Comments by "Stephen Villano" (@spvillano) on "Sabine Hossenfelder"
channel.
-
30
-
18
-
14
-
13
-
11
-
I'm reminded of well, a press debacle and actually, a high quality paper on superluminal neutrinos. The press billing it at times as faster than light particles being discovered, largely because reading wasn't the correspondent's forte.
The actual paper basically said, to paraphrase, "We know that the results are nonsensical and erroneous, but we cannot find what is wrong with our experimental setup and configuration. HELP!"
A butt ton of researchers examined the setup, some figured out what was defective and suggested checking and the problem was resolved and everyone pretty much forgot about it. Pity, because that was one of the great successes of science. Not some epic new discovery, collaboration to overcome a problem that one team couldn't resolve and collectively, science resolved.
Then, we get the cold fusion dweebs...
Yep, as Sabine mentioned, lukewarm fusion in the form of neutron generators abound, hell, they're reasonably affordable for fairly small physics labs. I can build a more expensive type without the titanium by ginning up a fusor and generate tremendous amounts of electricity bills. Both will produce a fair amount of neutrons though.
Alas, electricity bills are not energy generation. If they were, my computers would be making me tons of money. Instead, I get to twirl my electric meter and watch Debbie Does Donuts in the parking lot on TV.
And there is a non-zero chance I could wrangle plain actual cold fusion, just on plain probability alone, one or two atoms over a long amount of time, just based on random chance. Still ain't generating power, only bills.
Just once, I'd love to see one of these announcements and papers be released with a "Folks, this isn't making a damned lick of sense to me, but here is my apparatus, these are the conditions and observations, please pop by and see what I fouled up". Added kudos if they'd throw in lunch.
That makes science look credible, rather than some other fly by night idiot blathering about how they discovered Harry bleeding Potter's magical screw stick.
9
-
That's the joy of sugar alcohols, they're laxatives. The EU placed limits on content due to that. The US says, "Oh, eat as much as you want, while you're proving how full of shit you are, run for office".
I was oddly lactose intolerant for around 9 months, right after I had my gallbladder removed. Given it's the brush cells at the entry to the small intestine that generates lactase, neither doctor or I ever figured that one out.
But, boy was it an interesting time, I'd forget and have butter or well, anything milk related, off to the races!
8
-
Yes, the endless expansion of economies, the bane of every empire that ever was. Once they reached their maximum expansion, conditions stagnated, then decayed. Every time.
The stress of agriculture properly applied would be minimal, but that means adapting to drought and relying upon areas not experiencing drought, not wasting pesticides and fertilizers, for every ounce in the river is wasted and harmful downstream.
But, we can and will hit resource bottlenecks and stops, where, for example, copper mines become exhausted and new sources have to be discovered and recycling geared up a lot more. Most of what we say we recycle ends up collected and dumped in a landfill. Most plastics - landfill. Paper, mixed. Metals, again, mixed and most exported and reimported once recycled. Glass, poor to mixed, although the chances of our running out of silicon is next to nil. Oil, don't get my laughing, we're going through that like a teen on their first job's payday.
Don't get me started on solar panels pollution and energy requirements to manufacture, let alone our new high energy density batteries and efficient motors that rely upon rare earth minerals.
Food isn't much of a problem yet, mostly we have distribution issues that we refuse to resolve, as "it isn't our nation's problem", so we in the US literally dump good food to keep pricing stable for the farmers. Well, until a few disasters, droughts and disruptions hit us...
7
-
7
-
6
-
5
-
5
-
What she missed was feral honeybees and she glossed right over production hive collapses, "Oh, you can buy more". With many, their budget's as stressed as the rest of us, so it'd be like telling a physicist that an accident that drops CERN off for a decade is OK, because they can just go build another one.
But, she did brush on one thing I've been harping on for ages: Monoculture is bad in agriculture. One crop, one source of failure when a pathogen it's sensitive to arrives, as Florida is finding out, as are the Cavendish banana plantation owners are as well.
As for cheese, might have a bit each day or every other day, but I rotate what I eat quite often, from fish to chicken to pork, all meat servings being palm sized or smaller, had asparagus and green beans tonight, was planning on sliced beets tomorrow, but I've depleted my supply, so it'll be pickled beets instead and spinach sauteed with garlic, onion and chili in a chicken bouillon stock. Given the heat wave we're starting here, I'll also be adding salt to some of my foods.
I'll probably also boil up another cup of barley in chicken bouillon, with garlic and onion and add some stewed prunes into it again. That made for a wonderful breakfast or lunch!
4
-
4
-
4
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
2
-
@@Fern00352 Hope is indeed thoroughly lost. So, someone kindly give her a map! ;)
Every generation says much the same about some shiny trinket of technology, oddly, we still keep slogging onward.
I suggest one adopt my terminology for AI.
Artificial Idiocy.
Or stay with The Croods, it's new, avoid it...
And remember, regardless of technology predictions, we remain singularly and uniquely incompetent in predicting the frigging future.
You know, household nuclear reactors, flying cars (good Lord, but they can't drive worth a shit on the ground...), voice controlled computing (we got kitten videos instead), need I continue?
Artificial Idiocy meets Organic Idiocy, a match made in hell. :P
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
1
-
1
-
The plants are expensive, concrete is expensive for a reason. Look up what it takes to make concrete, tons of baking rock...
Then, it takes around 60 days for concrete to cure. Concrete doesn't dry, it hydrates and forms carbonate rods to form its matrix, that takes time to do.
And I actually do like nuclear power. A lot. But, construction takes a long time, due to complexity and well, curing of concrete.
Although, I am a bigger fan of thorium power. Alas, the leader of the world, the US isn't leading, as usual, India is leading that push. We'll continue leading by defaulting, as usual, we trailed Europe in germ theory, physics and well, everything social. Now, we've eroded our industrial base, so we'll continue to lead in the only way we've ever done, leading in mediocrity.
Off of the political front, it'll take around 5 years to build a nuclear power plant. With significant effort and minimal time to cure concrete and put the massive erector set from hell together. Think royal pain in the gonads to build properly, yeah, that's it. Doesn't make it worthless, just a pain in the gonads to build.
Look at how long it takes to build a sizable dam, pretty much the same thing, with a bit less complexity.
Oh, we've established gainful fusion at the National Ignition Facility. When I was done laughing and giving a mental pat on the back, yeah, not useful, just gainful.
I live only a couple of miles from the now shuttered TMI power plant, of infamy claim for their massively non-destructive meltdown. Watched it live at 5 in high school, with some significant interest, as at the time, well, two hours drive time to TMI, yeah, kind of important to us. Everything worked as designed, save for a human factors engineering error, which made things get really, really, really expensive and well, zero casualties.
Miss the cooling tower plume though, the plant was shuttered because burning natural gas makes the world more like Venus, erm, is cheaper. Some think we'll get sex goddesses from Venus, we'll just get a baked penis. But, it's cheaper to die and all.
Here's a fossil fuel slogan that's a winner, "BAKED BABIES IS THE WAY TO GO!".
And Two and a quarter mile island is still there. A pet joke from the region among engineers.
Chernobyl's decontamination, Fukushima's as well, bioremediation and vitrification. Oh wait, plants are expensive, totally impossible to grow.
For those with blown sarcasometers, I've got a pallet full of them.
Oh, there is a leading injury common in nuclear power. The most significant number of injuries in nuclear power plant injuries, a paper cut.
Go paperless!
I'll just get my coat...
Oh, Fukushima had two volunteers to open valves, who are casualties. Selection criteria was over 50. I'd have volunteered too, both on age, exposure and it was the right damned thing to do. Much the same happened at Chernobyl.
Both plants built out of specification, Chernobyl, entirely with a flammable roof, Fukushima, updates not applied that'd have prevented the hydrogen explosion.
And I'm worse on my own failures than the scathing review of others failures.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
It was the 4G rollout - they all had strokes trying to get a decent signal, when even 3G, which 4G was to save us from, barely worked in so many areas.
Oh wait, that was me, now experiencing the same disorder with 5G...
Seriously though, some inverse rocket scientists blamed 5G for CCD, which would require a time machine to achieve that one, given CCD began a fair bit before 5G was even out of the testing lab.
And in a way related to my joke, that's been a confirmed issue in a number of species. Rather than one stressor causing a decline, it's more often a handful of issues that synergistically impact their survival. In the southern and eastern US, feral honeybee numbers have dropped precipitously over the past decade. We're starting to see a rebound, which suggests a combination of a parasite and virus stressing the hives into collapse and likely, the lower numbers broke the infection chain long enough to allow recovery to begin, just as with corvid numbers after West Nile virus became endemic in the US.
As for 5G, in some ways, it reminds me of the early days of cell phone popularity. Get into a suburban and toward a rural area, you run around looking like a Star Trek landing party with your tricorder scanning away for lifeforms. :/
My other primary stress source was easily eliminated. I moved all of the mirrors out of the house. ;)
1
-
Superchemistry, wait a bit for more sensitive equipment and see ringing.
Really, it's in the math.
Eliminating contrails is good, eliminating chemtrails is better, as the exhaust is pollution. Anyone figuring out that one, well, my hat off and a Nobel prize for them!
Model the same thing with a plastic ball, but changing plastic with neutronium, learn a lot more. I'm serious. The math's a cast iron bitch, but it's illuminating.
Downside to replaceable batteries, water resistance. Not a big barrier, given USB/thuderthud connectors.
Gilling a mushroom is easy. Genetically sterilize the mushroom. No clue where the next mushroom is coming from...
Hurricanes are easy, God-Trump said to nuke them and hand wave...
I'll just get my hat...
1
-
CO2 is good, it made Venus the garden world that it is today!
More seriously, CO2 is one component in photosynthesis, at night plants consume oxygen and exhale CO2. Meanwhile, photosynthesis also requires phosphorus and nitrogen for the cycle to work, so soil nutrients remaining the same becomes a problem. Add in, we need O2 to live, so O2 is people food in the same non-rationale. Pure O2, not so much, at standard atmospheric pressure and temperature, pure O2 verges on toxic, elevate its partial pressure more, you're talking actual burns of the respiratory tract. Something everyone that works with oxygen and especially hyperbaric oxygen therapy knows quite well.
But, nothing can be done about disinformation? OK, nothing can be done about greenhouse gases. Enjoy Venus mkII.
1
-
1
-
1
-
@absalomdraconis the additive in question was called Olestra. Not especially relevant, given it was dairy products, specifically milk, butter, cream and many cheeses that all contained lactose.
Additionally, lousy example, as the only people who did suffer that seepage were those who consumed ridiculous amounts of potato chips with Olestra as their fat. Every investigatory study found that one, not a one had such problems with average consumption, only with those who ate absurd amounts.
I actually tried the products, including Pringles potato chips with Olestra, didn't have a problem with them. Still, a moot point, as Olestra was never a milk or other dairy product adulterant.
But, there was one further thing against Olestra, it suspended fat soluble nutrients, such as vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin K, and vitamin A, along with carotenoids. Those then had to be added to the product as supplements to offset what otherwise was excreted.
Olestra remains in use today - as an industrial lubricant and paint base, as well as a deck stain base, as it is environmentally friendly.
Laughably, lobbyists against Olestra used chemophobia to fight the product, long before excessive consumers complained. One attack, calling it what it is, a polyester. So is cooking oil, of course, but one does have to shake one's head over proclaiming general health and championing knowledge by capitalizing upon ignorance and the promotion of said ignorance.
And a tidbit of later follow-up studies, those excessive consumers had the same seepage with regular fat chips, as there are limits to how much fat the body can digest, process or absorb.
Rather like those who consumed low calorie sodas to lose weight, but turned around and drank hundreds of gallons of the swill, then complained that their weight remained the same or higher. They offset the caloric loss by overconsuming and obliterating that otherwise health gain.
1
-
@nothanks9503 have yet to see a palatable algae product, counting gelatin products containing agar.
I do enjoy edible seaweeds though!
Lacking access to affordable edible seaweed, I'd happily fight seven strong men for a basket of broccoli rabe or curly escarole for soup. Alas, can't find even a leaf fragment in my neighborhood, our stores largely are geared toward Caribbean cuisine. Which has its own delights. Oh well, guess I'm stuck with collard greens and a few other greens (big grin).*
With either, I'd be unlikely to ever be zinc deficient or magnesium deficient though. I tend to run deficient on magnesium, occasionally on zinc as well, but a dish of mussels fixes the latter. Haven't figured out why I run deficient on magnesium (yes, proton pump inhibitors and all, but even months after being off of them, I was still deficient), so I boost foods with both in them.
*Lost my wife of 42 years a couple of years back this March. Still, for Thanksgiving, I cooked a full thanksgiving dinner (albeit with a smaller turkey), complete with collard greens. One of my neighbors, while discussing our dinner preparations scoffed at this white boy making collards and asked, "What do you know about making collards?!". Gave her my recipe, ended up having to share some of the greens with her, much to her delight. Learned how from my mother-in-law, who came from rural Kentucky. :D
And this Philly boy loves his greens! Meats get a small serving for me, around the size of the palm of my hand or so.
1