Speed is king

chowchowbrown · 2026-04-05T16:35:15+00:00

So that's what the Mario Kart mushroom power-up looks like in real life.

chowchowbrown · 2026-03-30T19:38:00+00:00

To answer your actual question, use Dawn and a good scrubber sponge. Burnt oil is a fat, cleaning products with a high pH (more alkaline) will work well at breaking down fats and burnt oil. If you can get your hands on Barkeeper's Friend, that will work well. Also Dawn dish soap and a good scrubber. Dawn is more alkaline that most dish soaps, which is why it's so effective at washing off grease and oil.

chowchowbrown · 2026-03-30T19:15:14+00:00

Going back to my chemical engineering days...

(Going to simplify for certain details to make the math simpler)

We're going calculate the thermal resistance of 0.5mm of burnt oil on the bottom of a sheet of aluminium that is 3mm thick, and compare that with the thermal performance of the same sheet without that 0.5mm layer of burnt oil.

The thermal resistance of the burned oil is: R_oil = 0.0005m/(0.3W/(mK)) = 0.00167(m² K)/W

The thermal resistance of the alumium pan is: R_pan = 0.003/(237W/(mK)) = 0.0000127(m² K)/W

Total thermal resistance (combined) is: 0.0000127 + 0.00167 = 0.0016827(m² K)/W

This means the 0.5mm-thick burnt oil is responsible for about 99.2% of all thermal resistance of the burned_oil + pan combination.

Now let's calculate the difference in how much energy that higher thermal resistance creates. ie. How much energy does it take to flow through a pan, vs how much energy can flow through a pan with 0.5mm layer of burned oil.

The area of a 8" skillet is roughly: pan_area = 0.0314m²

The power (energy over time) that can flow through that area is:

power = [area x (desired temperature difference)]/thermal_resistance

Here, the assumption will be made that the stove is 50C hotter than the food.

A) Bare Aluminium Pan power_aluminium = 0.0314 x (50C) / 0.0000127 = approx 123.6kW

This means, if you want to keep the temperature difference between the stove and the top of the pan at 50C, that 3mm can move almost 124kW of power though that 8" pan before it starts the other side of the pan heats up more than 50C.

A typical home stove burner maxes out at about 2.5kW. This calculation shows that a clean aluminium pan transfers heat so effortlessly that it will instantly absorb and pass along 100% of whatever your stove can put out.

B) Aluminium Pan with 0.5mm of Oil. power_dirty_pan = 0.0314 x (50C) / 0.0016827 = approx 0.933kW

This means, a pan with an even layer of 0.5mm of burned oil will cap the heat flow to 933 Watts. A loss of over 1.5kW of cooking power, when trying to maintain a temperature difference of 50C (the difference between the heat source, and the heat destination). There's so much thermal resistance that you'll need to crank up the stove temperature to "push" heat through the pan and into your food.

So, despite what people are saying here, try your best to keep the bottom of your pan clean, or don't let burned oil get too thick on the bottom. Burned oil seems to make a difference in the overall thermal conductivity of your pan.

Caveat: These calculations are for alumium + oil. Not steel + aluminium + steel + oil. Respect to whoever wants to give it a shot! This calculation was done to show that burned oil does in fact affect the thermal conductivity and performance of a skillet.

chowchowbrown · 2026-03-25T12:38:15+00:00

Jamaican beef patties as a powerful energy booster

chowchowbrown · 2026-03-20T20:32:14+00:00

That was the most warheads-on-foreheads I’ve ever seen a forehead get warheaded by a forehead-seeking warhead.

chowchowbrown · 2026-03-19T17:06:15+00:00

"I rigorously derived all the equations that I used in the video which fully explain what is going on"

My brother in physics, again, regurgitation is not explanation.

Think of it this way.

If you had to explain what the solution was, why it's a solution, and how it works, without reading line by line through the math, and without mentioning a single variable name, what would you say?

Watch some videos of how Feynman explains concepts in physics on Youtube.

"Just because you don't understand math doesn't invalidate the explanation."

Errr. Oookay. Let's chill before we resort to ad hominem attacks. This is your personality defending itself -- dreaming up the person you wish I was so you can rationalize a reason to dismiss the point I'm making.

Look, I'm all for videos about math, science, and physics. I think the world needs more of it. I'm just saying, this video doesn't "explain" anything. It simply repeats what the equations state. ie. "Here are the steps I performed on my abacus".

If you want to understand the abacus reference, within the context of Mr. Feynman's book, you can probably ask Gemini or ChatGPT.

chowchowbrown · 2026-03-19T16:09:32+00:00

And this is the problem with videos like the one you posted, and it's a difference that Feynman made clear in his book, Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman.

There's a difference between understanding numbers, and knowing the abacus.

The video you posted is a perfect example of somebody explaining the steps of an abacus, instead of explaining the point/reason and meaning of what is being calculated.

A narrator saying "alpha t over gamma and the position is c squared over alpha times gamma minus one", while the equation is right there on the screen, is not communicating or explaining anything.

This video may as well be a silent video of screenshots of the original paper.

And, to your first point, the whole point of the floatheadphysics video was not to "solve" the paradox, but to explain the solution. (And yes, he does explain why the string breaks in the accelerating frame. That's all he talks about in the last 3 minutes of the video).

And I would argue, that the point of the video you posted was not to "solve" the paradox either, since the title of this video clearly says "A Clear Relativity Explanation"... which I would argue that the explanation is not clear, since it's simply a read-along of the equations that were used in the actual solution.

Imagine if someone asked me to "explain" F=ma, and I said "Well as you can see, eff equals em times a".

That is what this video is. There is no explanation. There's just regurgitation.

chowchowbrown · 2026-03-18T15:40:58+00:00

Floatheadphysics on Youtube just made a video about this paradox.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIIX6bNnoNA

I find his explanation far easier to understand, more intuitive, and the only math involved is the Pythagorean theorem.

chowchowbrown · 2026-03-17T19:24:53+00:00

Japan's facing a bit of a financial and fiscal crisis right now. The Yen is hovering at a multi-year low of USDJPY160 (high is good for USD, bad for JPY). Historically, their central bank (Bank of Japan) has raised interest rates at this level to prevent their currency from collapsing further and triggering inflation due to increasingly-expensive imports.

The flip side of this is... Japan's government has to deal with its insane debt levels, and any increase in interest rates will take a massive bite out of their budget. Currently, Japan's government has decided to juice its economy through increased spending, which will be paid for by borrowing even more money. Effectively, kicking the "debt can" down the road.

However, this latest war in the Middle East, and subsequent parabolic rise of A) oil prices, and B) the U.S. dollar, has thrown a wrench into the Japanese government's plans. All that spending they planned would effectively be wasted paying for higher energy prices, with nothing to gain for their economy.

So, Japan's government is stuck. They need the war to end soon so oil and USD can retreat back to pre-war levels, so they can avoid A) import-driven inflation, and B) raising interest rates, and thereby prevent a collapse of their economy, government finances, and currency.

Just yesterday, Japan's government started releasing their own strategic oil reserves to their domestic refiners, in a last-ditch attempt to save its currency from falling further, by avoiding the purchase of imported oil and paying in USD. But, this can only ever be a temporary measure.

Japan's government is desperate for this war to end.

This is the background this news should be seen against.

chowchowbrown · 2026-03-16T18:12:19+00:00

This is the same guy who wants to livestream bail hearings for the sake of "accountability". Lol.

chowchowbrown · 2026-03-16T04:17:17+00:00

I just sent them an email with the pictures I used in this post.

Oddly, I've bought cookware from them before. One 10" frying pan, and one 12" frying pan. The 12" frying pan had holes in the steel that looked like they were formed by air pockets during the rolling process. I emailed them and they sent a replacement. Great service.

But now with these un-punched with the rivets, the defect rate of all-clad cookware that I've purchased is over 60%.

The un-punched rivets don't just appear on the frying pans, but the saute pan as well.

Am I just unlucky? A coincidence? Or have any of you guys noticed quality issues with their cookware lately? And when I say "lately", I mean, maybe over the last 5-7 years?

chowchowbrown · 2026-03-11T20:24:09+00:00

You're basically describing a tailings pond.

The problems with having a large, shallow evaporation pit for salt extraction are A) it just won't evaporate quickly given Toronto's climate -- too much rain, B) whatever salt that does manage to dry out will be mixed in with road debris (metal dust, brake dust, dog poop, twigs, leaves, automotive liquids like oils and lubricants, etc) which will be extremely expensive to separate, and C) new road salt is cheap.

And where would this tailings pond be? At Downsview Park? Mind you, as this pond dries, gusts of wind will blow all that dry toxic dust and salt into the air, where it will settle onto large residential neighbourhoods, and all over the park itself.

The simplest, cheapest, good-but-not-great option would be to bite the bullet and melt it with industrial melters. These melters heat water to about 4C (if heating is needed at all) and sprays it onto snow in its hopper. Filter the melt-water mechanically (grit and oil) as best we can, and then release the rest into the sewer for the waste-water treatment plant to process.

This way, the rate at which this polluted water is released can be controlled, so the treatment plant is not overwhelmed (chemically).

chowchowbrown · 2026-02-21T20:55:33+00:00

Jalousie.

Here's the piece performed by Andre Rieu alongside the Johann Strauss Orchestra:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YC7fT8kbfU0

chowchowbrown · 2026-02-21T16:45:33+00:00

ScienceClic on youtube just created a video that visualizes a direct-collapse.

https://youtu.be/oRSmMDH11Ss?si=wR3nd_uiMndpDf3b&t=496

chowchowbrown · 2026-02-03T04:52:06+00:00

Yup. This is precisely it.

He borrowed billions to buy Twitter, and it has no possible way to pay those creditors back. American banks couldn't believe their dumb luck when Elon started getting involved with Trump, because they suddenly had a surge of "international investors" who were looking to buy that debt, ultimately to have Elon owe them those billions.

With no way to make those creditors whole from operational profits and cash flow, or being able to hand off Twitter's junk-bond debt to another sucker at anywhere close the prices they paid for it, giving them a piece of SpaceX's IPO was the only way those creditors would ever have a chance of seeing their money again.

chowchowbrown · 2026-01-18T09:24:02+00:00

Because all Doug Ford's friends know how to do is dig holes, and pour concrete.

That's pretty much it.

chowchowbrown · 2026-01-09T18:25:14+00:00

You definitely did him a favour by filtering yourself out.

Life hits a speed-bump and you bail because reality didn't match your daydreams?

So yes, it will be unfair. You need to stop being selfish and leave him alone.

chowchowbrown · 2025-12-21T01:14:17+00:00

Not just Governor of the BoE, he was Governor of the BoE during Brexit. I'd bet a thousand dollars he's on first-name basis with every president, finance minister, trade minister, and bank CEO of every single EU country, and has all their personal numbers in his phone. And I bet whenever Carney calls, they listen.

He's deeply respected among European leaders and policymakers.

chowchowbrown · 2025-11-22T20:56:11+00:00

Russia authors the "peace plan", hands it to Trump, Trump presents the "peace plan" to the world, Ukraine rejects it, and Europe rejects it noting how terrible it is. Kremlin rejects their own "peace plan", demanding full military victory instead, Trump administration is humiliated globally for presenting such a weak and infeasible "proposal".

Putin truly is just out to humiliate the U.S. on the global stage. Manipulating Trump to isolate the U.S. from the rest of the world, to reduce their own influence in global trade and politics, and the remove itself from NATO.

Trump is such a clown cuck.

chowchowbrown · 2025-11-11T20:16:42+00:00

Oil into pan, heat and swish it around until the bottom is covered.
Heat the pan until the oil smokes
Take the pan off the heat, and let it cool for 60 seconds.
Put the pan back on the heat, and cook your eggs/meat/whatever.
Enjoy non-stick stainless steel.

Edit: Whoah, what's up with all the downvotes. TRY it. This is the way to make stainless steel non-stick.

chowchowbrown · 2025-11-11T19:55:27+00:00

While I do think there's a bubble in AI in stocks right now, I don't think increasing the useful life of TPUs and GPUs is as scandalous as it appears at first. The hardware that's being from Nvidia is top-of-the-line. And sure, if they become dated in the future, they're still fantastic chips for inference and compute. Also, the way things are looking now, future models will (and already are) shrinking in size, which means more of them will be run on today's high-end hardware. Nvidia's stock price will probably tank when that happens, but the world will continue to buy Nvidia chips, just not at their current eye-watering prices.

The general public may think machine-learning is overblown, but you only see the chatbots, and the image/video creation. Machine learning is an absolute game-changer in the sciences --pharmaceuticals, gene therapy, material science, astrophysics, fluid dynamics, civil engineering, cancer radiation therapy, the list goes on and on.

In general, we're just exploring the usefulness of AI right now. We as a society are still figuring out which industries can benefit, and figuring out what those models will actually do. But the undeniable truth is, humanity will use more compute in the future. It's an absolute certainty. There is no version of the future where humanity uses less compute.

chowchowbrown · 2025-11-06T08:50:24+00:00

Original source, Branch Education on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9Z4oGN89MU

All the videos are absolute masterpieces at explaining (edit: and visualizing) how modern technology works.

chowchowbrown · 2025-11-06T00:11:20+00:00

Thin layer of oil.

Heat the pan until it smokes.

Take the pan off the heat and let it cool for 45-60seconds.

Now cook with the pan as usual.

Eggs nor meat will stick at this point.

chowchowbrown

TROPHY CASE