TIL: Today I Learned

[Hrothbern]

Yeah, Gab (why isnt the simple "Gab" one of the street names? Maybe just Norwegian?) is very addictive and, well, I am surprised that this is a "surprise". Was my first experience of true addicts, holding on to it and always needing it.

In my experience, as long as you keep the dosage to doing "corks", filling a cork from a soda bottle, anyone doing to much will just have a good sleep (not mentioning here the usage of it as a date-rape drug, it's basically the quintessential date-rape drug). The worry is in a party situation someone might take a bottle of it to be water and take way too much. It's generally tasteless with maybe a slight salty chemical taste. It simply looks like a water-bottle and this is possibly the greatest danger.

Seemingly innocent
The people addicted were experienced users of other drugs.
If you use your waking up alarm in the night to get your “cork” every 3 hours, it starts getting frightening I think.

Better to use other stuff that cost a bit more money

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Apparently water is pretty good at blocking WiFi signalling.

 

[Traitorfish]

TIL that the former MP for my parliamentary constituency, Glasgow Central, is currently the provincial governor of Punjab in Pakistan. He is a native of that province, having emigrated to Scotland as a young man, so it's not totally bizarre, but it's still an unexpected career move, especially since his son his still active in Scottish politics.

(His son is also a complete goon, but that's another story.)

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Apparently water is pretty good at blocking WiFi signalling.

This was mysterious when I read it last night, and I am still puzzled.

Yes, water would be expected to block signals if you have enough water. We use shielding tanks around nuclear reactors, mostly to stop neutrons but they provide a secondary benefit against gammas that does cut down on the amount of lead required.

But, how does this come up in day to day life? If you stick your phone in an aquarium there probably isn't enough water to block a signal and your phone is going to stop working anyway. If you are trying to use your laptop at the bottom of the deep end of a pool, loss of signal is going to be the least of your worries.

 

[BenitoChavez]

TIL the US Navy uses dolphins to locate underwater mines. Dolphins ability to use underwater echolocation is far better than anything the Navy has come up with so the Navy implemented a program to train them. The dolphins are given an area to swim around and if they find mines, they can place buoys around the mines so that humans can find and disarm them or avoid them.

Suddenly that part of Jurassic World where the army guy wants to train velociraptors doesn't seem quite as far fetched as before.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

TIL the US Navy uses dolphins to locate underwater mines. Dolphins ability to use underwater echolocation is far better than anything the Navy has come up with so the Navy implemented a program to train them. The dolphins are given an area to swim around and if they find mines, they can place buoys around the mines so that humans can find and disarm them or avoid them.

Suddenly that part of Jurassic World where the army guy wants to train velociraptors doesn't seem quite as far fetched as before.

C'mon. If you were an army guy you know you would want a trained velociraptor on your side.

 

[BenitoChavez]

C'mon. If you were an army guy you know you would want a trained velociraptor on your side.

I dunno. Don't the velociraptors end up turning on him in the end? Doesn't seem like such a smart thing after that.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I dunno. Don't the velociraptors end up turning on him in the end? Doesn't seem like such a smart thing after that.

Admittedly, that was a bad outcome. But they weren't fully trained yet. I never met an army guy that wasn't intrigued by a bigger gun, even if in the early development it had a bad habit of blowing up in the user's face.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

TIL the US Navy uses dolphins to locate underwater mines. Dolphins ability to use underwater echolocation is far better than anything the Navy has come up with so the Navy implemented a program to train them. The dolphins are given an area to swim around and if they find mines, they can place buoys around the mines so that humans can find and disarm them or avoid them.

Suddenly that part of Jurassic World where the army guy wants to train velociraptors doesn't seem quite as far fetched as before.

When I watched that scene in Jurassic World my first thought went to those dolphins trained by the Navy.

 

[Arakhor]

TIL the US Navy uses dolphins to locate underwater mines. Dolphins ability to use underwater echolocation is far better than anything the Navy has come up with so the Navy implemented a program to train them. The dolphins are given an area to swim around and if they find mines, they can place buoys around the mines so that humans can find and disarm them or avoid them.

Dolphins are an obvious choice in uplift fiction. I read about it years ago from GURPS, of all things.

 

[Ajidica]

This was mysterious when I read it last night, and I am still puzzled.

Yes, water would be expected to block signals if you have enough water. We use shielding tanks around nuclear reactors, mostly to stop neutrons but they provide a secondary benefit against gammas that does cut down on the amount of lead required.

But, how does this come up in day to day life? If you stick your phone in an aquarium there probably isn't enough water to block a signal and your phone is going to stop working anyway. If you are trying to use your laptop at the bottom of the deep end of a pool, loss of signal is going to be the least of your worries.

It is less water by itself blocking the wifi signal, but objects containing water - notably meatbags like us. IIRC airlines had quite a bit of problems in getting wifi to work on the plane because all the human bodies were absorbing the wifi signals.

 

[Phrossack]

It is less water by itself blocking the wifi signal, but objects containing water - notably meatbags like us. IIRC airlines had quite a bit of problems in getting wifi to work on the plane because all the human bodies were absorbing the wifi signals.

Well, if they can automate the pilots of planes, why not the passengers?

 

[Ajidica]

Well, if they can automate the pilots of planes, why not the passengers?

Because someone has to be on hand to re-inflate the autopilot.

 

[Traitorfish]

Life hack: steal your neighbour's wifi by absorbing it directly into your body.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

It is less water by itself blocking the wifi signal, but objects containing water - notably meatbags like us. IIRC airlines had quite a bit of problems in getting wifi to work on the plane because all the human bodies were absorbing the wifi signals.

Hmmm. It seems like that would take a lot of meatbags piled up. But, my perspectives on shielding relate a lot more to nuclear reactors than WiFi antennas so undoubtedly I am overengineering the problem.

 

[Takhisis]

Life hack: steal your neighbour's wifi by absorbing it directly into your body.

That sounds like something out of a Julie E. Czerneda book.

 

[Lexicus]

Life hack: steal your neighbour's wifi by absorbing it directly into your body.

"You can't win, Darth; I have become more powerful than you can possibly imagine"

 

[Zkribbler]

Spectacles

In the US, spectacle lenses are made out of glass (I'm pretty sure). Here, they're made out of "plastic," which over time, grows cloudy.

This morning, I was watching an auto repair show, and one of their quick tips dealt with headlight lenses, which had grown cloudy. They are of policarbonate which attracts a film. This can easily be cleaned with a paste made from baking soda and water. Acting on the assumption that the plastic in my spectacles is policarbonate, I tried it. It works!

No more replacing my cloudy lenses.

 

[Samez]

Spectacle lenses can be quite sophisticated having about a dozend different functional layers like several anti reflective or surface hardening coatings.
If the soda solution works for you very good but usually cloudy lenses are caused by accumulating microscratches.

 

[Cutlass]

Spectacles

In the US, spectacle lenses are made out of glass (I'm pretty sure). Here, they're made out of "plastic," which over time, grows cloudy.

This morning, I was watching an auto repair show, and one of their quick tips dealt with headlight lenses, which had grown cloudy. They are of policarbonate which attracts a film. This can easily be cleaned with a paste made from baking soda and water. Acting on the assumption that the plastic in my spectacles is policarbonate, I tried it. It works!

No more replacing my cloudy lenses.

They're mostly not made of glass here either.