Annoying Questions I'd Like Answered...

Fwib · Post by **Fwib** » Mon Sep 14, 2015 7:56 pm

Isn't it Uranus that rotates sideways? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus#Axial_tilt

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Sep 15, 2015 7:55 am

So, in Fury Road there's a line about bullets being "anti-seeds," plant one and watch the thing die. I feel like I've heard this idea used somewhere else before, and I know it's not from other Mad Max movies, since I hadn't seen any until just a few weeks before I saw Fury Road.

Am I just remembering things, or is there some other work that's used this idea before?

Count Arioch the 28th · Tue Sep 15, 2015 8:14 am

Fwib wrote:Isn't it Uranus that rotates sideways? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus#Axial_tilt

Turns out I'm a dumbass. That's what I meant to ask about.

Fwib · Post by **Fwib** » Tue Sep 15, 2015 11:15 am

If you scroll down the Wikipedia Uranus page, you get to this picture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ESO_ ... 8by%29.jpg It seem that it's the whole Uranus system that is tilted vs the ecliptic, not just the planet.

If I'd bothered to skim through the whole article, I'd probably have helpfully included that in my previous comment, but sadly I seem to be more lazy than helpful.

Eikre · Post by **Eikre** » Tue Sep 15, 2015 10:03 pm

hyzmarca wrote:I need a dirty acronym for a military research project and all the backronym generators I can find are most unhelpful.

"Federal Aviation Research Team" would be elegant.

More contrived, the "Compact on the Underdevelopment of National Transportation."

..."Financial Utilization Committee Concerning Boycotts Of International Services?"

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Thu Sep 17, 2015 4:06 pm

From the Politic thread

RobbyPants wrote:
All I can think of is "Yeah! Remember how we won the Cold War by kicking the Soviet Union's ass militarily and not through diplomacy?".

I was alive when the USSR fell, but I can't say I was paying attention to politics, given how I was, oh, in the pre-school age, so I'm going to ask this: Why did the USSR fall? I've heard all kindsa of reasons--the administration being unable to do the planning to run some kind of effective communistic economy and it finally fell apart, them chickening out and even Gawd Got 'Em For Us (look, you grow up in the Deep South...)

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Thu Sep 17, 2015 4:10 pm

My impression is that the reason, in super simplistic and broad terms, was that the States and USSR were in a military arms race and the USSR went bankrupt first.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Thu Sep 17, 2015 4:25 pm

virgil wrote:My impression is that the reason, in super simplistic and broad terms, was that the States and USSR were in a military arms race and the USSR went bankrupt first.

That's part of it. The real reason is that Gorbachev saw that pervious policies just weren't working and so tried to impliment reforms in the form of Glasnost and Paristroika, as well as diplomatic talks with Reagan.

This produced problems on two fronts.

1) With the state no longer censoring ever bit of critiscism, people are suddenly learning that things are much worse than they thought, and the reforms aren't enough to assuage them resulting in a rush of nationalistic sentiment.

2) Hardliners and militarists see the reforms and diplomacy with America as a huge mistake and attempt to correct it through a military coup.

These two issues come together in a perfect storm, the coup attempt destroys the USSR's political legitimacy and there is a cascade of nationalist secessions. Without the coup Gorbachev may have been able to cut off any secession attempts. But with it, the USSR was fucked. Gorbachev knew that and just let everyone leave the Union. More countries left until Russia was the only member, and the USSR government had no real power even over Russia.

The arms race with America was certainly a contributing factor. As was its end.

But saying that it's all America's fault is really downplaying the importance of nationalists, especially in Lithuania state, as they're the ones who basically started the whole thing off by splitting their Communist Party from the Soviet Communist Party.

Fuck, even Russian Nationalists resented the USSR by that point. And Russians basically ran the USSR.

Basically, the USSR dissolved because its member states no longer wanted to be members, they all wanted more independence. The choice was between appeasement and fighting a civil war against literally everyone, including Russia. And appeasement went out the window when military hardliners decided stupidly that fighting a civil war against everybody was preferable. Their coup failed, but the damage was irreversible.

The USSR was held together by the iron fist. Attempting to replace it with the velvet glove just resulted in everyone wanting to leave. And conservative backlash against that just resulted in everyone actually leaving.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Thu Sep 17, 2015 8:29 pm

Are there any non-subterranean geographic regions (valleys in all likelihood) in Europe that never get direct sunlight, even during the summer?

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Thu Sep 17, 2015 9:00 pm

If there are, my guess would be the depths of the Black Forest. Not that the region doesn't get sunlight, but that the canopy is thick enough that it doesn't penetrate.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Thu Sep 17, 2015 9:10 pm

virgil wrote:Are there any non-subterranean geographic regions (valleys in all likelihood) in Europe that never get direct sunlight, even during the summer?

I've heard about some places in Switzerland where they get direct sunlight only seasonally, or at noon. So probably some around the alps.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri Sep 18, 2015 8:47 am

yeah, italian alps has one and i think norway has such a village as well.
they both basically only get sunlight for a few months in the summer.
and they both decided to install mirrors to rectify that exact situation.

Blade · Post by **Blade** » Fri Sep 18, 2015 9:09 am

The fall of the USSR is the result of a combination of factors, but in many explanations, the role of the organized crime is often downplayed (as it often is throughout history).

Due to the large restrictions in consumer goods, criminal organizations had a big market, and due to corruption they were able to expand greatly and become too big for the government to be able to contain them. This was another factor that led Gorbatchev to implement reforms to allow private companies.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Fri Sep 18, 2015 2:13 pm

Prak wrote:So, in Fury Road there's a line about bullets being "anti-seeds," plant one and watch the thing die. I feel like I've heard this idea used somewhere else before, and I know it's not from other Mad Max movies, since I hadn't seen any until just a few weeks before I saw Fury Road.

Am I just remembering things, or is there some other work that's used this idea before?

Assuming IMDB isn't lying to us, here's what you're looking for

Toast: [counting their remaining bullets] Well, we've only got four for big boy here, so he's all but useless.

[holds up a tiny derringer]

Toast: But we can squirt off this little pinkie a raunchy twenty-nine times.

The Dag: Angharad used to call them anti-seed.

Cheedo the Fragile: Plant one and watch something die.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Sep 18, 2015 4:45 pm

Right, that's the quote I'm talking about, but I feel like that concept of bullets as seeds has been mentioned in another work. And I'm wondering if I'm just making things up, or what.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Fri Sep 18, 2015 4:55 pm

http://markfearer.com/Bullets%20or%20Seeds.html

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Sep 26, 2015 3:33 am

Ok, here's a question that occurred to my mind reading the "Of course Usain Bolt's on drugs" discussion

Can anyone give me a real, concrete reason why athletes should not be given carte blanche on performance enhancers that doesn't boil down to "drugs are bad, mmkay?" I don't much care what people do to themselves, and I literally could not care less about sports. Hell, professional athletes' lives are on the bottom of my list of priorities for lives, right above conservative politicians. So the whole "drugs are bad" argument doesn't hold water with me, and the whole "sports need to remain a pure exhibition of human ability!" argument is bullshit, especially given how much technology pro sports uses.

So is there any reason why professional athletes shouldn't be allowed to dope themselves up to whatever heights of ability science can give them?

erik · Post by **erik** » Sat Sep 26, 2015 3:49 am

Other than that it incentivizes people to destroy their body for a competitive advantage? And the only people who could compete would be the ones who are willing to kill themselves to win.

The argument that professional athletes don't deserve to die does hold water with most people.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Sep 26, 2015 4:21 am

I suppose that's fair, but then we should at least have separate leagues for the athletes who actively want to drug themselves into Bane from Batman. I can get on board with the idea that people who don't want to slowly kill themselves to win shouldn't have to, but I'm pretty sure some proportion of professional athletes literally don't care.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sat Sep 26, 2015 4:51 am

In some cases it may not be slowly at all. Some methods can lead to clots, cardiac arrhythmia or other conditions which can kill quickly.

And if a Bane league were to become popular, which would be its goal, then once again you are incentivizing people to kill themselves as the envelope gets pushed. The rules are there to protect against exploitation, same as child labor laws, and other worker protections. To keep things from being a race to the bottom.

The "let em use drugs" line on doping in sports is catchy and sounds like something that could be argued for as a freedom of choice, but the more you look at it, the more reprehensible it shows itself to be. The downsides are that more people die or are dealt debilitating conditions. The upsides are that... people break more records?

It's dubious that it would even be more entertaining as you're not really competing skill and talent anymore; you're competing who has the most abusive technology.

What if people put engines in their bicycles for the Tour De France? Doesn't that change the sport into something else? What if a body is augmented with an exoskeleton to propel the pedals? What's the point then?

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Sep 26, 2015 4:59 am

PS, sports, despite your concern about how they are all millionaires paid more than you, is primarily made up of urban and rural poor athletes fattening the wallets of the super rich disproportionate to any work being done.

So if you did allow drugging, you are basically say that all the people who currently found a way out of being poor with only limited body destruction can now be forced by mega rich who take no personal risks to completely destroy their body even faster to even have a job.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Sep 26, 2015 6:19 am

Damnit Kaelik, why do you have to give me reasons to actually care about professional athletes? I had this whole delusion built up that pro athletes were no different from the cockbags who made my life hell in high school.

Wait.

What about stocking the Bane league with the mega rich as a punishment for their various fiscal crimes?

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Sat Sep 26, 2015 10:54 pm

Prak wrote:Right, that's the quote I'm talking about, but I feel like that concept of bullets as seeds has been mentioned in another work. And I'm wondering if I'm just making things up, or what.

That reminds me slightly of the Nazi party's "Guns or Butter" economic model.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 6:02 am

How long does your typical wine keep after opening? It's my Birthday in three days, so I thought I'd buy a bottle of rosé - I'm not a wine drinker, but someone with very similar tastes to my own (food: SWEETS! CANDY! SUGAR! Alcohol: rum and cider) enjoys it, and this is a cheeky little vintage from Western Australia at $10 a bottle so I figured it can't hurt.

Anyway, if I open it to taste now, and it doesn't suffer from the standard wine problem of being utter piss, will it then keep in the fridge for a few days or is wine just designed to be consumed all in one day?

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 6:24 am

If you cork it again, it'll keep a few days. Your main problem is oxygenation, but over just a few days that's not going to be a huge deal, and I'm honestly not sold on the idea that anyone but wine snobs really detect oxygenation in any appreciable amount anyway.