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Post by theartofdht on Aug 9, 2023 0:17:14 GMT -5
Speaking of bears, it frustrates me that they don’t reside in Africa. Africa is such an interesting continent with so much fascinating wildlife, I wish they had bears. (I grew up with cartoons where bears were in Africa, so my illusions were shattered) For the longest time growing up I thought tigers were in Africa as well and had a similar sentiment when I found out they weren't. But agreed on the fascinating wildlife. The source of your picture is my beloved museum (American Museum of Natural History) that I could not tell you how many times I've visted in my life (my wife and I even used to live across the park from it in NYC and had a membership and would go there almost every week). The 2-story "Hall of African Mammals" was/is my absolute favorite for the animal dioramas (though the Asian and North American halls and many other exhibits are of course wonderful as well). I would still love to get to the Natural History Museum in London someday though, one of David Attenborough's always delightful documentaries was set there and it's been a goal ever since. Have you been to the Natural History of Museum in Washington DC. I should know cause I am a native. |
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Post by theartofdht on Aug 9, 2023 0:17:44 GMT -5
Anyone know how to build an analog computer for AI?
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Sept 20, 2023 11:14:24 GMT -5
Using actual numbers and real physics paints a decidedly worrying picture. However, it is interesting in that it shows how it's not enough for a system to work theoretically: it also has to be efficient enough in the real world to be of any use.
The short version of this video is "carbon capture is incredibly energy-consuming, and has a very low efficiency. Not because of technological limitations, but because of simple thermodynamics". Bummer!!!
This reminds me of the variously-attributed saying:" when you find yourself at the bottom of a whole, stop digging".
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Oct 2, 2023 13:38:59 GMT -5
This image of high-altitude sprites looks like Great Old Ones finally reaching Earth!!! |
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Post by driver1980 on Oct 30, 2023 5:11:15 GMT -5
The concept of an attosecond baffles me, how can such a small unit of time even exist? Bewildering!
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Oct 30, 2023 11:16:04 GMT -5
The concept of an attosecond baffles me, how can such a small unit of time even exist? Bewildering! It is, and yet compared to a quectosecond, an attosecond is long as a month of Sundays! |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 30, 2023 11:30:25 GMT -5
The concept of an attosecond baffles me, how can such a small unit of time even exist? Bewildering! It is, and yet compared to a quectosecond, an attosecond is long as a month of Sundays! I’ll see your quectosecond and raise you a Planck unit! Actually, though these concepts are beyond mind boggling to intuitively grasp, I do find some comfort in hypothetical limits like a Planck unit because I find infinite subdivision far more incomprehensible. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Oct 30, 2023 12:00:38 GMT -5
It is, and yet compared to a quectosecond, an attosecond is long as a month of Sundays! I’ll see your quectosecond and raise you a Planck unit! Actually, though these concepts are beyond mind boggling to intuitively grasp, I do find some comfort in hypothetical limits like a Planck unit because I find infinite subdivision far more incomprehensible. There was a humorous article several years back on the utility of the yoctomol unit (10 -24 mole). As a mole is 6,02 x 10 23 of anything, 10 yoctomoles might as well be called "6". |
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Post by Prince Hal on Oct 30, 2023 12:11:05 GMT -5
Roquefort Raider... Wait. Slight emergency. Back in a Planck unit. Okay. You had me at yoctomole.
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Post by driver1980 on Oct 30, 2023 12:43:47 GMT -5
I think so much is incomprehensible to me.
I have a book here about the paranormal and unexplained, and it has a section about time. One paragraph mentions a picosecond, and how the difference between a picosecond and a second is akin to the difference between a second and 30,000 years.
Wow. How can such a small unit of time exist?
The universe is unexplainable. It is baffling to me that the universe could be finite as some say, because what lies beyond the “walls”? Surely it must go on forever? But how could it?
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Oct 30, 2023 13:07:14 GMT -5
I, personally, don't want yoctomole to interfere with my enchiladas mole.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 30, 2023 13:19:05 GMT -5
I think so much is incomprehensible to me. I have a book here about the paranormal and unexplained, and it has a section about time. One paragraph mentions a picosecond, and how the difference between a picosecond and a second is akin to the difference between a second and 30,000 years. Wow. How can such a small unit of time exist? The universe is unexplainable. It is baffling to me that the universe could be finite as some say, because what lies beyond the “walls”? Surely it must go on forever? But how could it? This is stuff that’s fascinated me for a large part of my life. A lot of what I have digested suggests there are no true “walls”, no hard edge of the universe you could somehow exit from into something else. The universe is known to be expanding, but not “into” something else. It simply IS everything (barring multiverses and those sorts of theories). Then there’s the whole “shape” concept of the universe (flat, open, or closed), and each model has different ramifications. It’s fantastic stuff to ponder, but infuriating (personally I think futile) to ever expect a truly intuitive grasp of! There is still much unknown to the physicists themselves. |
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Post by driver1980 on Oct 30, 2023 13:34:11 GMT -5
It is infuriating, and time itself is particularly infuriating. I mean, if time had a beginning, what was “happening before”? I guess the answer I read the most is that time had no meaning before it began except conceptually.
But, equally, the thought of an “empty nothingness” is bewildering. I mean, who can really imagine that? And isn’t, in one sense, “empty nothingness” also something? What is non-existence? I can’t even begin to comprehend “nothingness”.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 30, 2023 13:55:27 GMT -5
It is infuriating, and time itself is particularly infuriating. I mean, if time had a beginning, what was “happening before”? I guess the answer I read the most is that time had no meaning before it began except conceptually. But, equally, the thought of an “empty nothingness” is bewildering. I mean, who can really imagine that? And isn’t, in one sense, “empty nothingness” also something? What is non-existence? I can’t even begin to comprehend “nothingness”. It’s precisely when my mind goes to this same place that I tune out the sci-fi reading and watching (for a little bit), and head to full on warriors/dragons fantasy stuff. Man has much simpler needs and purpose in that setting lol. |
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Post by Rob Allen on Oct 30, 2023 14:31:48 GMT -5
I once worked for a computer manufacturer. Talking with one of the CPU designers one day, the differences in time scales were interesting. He was working on making something a few picoseconds faster, and I was dealing with a customer's complaint that a program that used to run in an hour was now taking two hours.
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