Today I Learned

[Borg]

TIL*: How to use Blender to render "millions" of objects like in this render I did of piles and piles of bricks:

This was just a test of the method, and could use some refinement particularly in the background and brick texturing.

Learning how to use it brick by brick?

 

[mfb]

TIL: Luxembourg (Belgium) is larger than the real Luxembourg. It has a smaller population, however.

 

[jack action]

TIL: Luxembourg (Belgium) is larger than the real Luxembourg. It has a smaller population, however.

I think you meant: "Luxembourg, the Belgian province, is larger than Luxembourg, the country." Because - you know - both are real.

 

[mfb]

If we center our complex plane (and certainly the situation is complex) at Luxembourg City then almost all of the Belgian Luxembourg has a positive imaginary component, it's clearly not real.

 

[epenguin]

I think you meant: "Luxembourg, the Belgian province, is larger than Luxembourg, the country." Because - you know - both are real.

Though one can come across differing opinions as to whether Belgium is.

 

[fresh_42]

.

Though one can come across differing opinions as to whether Belgium is.

Belgium is a superposition of Flanders and Wallonia. So until you make an observation ...

 

[Janus]

.

Belgium is a superposition of Flanders and Wallonia. So until you make an observation ...

language people, language*

* ref.-Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

 

[epenguin]

.

Belgium is a superposition of Flanders and Wallonia. So until you make an observation ...

The observational result depends on what angle you make it from. Viewed from Flanders Luxembourg is Luxemburg. You can see this on the big overhead motorway direction signs e,g, when you leave Brussels. Actually what you can see is 'Luxemb urg' - someone has taken the trouble to go up there and remove the 'o'.

 

[Mondayman]

Today I learned that Facebook will ban you temporarily if you state that your ethnicity is white.

A few friends of mine made the statement that they had white heritage, and they were banned. I stated that I was part white, part Native. No ban for me. Funny how the world works these days.

 

[hmmm27]

Wonder how "Black Irish" would play out against their algorithms : it is after all a superficial genotype (ie: "race").

 

[Astronuc]

In the U.S., freight by truck is the primary influencer of diesel and viewed as a sign of the health of the wider economy. Interstate miles covered by trucks are up above 9% over last year, while traffic for all vehicles is down more than 10%, federal Department of Transportation statistics show.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...es-buffett-trains-maersk-ships-and-oil-prices

While trucking may be the mainstay of diesel demand, one of the largest U.S. buyers of the fuel -- after the Navy -- is Buffett’s BNSF Railway (~32,500 miles). It too reports surging activity.

The UP Railroad (~32,000 miles) is another big consumer of diesel fuel.

With that backdrop, large oil companies are hurting.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-most-overlooked-business-story-of-2020-174801942.html

 

[gmax137]

Funny

Funny "ha ha" or funny "peculiar"?

 

[Mondayman]

Funny "ha ha" or funny "peculiar"?

A bit of both. I am on Facebook and Quora, and often times comments and responses with no harm or intent will get blocked or censored, but then rude or spiteful comments go untouched.

 

[Jarvis323]

A bit of both. I am on Facebook and Quora, and often times comments and responses with no harm or intent will get blocked or censored, but then rude or spiteful comments go untouched.

It's AI that is doing it. It will have glitches. It was probably trained on labelled hate messages from the past. In the case you mentioned, it probably identified a pattern that is usually found in posts by white supremacists, maybe just because of how rare it would be for white non-(white supremacists) to talk or brag about identifying as being white, compared to how common it is for white supremacists to. They probably set the threshold (predicted probability) low so that very few slip through. Then they have to manually verify when complaints are made. The more false positives it gets, the better it becomes in the future, depending on how people correct it.

 

[Keith_McClary]

It's AI that is doing it.

Also, some religious beliefs are more sacred than others.

 

[BillTre]

I had to change a light bulb today and found this bulb in the fixture.

Looks like a halogen bulb inside an almost typical tungstun light bulb housing.
Don't recall seeing these before.
Guess its to get halogen light from a standard fixture.

 

[Keith_McClary]

halogen bulb inside an almost typical tungstun light bulb housing

I had to look that up:

The small glass envelope may be enclosed in a much larger outer glass bulb, which provides several advantages if small size is not required:[1]

• the outer jacket will be at a much lower, safer, temperature, protecting objects or people that might touch it
• the hot-running inner envelope is protected from contamination, and the bulb may be handled without damaging it
• surroundings are protected from possible shattering of the inner capsule
• the jacket may filter out UV radiation
• when a halogen bulb is used to replace a normal incandescent in a fitting, the larger jacket makes it mechanically similar to the bulb replaced

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halogen_lamp#Safety

 

[Astronuc]

Kenya Installs the First Solar Plant That Transforms Ocean Water Into Drinking Water

One of the most active NGOs that are trying to fight for access to clean water is called Give Power and their main mission is to install solar power technology that can help the communities dealing with this issue. Their most recent success story is related to Kenya and the village named Kiunga, where they managed to install a solar-powered desalination system. This system transforms ocean water into drinkable water and can produce enough water for 35 000 people per day (around 70 thousand liters). Before Give Power, the inhabitants of Kiunga had to travel one hour each day to reach a water source, but it was one used also by animals and full of parasites. Such improvements, like Give Power’s initiative, are constantly needed as according to the World Health Organization, there are still 2.2 billion people around the world who do not have access to drinking water and 4.2 billion can’t access safely managed sanitation services.

See more at: https://www.goodshomedesign.com/ken...t-transforms-ocean-water-into-drinking-water/

The Gulf States use thermal power systems (often with co-generation) for large scale desalination, which are not necessarily practical in poorer nations.

In the US, https://www.usbr.gov/research/dwpr/reportpdfs/report144.pdf

https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/7/eaax0763

 

[jbriggs444]

35 000 people per day...

That's likely 35,000 people-days per day. i.e. water at a rate sufficient to support 35,000 people indefinitely. Units matter.

 

[Astronuc]

Reducing T&D Losses Allows Faster Retirement of Fossil Plants

Table 6.3 summarizes average transmission and distribution losses by country of the world in 2014. The losses range from 2 percent in Singapore to 72.5 percent in Togo. Fifty-four percent of the countries have T&D losses 10 percent or higher. Losses in some large countries and regions are as follows: China (4 percent), the United States (5.9), the European Union (6.4), the Russian Federation (10), Brazil (15.8), and India (19.4). The world average is 8.3 percent (World Bank). An independent analysis suggests that total transmission and distribution losses in the U.S. between 2012 and 2016 were similarly about 5 percent of electricity generation (EIA, 2018e).

https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/TransmisDistrib.pdf

 

[Keith_McClary]

Reducing T&D Losses Allows Faster Retirement of Fossil Plants


https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/TransmisDistrib.pdf

Maybe not in this case:
https://www.sciencealert.com/world-...-internationally-from-australia-under-the-sea

 

[hmmm27]

35 000 people per day...

That's likely 35,000 people-days per day. i.e. water at a rate sufficient to support 35,000 people indefinitely. Units matter.

"each day" would have worked. Or of course "".

 

[kyphysics]

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/12/covid-19-sleep-pandemic-zzzz/617454/
Interesting piece on melatonin, sleep, and COVID:

After he published his research, though, Cheng heard from scientists around the world who thought there might be something to it. They noted that, in addition to melatonin’s well-known effects on sleep, it plays a part in calibrating the immune system. Essentially, it acts as a moderator to help keep our self-protective responses from going haywire—which happens to be the basic problem that can quickly turn a mild case of COVID-19 into a life-threatening scenario.

Cheng decided to dig deeper. For months, he and colleagues pieced together the data from thousands of patients who were seen at his medical center. In results published last month, melatonin continued to stand out. People taking it had significantly lower odds of developing COVID-19, much less dying of it. Other researchers noticed similar patterns. In October, a study at Columbia University found that intubated patients had better rates of survival if they received melatonin. When President Donald Trump was flown to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for COVID-19 treatment, his doctors prescribed—in addition to a plethora of other experimental therapies—melatonin.

Eight clinical trials are currently ongoing, around the world, to see if these melatonin correlations bear out. Few other treatments are receiving so much research attention. If melatonin actually proves to help people, it would be the cheapest and most readily accessible medicine to counter COVID-19. Unlike experimental drugs such as remdesivir and antibody cocktails, melatonin is widely available in the United States as an over-the-counter dietary supplement. People could start taking it immediately.

 

[Astronuc]

For the record, the equation gives you energy expenditure (EE) in watts per kilogram of body mass, as a function of walking speed (S) in meters per second and gradient (G) in percent:

EE = 1.44 + 1.94*S^0.43 + 0.24*S^4 + 0.34*S*G*(1-1.05^(1-1.11^(G+32)))

https://www.outsideonline.com/2394938/how-many-calories-burned-hiking

I will have to test this. I also need such an equation for cycling.

 

[mfb]

For a gradient of zero this leads to a minimal energy expenditure per distance at a speed of 1.4 m/s = 5.0 km/h. That minimum is 3.3 J/(kg m), suggesting an effective "friction" coefficient of 0.34.

 

[jack action]

 

[Ibix]

View attachment 275475​

22,000km in 587×8 hour days works out at 4.7kph, close to mfb's optimal figure. Borrowing that result, apparently a 70kg person would expend in excess of 5GJ, even assuming (unrealistically) that the entire route is flat.

 

[mfb]

Of course you can walk longer in many different ways. It's the longest path that doesn't come with a shorter connection between start and end.

You are unlikely to experience a hurricane on that path, I think.

 

[strangerep]

The longest walkable road [...]

So,... how many people have actually walked it without being robbed, kidnapped for ransom, raped, imprisoned, beaten almost to death, dehydrated, frost-bitten, etc, etc,...? It looks like a seriously dangerous journey.

But anyway, as a consequence of your post,... TIL about the Suez Canal Bridge.

 

[Vanadium 50]

So,... how many people have actually walked it without being robbed, kidnapped for ransom, raped, imprisoned, beaten almost to death, dehydrated, frost-bitten, etc, etc,...?

And that's just in the first four blocks!