TIL: Today I Learned

[Hrothbern]

Let's not forget that the first Swedish Nobel Prize winner was Arrhenius, who, driven by wanting to understand how Ice Ages could be influenced by greenhouse effects, made the tedious effort to calculate what would happen with the Earth temperature if the CO2 in the atmosphere would be reduced to 50% (and what would happen if CO2 was doubled as well).

...... What followed was a year doing what Arrhenius described as "tedious calculations". His starting point was a set of readings taken by US astronomer Samuel Langley, who had tried to work out how much heat the Earth received from the full moon. Arrhenius used the data with figures of global temperatures to work out how much of the incoming radiation was absorbed by CO2 and water vapour, and so heated the atmosphere.
Between 10,000 and 100,000 calculations later, Arrhenius had some rough, but useful, results that he published in 1896. If CO2 levels halved, he concluded, the the Earth's surface temperature would fall by 4-5C. There was a flipside to his calculations: doubling CO2 levels would trigger a rise of about 5-6C.
As the first to put hard figures on the greenhouse effect, it's unsurprising Arrhenius's estimates weren't spot on. He thought it would take millenia to see a 50% rise in CO2 - but modern measurements show a 30% rise during the 20th century alone. He thought a doubling of CO2 would raise temperatures by 5-6C. Scientists now say 2-3C is more likely.

And yeah... living in a country that was fully covered by the Ice Age ice sheets, no wonder that he was most interested in the risk of a new ice age, and was not that unhappy about a bit of temperature increase for Sweden.

Here an article on Arrhenius and also the early history of the increase of scientific insight in the effects of CO2 from 1900 onward. It all started in fact with the French scientist Fourier around 1800.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2005/jun/30/climatechange.climatechangeenvironment2

 

[Kyriakos]

You donate one nobel prize to joseph goebbels and everybody throws a fit. Political correctness gone mad

Kittelsen was norwegian too. Unless there's a swedish one too.

Meh, so is there any swedish painter of note?
I like Kittelsen's trolls But he isn't a major artist, of Munch's level.

 

[Snerk]

Munch and Kittelsen are two altogether very different beasts. I really wish I could discover Munch's works from a non Norwegian point of view.

Fun fact. Theodor Kittelsen made the White Walkers.

 

[brennan]

Earth Engine

Remember the Rossi Catalyzer?

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/infinite-energies.418982/

Amazing that these magic free-energy technologies never come up to anything. Other than lining the pockets of their con-merchant originators.

 

[Kyriakos]

Remember the Rossi Catalyzer?

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/infinite-energies.418982/

Amazing that these magic free-energy technologies never come up to anything. Other than lining the pockets of their con-merchant originators.

Remember the barytone Ceo?

Turns out even her voice was an act.

 

[brennan]

Funnily enough I saw a video on her just yesterday.

 

[Birdjaguar]

If it does work, the energy output of even a farm would probably be in the watts area at best. Cool...but inefficient.

IEC’s largest investor, Mike Halverson, owns a company in North Las Vegas, Nev., that manufactures modular shooting ranges for off-grid locations, complete with power backup. An R32 test unit installed at his facility in January ran for 422 hours, IEC says, averaging 4.4 kW output, before it was brought back to the lab for analysis. That’s enough energy to light up three average U.S. homes for a month or charge up a score of dead-flat Tesla Model S’s.

For Extra Credit: How It Is Supposed to Work
A magnet is any material or object that produces a magnetic field. Among the strongest magnets are those derived from rare-earth minerals. In the case of the Earth Engine, superstrong magnets paired with computer control and the good old flywheel allow IEC to claim it can “suspend entropy.”

Mr. Danzik says he became convinced he could extract energy from powerful magnets (mostly ordinary iron) that are clustered in a way that magnifies their effect. Such arrays are well known. For example, Tesla cars use electromagnetic motors with what are called “Halbach” arrays, which are about 30% stronger than typical neodymium magnets.

The magnets IEC uses are also highly one-sided, or “anisotropic,” which means their field is stronger on one face than the other—say, 85% North and 15% South.

In the R32, magnets located in three black towers interact with ones placed in the two one-ton, counter-rotating flywheels. As the flywheel rotates, small battery-powered motors move the tower magnets’ orientation at moments of highest drag. This allows the magnets to accelerate as they approach and not slow down as much when they pass.

The net force imparts angular momentum to the flywheels that can then be harvested, mechanically or electrically, IEC claims.

The biggest riddle involves the conservation of energy. Conventional physics holds that magnets have nearly zero inherent energy. Mr. Danzik believes that is because we calculate magnets’ strength by how much current they induce in a loop of wire. He argues that with the emergence of anisotropic, rare-earth magnets, we need a new set of equations to calculate a new physical quantity, which he describes as ‘’the resulting center shaft torque produced from angular momentum derived from the force of paired magnetic fields.”

If it all checks out, this new quantity would have to be measured in a new unit: the Danzik.

As I see it, does the new anisotropic magnet arrangement change the game when paired with smart controls?

This is where the IEC’s strange story takes a stranger turn. In another part of the building, the company is already manufacturing generators based on his radical ideas. Big ones. IEC says its first commercial model, the R32 Earth Engine, hucks two 900-kilogram flywheels at speeds between 125 and 250 rpm, generating 240V or 480V at 100 amps. On the high side, that’s 48 kilowatts, about what a small backup diesel generator puts out. But unlike a diesel generator, the company says, the R32 produces no emissions, no noise (the unit comes in a vacuum-sealed, tamper-proof housing) and uses no fuel.

Let's assume that at some point the magnets have to be "recharged" so there is no free energy. It appears that he does have a pretty cool engine: no noise, no emissions, no fuel and if it could run my house for a year....

 

[Imaus]

As I see it, does the new anisotropic magnet arrangement change the game when paired with smart controls?



Let's assume that at some point the magnets have to be "recharged" so there is no free energy. It appears that he does have a pretty cool engine: no noise, no emissions, no fuel and if it could run my house for a year....

It would be a boon for houses, and especially for electric cars, for sure. Are we sure we're not talking about a huge gyroscope anymore? Just a magnet? Then again, my grasp of such things is iffy to begin with.

 

[Kyriakos]

That's all well and good until Bran Atreides Stark sees their future plotting and protects the Golden Path he's on by offing them with warged scorpions/horses/spiders long before they're a threat. Or the dragon he's clearly about to warg into his control.

If we take the implication he (well, the time warging god controlling him) rigged events to put himself in power on behalf of whatever agenda he serves, then it's clear he's basically Roko's Basilisk. If you're not actively helping his future, you're in danger.

Jon and Dany were removed from the picture with a few well placed words months before their fate was set. I don't think it's gonna be much trouble to have a horse kick a potential future usurper in the head (or whatever other fate) before they even know they're going to revolt.

Til.

And from the article:

One day, LessWrong user Roko postulated a thought experiment: What if, in the future, a somewhat malevolent AI were to come about and punish those who did not do its bidding? What if there were a way (and I will explain how) for this AI to punish people today who are not helping it come into existence later? In that case, weren’t the readers of LessWrong right then being given the choice of either helping that evil AI come into existence or being condemned to suffer?

You may be a bit confused, but the founder of LessWrong, Eliezer Yudkowsky, was not. He reacted with horror:
"Listen to me very closely, you idiot.
YOU DO NOT THINK IN SUFFICIENT DETAIL ABOUT SUPERINTELLIGENCES CONSIDERING WHETHER OR NOT TO BLACKMAIL YOU. THAT IS THE ONLY POSSIBLE THING WHICH GIVES THEM A MOTIVE TO FOLLOW THROUGH ON THE BLACKMAIL.
You have to be really clever to come up with a genuinely dangerous thought. I am disheartened that people can be clever enough to do that and not clever enough to do the obvious thing and KEEP THEIR IDIOT MOUTHS SHUT about it, because it is much more important to sound intelligent when talking to your friends.
This post was STUPID."

Yudkowsky said that Roko had already given nightmares to several LessWrong users and had brought them to the point of breakdown. Yudkowsky ended up deleting the thread completely, thus assuring that Roko’s Basilisk would become the stuff of legend. It was a thought experiment so dangerous that merely thinking about it was hazardous not only to your mental health, but to your very fate.

This sounds lame. For one second i was thinking "hm, maybe this Lesswrong forum may be worth a watch" and then saw how its founder reacted to a simple idea he blew out of all proportion and then also noted he claimed that some of the nerds there got nightmares from it. Well done. Compared to CFC that forum must be rainman-central.
I like the name the poster gave it, though. Basilisk means 'minor king'.

 

[Takhisis]

I like the name the poster gave it, though. Basilisk means 'minor king'.

That might be a case of what the ancient Hellenes termed ‘sarkasmós’, a concept difficult to explain but which also gave rise to the noun ‘obelískos’.

 

[Ajidica]

Haha, at least my former university is in the news for something that isn't bad!

University of St Thomas kicked out of conference for winning too much

The Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference has decided to oust the NCAA Division III league’s largest school, the University of St Thomas, for competitive purposes.

The MIAC announced Wednesday the Tommies will be “involuntarily removed” in two years by the conference they helped found in 1920. Of the current 13 members, St Thomas is one of four campuses located in the state’s capital city, St Paul.
The private Catholic liberal arts university has about 6,200 undergraduates, double the enrollment of the next-closest schools in the league. The Tommies have won 12 consecutive MIAC all-sports trophies on both the men’s and women’s side, based on conference finish in each event.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/may/22/st-thomas-miac-kicked-out-winning

 

[Birdjaguar]

@Ajidica I thought it would be in the Virgin Islands. Bummer.

 

[Ajidica]

@Ajidica I thought it would be in the Virgin Islands. Bummer.

Honestly, I'm just surprised its taken this long. As the article mentioned, St Thomas is twice the size of the next largest school in the conference. Plus, we have a pretty strong Business department which, along with a number of other things, gives our school a slightly more "manly" reputation (which attracts better athletes) than the other regional private schools who have bit more of a 'happy hippies frolicking in the fiends' vibe. (For example, one of the nearby universities, for AIDS Awareness Week, as an official event, was, weather permitting, making snow genitalia in the main quad.)

 

[Kyriakos]

Til Mathew Broderick caused the deaths of two people (reckless driving, his car hit theirs) and only got a small fine.

 

[EgonSpengler]

TIL tornadoes come in groups. An NPR reporter in Kansas City says there were 30 tornadoes yesterday, 195 over the last 6 days. He said he's looking at weather radar images for today, and they look so much like yesterday's images that he had to double-check to make sure he was looking at today's.

First photo: A tornado hitting Carl Junction, Missouri, shot from Joplin, 22 May 2019 - 8 years ago, to the day, that a category-5 tornado hit Joplin, killing 150 and injuring over 1,000.

Second photo: A "wedge" tornado - wider than it is tall - in Jefferson City, Missouri, last night (image taken during a lightning flash). It traveled at 40 mph and shook the ground like an earthquake. Fatalities and injuries are as yet unknown, but the mayor says the city's warning sirens went off without a hitch. It was nearly midnight when the tornado hit, so I imagine a lot of folks were in bed.

 

[Takhisis]

Oh, if only Para were still around to read that.

 

[Ferocitus]

This....is a terrible pro-genocide take and it disappoints me deeply to see it coming from someone I otherwise largely respect.

Don't confuse my "I don't lament" (the disappearance of lifestyles) with an active wish to get rid of them by any means. I really don't care if languages disappear without trace - hundreds of thousands have during human history.

And I am not going to pretend to care about every minor cause. The faux angst about Uyghurs, or the disappearance of cultural practices is pathetic because the extent of your, and many other people's concern, is a kind of
"Tut-tut, tsk, tsk, I'm going to like their FB page even if it kills me."

TIL from the Failing New York Times (tm) that many Uyghurs are allowed to return home from the camps in the afternoon.

Seems that the surveillance used by the authorities allows them to separate out the people mostly closely connected to those who planted and organised the bombings from those with only peripheral connections, or none. The latter get to go home in the afternoons, the others are going to be there for longer, perhaps forever.

Or maybe it's a sign that the CCP is so unorganised that they allow people to go home because they can't slot them in for execution when they are already there!

I repeat: IMO there are lies, propaganda and opportunistic exaggeration and under-statement on both sides. What have you done to untangle them? Or is the extent of your interest just a tut-tut and a click?

If other nations are not actively opposing the Camps because they fear a 1% increase in goods from China then their commitment to human rights and ethics is as pathetic as the battalions of FB click warriors preparing to free everyone .
Or maybe some of them realise that there are lies and mis-direction from all sides. If Mario Rubio is the US champion of the cause then many claims are as dodgy as CCP denials the camps exist.

 

[Takhisis]

Take those awful smilies off your post. You have no right to trivialise an ongoing massacre.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Today I learned that there's a documentary of a woman drilling a hole into her head.

I think I wandered into the wrong part of Wikipedia.

 

[Takhisis]

Better go into its sister project and learn about gun safety.