niconiconi

@niconiconi@mk.absturztau.be

Previously: @niconiconi / Code monkey and sysadmin / No nations, no flags, no patriots. / Chaotic Neutral / Now Accelerationist / currently NEET + hikikomori / 🔐 “Onii-chan is watching you!", use OpenPGP: FAD3EB05E88E8D6D / biologically male, self-identified as '; DROP TABLE genders;

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niconiconi , to random

The sun is a huge high-gain antenna due to gravitational lensing. A hypothetical Voyager 3 can supposedly reach its >= 550 AU focal point in 50 years, which would allow a high-resolution optical scan of an exoplanet, or to receive alien livestreams from Alpha Centauri at 10 Mbps/watt with just a 1-meter telescope. https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.05570 https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.11871

niconiconi , to random

Q: What do you call a video about liquid helium?

A: 4K video.

ari , to random
@ari@wetdry.world avatar
niconiconi ,

@ari This meme is not new, and I think it's overblown. 90% (99%?) are declassified or whistleblower materials hosted for news media references.

niconiconi ,

@hrefna @ari If I recall correctly, the last time I checked I found some results were just Snowden papers on The Intercept's S3 repo...

niconiconi , to random

"What kind of [Quality of Life] improvements we will see with A.I accelerated tasks? Toast that doesn't get burnt any more? Blank paper (no grid lines) that lets me write in straight lines? EA games that don't get their servers killed to make you buy the newest re-re-refresh? Cars with "textalyzers" that shame drivers for texting while driving? Jars lids that ain't so goddamn tight not even Undertaker vs. Mankind could bust them open?"

LMAO ​:blobcatlul:​

niconiconi , to random

The history of electromagnetism is truly bizarre when you think about it. The theory was essentially 100% complete in 1873 in A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism. Well, supposedly complete - as nobody could really understand its content fully, not even the author. Maxwell introduced the displacement current as a small technical fix, but failed to realize it could generate E&M waves. The reanalysis of the book took physicists 10 to 20 years. Pupin traveled from US to Cambridge because he wanted to ask the question "WTF is the book?" personally to Maxwell. The young Heaviside said understanding this book was his life goal (realized during 1880-1890). During this period, nobody really knew for sure that E&M waves exist. Even after Hertz demostrated E&M waves, physicists all believed it was a short-range effect like light. Then in 1895 Marconi discovered a practical longwave ratio transmitter by random tinkering. After he heard telegraph transmitters are grounded, he tried it too, accidentally inventing the monopole antenna by sheer luck (and also made it the first case of "cargo cult grounding" in RF electronics, today still practiced by many technicians that should know better). Except that it actually worked for him spectacularly because of a quirk of the Earth's atmosphere. Physicists had absolutely no idea about it and the explanation at that time by physics guru Sommerfeld (the Zenneck surface wave solution to Maxwell's equation) was completely wrong. In 1905, there was already special relativity but still little understanding about antennas and waveguides in general. Some people actually argued that special relativity made E&M simpler...

niconiconi , to random

If i had a cesium frequency standard...

...I would probably use it from time to time.

neauoire , to random
@neauoire@merveilles.town avatar

home is where the laboratory is

niconiconi ,

@neauoire

"Nothing matches the productivity advantage a home lab provides." - Jim Williams

https://www.edn.com/be-it-ever-so-high-tech-theres-no-place-like-home/

Figure 17-1. Everything is undisturbed and just as you left it. You can get right to wor k. [...] no one else uses your lab, everything is undisturbed and just as you left it af ter the last session. Nothing is missing or broken, and all test equipment is familiar. You can get right to work.
ALT
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    niconiconi , to random

    Q: What does a contractor say when customers found defective products with loose screws?

    A: I don't know what you're torquing about.

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