the final look. If you had an stove, oven, food processor/blender, and a decent thermometer, you could do pretty much all of that. The only less common tool would the be soda charger, but those have plenty of fun uses if one likes to cook.
You can use an oven instead of a dehydrator, it is just not as efficient, especially if you are some place that uses the AC during the summer. Sous-vide is possible on a regular stove with a thermometer and a bit of manual effort. Not even that much effort if it is going to be only a couple minutes, as opposed to trying to cook meat for hours on end. The only questionable part is how important the heated blender/mixer is, and how good of a work surface you have at home for doing candy work. An air compressor and blow torch a lot of people have around, although if not, the latter is a potential $15 kitchen tool with other uses.
Liquid nitrogen is pretty easy to get and cheap in small quantities. I used to pay ~$1/L and it is just a matter of making sure the place isn't picky about the container you use if you don't have a purpose made one. I used to get it for making ice cream at parties. You just have to make sure you know what you are doing with it and not try anything stupid (like leave it out around a bunch of drunk physicists...).
You can use an oven instead of a dehydrator, it is just not as efficient, especially if you are some place that uses the AC during the summer. Sous-vide is possible on a regular stove with a thermometer and a bit of manual effort. Not even that much effort if it is going to be only a couple minutes, as opposed to trying to cook meat for hours on end. The only questionable part is how important the heated blender/mixer is, and how good of a work surface you have at home for doing candy work. An air compressor and blow torch a lot of people have around, although if not, the latter is a potential $15 kitchen tool with other uses.
Liquid nitrogen is pretty easy to get and cheap in small quantities. I used to pay ~$1/L and it is just a matter of making sure the place isn't picky about the container you use if you don't have a purpose made one. I used to get it for making ice cream at parties. You just have to make sure you know what you are doing with it and not try anything stupid (like leave it out around a bunch of drunk physicists...).
Abusive comment hidden.
(Show it anyway.)
Surprised it didn't make any mention of how the women tried to stop men from being aggressors in one of the visits by T. N. Pandit's group:
"Quite a few discarded their weapons and gestured to us to throw the fish. The women came out of the shade to watch our antics... A few men came and picked up the fish. They appeared to be gratified, but there did not seem to be much softening to their hostile attitude... They all began shouting some incomprehensible words. We shouted back and gestured to indicate that we wanted to be friends. The tension did not ease. At this moment, a strange thing happened — a woman paired off with a warrior and sat on the sand in a passionate embrace. This act was being repeated by other women, each claiming a warrior for herself, a sort of community mating, as it were. Thus did the militant group diminish. This continued for quite some time and when the tempo of this frenzied dance of desire abated, the couples retired into the shade of the jungle. However, some warriors were still on guard. We got close to the shore and threw some more fish which were immediately retrieved by a few youngsters. It was well past noon and we headed back to the ship..."
There is a lot to be said about some of the other tribes on near by islands that are colonized. They have a mix of isolationism, but want their kids to use hospitals and schools on the island. And the government has been cracking down on "human safaris" by tourist groups at near by resorts.
"Quite a few discarded their weapons and gestured to us to throw the fish. The women came out of the shade to watch our antics... A few men came and picked up the fish. They appeared to be gratified, but there did not seem to be much softening to their hostile attitude... They all began shouting some incomprehensible words. We shouted back and gestured to indicate that we wanted to be friends. The tension did not ease. At this moment, a strange thing happened — a woman paired off with a warrior and sat on the sand in a passionate embrace. This act was being repeated by other women, each claiming a warrior for herself, a sort of community mating, as it were. Thus did the militant group diminish. This continued for quite some time and when the tempo of this frenzied dance of desire abated, the couples retired into the shade of the jungle. However, some warriors were still on guard. We got close to the shore and threw some more fish which were immediately retrieved by a few youngsters. It was well past noon and we headed back to the ship..."
There is a lot to be said about some of the other tribes on near by islands that are colonized. They have a mix of isolationism, but want their kids to use hospitals and schools on the island. And the government has been cracking down on "human safaris" by tourist groups at near by resorts.
Abusive comment hidden.
(Show it anyway.)
Probably not higher than low nineties considering what the starting temp was, which for some locations is pretty typical for summer. There are various other studies found with an internet search that give that the car interior can be anywhere from 20 to 40 F higher, in some cases with the interior temperature not really depending on the outside temperature if you wait long enough. None of them seem to mention the car though, and the color of which and the type of car (e.g. how larger are the windows, how thick other parts are, etc.) might make a difference.
I suppose caution is needed unless you really know your car and have sat in it yourself in worst situations, because there are cases where even temperatures in the 70s have produced dangerous 115+ temperatures in the car.
I suppose caution is needed unless you really know your car and have sat in it yourself in worst situations, because there are cases where even temperatures in the 70s have produced dangerous 115+ temperatures in the car.
Abusive comment hidden.
(Show it anyway.)
By the way, from a 2011 CIHI report, it looks like Nova Scotia is 6th in per capita health expenditures of provinces (7th if counting public funding only), but is still 6% above the national per capita spending, because the lowest per capita spenders are the most populated provinces: Ontario, Quebec and B.C. Ontario is 4th in per capita GDP (2nd in average income), so a lot of it still seems to depend on politics as much as income. Even so, the variation in per capita health care spending only varies from the national average by -10% to +15% for different provinces, while as a percentage of provincial GDP, it ranges from 8.6% to 15.6%.
Also, while I can't speak in general, at least for me, the last three US health insurance plans I had involved a co-pay and/or percentage of some procedures that had to be covered by the patient. It was small enough I didn't really noticed for a one-off thing or two, but when something came up that involve more tests and trips, or repeating visits, it started to add up, and factored slightly into decision making. Although I have no idea where the ideal would be in terms of making sure needed things are done without costing too much, but inhibiting excessive procedures.
Also, while I can't speak in general, at least for me, the last three US health insurance plans I had involved a co-pay and/or percentage of some procedures that had to be covered by the patient. It was small enough I didn't really noticed for a one-off thing or two, but when something came up that involve more tests and trips, or repeating visits, it started to add up, and factored slightly into decision making. Although I have no idea where the ideal would be in terms of making sure needed things are done without costing too much, but inhibiting excessive procedures.
Abusive comment hidden.
(Show it anyway.)
I don't think I've ever gotten an anonymous crank contact. I've gotten anonymous spam to buy products without any indication who or where to buy from, but crank emails usually are plastered with the submitter's contact info, links to their own site and anywhere else their writing exists.
Probably one frequent pattern I've noticed is they will spend a lot of time talking about what scientists say, think, concentrate on, and ignore. While mainstream journal articles will have an intro and background paragraph, they are not 50+% trying to summarize opposition. And the inevitable happens when you spend most of a letter telling the recipient what they think and do, when they would probably be quite ware of most that: parts of it ends up being quite blatantly wrong. Regardless of the merits of their point when they get to that, I can't imagine how anyone would expect an unbiased response from most people when you spend a long time building a very detailed straw man, of the recipient, and then beat them over the head with it. E.g. I've lost track of how many times I've gotten emails that start out with trying to say physicists never consider that various things in outer space are made of plasma.
As far as the actual ideas, good ideas can come from anywhere. But what background and experience amounts to, especially in the sciences, is knowing of a lot of the results of previous experiments, and the successes and failures of various ideas. The ideas I've gotten may explain/predict one particular measurement or experiment result, but disregards dozens of others, frequently quite basic ones. There are a rare few that fail for a reason that students in a graduate level class would probably get wrong too on a final, but few too many show issues that would have been covered at a low level undergraduate course. I've also lost count how many times I've been told about some amazing energy generating circuit, that turns out to be a very commonly used circuit, that acts as understood by intro level electronics, and if it acted differently, billions of appliances and devices would not function as they should.
I suppose this could be created into template:
Dear SoAndSo, I want to present my idea that, with your help, will make us revolutionize [field of study]. For some reasons, scientists in this field refuse to consider the effects of [some chapter title from intro level book on field], which is incredibly shortsighted considering those are effects are important because [a few points from the intro of that chapter]. By applying those effects [via some way ignoring caveats covered in that chapter], we can see that it makes accurate predictions of [one or two well known experiments or measurements]. So you can see how silly [idea introduced to explain more detailed experiments] is, and why we don't need such hogwash. My ideas have already been published in [non-peer reviewed journal]. Thanks for your time, unless you are one of those fake physicists perpetuating false truths. [Then inflate the word count, so that it is much longer than this post... as difficult as it is for me to be concise, such emails are even wordy than I could be if I tried.]
Probably one frequent pattern I've noticed is they will spend a lot of time talking about what scientists say, think, concentrate on, and ignore. While mainstream journal articles will have an intro and background paragraph, they are not 50+% trying to summarize opposition. And the inevitable happens when you spend most of a letter telling the recipient what they think and do, when they would probably be quite ware of most that: parts of it ends up being quite blatantly wrong. Regardless of the merits of their point when they get to that, I can't imagine how anyone would expect an unbiased response from most people when you spend a long time building a very detailed straw man, of the recipient, and then beat them over the head with it. E.g. I've lost track of how many times I've gotten emails that start out with trying to say physicists never consider that various things in outer space are made of plasma.
As far as the actual ideas, good ideas can come from anywhere. But what background and experience amounts to, especially in the sciences, is knowing of a lot of the results of previous experiments, and the successes and failures of various ideas. The ideas I've gotten may explain/predict one particular measurement or experiment result, but disregards dozens of others, frequently quite basic ones. There are a rare few that fail for a reason that students in a graduate level class would probably get wrong too on a final, but few too many show issues that would have been covered at a low level undergraduate course. I've also lost count how many times I've been told about some amazing energy generating circuit, that turns out to be a very commonly used circuit, that acts as understood by intro level electronics, and if it acted differently, billions of appliances and devices would not function as they should.
I suppose this could be created into template:
Dear SoAndSo, I want to present my idea that, with your help, will make us revolutionize [field of study]. For some reasons, scientists in this field refuse to consider the effects of [some chapter title from intro level book on field], which is incredibly shortsighted considering those are effects are important because [a few points from the intro of that chapter]. By applying those effects [via some way ignoring caveats covered in that chapter], we can see that it makes accurate predictions of [one or two well known experiments or measurements]. So you can see how silly [idea introduced to explain more detailed experiments] is, and why we don't need such hogwash. My ideas have already been published in [non-peer reviewed journal]. Thanks for your time, unless you are one of those fake physicists perpetuating false truths. [Then inflate the word count, so that it is much longer than this post... as difficult as it is for me to be concise, such emails are even wordy than I could be if I tried.]
Abusive comment hidden.
(Show it anyway.)
I was kind of curious about those numbers, and the first thing I could find on short notice was a 2006 WHO report (so I wonder how much things have changed in 6-7 years...). At that time, Chile and the UK had only about 20% higher perinatal mortality rate, while France had about the same as the US, Switzerland was ~15% less than the US, Netherlands was about 40% higher, and South Africa was at nearly four times the rate. Sweden, Norway, Singapore, Italy, Iceland, Finland, Czech Republic, Canada, and Australia all had rates lower than the US. Although there has been a ~10% decline in infant mortality rate in the US in the last couple years, assuming a similar decline in perinatal rates would still leave half of those countries better than the US, and the rest about the same, unless they had a sizable increase of mortality rates.
Abusive comment hidden.
(Show it anyway.)
There is a difference between something being difficult, and tedious waste of time though. A common complaint from both my peers when I was in school and students I see today is that school is full of too much busy work of little use. Although, the lower achievers seemed to complain about things where they were being short-sighted on usefulness in addition to things that were not so useful.
Abusive comment hidden.
(Show it anyway.)
Having previously lived in Florida for 18 years and making frequent trips back there, I have never seen a waterspout in person. I've only seen a handful of funnel clouds, and heard of local waterspouts via the news.
(Edit: Tried looking for more official reports, but didn't find any with details other than some TV meteorologist referring to it as a fair-weather waterspout. The NWS defines any such vortex reaching from the cloud to the surface as a tornado, although I've seen others who like to distinguish between a tornado and a water/landspout. The difference is more academic though, and for the purposes of warnings both are dangerous.)