Today I Learned

[DaveC426913]

And anything ending in "?".

I've heard a generalization that applies to any headline.

If a headline ends in a question mark - the answer to the question asked - is 'no'.

 

[BillTre]

Here is a XKCD 2020 election map.
I am posting this for data visualization purposes, not political purposes!

The point is that this map shows:

• how the people in states voted, while
• maintaining the geographical relationships of a normal map,
• as well as the relative proportions of the voters in each state.

Not an easy combination to achieve.

 

[Jonathan Scott]

Here is a XKCD 2020 election map.

I'm often in awe of the huge amount of time and effort that Randall Munroe must have put into some of his xkcd postings.

 

[DaveC426913]

I was impressed at this graph too. And admire RM for his tenaciousness.

Though I was/am at a bit of a loss as to what useful knowledge can be gleaned from this visualization.

 

[Keith_McClary]

useful knowledge

Maybe in the mouseover comment?

There are more Trump voters in California than Texas, more Biden voters in Texas than New York, more Trump voters in New York than Ohio, more Biden voters in Ohio than Massachusetts, more Trump voters in Massachusetts than Mississippi, and more Biden voters in Mississippi than Vermont.

 

[jack action]

I was impressed at this graph too. And admire RM for his tenaciousness.

Though I was/am at a bit of a loss as to what useful knowledge can be gleaned from this visualization.

What I learned with this map when I first saw it is how well-mixed are the republicans and democrats throughout the country. I'm so used to see the red-center-with-blue-borders-map that gives the impression that the USA is 3 different countries isolated from each other. Clearly, there are no real 'red' or 'blue' states as I could of imagined.

 

[Ibix]

What I learned with this map when I first saw it is how well-mixed are the republicans and democrats throughout the country. I'm so used to see the red-center-with-blue-borders-map that gives the impression that the USA is 3 different countries isolated from each other. Clearly, there are no real 'red' or 'blue' states as I could of imagined.

I recall a map of the states coloured by popular vote, from the 2004 election I think. Instead of red/blue, everywhere was redder or bluer shades of purple. Can't now find it, but here is a county-level map of the 2016 election, which makes much of the same point.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I've been learning all about yeast. My specialty is process control with a heavy emphasis on process. As a result, I am constantly learning about processes and technologies new to me. This is perhaps the best part of what I do. From launching rockets to putting the smile on the Pepperidge Farms Goldfish, from being held hostage to being treated like royalty, I have been lucky enough to see and do many amazing things. But today my world is all about yeast. And like most everything else I learn about, sure enough, yeast is interesting!

There is nothing more rewarding than solving problems that have stumped the experts. And I can do that because I studied physics.

 

[Janus]

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.
The basic method is this:
Create a large number of "bricks"(500+) This can be done by duplicating a brick**, then selecting both, duplicating them... Making an array of bricks in a layer. Make duplicates of the layers stacked on top of each other with space between each layer, with a bit of random rotation and placement. Create a large plane some distance under them.

Run the physics engine, allowing the bricks to fall onto the plane creating a pile of bricks.
Put your camera directly above the pile, looking straight down and give it a square aspect ratio, making sure that only bricks are in the frame.
Render the scene and save the image.
Now you are going render the same scene, but time using something called the "mist pass". The upshot is that this produces a grayscale image that is a relief map of the bricks. Save this image.
Now you need to take both images an do some editing. Each of these imaged are going to be used in a "tiled" material (basically repeating the same image over and over). The problem with the images as they are is that you will see very distinct seams where tiles meet. Thus you need to make them "seamless". Without going into details, this means making where the tiles meet "flow" into each other. How you do this depends on what type of image editor you have.

Now, you start a new scene, create a new plane and scale it up. You create a tiled texture (with this image I went 10 x10) using your first image of bricks, which "paints" a ten by ten grid of images on your plane.
You then take the mist pass image, tile it to the same scale and use it to perform a displacement on the plane (again there are some additional steps needed to make this work that I am skipping here).
This gives you a plane with not only the image of the bricks on it, but also the bumpiness effect of the bricks being real objects.
You now add another larger scale displacement to the plane to create the "hills"
One last step:
At this point, things look okay as long as you don't get too close to the plane. If you do, it becomes quite obvious that something isn't quite kosher.
So here's how to fix that: make a new somewhat smaller plane a put it in the foreground of your scene. Sculpt it into a hill shape. Do like we did before, make a bunch of bricks and let them fall onto the 'hill". This produces a "pile" of brick objects in the foreground and helps to complete the effect.

*I actually did this yesterday, but didn't finish until quite late.
** Both the brick and the later plane have to be assigned as being "rigid bodies" in order for the the bricks to fall and interact with the plane.

 

[epenguin]

You can have practical experience of something yet never explicitly formulate it as a generalisation. Today I learned that I knew one such but didn't know I knew it. It is called, among other names, Brandolini's principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini's_law

 

[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 ...

Langauge 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.