The Lounge

I am an IT professional and a huge SciFi fan. I started working on worldbuilding a science fiction universe that I believe is scientifically plausible, while trying to include any inevitable technologies and capabilities and avoiding theoretical physics longhots like negative energy, artificial gravity, wormholes and warp drives. I've been learning to 3D model in Blender and working on making a 3d animated series for YouTube. I wanted to show viewers a future that might actually be possible instead of the scientific surrealism of Star Trek or the many other SciFi universes that have one more more elements that are definitely not possible that bring their entire house of c…

I want to include a glossary-like appendix into one document I wrote (basic-level overview of magnetism). I planed to include a chart at the beginning of the glossary to depict relations between explained terms. It proved harder than expected. I have doubts about almost everything... Maybe you want to comment or advise. The idea is not to provide rigor, but to provide some orientation. Here is what I have so far:

I wasn't aware that there is currently an EU tariff of up to £60 per kilogramme on US cheese. I really would like to taste some of the good stuff- any recommendations? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-48915578

What is the point of withdrawing from a check while receiving clearance if one has committed a heinous crime? From what I have discussed with some friends, once someone is denied, they are blacklisted from clearances. Someone in such a situation, would they have anything to lose whether they withdrew or not? Just morbidly curious.

My son holding my grand daughter!

As of September 2019, these are the 5 potentially habitable exoplanets closer to Earth: SPAM DELETED 1.GLIESE 273 b Gliese 283 b orbits the red dwarf star Luyten, located 12 light years away. - The exoplanet is 84% similar to Earth. - It has an orbital period of 18.6 days. - A minimum mass 2 times higher than Earth. - An average radius 40% higher. - And an equilibrium temperature of 11 degrees more. 2. TEEGARDEN b Teegarden b orbits the red dwarf star Teegarden, 12 light years away. - The exoplanet is 95% similar to Earth. - It has an orbital period of 5 days. - A minimum mass and averag…

Nowadays a lot of people like to fashion themselves in a way that is less traditional. You might see men wear make up or men and women coloring their hair some color that isn't naturally possible. Since society is so free, even among serious scholars (as I see in my department), what is the point of having a strict dress code? I imagine one doesn't want someone showing up scantily clad or maybe there is a uniform requirement to represent a certain party or for a certain type of job but there doesn't seem to be much point for specifying such at social events in places such as conferences.

I was talking with family about a friend's upcoming wedding, and I put forward the idea that instead of the bride spending BIG money on a one-time use wedding dress (no, your daughter probably won't want to wear your old one), while the groom rents a tuxedo, it would be a much better tradition to buy the bride either a sharp designer outfit for business or a designer dress she can wear to fancy occasions for the next several years. Buy the groom an Armani suit and he'll have something fantastic to wear for quite a while. Horrible bridesmaid dresses could be a thing of the past. Of course, this assumes you're not already wealthy enough to spend thousands of dollars on…

Just found science forums evil twin, suppose everybody has a doppelgänger.. https://evolutionfairytale.com/forum/

I read today that some samples retrieved from Moon by Apollo missions were sealed and never examined. Is this true? What is the rationale for such decision?

If you had the power to create or change one law, what would it be? I've posted in the lounge (for a bit of fun) so feel free to be creative. Here's a starter for 10: Any money spent lobbying the government, for whatever reason, must be matched and given to their opponents.

... when you check out a book on an rfid self-checkout machine in a library. I assume it has something to do with an electromagnetic field, but does anyone know more?

You probably don't have to have a sense of humor to be conscious, but it helps. In the tv series Trailer Park Boys Julian, the mastermind, is in jail and Ricky and Bubbles have the people in the park growing vegetables. Bubbles uses the veggies to make spaghetti sauce that he sells at the flea market. A guy who owns a chain of restaurants offers Bubbles a wad of cash for the recipe to his sauce. Ricky says SELL but Bubbles says no, what would Julian do? Ricky answers "probably something stupid like supply the restaurant chain with the sauce". Bubbles says awesome idea and makes the deal and even more cash. But Ricky is bummed. What's wrong, Bubbles…

Niel Degrasse Tyson posted this video. He mentioned aliens taking packages out of our closet and moving them to another dimension at 1:47. Does this mean that popular science thinks that aliens could be living in a 4th spacial dimension?

This is just for my amusement... There is this "Maxwell-Faraday equation". I was thinking is there any scientific formula or law or a thing that might include two stronger names? For example, is there something like Einsten-Newton stuff in physics, or something like Euler-Gauss stuff in mathematics?

I cleared out some junk and stumbled upon an early attempt at doing “science” with math and observations to get some result. I used a cheap monocular to project a partial eclipse on a paper, the goal was to measure how much of the sun that was covered. I remember getting help with the math for intersecting circles, we had not done such geometry (yet) in school. Do you have any early memories from attempting something scientific? A fun aspect of this little experiment is that I think one can get decent precision even with cheap equipment. In the age of internet I might try to locate data* from this event and see what the real value was. But my skills at ob…

Same even with immortality, is question: 1. if you get transferred into computer 2. or die and copy of your mind gets transferred Even even if so, what if someone kills you, or you die by accident, if you mind will be backed up and than copied to new body, it won't be you, but your copy. Even if you was lucky and lived like 10k years, eventually you will die anyways, even universe is probably going to end and it will be difficult to survive... Same there is no point, why would you do that ? So you can live another x years for what ? And it is so boring, everything is predetermined, or random, which is not any better... So you maybe explorer new planets…

Is there a place on the site for videos like this and if not should there be?

Scientists have achieved powerful technologies. They use these technologies secretly. All the people in the world divide in two classes. Class A: Politicians , Famous people , Rich people - They are joined in a system. Class B: People Class A people know about the secret technologies and they have to observe system laws. For example, they can't talk about the secret technologies. I'm not in Class A. I'm in Class B. But for some reasons I know about the secret technologies and I'm going to reveal about it. Politicians can control people by space satellites. Space satellites send waves to all of your body. Specially your brain. Calss B people can not detect th…

Sorry to bring such simple minutia, but am confused. Got a kite for my daughter and cannot figure out how it goes together (no instructions) The drawing shows all the spars 8; 10 at the concave side ¿?. But there is two holes passing the strings 51, 51' trough the sail. Pictured hanged to my ceiling fan to show better, with bridles 47s ans 51s hanging. Element 37 not attached. Not shown spars are on the top side. The drawing source is ----> https://patents.google.com/patent/US4815681A/en as I saw such printed on the sail. How does it go ? Spars on convex or concave ?

So here Is was deeply immersed in studying a dissertation on CKM mixing angles with regards to Higgs and electroweak symmetry breaking. Going through the unitary triangle etc when I come across a technical term I couldn't believe. I almost thought the author had gone batty until I dug deeper. "The Feymann Penguin diagrams" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penguin_diagram Literally it is the one loop diagrams I have worked with and seen in dozens of technical literature however this was the first time I had ever seen them referred to as penguin diagrams. I nearly pissed myself laughing so hard.

I'm getting married next year and wanted something unique for a ring. I read on SlashDot last week that I could get an iridium ring from this company: http://www.americanelements.com. Has anyone ever bought one of these? Are they safe? Do they last? Can anyone suggest any other cool or exotic elements for wedding rings?

Any Sci-Fi people see Netflix's latest A.I. feature? It's called "I Am Mother". Synopsis: a young human girl "Daughter" is raised by A.I. "Mother" in a secure bunker after humanity has experienced an "extinction event". Things go awry when another human enters from outside, and tells the girl that all is not as it seems. Definitely worth a watch - lots of twists and turns and seamlessy produced. The film was also interesting because it's basically the movie version of Stuart Russell's TED talk: "3 principles for creating safer A.I" and his "fetch the coffee problem".

This is just cool. Could zoom in and out for a long while. Click the link to try it yourself The Extreme Temperatures of the Universe https://www.visualcapitalist.com/extreme-temperatures-in-the-universe/

I’m writing a story about a scientist in the Star Wars galaxy and he wins the Star Wars equivalent of a Nobel Prize. Do you have a Nobel prize thing my scientist can study that’s SUPER advanced and almost like Science 2.0. It doesn’t have to be super technobabbly and I’d like to avoid time travel, teleportation or parallel universes because those things conflict with the Force and could damage the story.