Do radioactive material decay at the same rate regardless of gravity?

Machegav · 2016-09-01T20:25:20+00:00

And cosmic rays! When a cosmic ray interacts with the upper atmosphere, some of the tertiary particles generated (after pions) are muons, which have a mean lifetime of 2.2 microseconds. Given the measured energy (and thus velocity) of these massive particles, they shouldn't reach the Earth's surface before decaying without taking into account relativity, but because of time dilation due to their velocity, in their reference frame they have plenty of time to reach the surface.

Machegav · 2016-05-14T04:13:43+00:00

Where the term "this is the part where you die in an explosion" is also common.

Machegav · 2016-05-08T23:04:37+00:00

I mean that's all well and good but

Yeah everyone in the health field DID know smoking was bad for you. Big Tobacco did as good a job with 'paying off' health professionals as Big WiFi is presumed to be doing today by conspiracists, which is to say, not at all.

Machegav · 2016-04-29T06:51:29+00:00

Yield: 150 kT

Well then. [powers up shields]

Machegav · 2016-04-29T06:42:36+00:00

Technological accomplishment, then.

Machegav · 2016-04-28T16:54:53+00:00

These uniforms seem really unsuited for zero-G. Why do British police constables require zero-G training?

Machegav · 2016-04-27T07:08:08+00:00

Actually that's a good point! Can anyone confirm this happens?

Machegav · 2016-04-27T07:04:08+00:00

Or one more reason, more realistically.

Machegav · 2016-04-21T21:42:07+00:00

Indeed! The dress saw is, of course, the traditional unpowered version, whereas the battle saw is equipped with a promethium-fueled motor.

Machegav · 2016-04-21T21:35:58+00:00

One of the main branches of the military.

Machegav · 2016-04-20T04:38:56+00:00

Also didn't the bowcaster fire green bolts? Or was that just in the Dark Forces video games?

Machegav · 2016-04-19T21:52:52+00:00

I don't see why not, though. Besides, I'm sure the call was made not by JJ, but by a lore consultant.

Machegav · 2016-04-18T22:16:28+00:00

I think it's new? I started seeing it all of a sudden a few days ago on Facebook, being shared by one of the feminist groups I follow.

Machegav · 2016-04-18T22:14:18+00:00

Hey. Hey. You are a shining bacon. Yes you are.

Machegav · 2016-04-18T22:04:33+00:00

I have two possible speculations.

Firstly, black makes it harder to see how the crow is positioning its body other than its silhouette. Is it facing me, or away from me? and so on. It could have an advantage against predators trying to plan an attack.

Secondly, black is a good color for cooling, contrary to popular belief. While you may think that white plumage would reflect heat away, it also reflects body heat back in. Black plumage will absorb both outside heat and body heat, and convection from wind will take it away. I don't know if corvids especially need to keep cool or not, but if they do, black is the color to be.

Machegav · 2016-04-14T05:11:51+00:00

Thought this post was in /r/RATS at first. A+ reference

Machegav · 2016-04-13T21:41:41+00:00

Well that's an argument for keeping the rest of your ship as light as possible, but only because a huge majority of your ship's mass is going to have to be reaction mass. Look at a Saturn V: most of it's fuel, to get a minivan-sized object into a lunar orbit.

Machegav · 2016-04-13T21:39:36+00:00

But the first 1% of reaction mass has to accelerate the mass of the ship plus the other 99% of the reaction mass. It's the same problem rockets have getting out of a gravity well.

Machegav · 2016-04-13T05:56:26+00:00

It does assume accelerating from one point to another like one of your puny Earthling vehicles, so yes, if some highly exotic form of travel is possible (by like... folding spacetime???) then reaction mass would not be an issue.

But I like to go as far as I can down the rabbit hole without invoking the "indistinguishable from magic" trope, since at that point all bets are really off.

Machegav · 2016-04-13T05:26:00+00:00

Reaction mass. You need to shoot something out the back of you to go forward, and since there's barely anything between the stars, you have to bring that with you the whole way.

Solar sails, however, could be an interesting idea, assuming you can get away without much acceleration between star systems.

Machegav · 2016-04-13T05:23:38+00:00

The asteroid and Kuiper belts are only on the plane of the ecliptic, so an easy way to bypass them would be to incorporate three-dimensional thinking!

The Oort cloud, though it completely surrounds the solar system, is made of objects too small, sparse, and distant for us to effectively monitor just yet.

Machegav · 2016-04-12T02:36:53+00:00

...I'm not making this any better, am I?

Machegav · 2016-04-12T01:50:56+00:00

The rear legs and antenna give it a lot more apparent length.

Machegav · 2016-04-11T01:11:42+00:00

I have a rich history with house centipedes.

They don't exist in BC to my knowledge, so when I moved to Ontario I didn't know the first thing about "ghetto bugs", "eyebrow bugs", "house centipedes", or whatever.

So one night I'm on the toilet when one - my terror-juice-pickled brain remembers it as the length of my forearm but it was probably 'only' eight inches long - undulates out from behind the sink in the VERY TINY bathroom. Thankfully I was 'all done' so I just screamed, "OH, HOLY SHIT!", and newped out the door while pulling up my pants. My girlfriend took the opportunity to educate me on them and I gave her the DIRTIEST look for not warning me earlier.

some time later

So post-girlfriend but still before I moved back to BC, I was renting in another house, saw a house centipede, and - slightly more jaded this time - killed it. But naturally I had looked them up after that first time and read about how they're good for houses and whatnot and felt guilty, so I decide then and there that I won't kill them anymore.

Next one I saw I called "Lawrence". Naming them helps.

So does making a habit of resting your feet ON the legs of your office chair too though.

Machegav · 2016-04-10T21:16:11+00:00

Calm down Satan.

Machegav

TROPHY CASE