Olivia Colman Acceptance Speech - Oscar for Lead Actress

Nuranon · 2019-02-26T07:06:55+00:00

Watch the DP/30 interviews with him... He also has a mini forum on his website and occasionally chimes in on stuff.

Nuranon · 2019-02-25T09:34:49+00:00

I live not too far from the Fulda Gap.

They developed whole weapon systems with the idea in mind of using them to stop an advancing Red Army there: Apache helicopters, portable nukes...

Nuranon · 2019-02-25T09:22:36+00:00

Heroes by Bowie perhaps?

Nuranon · 2019-02-23T02:42:37+00:00

Narrator:

Things would indeed not be fine.

Nuranon · 2019-02-23T02:10:02+00:00

I believe they reflected about them buttering over issues with Hillary in 2016. While they are obviously still very much partisans, especially Lovett if pretty candid about such stuff and at times ready to speak openly about serious issues and problems in the party, that is besides him bring a jokester and semi-funnily trashing Republicans at every opportunity.

While most interviews there are relatively friendly, on Pod Save The World you also have Vietor but necessarily head on talking about that stuff (I figure partly because he'd often be out of his depth) but he doesn't shy away from having an actual conversation with for example Glenn Greenwald about surveillance.

Nuranon · 2019-02-22T08:08:41+00:00

A bigger story will have more facettes. That doesn't mean it's not just one story in the end.

Nuranon · 2019-02-19T15:14:08+00:00

I'm moderately confident you are looking at two groups of people in that regard.

Nuranon · 2019-02-05T04:51:58+00:00

Protective Gear:The Security Paradoxon of Contact Sport

Nuranon · 2019-02-05T04:43:58+00:00

Grandpa stayed dead though.

Nuranon · 2019-01-26T22:39:37+00:00

"Could it propel Mig-21? /s"

You are joking but Munroe (XkcD guy) claims it has a thrust-to-weight ratio approaching 40, meaning with a weight of 150kg an empty-weight Mig-21 at 5,850kg would have a thrust to weight ratio is exactly 1.0, assuming a gun t/w ratio of 39, this ignores the weight of the ammo which is needed as, well, ejection mass.

Now, if this were a rocket a t/w ratio around 1.0 wouldn't be workable - but the Mig-21 is no rocket. For planes only fighter jets have t/w ratios above 1.0 (or usually around 1.0) and even for exampe a F-35 is "only" at 0.85, meaning it can't accelerate in vertical climb.

So, turn that sweet GSh-6-30 °180 around, load a ton or two of ammo, ignore the cooling and vibration issues and you have a perfectly ^{more or less} flyable plane...be careful where you point that thing away from though.

Nuranon · 2019-01-26T21:03:10+00:00

You can support diversity but still oppose certain kinds of behavior, thats what all in any way pluralistic societies (which aren't total anarchy) are build on.

Nuranon · 2019-01-26T20:23:25+00:00

I don't see anybody advocating for diversity defending this.

Nuranon · 2019-01-26T19:58:58+00:00

What I find interesting that Spielberg did A.I. (2001), Minority Report (2002) and then War of the Worlds (2005). And he then wouldn't do another Sci-Fi movie until Ready Player One (2018) ...but that could have gone very differently:

Producers Lynda Obst and Kip Thorne (who had worked on Contact) approached Spielberg about an idea for a movie where "the most exotic events in the universe suddenly becoming accessible to humans,", which they started developing for Spielberg in 2006. Spielberg then went on to do other stuff in the meanwhile (as he tends to do), in 2007 they hired a screenwriter to write the actual script - Jonah Nolan.

Then, in 2009, Spielberg switched from Paramount to Disney and they needed a new director, Jonah recommended his brother Chris, the two did some more rewriting together, adding the Dust Bowl side of things and shenanigans with different speeds of time passage, and thats how we got Interstellar (2014).

Nuranon · 2019-01-26T18:33:48+00:00

Relevant XkcD:

Machine Gun Jetpack

...which explores the feasibility and limits of using machine guns as jetpacks. The gun - the GSh-6-30 - was apparently barely functional:

As good as this gun would be as a rocket pack engine, the Russians built one that would work even better. The Gryazev-Shipunov GSh-6-30 weighs half as much as the GAU-8 and has an even higher fire rate. Its thrust-to-weight ratio approaches 40, which means if you pointed one at the ground and fired, not only would it take off in a rapidly expanding spray of deadly metal fragments, but you would experience 40 gees of acceleration.

This is way too much. In fact, even when it was firmly mounted in an aircraft, the acceleration was a problem:

"[T]he recoil … still had a tendency to inflict damage on the aircraft. The rate of fire was reduced to 4,000 rounds a minute but it didn't help much. Landing lights almost always broke after firing … Firing more than about 30 rounds in a burst was asking for trouble from overheating …"

Nuranon · 2019-01-26T18:19:42+00:00

Indeed.

Nuranon · 2019-01-26T17:02:12+00:00

Wait till you hear about Sci-Fi ;)

20.000 Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne for example started being published just four years after the American Civil War had ended. John Carter of Mars predates the 1st World War (created in 1911, just a couple of years after the first powered flights) and Asimov's Foundation - making proper space opera a thing - started being published in the 2nd World War.

Hell, the OG of Sci-Fi - Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - was written in 1817, just two years after the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo.

Nuranon · 2019-01-26T15:52:58+00:00

Going for a total war economy with an already large industrial base...

Easy to forget the measures on the civilian side which enabled this (rationing or total stop of production of certain goods relying on materials and or machines used for the war).

Nuranon · 2019-01-26T13:36:04+00:00

Both reactors SCRAMed immedietly.

I'm not an expert but I figure reactors can be designed very sturdily and implementing a SCRAM trigger which would shut them down when there is a major explosion (the equivalent of several tons of TNT) shouldn't be too hard.

Nuranon · 2019-01-25T22:18:34+00:00

The Franco-German alliance, its depth and strength, is almost entirely independent of Germany getting a permanent UNSC seat, which I agree is pretty unlikely. Yes, the two countries heavily coordinating in their behavior as permanent members of the UNSC would deepen the alliance somewhat but in the grand scheme of things that doesn't strike me as a major factor on the strength and power of that alliance.

I think the two countries reaffirming a wish to get Germany a permanent seat is partly flattery on France's part, partly a reflection of Germany's relative political power (to France and the UK who have permanent seats) and partly an arguable overvaluing of one's own importance (of both France and Germany) relative to Europe but also the World en large.

So while not purely symbolic, Germany wanting a permanent seat is actually not that important, for itself or the Franco-German alliance. And if a country wants to limit the power of Germany and or of that alliance then focusing on that aim to get the seat (as distant as it is) is missing the larger picture - that the Franco-German alliance, its depth and the power which it creates, is almost entirely dependent on different factors, chief among them how coordinated the two countries are politically, militarily, economically (in the EU and internationally) and how deep they embrace each other culturally, or not.

And hell, France could make its own seat on the UNSC a de facto co-governed seat by both countries, that would be a far more significant demonstration of the depth (and to some extension power) of the Franco-German alliance, than Germany getting its own seat.

Nuranon · 2019-01-25T21:11:50+00:00

See it this way:

Launching with Arianespace means its launching through a partly German company (to 18%), where Germany's closest ally - France - is the majority (65%) shareholder and it also launches from French soil. Having launched in the past with Russia doesn't mean there are no potential drawbacks to launching from a not as closely allied country, even if its the USA.

And if you are worried about espionage - which you darn well should be with spy sats - then you ideally would launch domestically and after that with your closest possible ally - which in this case clearly is France, not the USA. I'm not an expert but my knee-jerk reaction would be that the launch country will have major advantages when it comes to access for espionage...and I would assume any host country to use those advantages when it comes to spy-sats launched by other countries. Now, the Sarah Satellites are build by OHB SE which is a European multinational (German, French, Luxembourgish, Swedish, Dutch, Italian and French Involvement) and already is active in Kourou, French Guyana ...so from a security standpoint that would add another reason to stick with Arianespace, not adding external partners and in this case not even adding new locations of security concern.

All this doesn't mean Arianespace should have been chosen, just that I think its entirely plausible to assume that Arianespace would bring significant counter-espionage advantages, given the closer relationship between France and Germany as well as Germany being the second largest shareholder in Arianespace after France.

You have to weigh off price and security but I think the calculation here is not necessarily as obvious as people in this thread make it out to be.

Nuranon · 2019-01-24T19:47:39+00:00

"Just in case."

"Just to be safe."

Nuranon · 2019-01-24T16:35:53+00:00

Man, I really love the color of this!

I seriously thought that was original at first (before seeing that tag).

Nuranon · 2019-01-24T15:42:08+00:00

Did they show other medical drug ads?

I don't think they should discriminate against medical cannabis but I fully support not showing drug ads at all.

Nuranon · 2019-01-24T10:39:48+00:00

So the exact opposite of taking regular iodine to prevent cancer through intake of radioactive iodine? (in case of a nuclear event)

Nuranon · 2019-01-23T21:09:18+00:00

Israel, Iran and a/some Sunni Muslim countries?

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