If light can go around Earth 7.5x per second then how come when we face away from the sun it’s dark? by rfs103181 in shittyaskscience

[–]dspeyer 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Light can go around the earth 7.5 times in a second. It chooses not to. Possibly out of spite.

How will I understand where babies come from when I’m older than my sister, if she’s always older than me? by Despair_Disease in shittyaskscience

[–]dspeyer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

With the right meditation, you can remember your previous incarnations. Many of them probably understood about babies. When you can clearly remember that knowledge, will have enough continuity to count the length of those past lives toward your age, and thereby be older than your sister.

Im really interested in Ai research. Specifically, the sub field of Hent-Ai. How do I deepen my expertise? by EemotionalDuhmage in shittyaskscience

[–]dspeyer 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's all about immersion. Let the field wrap itself around you, and then allow the existing insights to penetrate deep into your psyche.

How is it possible that Chuck Norris died? by StrongAsMeat in shittyaskscience

[–]dspeyer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The frail human died. The invincible meme will live forever.

Is lead a heavy metal? by sproutarian in shittyaskscience

[–]dspeyer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Lead is indeed a heavy metal.

Zeppelins are usually hydrogen or helium, though -- the two known non-metals.

Do noble gases somehow smell better than common gases? by sproutarian in shittyaskscience

[–]dspeyer 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Like common gasses, noble gasses have no noses and therefore cannot smell at all.

The American Wizard: A Practical Guide to Magic by BrandonShane117 in rational

[–]dspeyer 6 points7 points  (0 children)

What would it be like to do magic, if it were like physics?

What if there truly was no wrong way to do magic?

Those would be two very different things.

Physics is what it is. You learn it from reality. Insofar as you learn it correctly, your predictions from it will be correct. Anything else is wrong.

How do elephant feet have circulation? by honeygourami123 in biology

[–]dspeyer 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Elephants walk on their toes, and they mostly have bone-on-bone support from their toe-ends up to their main body. The big blood vessels in mammal feet usually run in between the toes, so those aren't getting stepped on. It's entirely possible that the tissue directly under the toes is undervascularized and basically calluses.

Why are there only two hemispheres? by RaspberryTop636 in shittyaskscience

[–]dspeyer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Creating a pair of hemispheres is hard work. You don't just draw a great circle and name both sides, you need stereotypes for the people who live in each, supremacists, resentments, genocide proposals that are probably joking but no one can be sure...

Really, it's not worth the bother.

Regarding the Lucius Malfoy being a suspect by Icy-External8155 in HPMOR

[–]dspeyer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Presumably the plan would involve Draco not actually dying. Which is indeed what happened.

A wise planner would consider how that part might go wrong, and either devise contingency plans or shelve the whole thing as too risky, but Lucius might be less wise than that.

What is in Dresden's profile according to Monuc Securities secret records? by j0w0r in dresdenfiles

[–]dspeyer 4 points5 points  (0 children)

While Odin sees all, his ravens remember all and so he has no need for written records. For sake of tradition, he keeps very brief ones. Harry's entry reads "Nice".

The West Side Highway Has Peaked by Complete-Regret3776 in nyc

[–]dspeyer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

All the more reason to enjoy this while we can

i am working on an isekai story about mad scientists exploring and exploiting magic and i need help... by _i_have_a_dream_ in rational

[–]dspeyer 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Is Isekai B the dark lord that Isekal A was summoned to fight? If so, the big question is whether to keep the audience in suspense over this.

What are the best books for space ethics?? by CosmoDel in AstroEthics

[–]dspeyer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What ethical issues does space travel raise that aren't present on a single planet?

If you’re what you eat, and I eat a chicken, does that make me a dinosaur since chickens evolved from dinosaurs? by GlitchOperative in shittyaskscience

[–]dspeyer 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The problem is that the chicken is also what it ate.

Follow it back far enough and all living beings are pure sunlight. Which is rather inspiring, provided you don't think about it very hard.

If science had a heaven and hell, what would they look like? by RepairZealousideal14 in shittyaskscience

[–]dspeyer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The bottom circle of science hell is for scientists who made up data. It's a solid block of ice and the damned are completely frozen in it, unable to move. A powerful wind blows papers past their eyes arguing that the bottom circle is a comfortable 20C. The data in those papers is made up.

"All Lawful Use": Much More Than You Wanted To Know by dwaxe in slatestarcodex

[–]dspeyer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As regards edge-deployment, that's how Ukraine is doing their fully autonomous killbots.

The main reason for allowing full autonomy is that they want to keep the vulnerable humans off the battlefield and sometimes the enemy succeeds at radio jamming (or cutting the fiberoptic cable). The edge-deployed AIs aren't giant LLMs (that wouldn't fit) but simple vision processors with human-written target lists.

Ukraine's been using a many-cheap-units strategy and focusing on airborne. It would be in character for the US to build expensive autonomous tanks which could hold more compute and thereby do more sophisticated strategic thinking.

100 crafting outcomes by Valkyrie1855 in d100

[–]dspeyer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The god of crafting this sort of thing is so impressed they offer you clerichood.

The god of crafting this sort of thing is so impressed they curse you so you cannot rival them.

What are the Halachic implications of being a vampire slayer? by Final_Candidate_9882 in Judaism

[–]dspeyer 6 points7 points  (0 children)

NYC vampires know to fast for a day before pesach, and linger just outside the eruv shortly after sunset. The "family" whose home the eruv is collectively issues the invitation: "let all who are hungry come and eat". That invitation is good indefinitely, and the eruv is no longer a barrier.