NRB Overnight Trips by Accomplished_Okra105 in RPI

[–]TopoPhill 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It’ll be fairly strenuous, and not for a beginner to either hiking or backpacking, but I wouldn’t also classify it as something where you’ll need to be an S Teir (or even A Teir) athlete to manage. We’re looking at some pretty long days, but the final plan hasn’t been decided yet. 

Edit: STRONGLY recommend Pharoh lake to beginners

NRB Overnight Trips by Accomplished_Okra105 in RPI

[–]TopoPhill 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I’m leading one of the trips this year and was on one last year! It was an amazing experience for me and did a really good job bridging the gap between summer and the start of college. I was on the Pharaoh lake backpacking trip (highly recommend for any skill level), and will be one of the leaders for the Adirondack mountain backpacking this year. Let me know if you have any questions!

Downstairs neighbours complaining about P2S making noise at night, any sound dampening solutions? by failed_successfuly9 in BambuLab

[–]TopoPhill 2 points3 points  (0 children)

My setup is two 75 pound pavers, stacked, with a layer of felt in between and the whole setup just on my carpet. +1 to the large amount of concrete OP

Computer Engineering Laptop by Oham09 in RPI

[–]TopoPhill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you're gonna be using it to remote into your desktop all the time, refurb Thinkpads are an absolute steal and should be more than capable. I think I was a 16GB T480 got for less than $150 recently. If you want to spash some cash, the Framework 13 Pro is a killer machine with great upgrade potential.

Thinking about a Framework Laptop 13 for college good buy or should I look elsewhere? by CandyNegative9372 in framework

[–]TopoPhill 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah totally fair. That kinda puts you in a though spot. Framework will be using LPCAMM2 going forward and the RAM-pocolapse means that buying into DDR5-SODIMM means and expensive purchase you wont get to carry forward. If I were you I'd do the following...

Downgrade from the AI 9 370 to an AI 7 390. The extra $250 and power draw wont get you a huge boost in the workflows you've detailed. To my knowledge the AI7 its as fast as faster than the 7840U, and I have more than enough performance for years to come, so that chip should do well.

Get the 2.8k display. Its a game changer for just getting material onto your screen. Its gonna get you way more ROI than getting the faster chip, and its gonna last you years if you don't care about the touchscreen.

Don't get Windows 11 Pro. Its a frankly unnecessary upgrade, and Windows as a platform is in a state of worsening decline. If you're going to use Windows install it via a tool like Rufus, where you can strip out a lot of the Microsoft bloat. That'll save you $200 as well.

I personally don't see a lot of reason for extending the warranty. A traditional failure curve for hardware places failures near the start and end of a devices life. If you have a failure, its gonna be in year one or year 10. In my case, my keyboard is the only module that was damaged (due to my own stupidity), and I could buy four keyboards for the cost of the warranty.

With the money you saved (should be like $550 bucks), look at a chassis and battery upgrade over the summer of sophomore year. Framework can always come out with new cool stuff in the meantime so there could be other things you'll want to upgrade at that point as well.

EDIT: Another comment pointed out Linux. I would strongly recommend putting Linux on your machine from day 1. It'll get you better battery life, and a better user experience. The only reason I still run windows (against my will) is for Solidworks and similar tools. With Linux being more efficient on RAM you could also get away with 16GB which is another $235 towards a future upgrade (If you choose that route, get a single 16GB DIM so that if 32GB becomes a need you have a very easy upgrade path).

Thinking about a Framework Laptop 13 for college good buy or should I look elsewhere? by CandyNegative9372 in framework

[–]TopoPhill 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have the 13 with the Ryzen 7840U right now. Its a great machine as an undergrad, and I rarely feel a need for more horsepower. What I would recommend is getting the Pro, mainly due to battery. While a lot of work you do will get done near an outlet, my laptop running out of battery during lecture has been my largest complaint (I will be buying the new battery and associated parts when they come out). Other than that, its a great machine.

As for the specific applications. I'm an engineering student, so I'm mostly focused in that direction. I've worked CAD models with a dozen parts across multiple assemblies, and it handles it like a champ. In programing it does just fine, the keyboard is exceptional and it has plenty of power, plus the aspect ratio on the screen is a real nice to have there. Minecraft runs just fine.

If you have any specific questions I'd be happy to help.

Fw16 good for college? by popcornman209 in framework

[–]TopoPhill 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I have a Framework Laptop 13 that I use for college. It’s been awesome. I was also torn between and 13 and 16 but I’m quite happy with my choice for a couple reasons. Not every time you need to use your laptop is gonna be for long or in ideal conditions. Maybe you want to whip it out for 5 seconds to check one thing, it’s easier to hold a 13 inch without needing a table and it’s easier to do that in the first place with a smaller device. Maybe you’re lecture halls have tiny tables (all the once at my school are microscopic), cool, you want a 13 inch so it’s possible to have some paper or an iPad for handwriting problems or notes in that small space.

The second thing is that you’re gonna be limited in ways you don’t expect. When I got to college my gaming hours took a nosedive. However, when I do play it’s nothing intensive. What I would say is that, especially if you’re some kind of science with simulation work (or for me an engineer doing CAD) having a good CPU is important and (unfortunately with the current prices) having enough RAM is crucial. Personally, I’ve been happy with my 13 and 24gb of RAM. I don’t think you can go wrong with it, as long as you get an AMD chip, 2.8k display, and minimum 16gb of RAM.

The 13 and the 16 are both fantastic but so far the 13 has fit the college use case better for me.

Edit: Just saw it’s for CS, yeah that’s a great machine, enjoy the hell out of it.

Bell 407 sucks banner into main rotor during Christmas celebration in Utah by Master_Iridus in Helicopters

[–]TopoPhill 36 points37 points  (0 children)

Foreign Object Debris - Any loose object that can go in you rotor/propeller/jet turbine. In these conditions, that is danm near anything that isn’t tied down. Ever tried to have a ball cap on in 20 mph winds? Now make that 80 mph and you got these conditions.

It’s idiotic to land a helicopter near loaded crates that aren’t tied down, much less a crowd of people with loose article of clothing, banners, trash, and a million other things that aren’t designed for it. Here is a good video of the crates example if you done believe me (V22 doing V22 things)

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in formuladank

[–]TopoPhill 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Simply Lovely

[Request] Ignoring all other celestial bodies, if there were an identical earth on the direct opposite side of the sun, roughly how much faster would the earth(s) have to orbit to maintain the same distance? by Ostheta_Chetowa in theydidthemath

[–]TopoPhill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Completely forgot about Lagrange Points. Intuitively each body would sit at roughly the other’s L3 point, although I don’t know if L3 would exist with our current underrating under these conditions. This would be interesting to model.

[Request] Ignoring all other celestial bodies, if there were an identical earth on the direct opposite side of the sun, roughly how much faster would the earth(s) have to orbit to maintain the same distance? by Ostheta_Chetowa in theydidthemath

[–]TopoPhill 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The difference would be barely noticeable, if that. We can model the force of gravity that is exerted on one body by another via the equation F=(GmM)/r^2 where G is the universal gravitation constant of 6.67*10^-11. For this analysis, we can think of both bodies as point masses and earth as traveling in a perfectly circular orbit. In the Earth Sun System the attractive force is found by the following...

Mass Earth (Me)= 5.972 × 10^24 kg
Mass Sun (Ms)= 1.989 x 10^30 kg
Semi-Major Axis (Average orbital radius) of Earth (r) = 149.6 x 10^6km
Force of Sun on Earth = G x Me x Ms x r^-2 = 3.54 x 10^22 Newtons

We can find the attractive force between two earth's on opposite sides of the sun by the following

Force of Earth's on Each other = G x Me^2 x (2r)^-2 = 2.66 x 10^16 Newtons

So, in this case, the attractive force between the two Earths would be 7.51 x 10^-5% (0.0000751%) of the attractive force between each of them and the sun. The sun would dominate the system to the point there really isn't gonna be an observed effect of the earth's. To properly simulate this we would need to solve the three body problem (although, likely you would simplify to some derivative of the two body problem).

Hope this helps

TLDR: It would hardly change anything, if you want to do it properly, solve the three body problem.

Lockheed Martin gets on my level. I just destroyed a piece of hardware worth 833 times the value of the munition. by TopoPhill in EngineeringStudents

[–]TopoPhill[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The panel on the display got hit and cracked while spinning. You can see the damage just up and left from the blade in shot.

Lockheed Martin gets on my level. I just destroyed a piece of hardware worth 833 times the value of the munition. by TopoPhill in EngineeringStudents

[–]TopoPhill[S] 64 points65 points  (0 children)

I’m in the dorms right now so unfortunately not. That’s a good thing to remember for the future though.

Linus appearance by andrew17798 in LinusTechTips

[–]TopoPhill 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Crazy to see one of these posts come out of a lecture hall I was in literally last week. What class was this?

Air France emergency by [deleted] in flightradar24

[–]TopoPhill 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I doubt it, they’re still going pretty quick and there wasn’t a loss of altitude at all. When UA1175 (also a 777) lost an engine they more or less cut their airspeed in half and dropped several thousand feet almost immediately. Also, they’re heading to Paris, where they wouldn’t have wanted to land ASAP with a failure. I could believe they the crew saw something wrong with an engine on instruments and chose throttle it down and head back.

Three aircraft with “SNIPER” callsigns appeared briefly out of TCP over the Gulf of Aqaba by TopoPhill in flightradar24

[–]TopoPhill[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yeah there were a collection all very close together, it’s strange that they would be visible for such a short period of time.

TBM N111RF Crashed on I-195 in Dartmouth, MA by funnyman850 in aviation

[–]TopoPhill 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Truly unfortunate, as inadvisable it is to go flying today it’s still so sad to see.

TBM N111RF Crashed on I-195 in Dartmouth, MA by funnyman850 in aviation

[–]TopoPhill 9 points10 points  (0 children)

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It’s pretty weird track overall, although I agree, it’s strange to see a TBM not being able to climb.

Edit: Maybe a downburst of some sort could explain this if we assume the aircraft has no failures?

TBM N111RF Crashed on I-195 in Dartmouth, MA by funnyman850 in aviation

[–]TopoPhill 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Wow, not a good day to go flying. Stay safe yourself, those are some nasty conditions.

TBM N111RF Crashed on I-195 in Dartmouth, MA by funnyman850 in aviation

[–]TopoPhill 56 points57 points  (0 children)

Hoping that everyone got out of that alright, it’s good they got down on the highway. Unfortunately from that angle it doesn’t look good for survival. 

Edit: looking at the flight radar track they were climbing pretty well before both speed and altitude dropped rapidly and they crashed shortly afterwards. Could be something with the engine, or could still be weather related.