Today I Learned

[Klystron]

View attachment 298327​

From her Wiki entry:

Lamarr was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in 1914 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, the only child of Gertrud "Trude" Kiesler (born Lichtwitz; 1894–1977) and Emil Kiesler (1880–1935).

Her father was born to a Galician-Jewish family in Lemberg (now Lviv in Ukraine) and was a bank director at the Creditanstalt-Bankverein.[12][13][14] Trude, her mother, a pianist and Budapest native, had come from an upper-class Hungarian-Jewish family. She had converted to Catholicism and was described as a "practicing Christian" who raised her daughter as a Christian, although Hedy was not formally baptized at the time.

I came to post a TIL but was startled to see a photo of a relative who so closely resembles my mother.

"Evie"'s or Hedy's mother was my maternal g'mother's first cousin, also related to my paternal g'mother, all from Budapest. I mentioned in other posts that my great-grandmother (and parents) taught me electronics as a child. I entered the USAF to attend the Defense Langauge Institute but DoD switched me to radar as few airman understood the science. Guess electronics runs in the family.

Many of my relatives became baptized Catholics including my parents, going back to early Christians and the 'founder of the feast', so to speak. Working with the military also runs in the family.

 

[Keith_McClary]

Guess electronics runs in the family.

Did you also get the looks?

 

[Klystron]

Did you also get the looks?

Yes, I guess. Mom makes Hedy appear slightly underdeveloped at that age but otherwise could be twins.

Difficult to say in retrospect but good looks can be a detriment as well as a benefit, a distraction. I enjoy being intelligent more, pardon any unintentional hubris.

 

[pinball1970]

TIL.

Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) will be cooled by a closed-cycle gaseous-helium cryocooler, or refrigerator, down to a temperature below 7 kelvins (-447 degrees Fahrenheit, or -266 degrees Celsius)

I noticed the rate at which Webb was cooling was slowing down to the point the coldest part of the cold side had not moved off 39K for 4 or 5 days. (Where's Webb)

How was it going to get any colder by cooling at such a cold slow rate? I thought it cooled only via the coldness of space and protection from the Sun via the heat shield.

TIL (also) different parts need to be within certain ranges. I have been concentrating on the launch, the flight to L2, deployments of all the bits and pieces (technical stuff!)

So now it is a matter of trying to absorb some of the technology as best as possible to appreciate the next steps.

https://www.universetoday.com/154533/webb-is-cool-but-it-still-needs-to-get-cooler/

 

[Keith_McClary]

TIL: Don't try to make cowboy coffee in the microwave.

 

[berkeman]

Interesting. What happened?

 

[Klystron]

TIL: Don't try to make cowboy coffee in the microwave.

Guessing you mean 'boiled coffee', with the grounds in the cold water?

Interesting. What happened?

Guess 2: Keith cleaned microwave.

 

[Keith_McClary]

Guessing you mean 'boiled coffee', with the grounds in the cold water?

I should at least have used a larger container. And it probably didn't help that it was fresh ground, with a pretty good "bloom".

 

[hutchphd]

I should at least have used a larger container. And it probably didn't help that it was fresh ground, with a pretty good "bloom".

Lots of good nucleation centers

 

[jtbell]

Today I learned that certified professional retirement coaches are a thing, for people who don't know what they're going to do after they no longer have to go to the office (or Zoom to it) every day.

 

[Tom.G]

Interesting... kind'a. I read the link and my impression was:

• Module 1: Set the hook (to sign up)
• Modules 2 - 6: How to be a salesman
• Modules 7 - 8, & unit 1 of Module 9: Potentially useful info for a new retiree
• Module 9, unit 2: How to do the above better
• Module 9, unit 3: How to start a business

(There is a bridge in New York City for sale, are you interested?)

Oh well...

 

[hutchphd]

Having spent much of my adult life freelancing I think being a certified professional retirement coach is my perfect next gig. I need to

1. set up my certification company
2. pass my own stringent certification test
3. hang out my shingle

OK maybe tomorrow...(I'm already am good at this)

 

[Keith_McClary]

pass my own stringent certification test

Not so fast?:

Dilbert

 

[Bystander]

Today I learned that certified professional retirement coaches are a thing, for people who don't know what they're going to do after they no longer have to go to the office (or Zoom to it) every day.

Overheard at a gunshow: A, "How's retirement going?"; B, "I'm going to have to go back to work so I can have some time for myself."

 

[BillTre]

I'm retired now and it is keeping me surprisingly busy.

 

[Oldman too]

TIL, that our nearest Black hole system isn't.
https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2204/

 

[strangerep]

TIL, that our nearest Black hole system isn't.
https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2204/

... and so TIL there is such a thing as a "vampire" star.

 

[Drakkith]

TIL that Mho's, a unit of electrical conductance, is just Ohm spelled backwards.
It also uses an upside down omega as its symbol, whereas Ohm's uses a non-inverted omega.
Conductance is also the reciprocal of resistance.
They just took everything about Ohm's and inverted them!

 

[Klystron]

TIL the title of the PF science fiction subforum is "Writing and Worldbuilding". I read the title as "Word Building", improving vocabulary. Several confused would-be authors must be wondering why I offer terms such as 'tantalus' and 'antidisestablishmentarianism' when they are trying to introduce hubris in their conquerors or, latter term, imposing worldwide religions in their text.

Perhaps worthy of a simpler story, my eyeballs were zapped by concentrated sunlight when I refused to relinquish visual lock on fighter planes flying into the sun, not to mention laser beams frying my cornea while my crew rushed to engage clunky mechanical shields on old optics. Ouch. So, "floaters" often obscure skinny characters such as 'l'.

 

[fresh_42]

TIL the title of the PF science fiction subforum is "Writing and Worldbuilding". I read the title as "Word Building", improving vocabulary. Several confused would-be authors must be wondering why I offer terms such as 'tantalus' and 'antidisestablishmentarianism' when they are trying to introduce hubris in their conquerors or, latter term, imposing worldwide religions in their text.

Perhaps worthy of a simpler story, my eyeballs were zapped by concentrated sunlight when I refused to relinquish visual lock on fighter planes flying into the sun, not to mention laser beams frying my cornea while my crew rushed to engage clunky mechanical shields on old optics. Ouch. So, "floaters" often obscure skinny characters such as 'l'.

I still read it as Word building.

 

[strangerep]

They just took everything about Ohm's and inverted them!

...that reminds me of how, as a child, I thought "impedance" was pronounced with emphasis on the "Im". Years later, when I said it aloud in a physics lab, I wondered why the tutor laughed...

 

[Rive]

I read the title as "Word Building", improving vocabulary.

Well, that's definitely part of the work. There is no good technobabble without a good set of new almost-meaningful words

So 'word building' definitely should be part of every curriculum about writing sci-fi

 

[DaveC426913]

TIL, that the magnitude of an Earthquake is not based on its severity - it is based on the length of the fault.

The largest earthquake in recorded history - a 9.5 - occurred in Valdivia, Chile, in 1960. It spanned one thousand miles.

The reason a Mag 10 quake cannot happen is because there are no faults anywhere in Earth sufficiently long - it would have to span a significant portion of the Earth's circumference.

 

[berkeman]

TIL, that the magnitude of an Earthquake is not based on its severity - it is based on the length of the fault.

The largest earthquake in recorded history - a 9.5 - occurred in Valdivia, Chile, in 1960. It spanned one thousand miles.

The reason a Mag 10 quake cannot happen is because there are no faults anywhere in Earth sufficiently long - it would have to span a significant portion of the Earth's circumference.

Source? I think somebody is pulling your leg...

 

[Klystron]

Source? I think somebody is pulling your leg...

Length of faults certainly a factor but quake magnitude involves a logarithmic scale measuring energy release. Earth science not my area, but grew up in California quake country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake#Intensity_of_earth_quaking_and_magnitude_of_earthquakes

...Only in the last century has the source of such shaking been identified as ruptures in the Earth's crust, with the intensity of shaking at any locality dependent not only on the local ground conditions but also on the strength or magnitude of the rupture, and on its distance.[33]

The first scale for measuring earthquake magnitudes was developed by Charles F. Richter in 1935. Subsequent scales (see seismic magnitude scales) have retained a key feature, where each unit represents a ten-fold difference in the amplitude of the ground shaking and a 32-fold difference in energy. ... bolding added

Although the mass media commonly reports earthquake magnitudes as "Richter magnitude" or "Richter scale", standard practice by most seismological authorities is to express an earthquake's strength on the moment magnitude scale, which is based on the actual energy released by an earthquake.

 

[Oldman too]

TIL, GORT (yes that one) is an acronym for Genetically Organized Robotic Technology, pretty cool for '50's Sci Fi.

 

[fresh_42]

Genetically Organized Robotic Technology

And I thought those were Borg.

 

[Oldman too]

And I thought those were Borg.

I'm working out the acronym for that...

 

[Klystron]

I'm working out the acronym for that...

Not a trekkie myself, but my youngest sister definitely fills that bill. When Jean Luc was first assimilated, I figured Borg was short for cyborg, cybernetic organism, since they merged humans with computer machinery. Battlestar Gallactica, popular at the time, featured Cylons, so sis figured Trek NG writers dropped the 'cy-' to avoid comparisons and sound edgier.

Borg. Resistance is futile.​

 

[Hornbein]

The name of the Borg Seven of Nine may have been inspired by Ernest Borgnine.