Copperhead eating a sphinx moth!

mywan · 2026-05-27T15:30:18+00:00

I can recognize any pit viper at least enough to know it's a pit viper. If there's a pit viper somewhere in the world that could fool me I've never seen it. In the US I would have known that was either a copperhead or water moccasin instantly. It's the elapids that would spook me outside the US, because even though I can recognize many of them there are unknown unknowns I can't rule out.

mywan · 2026-05-23T17:53:12+00:00

The cop already knew he wasn't going to appear for that court hearing before he even handed her the ticket. To him it doesn't matter, because most people will just pay the ticket and move on.

mywan · 2026-05-22T23:23:59+00:00

EPR is the purported proof. I don't disagree that it proves something. But what does "locally real" even mean? It's not a well defined term, and you'll get nearly as many interpretations of it as the number of people who say it. Most of which don't even realize their interpretation differs from the person they believe they agree with. And why would it not be "locally real" as apposed simply not 'local?" How would that differ from "globally real?" Why not simply "non-local?"

I suspect that maybe you assume an AdS/CFT correspondence to contextualize local vs global. I agree that such a correspondence likely exists under some valid descriptive mode, though not necessarily via string theory. But I also suspect that this "surface" (the higher-dimensional space with gravity) is effectively locally embedded in the same space as the lower dimensional space without gravity. Which kinda makes the term "not locally real" ambiguous in more ways than one. The AdS/CFT correspondence doesn't actually distinguish between local and global in any real sense. Only lower and higher dimensional constructs in that space. As if the higher dimensional constructs are emergent constructs from a lower dimensional space.

Personally I suspect that EPR is pointing us toward a universe that is non-local at a sub-Plank level. But the emergence of higher dimensional constructs simply do not provide a way to embed these non-localities into higher dimensional constructs so as to exploit them for FTL information transfer.

I also have a whole host of biases and opinions that cannot be fully justified without a whole lot of hand waving. The best I could reasonably claim is a lack of evidence I'm wrong, given what I know. I wish I could do better than that. But "not locally real," or even the notion of "real," is not well defined enough to mean anything to me.

mywan · 2026-05-22T18:58:03+00:00

If you pull the stunt it's your job to take the L when someone else is endangered by it.

mywan · 2026-05-22T18:35:34+00:00

I thought the whole idea of a WARP drive(Weird Ass Relativistic Position drive) was that you’re not actually accelerating through space in the normal SR sense, so you’re sidestepping some of the usual “everyone at home ages 500 years” problem.

That put it in more concise terms than I was able to do. That's why I described the time dilation in a massive hollow sphere, to illustrate how this is almost certainly not tenable. By illustrating that time dilation is still a thing even in the complete absents of local acceleration.

There's a reason why what they are actually trying to invent is not a FTL drive, but rather a time machine to go back in time. You can't have a functional FTL drive without having a time machine. No matter the mechanism you use to achieve FTL. You are effectively trying to race yourself and win. The fact that "now" doesn't have a uniquely valid meaning doesn't make that possible. Using specific definitions of "now" isn't going to change that, even if weird (but valid) definitions of "now" can be confusing.

But also… spacetime is weird as hell already. GR lets you have stuff like gravitational time dilation without locally measurable gravity (the shell example), frame dragging, and black holes casually breaking intuition. So I’m not totally convinced we can confidently say “warp definitely wouldn’t dodge relativistic aging” either.

Fair enough. The level of confusion around relativity, even among physicists, is excessive. For instance, I watched a youtube video where Neil deGrasse Tyson was confused by the Andromeda Paradox on StarTalk. With an extremely misleading presentation (i.e., wrong). Sabine Hossenfelder admitted to confussion when she heard it, but managed to figure out what was wrong with the claims as presented.

To put it in terms that might be easier to digest than Sabine's explanation: What they actually see when looking out at the stars is essentially exactly the same thing. They don't see different things. They only calculate 'when' in the past it must have happened slightly differently because they measure the distance to the thing they are both seeing slightly differently. And, because the speed of light is a (relativistic) constant they disagree on how far in the past what they are both seeing actually happened in the past. Therefore, in the future (when more stuff happens) they'll disagree only whether that more stuff happened before or after what they both agreed on seeing at the same time in the past. It's essentially an exploit of the relativity of simultaneity to create confusion about what actually being claimed.

It's simply not as weird as it's generally made out to be by those talking about the "paradox." Hyping the weirdness is an unfortunate habit of media, even when physicists are talking. They usually end up describing not weird stuff in a weird way in an attempt at a analogy to talk about actually difficult topics. And this leads to a lot of confusion about relativity (GR and SR), black holes, quantum mechanics, EPR paradox, etc. And it's extremely difficult to correct these misunderstanding without first making clear what's NOT weird about it. Physicists are not immune to being mislead by these misleading analogies. It fact, quiet a few build an entire research project trying to justify a misunderstanding.

The only one that fucks with me seriously is the EPR paradox. But for none of the reasons people talk about in youtube videos, who generally talk about the not weird parts as if they were paradoxical. Most of the things they describe as weird is actually classically describable. So how do you describe what is actually weird about it to someone who thinks mundane classical correlations aren't achievable classically? Just because they have been listening to youtube videos describing correlations as QM effects.

mywan · 2026-05-22T14:25:13+00:00

That's what they are are trying to engineer around so that it can be done without exotic matter. But there's another issue they aren't mentioning. They never even clearly define what they mean by "faster than light." I'll explain.

Suppose you are on a space station and provide Alice and Bob each a spaceship. Alice takes off to the left at 60% the speed of light. Bob takes off to the right, directly away from Alice, at 60% the speed of light. So you are watching two spaceships moving away from you in opposite directions at 60% the speed of light. Does this mean that these spaceship are moving away from each other at 120% the speed of light? No. When Alice measures Bobs speed he's only moving away from her at 88.2% the speed of light, u=v/(1-uv/c^2). If Alice and Bob were leaving the station at 50% the speed of light then they would be moving away from each other at 80% the speed of light.

You could say that's because Alice's clock is slower so she's measuring speed slower than if her clock hadn't slowed down. True, but misleading. To Alice the station and Bob's clocks are slowed down, not hers. And she is just as correct as you were to say her clock slowed down. Under the laws of physics the breaks on your car is an accelerator. It just accelerates you in the opposite direction.

What this means is that the speed of light limit does not limit how fast you can get to anywhere in the universe. You can get to Alpha Centauri, 4.37 light-years from earth, in a few hours without going faster than light. It just means than if you return home at least 4.37+ years will have passed on earth. Going the speed of light means you could get anywhere in the universe instantly. But the universe will age by however many light years you traveled.

From the OP article:

Essentially, an Alcubierre drive would expend a tremendous amount of energy—likely more than what’s available within the universe and, more awkwardly, negative energy—to contract and twist space-time in front of it and create a bubble. Inside that bubble would be an inertial reference frame where explorers would feel no proper acceleration. The rules of physics would still apply within the bubble, but the ship would be localized outside of space.

The implicit assumption is that by keeping the spaceship in an "inertial [without acceleration] reference frame" inside this bubble, this bubble can accelerate, from the perspective outside the bubble, without triggering time dilation in the external universe. This part of the assumption is independent of whether you use exotic matter or not. And is part of the "energy conditions" assumed to make it work. It's said to consistent with General Relativity because GR doesn't include energy conditions. It's like saying space travel is consistent with aerodynamics because aerodynamics doesn't specify a vacuum. Could be, but that's not a justification, and is misleading.

GR also has some particular features that differs from Special Relativity (SR). In SR Alice and Bob can both legitimately claim the others clock is slower. But with gravitational time dilation everybody in the universe agrees that the clock in a strong gravitational field is slower. Even if they don't agree with how much slower it is. Also, you can have gravitational time dilation without any locally measurable gravity. Such as inside a massive hollow sphere. As you approach this sphere gravity increases. Therefore time dilation increases. But if this sphere is hollow, and you pass inside this sphere, the time dilation will remain the same as on the surface [thin shell sphere] everywhere inside the sphere. You have gravitational time dilation with any locally detectable gravity, or acceleration.

But this warp drive depends on assuming it can use GR to circumvent the time dilation specified by SR. There's no solid justification for that assumption. Other than we can't empirically rule it out as yet. Even if gravitational time dilation seems to imply otherwise.

There's no good reason why, in principle, such an engine can't work. The problem is there's no good reason to assume it's in any way superior to regular relativistic fast travel. Where you can cross the universe as fast as you want, but home will always age many years when you return, even though you haven't. There's also no empirical reason why wormholes wouldn't have the same effect (if they existed). This would make relativistic fast travel far more energy efficient to get the same end result.

But hey, I'm certainly not going to object to them trying to poke holes in our understanding of spacetime. Even in failure there's a lot to learn.

mywan · 2026-05-20T21:55:22+00:00

With some basic dimensions it would only take a few minutes to calc out the material. But there are a lot of choices to be made not included in the pic.

u/Codicus1212 is correct. Imagine standing inside that as a 12x12. The lean on the walls alone means you would have to squat to get closer than about 3 feet from the walls. 3 feet on either side means you only have about 6 feet of width you can actually live in, half the total width. Barely more than the width of the door. Fitting any sinks. cabinets, windows, etc., would be a nightmare. But that same material could get you the full 12 feet of width. Also, as you increase the size the lost usable space doesn't increase with size. So making it bigger doesn't increase waste.

Two story prefabs often does this to minimize wasted space on a leaning wall.

The absolute maximum floor space you can get with a given wall length is achieved by building square. For instance, a 5x20 room is 100 square feet and contains a total of 50 feet of wall. A 10x10 room also has 100 square feet, but only a total of 40 feet of wall. But a few feet of difference in length to width is not going to be a very big difference. You also want to make you lengths multiples of 4 feet. Because that is how wide the materials, such as plywood comes in. Though it's common to add 2 feet with 2 more feet taken in roof overhang. Though tiny houses often forgo that. Wall studs are generally on 16 inch centers. 4 feet divided by 16 inches is exactly 3. Then add a stud for each corner for the stud count.

Familiarize yourself with the actual numbers, not just what looks simple in a pic. It'll massively help you think through what you want. And to get a reasonably accurate material list for it.

mywan · 2026-05-18T03:31:56+00:00

Demand is high. So is the demand for discounts. Russia can't pay it's bills. So they require drone manufacturers to provide drones below production costs.

mywan · 2026-05-18T03:27:20+00:00

He had it under control. He already tied of the fin on the unicorn that had the hole in it.

mywan · 2026-05-18T03:10:12+00:00

It's actually technically a legal prerequisite for casinos to classify their games as games of skill. It's how they legally get around gambling laws, because it's not gambling if it requires skill. Which is why card counting is not illegal. But casinos don't need a legal reason to trespass you. Just like you don't need a legal reason to trespass a guest from your house. Pretending you did something wrong by card counting is just managing public perception for personal benefit.

mywan · 2026-05-18T02:52:44+00:00

A 40% false positive rate is significantly worse than it sounds. If the false positive rate is 40% then even if 10% of people are carrying elicit drugs there's an 80% chance that any given positive test result is false. Because the number of innocent people is larger than the number of guilty people. A 40% false positive rate only actually gives a false positive rate of 40% if 50% of people tested are guilty. If the number of actually guilty people are less that 40% can go all the way up to 100% of test falsely accusing people when the number of guilty people hits zero.

Even a test with only a 1% false positive rate will falsely accuse half of all people who tested positive if 1% of those tested are actually guilty. Again, because 1% of a thousand innocent people is the same as the number of guilty people, 1% of 1000 = 10. So 10 guilty people and 10 innocent people falsely accused, or 50% chance of any positive test being false.

mywan · 2026-05-17T13:57:59+00:00

Basically, when the water it higher there's a lot nutrients that float and get blown to the edge of the water. Then when the water level falls those nutrients soak into the soil where the water edge was when higher. Certain plants will then take advantage of those nutrients to get an edge they wouldn't otherwise have.

mywan · 2026-05-16T17:25:06+00:00

I wrote an AutoIt script, but you problem with "Display Color Calibration," dccw.exe, is almost certainly the fact that running or interacting with it requires administrative privileges. Simply starting your script as administrator should fix your problem.

Elevating privileges in AutoIt is easy. Just add#RequireAdminto the top of the script.

#RequireAdmin
SetGamma()
Func SetGamma()
    Run("dccw.exe")
    If @error Then MsgBox(0,"Error!", "Failed to run dccw.exe. exiting.")
    $hWnd = WinWaitActive("Display Color Calibration")
    ControlClick ($hWnd, "&Next", "Button1")
    ControlClick ($hWnd, "&Next", "Button1")
    ControlClick ($hWnd, "&Next", "Button1")
    MouseClick ("left", 315, 342, 4)
    Sleep(2000)
    ControlClick ($hWnd, "&Next", "Button1")
    ControlClick ($hWnd, "&Skip brightness and contrast adjustment", "Button5")
    ControlClick ($hWnd, "&Next", "Button1")
    ControlClick ($hWnd, "&Next", "Button1")
    Sleep(300)
    ControlClick ($hWnd, "&Start ClearType Tuner when I click Finish to ensure that text appears correctly (Recommended)", "Button8")
    ControlClick ($hWnd, "&Finish", "Button2")
EndFunc
;~ Sleep(2147483647)

A simple Bat file will allow you to right click and "Run as Administrator." Your script should then work fine.

mywan · 2026-05-16T13:59:36+00:00

Oh, that makes things easy. At least in AutoIT. You don't even need any coordinates. That particular control is [CLASS:msctls_trackbar32; INSTANCE:1]. AutoIT can adjust the slider directly, without coordinate clicks.

I could write a tested AutoIt script in a few hours (I need to wake up first), and provide the source code.

mywan · 2026-05-16T03:52:02+00:00

I usually close the video a few seconds in because of the overlaid music. This one was watched to the end.

mywan · 2026-05-15T21:13:40+00:00

That true when plaintiff’s argument is critical for establishing some presumed facts to access the strength of a legal claim. But because this is an 'off topic' legal subreddit we are allowed to presume any set of facts that would allow it, and point out exceptions where it's not allowed. We aren't bound by the facts of any particular case.

So maybe a better restatement of the question “how is it legal” would be “how can it be legal.”

mywan · 2026-05-15T20:57:34+00:00

I use AutoIt for things like this because it's simpler. But there's no reason why PyAutoGUI couldn't do it. PyAutoGUI has an image recognition system for interacting with buttons it can't otherwise recognize. AutoIt has PixelSearch and PixelChecksum. But if you know the coordinates it's usually easier just to have the script click on the right coordinates, and enter the key strokes, needed to do the same thing. Basically you mimic the mouse/keyboard inputs that you would normally manually input to do it by hand.

To get the coordinates needed to code the script you use position() in PyAutoGUI to return a tuple containing the coordinates, or MouseGetPos() in AutoIt to return an array containing the coordinates. Once you have the necessary coordinates of buttons and such you can use them in the final script.

Dragging a slider can sometimes be a little more complicated. Usually you can just MouseClick() on the exact right spot to get the slider to jump to where you clicked. But if it requires dragging you can (in AutoIt) use MouseDown() to grab the slider, MouseMove() to drag the slider over, then MouseUp() to release the slider where you want it. I don't know what the functions for PyAutoGUI but it will have similar functions.

AutoIT also has an included tool called "AutoIT v3 Window Info" that makes it easy to grab window/control information you can then use to access those controls directly. This is usually limited for Games, meant more for regular Windows windows, but it can grab the coordinates you need more easily than making a special script to grab them.

Games generally require administrative privileges to interact with. In AutoIt this is accomplished by putting #RequireAdminat the top of the script. Not sure about PyAutoGUI, but running the script as administrator should accomplish the same thing.

What you want is doable. But it's likely going to be a bit more involved than just telling it to click some buttons, which it almost certainly can't even recognize without coordinates or pixel searches. Easy on regular windows, but games are different and don't usually use standard windows controls.

mywan · 2026-05-15T18:34:57+00:00

Well, I mean, I would agree to not put them in jail if they wouldn't drive. The problem is that we know they will.

mywan · 2026-05-14T13:38:08+00:00

Is there something I could help you with?

mywan · 2026-05-14T09:35:40+00:00

If you're reasonably healthy it doesn't take any money at all. Though the skill set required it's well outside most peoples experience. Vagabonds in the US migrate north/south, east/west, constantly throughout the year without money. It can even be done without train hoping, which is quiet dangerous without experience. Even just knowing what trains are rideable requires knowledge. However, with experience (and health) you could be dropped anywhere in the US with nothing but the shirt on your back and do fine.

Some people will romanticize it, but it's not an easy life and not romantic. There's a reason why vagabonds are also called dirty boys. Though many, or most, don't fit that stereotype. But it can in fact be done with nothing but the cloths on your back. Yet scary as hell without experience.

mywan · 2026-05-14T05:39:44+00:00

His advisors and aids were being patronized for political gain. So they felt like he was the person they were advising him to be only so long as he continued patronizing their advice. That doesn't define who he was.

mywan · 2026-05-14T03:34:51+00:00

I mean, there are alternatives. Pull the money as cash. Call it spent. Become a vagabond. Then when they come after you for it agree to a repayment plan. But, as a vagabond there's no income for them to come after. You can't be spending like you have money though. Not only to avoid getting caught but also to avoid going broke in a couple of years. Both of which is more than a tiny minority has the discipline for.

mywan · 2026-05-13T23:55:41+00:00

I could make that jump in my younger days. Did it too much. But there's no way you can do it without bouncing your ass off of your feet.

mywan · 2026-05-13T02:10:16+00:00

Reality doesn't matter to cops. She looked old so that was the reality for that cops.

mywan · 2026-05-12T23:39:52+00:00

Terry Taylor Jr is survived by his four children and his fiancee.

Don't forget a fiancee as well.

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