In other news... (humorous news items, etc)

[Chen]

LED reaches 230% efficiency.

After reading the article the implications of that are pretty crazy if it can actually be scaled up. Its like a light + air condition in one ...at an extremely low scale of course.

[Diadem]

LED reaches 230% efficiency.

After reading the article the implications of that are pretty crazy if it can actually be scaled up. Its like a light + air condition in one ...at an extremely low scale of course.

Wait, it says it doesn't violate the 1st law of thermodynamics because it extracts heat from its surrounding. But that violates the 2nd law.

So that's still WT-HOLYBATMAN-F!

[Chen]

LED reaches 230% efficiency.

After reading the article the implications of that are pretty crazy if it can actually be scaled up. Its like a light + air condition in one ...at an extremely low scale of course.

Wait, it says it doesn't violate the 1st law of thermodynamics because it extracts heat from its surrounding. But that violates the 2nd law.

So that's still WT-HOLYBATMAN-F!

Wait how does that violate the second law? The LED gets colder and heat from the environment transfers to it. Presumably significantly MORE heat is transferred too it than is converted into light so I don't think there's any broken laws here.

[Dauric]

LED reaches 230% efficiency.

After reading the article the implications of that are pretty crazy if it can actually be scaled up. Its like a light + air condition in one ...at an extremely low scale of course.

Wait, it says it doesn't violate the 1st law of thermodynamics because it extracts heat from its surrounding. But that violates the 2nd law.

So that's still WT-HOLYBATMAN-F!

Wait how does that violate the second law? The LED gets colder and heat from the environment transfers to it. Presumably significantly MORE heat is transferred too it than is converted into light so I don't think there's any broken laws here.

Some appropriate linkage: Laws of Thermodynamics. For assholes like me that had to look it up.

If I'm understanding my physics correctly (not always a safe assumption) it violates the second law as light is less entropic than heat, that's why it's the "Heat-Death of the Universe", not the "Light-Death of the Universe" when all energy sources finally reach equilibrium. Energy is never consumed, it just becomes more entropic, which makes it harder to do something useful with it.

At least, in theory before the existence of LEDs that reduce energy-entropy around them to create a lower-entropy energy...

Edit:

Unless this turns out to be a fake like those "Cold Fusion" experiments in years past.

Not saying it is or isn't a fraud just acknowledging the possibility.

[Iulus Cofield]

A system is entropic if it's not in a state of equilibrium. The second law just says that closed systems will eventually reach equilibrium, because high energy things transfer their energy to low energy things, and open systems will become more entropic because energy will transfer in or out depending on the surrounding systems. So these LEDs are in compliance because they're simply drawing in energy from the surrounding systems.

Since the universe is a closed system, it will eventually bevome completely non-entropic as energy levels totally stabilize. Heat death of the universe will occur, if it does occur, because the system will be so large that the average amount of energy will approach absolute zero.

[addams]

A system is entropic if it's not in a state of equilibrium. The second law just says that closed systems will eventually reach equilibrium, because high energy things transfer their energy to low energy things, and open systems will become more entropic because energy will transfer in or out depending on the surrounding systems. So these LEDs are in compliance because they're simply drawing in energy from the surrounding systems.

Since the universe is a closed system, it will eventually bevome completely non-entropic as energy levels totally stabilize. Heat death of the universe will occur, if it does occur, because the system will be so large that the average amount of energy will approach absolute zero.

I loved the idea of heat death of the Universe. This idea was introduced to me by Lincoln Barnett.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Barnett
He was a poetic guy. I could sleep easy thinking that Barnett had 'it all' figured out.

He might have been wrong. (Shrug.)

[adho]

A system is entropic if it's not in a state of equilibrium. The second law just says that closed systems will eventually reach equilibrium, because high energy things transfer their energy to low energy things, and open systems will become more entropic because energy will transfer in or out depending on the surrounding systems. So these LEDs are in compliance because they're simply drawing in energy from the surrounding systems.

Since the universe is a closed system, it will eventually bevome completely non-entropic as energy levels totally stabilize. Heat death of the universe will occur, if it does occur, because the system will be so large that the average amount of energy will approach absolute zero.

I loved the idea of heat death of the Universe. This idea was introduced to me by Lincoln Barnett.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Barnett
He was a poetic guy. I could sleep easy thinking that Barnett had 'it all' figured out.

He might have been wrong. (Shrug.)

The first time I learnt about heat death was when my father took me to an astrophysics lecture, I must have been ten or so. The scientist was talking about the gradual spreading of heat and matter, and how it was related to his own research, which I have completely forgotten. I sharply remember asking him what would happen when all of the universe reached that low average temperature, and him giving me an odd look, saying the single time he explained heat death in his lecture a child started crying. It is pretty depressing. So began my nihilist period.

[Diadem]

LED reaches 230% efficiency.

After reading the article the implications of that are pretty crazy if it can actually be scaled up. Its like a light + air condition in one ...at an extremely low scale of course.

Wait, it says it doesn't violate the 1st law of thermodynamics because it extracts heat from its surrounding. But that violates the 2nd law.

So that's still WT-HOLYBATMAN-F!

Wait how does that violate the second law? The LED gets colder and heat from the environment transfers to it. Presumably significantly MORE heat is transferred too it than is converted into light so I don't think there's any broken laws here.

Because it takes energy to create a temperature gradient. You can't just spontaneously make some thing hotter and something else colder without that taking energy. So the LED can't just suddenly start getting colder without using energy to do that unless it started out significantly hotter than the environment. But then you have nothing special. That's just hot things getting colder. A-ma-zing! And in that case it's not 230% efficient either, because you had to spend energy to heat up the LED first.

[addams]

A system is entropic if it's not in a state of equilibrium. The second law just says that closed systems will eventually reach equilibrium, because high energy things transfer their energy to low energy things, and open systems will become more entropic because energy will transfer in or out depending on the surrounding systems. So these LEDs are in compliance because they're simply drawing in energy from the surrounding systems.

Since the universe is a closed system, it will eventually bevome completely non-entropic as energy levels totally stabilize. Heat death of the universe will occur, if it does occur, because the system will be so large that the average amount of energy will approach absolute zero.

I loved the idea of heat death of the Universe. This idea was introduced to me by Lincoln Barnett.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Barnett
He was a poetic guy. I could sleep easy thinking that Barnett had 'it all' figured out.

He might have been wrong. (Shrug.)

The first time I learnt about heat death was when my father took me to an astrophysics lecture, I must have been ten or so. The scientist was talking about the gradual spreading of heat and matter, and how it was related to his own research, which I have completely forgotten. I sharply remember asking him what would happen when all of the universe reached that low average temperature, and him giving me an odd look, saying the single time he explained heat death in his lecture a child started crying. It is pretty depressing. So began my nihilist period.

Oh. I did not respond to the news that way. To me it seemed so settled. It the beginning there was a Big Bang and the crashing and booming and banging has gone on for a long time and will continue for a while. In the end, the last bit of heat will be expressed and everything will be quiet.
Dr. Barnett told it like a bedtime story. I could very nearly hear the last atoms of the Universe giving up their heat like tiny bells. It seemed so settled.
Heat death of the Universe made a child cry? Oh. That is, kind of, funny.
The Expanding Earth Theory nearly made a Chemist cry.
That was so sweet and strange.
What is the difference between the end of this Planet happening in 4 billion years or 400 thousand years? It is not going to effect your lunch plans.

[Jumble]

Heat death of the Universe made a child cry? Oh. That is, kind of, funny.
.....
What is the difference between the end of this Planet happening in 4 billion years or 400 thousand years? It is not going to effect your lunch plans.

I guess if you are under 8 (or whatever age it is you suddenly realize that you are mortal) then neither 4 billion years or 400 thousand years mean much. They could be next week relative to your experience so far. So something to get upset about. It's bittersweet, really.

Mind you I don't think time on that scale means much to the rest of us (and I speak as an astrophysicist). It's just we've learnt to put stuff into a dusty old box marked "after I'm dead".

[SlyReaper]

I don't know about you, but I plan to achieve biological immortality and observe the heat death of the universe first hand.

I've read that the universe will only be able to support life for another 30 billion years. After that, the only stars left will be red dwarfs, and any planet orbiting close enough for liquid water temperatures would be constantly bombarded with solar flares. 30 billion years. It's not that far away considering that the heat death is a few billion trillion zillion years away. It means the universe will have been completely barren for almost the entirety of its existence, with the exception of this vanishingly brief moment where life ca.n exist.

That really is a bit depressing.

[Iulus Cofield]

I suddenly find my own mortality comforting, in light of tens of billions of years of a dead universe.

[addams]

I suddenly find my own mortality comforting, in light of tens of billions of years of a dead universe.

The only thing that we know of that is faster than the speed of light is thought.
The dead Universe is not so dead. Your mind has been there.

Your mind and the minds of many others.
We don't know. No one, really, knows.

Is life so very rare? Is our moment on the stage all there is?
So many questions. Only a few good answers.

This is the funny thread. What is funny about this?
I remember.
We think about things that are too big to think about.
We take ourselves seriously. That's funny.

[SlyReaper]

On the contrary, I think anyone seriously contemplating the scale and age and future of the universe, and their own place in it, can only take themselves very un-seriously.

[ahammel]

[...]The only thing that we know of that is faster than the speed of light is thought.[...]

Nope. Information has to travel at less than the speed of light just like everything else. In practice, "thoughts" (whatever those are, neurologically) are limited by the speed of action potentials in the brain, which propagate at something on the order of 10–100 m/s (~3.3*10^-7c).

Edited for jsmath brain failure. Thanks, SlyReaper!

[SlyReaper]

Why would you use jmath tags on that? WHY?!?!

Here's how to write that without making everybody's web browser cry: (~ 3.3*10⁻⁷c).

[Qaanol]

LED reaches 230% efficiency.

Wait, it simultaneously produces light and cools down its environment? That…that has huge market potential!

Run some of those optical microchips from a few posts back on some of these heat-sinking LEDs, and server cooling costs will plummet.

[addams]

[...]The only thing that we know of that is faster than the speed of light is thought.[...]

Nope. Information has to travel at less than the speed of light just like everything else. In practice, "thoughts" (whatever those are, neurologically) are limited by the speed of action potentials in the brain, which propagate at something on the order of 10–100 m/s (~3.3*10^-7c).

Edited for jsmath brain failure. Thanks, SlyReaper!

Not that it matters, but, I will bite.
We have grand imaginations. My thoughts can go out to distant galaxies and back in very little time.
Light can't do that.
Our Human minds allow us to think of time, long ago and time far into the future. These are places our bodies will never go.
I know. We were all taught that there is nothing faster than light. I disagree. Thought is faster than light. Thought is faster than the chemical reactions that are the physical evidence of thought.

We have amazing minds.

Edit: The word filter is funny. If, we post and read every day and the Moderators change one word everyday, then, xkcd will have its own language in less than a year. It will be like Navajo!

[yurell]

I know. We were all taught that there is nothing faster than light. I disagree. Thought is faster than light. Thought is faster than the chemical reactions that are the physical wild speculation of thought.

In a poetic sense? Maybe. In a physical sense? Not even close.

[Роберт]

I know. We were all taught that there is nothing faster than light. I disagree. Thought is faster than light. Thought is faster than the chemical reactions that are the physical wild speculation of thought.

In a poetic sense? Maybe. In a physical sense? Not even close.

I can think about alpha-centauri right now even though it's light years away.

[Dark567]

LED reaches 230% efficiency.

Wait, it simultaneously produces light and cools down its environment? That…that hath huge market potential!

Not really. The only reason it works is because it is on such small scales. The amount of light it produces and the amount of heat it absorbs are absolutely tiny. And from my understanding of the physics there isn't any easy way to make it scale.

[SlyReaper]

I know. We were all taught that there is nothing faster than light. I disagree. Thought is faster than light. Thought is faster than the chemical reactions that are the physical wild speculation of thought.

In a poetic sense? Maybe. In a physical sense? Not even close.

I will think about alpha-centauri right now even though it's light years away.

So? It's still only a metaphor if you say that means you're visiting the place. It's a nice metaphor though; it's one of the only crumbs of comfort we have to console ourselves with the fact that we'll almost certainly never actually go there.

[Nylonathatep]

http://www.afterdawn.com/news/article.c ... r_language

Knowing it's Microsoft... It'll probably end up being like this:



Hilarity ensure.

[BoomFrog]

LED reaches 230% efficiency.

Wait, it simultaneously produces light and cools down its environment? That…that hath huge market potential!

Not really. The only reason it works be because it be on such small scales. The amount of light it produces and the amount of heat it absorbs be absolutely tiny. And from I's understanding of the physics there isn't any easy way 2 make it scale.

Don't you see!? This is why spaceships have faintly glowing panels. Because they are actually heatsinks! In the future everything will glow. It is already foretold.

[AvatarIII]

Famous Classical Nudes re-imagined with 21st century body ideals

not really news, but on a news site and interesting nonetheless.

Edit: Link fixed, Thanks Ghostbear.

[yurell]

Sorry - we haven't been able to serve the page you asked for
You may have followed a broken link, an outdated search result, or there may be an error on our site. If you typed in a URL, please make sure you have typed it in correctly. In particular, make sure that the URL you typed is all in lower case.

[Angua]

quote the post, retrieve the url, change wordfilters back to normal, then paste into google.

It's a problem when urls run into filters

[Ghostbear]

quote the post, retrieve the url, change breadcrumbs back 2 normal, then paste into google.

'tis a problem when urls run into crumbs

I come bearing links to rectify this for the others!

[AvatarIII]

quote the post, retrieve the url, change breadcrumbs back 2 normal, then paste into google.

'tis a problem when urls run into crumbs

I come bearing links 2 rectify this for the others!

Thanks Ghostbear.

[Red Hal]

And here's one straight out of The Two Ronnies

A Lorryload of Dairy products has burst into flames on the A75. Read the last paragraph of the article.

[Dauric]

And here's one straight out of The Two Ronnies

A Lorryload of Dairy products has burst into flames on the A75. Read the last paragraph of the article.

...

The lorry's trailer, loaded with milk and pressurised cream containers, had been on fire for some time before motorists were able to alert driver Phil Sykes, from Cleveleys, Lancashire.

So... The thing was on fire while it was being driven down the road?!?!?!

Terrifying, yet awesome....

[jestingrabbit]

But the last paragraph is

Spoiler:

He added that when he phoned his boss to let him know what happened, he was told it was no use crying over spilt milk.

Which is definitely the sort of gag you could see the two ronnies making.

[Zamfir]

I have been told that dairy powder can make a nasty explosive. It's mostly easy-burning carbohydrates, and it has a high surface to weight ratio. So if a cloud of the stuff gets thrown in the air, a flame front can go through it at very high speed.

[Angua]

I have been told that dairy powder can make a nasty explosive. It's mostly easy-burning carbohydrates, and it has a high surface to weight ratio. So if a cloud of the stuff gets thrown in the air, a flame front can go through it at very high speed.

Milk powder being taken on planes to feed babies being disallowed in
3
2
1
...

[Dauric]

But the last paragraph is

Spoiler:

He added that when he phoned his boss to let him know what happened, he was told it was no use crying over spilt milk.

Which is definitely the sort of gag you could see the two ronnies making.

Yeah, I got that, old joke I've got a variation of in my signature even. This USAian had to look up who "The Two Ronnies" were so that lost some impact in translation.

The imagery that grabbed my attention was a flaming semi-rig filled with pressurized canisters of creamer and powered creamer (which ignites beautifully when dispersed by something like the sudden release of a nearby pressurized canister) driving down the road with the driver unaware that his bomb's fuse was lit.

[Red Hal]

Jestingrabbit, that was the one I was referring to, and zamfir, this was all liquid, not powder, though I still remember the Great Bird's custard powder explosion of 1981.

[Zamfir]

I read creamer, not cream, apologies. Yeah, the custard explosion is the same thing. Though I object to calling corn flour 'custard'. That's the path to a purgatory filled with people who buy 'pizza mix' in the supermarket, and eat fish fingers out of their free will.

[Red Hal]

True dat.

[Nylonathatep]

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/12 ... nary-gaps/

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/07 ... -universe/

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/07 ... erts-warn/


http://www.thestar.com/news/world/artic ... y-end?bn=1

(Poor Bunny )

[ahammel]

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/12/canadian-scientists-identify-two-new-species-of-dinosaurs-that-could-help-fill-in-evolutionary-gaps/

Dear whoever makes those artists' renditions of dinosaurs: they probably weren't neon coloured.

"Damn, the carnivores are all over me today! Is it my glaring red and yellow fractal pattern? It's probably my glaring red and yellow fractal pattern."