Viewing profile — pacificmint

> you can fire a THAAD at a Starlink satellite as well. You can fire a THAAD at one Starlink satellite, but probably not at 8000 of them. For comparison we’re currently producing T…

I mean, it’s not quite that simple, is it? Did they do everything they could to make drivers and passengers safe? Or did they put profits over people’s safety? From the article: > …

I agree. I wish it would tell me the password, there is a good chance I could identify the service that it came from based on the password. This way it doesn’t feel that useful.

> but a leading member of the parliament I think ‘a leading member’ is underselling it a little. He is the “Fraktionsvorsitzender”, which is comparable to the majority leader in th…

> it's sold in pill sheets (is that the name?) They are often referred to as Blister Packs.

> Made of polystyrene and with an internal steel skeleton, They weight 1.2 tons total. If they are made of polystyrene and steel, it stands to reason that a significant part of the…

The Air Force never had a space shuttle, though NASA flew missions for the Air Force and the NRO. But at this point none of the remaining shuttles are in an operational state. Mayb…

They’re called Coffman engine starters [1]. Random fact: Those starters are a plot point in the 1965 film The Flight of the Phoenix, where the protagonists are trying to start a pl…

There was also that 4k block of memory at $C000. It was in between the ROM blocks, and by default it was totally unused. Basic couldn't utilize it, but in assembly it was a great a…

It stands for "Cover Your Ass". Wikipedia explains it as "an activity done by individuals to protect themselves from possible subsequent criticism, legal penalties, or other reperc…

When people say “Lithium batteries” in this context, they mean lithium-ion rechargeable batteries. AirTags contain lithium primary batteries, which are a totally different thing (o…

Case in point: When Daimler and Chrysler merged, they had a law firm (with no other ties to either company) register the DaimlerChrysler domains weeks before the merger was made pu…

I think it might be a typo that was supposed to say VIP Movement . I've heard ATC use that term when Air Force One was in the area. They won't say who specifically is there, or eve…

You know how there is the cliche that old people are always ranting how everything was better in their day? Personally, I'm not quite there yet, but the older I get, the more I see…

Of course milk doesn't mean milk anymore either, now that we got oat, almond and soy milk. Along with less common alternatives like coconut, hemp, rice, cashew and macadamia milk. …

If you ask the model what the color of grass is, and it answers blue, then that would indeed be false (or maybe a lie). I think most people wouldn’t call that a hallucination. But …

> cost 3x the amount to develop With cost plus contracts that’s unfortunately a feature and not a bug. I think Boeing has just been unable to pivot to behaving differently for fixe…

I realized at some point that when people at work draw on whiteboards it usually ends up as boxes and lines between boxes. But after thinking about it, it feels natural, because us…

> Germany, one of the most progressive nations on the earth, went and shut down all of its nuclear plants as a knee jerk reaction. Anti nuclear sentiment had been building in Germa…

That’s right. You can use a number as a unique identifier for each person that everybody stores. You can also use a number as a secret code to authenticate yourself. But you can’t …

The idea is to cast much larger pieces than before. Traditionally it might have been dozens of pieces. Tesla is currently doing the underbody in only three pieces, and they were tr…

It would be common to say 7000 pounds. It’s less common in everyday usage to say 7k pounds.

An imperial mile is 1,609 meters. A nautical mile is 1,852 meters.

Isn’t that how all locks work? Or at least most? I’ve always assumed the energy cost to pump the water would make it cost prohibitive, but I wonder how it compares to rerouting shi…

The government didn't call it Star Wars, they called it SDI. Some lobbyists used that term and they were the ones that Lucasfilm tried to sue. The lawsuit was dismissed, btw. > On …