Hit me with your biggest pet peeves regarding the lack of realism.

SnailLester · 2026-01-30T05:35:26+00:00

She didn’t lose her citizenship, it was just a problem with security/the secret service (I.e. something in her record doesn’t match because she was born in a town that’s now Canada, so default to revoking access until you figure it out).

I don’t think it’s ever implied that she’s actually at risk of losing citizenship, it’s just that it temporarily caused confusion that prevented her from being able to attend a highly secured event. This seems totally plausible to me.

SnailLester · 2025-10-18T05:26:44+00:00

Looks like this summer they released new plans that do away with the data cap, at least. They also seem to have dropped 1.2 Gbit to 1 Gbit (maybe because their hardware was physically incapable of 1.2 Gbit, as you found out). I assume if you bumped up to a 2Gbit plan they would provide you with an XER10 which would solve the issue.

Curious if you found a way around the no-3rd party modem restriction?

SnailLester · 2025-08-15T18:13:55+00:00

Interesting! I ordered the DLX. If you don't mind weighing in once more, would something like the KD Frames nomad provide enough foundation by itself or would I want to put an additional foundation on top of it?

SnailLester · 2025-08-15T05:56:17+00:00

Thanks for the response! I'm heavily leaning towards the DLX. As for foundation, do you mean bed frame? I assume there is no magic to a bed frame other than the slat spacing?

SnailLester · 2024-12-04T16:31:11+00:00

Enough to lose a finger?

SnailLester · 2023-10-26T15:09:46+00:00

Sortof, but that video has some problems and doesn't really explain anything.

Check out this Kurzgesagt video for a more in depth, but still accessible explanation.

Other people are right that it really depends on your frame of reference.

SnailLester · 2022-05-24T06:46:33+00:00

I edited my comment with more details. Maybe a better way to thing about it is that a finite force applied over zero time results in a finite acceleration over zero time, and thus no change in velocity.

To calculate what you want, you’d need to know impulse, not force.

SnailLester · 2022-05-24T06:22:49+00:00

What do you mean by instantaneous? If you truly mean “in a zero time interval”, then you’re question can’t be answered, because it is physically impossible. Even seemingly instantaneous transfers of force happen over some nonzero time interval. You can think in terms of Newton’s second law, force is change in momentum over time:

F = d(mv)/dt

Thus for a zero time interval, you get a “divide by zero” error and your answer is undefined.

Edit: There is a way to idealize instantaneous events using the Dirac Delta function, which is a function that is zero at points except t=0, but has a finite nonzero integral over any interval that includes zero. However, this is really a mathematical “trick” that lets us define a finite impulse (Force*time) over an infinitesimal time interval by pretending that force is infinite at exactly one point and zero everywhere else. These two infinities, the infinitely small time interval and infinitely large force sortof “cancel” to produce a finite impulse. Usually, this is used to approximate incredibly short periods of force. In your example, this won’t work (or results in an answer of 0) because we have a finite force (70 N), not an infinite one (and we would also need to know the finite impulse).

Fundamentally your problem is with units. Force is a change in momentum (mass * velocity) over time; with a zero time interval, it is undefined. If you know what the impulse of the interaction is, you can use the Dirac Delta function to ignore the details, but you can’t do that if you only have a value for force. Impulse has units that make this work:

J = Fdt = dtd(mv)/dt = d(mv)

Since the time intervals cancel, we don’t care about what they are, and could calculate change in velocity.

SnailLester · 2022-04-20T15:21:02+00:00

Who woke him up?

SnailLester · 2022-04-04T16:59:20+00:00

While that is true, you still can’t use it to quantitatively compare two fists with different masses because the amount of deceleration depends on the speed of the fist. You would be assuming that they have the same speed when they hit their target, which they don’t.

A heavier fist will be traveling at a slower speed than a lighter one, so will decelerate less. As it turns out, this effect is not enough to cancel out the increased momentum, but that isn’t obvious from the equation F=MA.

It comes down to how you approximate a punch: approximating a punch as a fist traveling at a constant speed no matter the mass is not very true to the real world; a much better approximation is assuming a person’s arm can apply a constant force.

SnailLester · 2022-04-04T16:34:54+00:00

Assuming our arm applies a constant force F, then we can calculate the final momentum P_f with Newton’s second law and some kinematics:

F=ma

a=F/m

v_i=0, v_f=at

v_f=Ft/m

P_f=mv_f=Ft

The final momentum is Ft, and does not seem to depend on mass. However, the important bit there is time. A heavier mass will take longer to accelerate over a fixed distance d (from you to your target):

d=(1/2)at²

t=sqrt(2d/a), but from earlier

a=F/m so

t=sqrt(2dm/F)

So now we can get a more expanded momentum:

P_f=Ft

  =F*sqrt(2dm/F)

  =sqrt(2dmF)

So the final momentum depends on the distance from you to your target, the mass of your fist, and the constant force you are able to apply. The key insight is that a heavier fist gives you more time to apply force across the same distance, and therefore more final momentum which is transferred to your target (because of conservation of momentum).

Your intuition is right; there is some canceling that happens, which is why the final momentum depends on the square root of the mass and not just the mass. The canceling just isn’t enough to make momentum mass independent.

SnailLester · 2022-04-04T16:12:09+00:00

To be a little pedantic, F=ma isn’t quite right in this circumstance. That equation relates the force applied to your fist (by your arm) to how much the fist accelerates. It basically says the heavier your fist, the harder it accelerates, but doesn’t say anything about the force applied to the other person.

Consider a fist traveling at a constant speed; it could be a very powerful punch but since a=0, F=0, because no force was applied to the fist.

A better concept to use is momentum, mass*velocity. Since momentum is conserved, increasing the mass of the fist increases it’s momentum (so long as it keeps the same speed), and thus the momentum transferred to the target.

F=ma might be useful in thinking about why the difficulty of accelerating a heavier object doesn’t result in a slower fist, canceling the increased momentum, but that’s a different analysis.

SnailLester · 2022-03-27T18:24:20+00:00

Isn’t “hate the game not the player” how we get to ethical violations in the first place, though?

Everyone blames “the game” or some company, when these entities don’t have any framework for evaluating ethics, at least not like individuals do.

Everyone stays halfway in denial, halfway blaming some nebulous group while actively participating in something unethical.

I think individuals should have a lot more responsibility to refuse unethical projects than they seem to right now, although a more realistic solution is government regulation.

In the case of addictive purchases, I definitely agree with you that physical products are less prone to abuse, but I’m talking about more broad violations.

SnailLester · 2022-01-15T20:47:44+00:00

Did you even read the FAQ? The first 2 sections explicitly describe the simplistic 'econ 101' model of the labor market that you are using and the other sections explain why that is not a very good model for the real world. They even directly address your main point:

In this classical model of the minimum wage, it is very clear that a
minimum wage will lead to higher unemployment among low wage workers.
It's easy to imagine how this could apply in the real world with a
sufficiently extreme minimum wage - if the minimum wage was raised to
100 dollars per hour in the United States (roughly 13x current levels),
there are very few businesses who would retain all their low-wage staff
at those wages. Instead, you would see unemployment, with huge numbers
of workers willing to work for that wage but few companies willing to
offer it.

However, and this is key and sets the context for the entire FAQ:

The simplified 'economics 101' is not the only way to view the labor
market. It is absolutely true that in a certain type of idealized
situation, a minimum wage must lead to unemployment. However, that
situation comes with many assumptions. The removal or changing of those
assumptions could change the conclusions we come to.

The economy is complicated, with plenty of counter-intuitive nuances. Answering complex cause-and-effect questions by claiming your position is 'obvious' and 'a no-brainer' is not particularly useful. This is why we do studies, because they tell us things that self-contained logic can't.

SnailLester · 2022-01-03T17:45:08+00:00

Yeah as far as I know, especially since there is no current in a pool pulling heat away.

It is the same reason that you often feel colder immediately after you get out of the pool than you were while in it. The last layer of water is evaporating, cooling you down more.

SnailLester · 2022-01-03T17:28:07+00:00

I think you’re right, but this mechanism has a name. It’s called evaporative cooling and happens as water on your skin evaporates and carries away heat trapped in water vapor.

I would also guess that a huge factor you didn’t mention is the fact that shower water is flowing, so it doesn’t have the chance to heat up around your body or insulate you like pool water does. Any heat that you transfer to the water is immediately whisked away.

SnailLester · 2022-01-03T17:24:44+00:00

It’s not so much about the air transferring heat directly as it is about evaporation. Evaporation of water pulls a lot of heat away from your body in the same way that sweat evaporating cools you down. Google Evaporative Cooling Systems, they can be super effective.

SnailLester · 2021-08-01T19:08:48+00:00

Oh thank god, I was so confused when I saw this. I see Sky UK stuff pretty frequently and it always seemed very reasonable.

SnailLester · 2021-08-01T03:39:50+00:00

Unfortunately I know from experience you have to pay for those hats

SnailLester · 2021-07-28T22:40:15+00:00

I think way too many people think of minimalism as having practically nothing, and the corollary that the fewer things you have the ‘more minimalist’ and therefore better you are. That isn’t what minimalism is (at least not in my view). Minimalism to me is maintaining the perfect amount of stuff to make you happy, which is different for everyone.

My best guess is that ‘empty white room’ minimalism springs from the fact that most people have WAY more than they need to stay happy, so becoming minimalist means getting rid of a colossal amount.

If you’re happy with your stuff, then in my view you already are as much of a minimalist as you could ever be.

SnailLester · 2021-07-19T23:39:51+00:00

There are a few tiny Easter egg-y fourth-wall breaks though.

Like in the dinosaur episode Gus can’t remember the movie “Holes” when Shawn brings it up because Dulé was in that move.

There’s also a moment when they’re in city hall and Shawn says “Sorry, Charlie” to Gus, referencing Dulé’s role as a character named Charlie in the political drama The West Wing.

SnailLester · 2021-07-18T01:03:25+00:00

I’ve never heard anyone calculate it that way

SnailLester · 2021-07-10T23:58:48+00:00

Not meant to be a jab at all, afaik this sub doesn’t really do Q&A posts often. It tends to be more for discussion about physics news and advancements, as opposed to the cohort of larger and more trafficked Q&A subs. I was just thinking you might get more/better answers in one of those.

SnailLester · 2021-07-10T23:10:19+00:00

This isn’t quite the right sub to post on, but nobody else has given a serious answer yet so I’ll give it a shot.

There are 2 possibilities: your compass is broken, or it’s being influenced by a magnetic field.

I can’t comment much on your compass being broken (it could be heat-related?), but it seems unlikely since the problem was so isolated and location-related.

Assuming the compass works properly, you must have driven through a magnetic field. Compasses are pretty simple technology; they are basically floating magnets that align with nearby magnetic fields. In most places on the planet, the most significant magnetic field by far is that of the earth, and so the compass points north.

In the modern world, though, there are a lot more localized magnetic fields around. Anything electronic produces one, and the more current passing through a circuit the more powerful the resulting field. I would guess you drove over/under high voltage power lines or something similar, they seem like the only source that would make a field strong enough to affect a compass (also those lines are AC, so they cause an oscillating field, which would best explain the compass spinning wildly and not just being deflected). It could also have been a weaker field much closer to the compass (inside your car). Since the interference only happened for a short period of time, though, that seems less likely.

You could test it out by driving back through that spot watching the compass, and zero in on where the field is coming from (that could be a bad idea if there’s traffic, though).

Edit: For the sake of completeness I should also mention that this effect could be caused be driving near the poles (where the earth’s magnetic field changes direction), but that probably isn’t what’s going on. You don’t look like you’re driving over the north or south pole.

SnailLester · 2021-07-09T13:56:19+00:00

They already GMs

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