Viewing profile — tomsto

Human financial advice is surprisingly bad.

In defence of the black cab, if there is any sort of surge pricing in Uber, the black cab is typically cheaper if you can find one. Apps like Gett solve the ‘not knowing the price …

Emphatically so, yes

AS01-adjuvanted shingles (herpes zoster) vaccination is associated with a lower risk of dementia, but the underlying mechanisms are unclear. In propensity-score matched cohort stud…

This is a really interesting idea and the unit economics are great. However when I researched this (or rather Gemini 2.5 Pro researched this) the problem appears that Haber-Bosch p…

Yes. In the UK at least. https://thewaterprofessor.com/blogs/articles/lead-pipes

Hydrocarbons are great for energy density, but gas turbines are brilliant for power density. That's why we need them (and syn fuels)

I may be being dense, and I realise this is a meta analysis, but the abstract doesn’t explain how much fibre one needs to eat to reduce all-cause mortality by the amount they claim…

Thanks. I would still be curious to know how the strength of an artificial magnetic field at a range of say 10 km compares to the order of magnitude of local variations they are ta…

Very interesting, and amazing technology. But… How is it unjammable? Couldn’t you just generate a big magnetic field?

Agree. My mother had a very serious form of cancer (she’s luckily responded well to treatment) but she was overwhelmed by con men promising hope. Adding legitimate research makes t…

They lost me at ‘amperage’

This. I wonder if a big part of the problem is that depression and other mental illnesses are slightly unusual in that they are categorised based on symptoms rather than underlying…

Disagree. Firstly there aren’t many situations in fluid dynamics where there is a steady constraint on mass flow. Velocity just increases. (The exception is choked flow from a nozz…

In the UK, I really like Which. You have to subscribe but the incentives are right, rather than a load of affiliate-driven stuff. https://which.co.uk/

However what does detract from this point somewhat is that this neglects relative purchasing power. At purchasing power parity, Russia's military spending is actually higher than p…

It’s a fun fact but I’d challenge whether it was the case in Anglo-Saxon education. Do you have a source? The Anglo-Saxons definitely had an early ampersand. I don’t know of any so…

This sounds interesting. You sound like you work in nuclear physics. Please can you explain, or link to an explanation of, divertor (sic?) and strike point materials?

For a symmetric aerofoil, 0 angle of attack is 0 lift. For an asymmetric - there is (some) lift, which comes entirely from the suction side. https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=N…

For anyone who’s ever tried building a robotic bird, there is a lot more intricacy to how birds fly than just “pushing air”. A better article might have been, ‘we still don’t under…

I’m not sure I fully agree. Do you not get this trailing edge vortex with an asymmetrical aerofoil at 0 angle of attack? (Just less strongly because less pressure difference betwee…

This is not how it works, no falling or positive angle of attack is required for an asymmetrical aerofoil. Imagine swinging a bucket of water over your head - the force your arm fe…

This is true of a symmetrical aerofoil (e.g. most helicopters) but not for an asymmetrical aerofoil (most fixed wing aircraft). It is true that a slightly positive angle of attack …