xkcd

KittenKaboodle

Myth busters !

Though they just barely got one to float in an aircraft hanger, I doubt one could withstand weather. On the other hand they were using helium, hydrogen would allow a slightly stronger (thinker) skin.

KittenKaboodle

Antikythera mechanism: "there's an app for that" but a mechanical version would be cool.

Gasoline? couldn't it just eat a bit of the users hand? , a small bite will grow back after all.

KittenKaboodle

Sure it sounds insane, but I notice that it is commercially available from some supplier as tablets (and therefore presumably dry) "Virtually all infections with rabies resulted in death until two French scientists, Louis Pasteur and Émile Roux, developed the first rabies vaccination in 1885. T...

KittenKaboodle

Considering the fuel used to get it into space, what's the MPG rating? Jose Getting better every second! I don't know how fast it is going, but for a first approximation I'll use the 11.2km/s from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_velocity, so let's say about 25,000 MPH, the thing has been up th...

KittenKaboodle

"things got a little weird" ?

#M☭GA
U+262D

KittenKaboodle

With just a .7% margin. BABY KILLER! BABY KILLER! Wooo! Seriously? do you really think that if Moore got a teenager pregnant he wouldn't think that abortion is just fine? Also I don't get the Trump supporters likening Moore, didn't he get kicked off the bench for displaying the Ten Commandments? TH...

KittenKaboodle

You still have to reconcile that with the fact that the second amendment specifically refers to "the people's right to keep and bear arms." This means to me that your proficiency training and so forth can't be particularly onerous,... I think you forgot a phrase of the amendment. That's o...

KittenKaboodle

But Kitten made the specific accusation that it was an America specific thing. Did not! The flag thing was hyperbole, I assumed this started with the attack on the bike path in New York, in that case it was reported the attacker had an ISIL (or something like that) flag in the truck with him. If on...

KittenKaboodle

Terrorism is overrated as a crime. True, but Vehicular homicide is very underrated as a crime, If the guy had been white with an American flag in the truck, a plastic Jesus on the dashboard and claimed "the sun got in my eyes", this might have just been a "tragic accident", with...

KittenKaboodle

but shouldn't putting a sword through an apple at insane speed cause two pieces of apple to separate at insane speeds? You might check out What It #1. I think others have mentioned, it would be far more than 2 pieces, I'd guess that a relativistic sword would get you a long way towards your goal wi...

KittenKaboodle

Most politicians lie because they value the truth . Trump's lies are different, and not just because of their quantity. Trump lies so obviously and outlandishly that the only purpose I can see for them is to undermine the very idea of truth. Ha, ha, some wag once said (on these forums I think) that...

KittenKaboodle

I want to roll it across the worlds flattest surface. This is an experiment that needs to be done. Of course if one attempts such an experiment in any significant gravity field the "worlds flattest surface" is not so likely to remain the worlds flattest, and if done in microgravity "...

KittenKaboodle

order for a military strike to be successful, it would have to be absolutely staggering. We'd need to deal massive damage, very quickly, all along the border to take out their artillery; while at the same time hitting several very well fortified missile sites all simultaneously. And the thing is......

KittenKaboodle

jewish_scientist wrote: What is an application of such an extreme reduction?

Click bait!

I wonder if it counts as a "view" if I only watched 10 seconds of the video?

KittenKaboodle

"We're going to open up libel laws and we're going to have people sue you like you've never got sued before" DJT

KittenKaboodle

That's before practical engineering 1 demands that hole-sides are non-vertical for reasons of preventing slumping inward, unless unobtanium-lining can be employed as (locally) vertical shoring... 1 Practical engineering? In a What-If ? Sorry, don't know what I was thinking... Even in What-if vertic...

KittenKaboodle

I know the question was about "digging a hole" but if one is going to compress the atmosphere into SCUBA tanks, wouldn't it be easier to just throw them into the ocean? If the goal is to suffocate everyone, drowning is perhaps somewhat similar so the rising (faster) sea level caused by the...

KittenKaboodle

So, er, maybe humorous: a policeman issued a fine to someone for using a hand-held mobile phone while driving. The idiot in question claimed to have thought it was alright to check Facebook, because, to quote, "I'm not using it as a phone." ... hominids. I wonder if the idiot was a Washin...

KittenKaboodle

[quote="KnightExemplar] if you somehow found a material that was 2x more rigid[/quote] Going to steel instead of aluminum gets you 3x, but as pogrmman mentions there would be a weight penalty, about 3x the mass for the frame (however the frame is only some fraction of the total, so the overall ...

KittenKaboodle

It seems excessive -- deleting things that have been posted? CRIME THOUGHT!! the tweets never existed! Also, we have always been at war with Eastasia. I once read (perhaps in one of these forums) someone's statement that 1984 was "a cautionary tale, not a how-to manual", but of course the...

KittenKaboodle

sardia wrote:If you follow his tweets, he's saying that it's a witch hunt. Makes sense if you follow his logic.

Personally, I'd like to see Trump's birth certificate, not that I can read Cyrillic, but still...

KittenKaboodle

No, it doesn't make any difference. No amount of simple lenses can do what you want. While the OP perhaps did imply using the water droplets as lenses, since they have "absurd amount of [magical] nanomachines" I think we can do better than "simple" and while the word "beam&...

KittenKaboodle

You'd be surprised at how little even educated people know.. You ought to read the stuff Randle writes, e.g. https://what-if.xkcd.com/128/ https://xkcd.com/651/ My iPhone 4s (yes I need a new phone) has a battery that's 18000 joules. How much energy is that? Imagine a 40W incandescent light bulb, 1...

KittenKaboodle

"We've always been at war with Eastasia"

KittenKaboodle

As elaborated here , that person appears to be using "voter suppression" to mean ad efforts aimed at demoralizing potential voters, not the placing of actual impediments to voting (as the term is usually understood). Although they may well be doing that too. Well, Trump has been televised...

KittenKaboodle

Interesting to think about a system where an officer can "believe" you committed a crime and that's good enough for conviction. Note that an arrest technical only requires "probable cause" (though in practice that tends to be optional), a conviction is supposed to require much m...

KittenKaboodle

Uber's driverless taxis began operation in Pittsburgh today . I realize that this might seem like old news, since a driverless taxi service has been operating in Singapore for three weeks already, but it still seems worth taking note of since they're the first driverless taxis in the U.S. Well, not...

KittenKaboodle

An officer that misses like that with an assault rifle has no business touching one. There he is, touching... Give the guy a break, he's just a member of the SWAT team, it's not like he has any special train.... Oh,... wait,... Never mind. :roll: I would be suspicious of anyone who volunteers for t...

KittenKaboodle

The Marathon des Sables Lets ask Big Brother Google about that; In 1984 Patrick Bauer - a French concert promoter - decided to set out for an epic walk. He chose one of the harshest environments on the planet - the Sahara desert and he chose to walk 200 miles with all he would need on his back. Wik...

KittenKaboodle

Copper Bezel wrote:I really want the answer to be some formulation of the rocket equation, but that seems unlikely.

I think it kind of is, as long as the person is allowed multiple trips and establishing caches along the way.

KittenKaboodle

Copper Bezel wrote:I have to assume Apeiron is joking or possibly trolling, if only for the "podiatrist."

I'm not sure if you are joking, but I think Apeirion is not: It derives from the Greek πόδι (foot)

KittenKaboodle

Clearly this calls for research in to more advanced games that will baffle AI and keep Humanity ahead in the race to not be rendered redundant at playing games.... The Simpsons Randal did it! https://xkcd.com/1002/ And of course there is Global thermonuclear war, due to computers need for electrici...

KittenKaboodle

Assuming the person in question never has beaten their [whatever], the logically correct answer to that is "no". But why would anyone assume that? the question clearly implies that they have. It would be one thing to have realized the error of one ways and stopped, but to not have stopped...

KittenKaboodle

KnightExemplar wrote:grossly underestimating the power of SuperPAC negative campaign ads and their ability to sway the public.

Um, this looks to me a lot like the cure being worse than the disease.
But, sure, if ~~Goldstein~~ Trump is the reincarnation of Hitler, then, double plus good, the ends justify the means.

KittenKaboodle

The variation of this that always annoys me is answering yes to an or-question. Q: "Do you want coffee or tea?" A: "Yes". Yes, I get it, you understand formal logic. Very good. I congratulate you on your superior intellect. Now please answer the fucking question. Next question; ...

KittenKaboodle

Suspensions, yes, but I was talking about the valves that have to open and close over a dozen times per second with the freshly-burnt exhaust gas blowing over them. Probably more like a dozen times a minute, I suspect that in some cases a skilled archer could approach that rate with a wooden bow. N...

KittenKaboodle

zjxs wrote:How is babby formed?

perhaps this will help

KittenKaboodle

I definitely knew who Clinton and Dole were when I was 7 (although I had little idea of what they stood for), and I was acutely aware of the Gore-Bush debacle at age 11. Pretty much all I remember about Goldwater is his name (you kids get off my lawn). Though I do have a recollection of the "D...

KittenKaboodle

For me, the arguments about whether such a lens system is actually feasible are stronger. Since the original question involved a "magnifying glass", that would seem to be a reasonable stance. However, we are talking about "What if" here, where shooing a BB gun at a train escalat...

KittenKaboodle

Pretty sure this is all a giant trap to induce us to set the earth on fire with moonlight, just to prove a point. And yet, I wish to attempt it anyway. Well, it does seem to be a reoccurring theme: "Under those circumstances, it turns out Earth still catches fire . The reflected light from the...

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