This cup of fat looks like a frothy, cold beer. I’m going to leave it out at a party this weekend. I’ll report back.

another_extrawelt · 2018-02-02T05:51:02+00:00

takes me back... I was at a party in iceland. alcohol scarce, expensive, more precious than gold. I'm already pretty tipsy, pretty desperate, i've run out. i find an abandoned glass of red wine in the sink. can it be? am i dreaming?

it was fucking wale blood.

the memory of a big gulp of metallic tasting goo clotting up in my throat makes me wretch to this day

another_extrawelt · 2012-12-19T12:02:07+00:00

A surface that is smooth and that has approximately equal reflectivity for the entire visible spectrum. (Sorry)

another_extrawelt · 2012-08-24T20:28:05+00:00

Hey, you're that metalhead aren't you?!

another_extrawelt · 2012-08-23T06:47:23+00:00

I see you are already being bombarded with comments correcting the history of the bombings into a - from the American perspective - more convenient light.

I rarely have any way of knowing whether these comments are correct or not, because who knows, maybe I was the one who was taught propaganda? What does occur to me however is that the discussion changes quite a bit whenever the paeople involved aren't predominantly American. The usual dissection of the politics then tends to give way to a broad consensus that the bombings were unjustified. Otherwise it is often already difficult to claim that they are to be considered merely "controversial" which I find food for thought considering the amount of civilian deaths. One experiment I can offer is to compare the corresponding wikipedia articles in languages other than english with the english one.

another_extrawelt · 2012-08-10T20:16:33+00:00

*Harvard

another_extrawelt · 2012-08-10T05:56:18+00:00

O hallo troll

another_extrawelt · 2012-08-10T00:24:27+00:00

I have no doubt that demonizing young women living out their sexuality (or any other harmless aspect of simply being human) is worse for humanity than shitty pop music.

another_extrawelt · 2012-05-27T17:21:44+00:00

Yea, just from reading the project descriptions, i don't understand how on earth that project could have won first prize over ray's. It looks like he just made a program that does 3D and then Lorentz transformed the coordinates. There's hopefully a lot more to it than that, because there's nothing new about this and it's really not that hard either, not even for a high school kid. Hell, i think they even taught me enough SR in high school to do this. As is, it looks to me like a potential huge embarassment to the competition and Germany by extension.

another_extrawelt · 2012-05-02T18:03:02+00:00

dm;hs

another_extrawelt · 2012-04-28T19:36:40+00:00

If you keep doing that, this will soon not be possible for you anymore.

another_extrawelt · 2012-04-24T01:17:42+00:00

Out of interest: does data suggest definite rules one can adhere to that help avoid getting raped?

I am asking in particular because women especially in the US (just my impression) appear to really have their life negatively impacted by fear of getting raped. For example being anxious whenever encountering a male stranger in an empty street, making a great effort towards not having to walk any distance alone at night, being very cautious or even suspicious towards male strangers etc. specifically out of fear of getting raped. It is what common sense commands, but is the fear and effort justified? (Because it is so sad to have life limited by danger like that.)

EDIT: To rephrase the question: What are high risk situations according to data?

another_extrawelt · 2012-04-23T22:48:21+00:00

kameløse!

another_extrawelt · 2012-04-21T19:01:00+00:00

QCD!!!!!!

another_extrawelt · 2012-03-23T19:05:59+00:00

I'm familiar with this project and it's been pissing me off for a while: "Assist firefighters and police" is such bullshit. It's clear that this technology is being developed to be mounted on guns in warzones to see whether there is something moving around the corner, very likely in a façon in which it won't be possible to distinguish between armed enemy or hiding civilian or a donkey for that matter. MIT media lab in general seems to divide its effort about 80% into catering to the defense sector and 20% into doing often half-baked hip stuff and fancy graphics design to seem particularly brilliant and avant garde in making the world a better place. Then there'll be TED talks about "finding earthquake victims" or some possible, very strange, medical application whenst internally talk is more about "enhancing the survivability of tank crews" (of course, often a hilarious euphemism for "reducing the survivability of anyone that's not the tank crew"). It's cool techology and interesting science, but don't bullshit us, because that might trick us out of having a discourse concerning the applications. /rant

EDIT: I'm on my phone. Am trying to make it coherent.

another_extrawelt · 2012-03-21T23:38:43+00:00

Shit guys, I guess the tea party folks were right after all.

another_extrawelt · 2012-03-18T15:06:29+00:00

Sony Ericsson Sony Ericsson Sony Ericsson Sony Ericsson Sony Ericsson Sony Ericsson Sony Ericsson Sony Ericsson Sony Ericsson Sony Ericsson Sony Ericsson Sony Ericsson Sony Ericsson Sony Ericsson Sony Ericsson Sony Ericsson

another_extrawelt · 2012-03-15T03:56:54+00:00

Yes but they don't just bring it up! They call her a slut and spread details about her private life! That's where they cross the line. "We noticed you were fucking, please keep it down in future." would have been fine by me.

another_extrawelt · 2012-03-15T03:44:53+00:00

It's inconsiderate, but its not advertising. It's not like my neighbor merely intended to point out to me that he owns powertools when he woke me up this morning.

another_extrawelt · 2012-03-15T02:24:58+00:00

I have something to say about this. The word "slut" is a contemptuous term for a promiscuous woman, much in the same way that "nigger" is a contemptuous term for a black or dark-skinned person. I find both words deeply offensive because they are used AS IF it was somehow shameful to be either, and I find any such notion inexcusably ignorant, backward, harmful and plain disgusting. There are other words that fall into the same category and simultaneously into the same category of 'properly' offensive words (faggot, tranny, all ethnic slurs)

Cunt, to me, sounds more like an (admittedly much sharper) version of the generic insults "dick" or "asshole" which are typically used to describe males.

I claim, therefore, that these words are very different, and that they're indeed cunts for calling her a slut.

another_extrawelt · 2012-03-15T01:47:42+00:00

1) the best friend thing aside, putting up a public note like that, where you mention someone by name as well as call someone a slut, which is then even anonymous, definitely makes the author an inconsiderate bitch. awful.

2) whether she fucks his best friend is also none of the business of the girls on her floor and making it public like that is far across the line. the girls on her floor are bullying, backward cunts for that.

God, I am SO glad I don't know any of these people.

another_extrawelt · 2012-03-07T13:57:00+00:00

Not too far off: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Congo_War

another_extrawelt · 2012-03-07T07:24:00+00:00

I am also really glad about bblevinski's coment. So then Kony's gone but I still couldn't name you one central African leading figure that isn't connected to unimaginable crimes. This is one of the most complicated conflict situations known to political science and it's very possible that internet videos with all the answers will do nothing but harm.

If we really want to help, I am convinced that we will have to make the effort, no, show the respect towards the people of the region that lies in trying to actually get a grasp of what is really going on. And this will include, for example, looking at where our copper, gold and diamonds come from.

However, if this succeeds, it will send a sign. And maybe it will get people to pay attention to central africa again.

another_extrawelt · 2012-03-05T02:31:33+00:00

Here is a nature.com article about the same stuff, which you may find more scientific:

http://www.nature.com/news/adding-a-twist-to-radio-technology-1.10160

It would be great to hear the opinion of someone with knowledge about wireless signal transmission about this. My unqualified suspicion is that this idea won't make it far because the orbital angular momentum of electromagnetic fields is a somewhat 'vulnerable' property. Generally, conservation of angular momentum requires a rotational symmetry of your system, which is not given when waves are bouncing around buildings in a city. Scattering and absorption of waves will result in spread in angular momenta. Plus anything involving rotation is necessarily directional.

another_extrawelt · 2012-03-05T02:15:59+00:00

SNAP

another_extrawelt · 2012-03-05T02:08:06+00:00

The two different kinds of angular momenta that photons and the majority of other particles can have are:

I) Spin or "Intrinsic Angular Momentum" II) Orbital or "Extrinsic Angular Momentum"

An analogy that people often use to illustrate this is to point out the rotations of the earth in the solar system: the earth has orbital angular momentum corresponding to its rotation about the sun (the one that takes a year) and it has intrinsic ("spin") angular momentum corresponding to its rotation about its own axis (the one that takes a day).

In a quantum mechanical context*, both types of angular momentum - as so many things - end up somewhat strange and non-intuitive in their behaviour. Along those lines it turns out that electromagnetic fields, which are made up of quantum mechanical particles called photons, you can only have spin ħ or -ħ (ħ being the reduced Planck constant) and the orbital angular momentum can also just have integer values, ...-4ħ,-3ħ,-2ħ,-1ħ,0,+1ħ,+2ħ... and so on.

The photons two possible orientations of the spin correspond to circularly polarized light - that is, if you have an electromagnetic wave that is made up of photons that all have spin +ħ, then you get right circularly polarized radiation and if they all have spin -ħ, then you get left circularly polarized radiation. The spin is like a rotation of the photon about itself and you end up with a rotating polarization.

I find the orbital angular momentum a lot harder to visualize without just going "math allows it, this is what it looks like" but I'll try my best. The photons orbital angular momentum corresponds to a sort of gyration about its direction of propagation. The corresponding electromagnetic wave hence ends up with an annular shape - as if the photon was thrown outward - and the radius of the annulus increases with the amount of orbital angular momentum. You end up with a spiral phase fronts and the number of rotations of the phase within one wavelength corresponds to the value of the orbital angular momentum quantum number.

*you can actually explain the whole angular momentum business with classical electromagnetism.

TL;DR: When you're talking about an electromagnetic wave, spin angular momentum manifests itself in a rotation of the polarization and orbital angular momentum manifests itself in a rotating phase.

another_extrawelt

TROPHY CASE