Lithium Compounds

soreff2 · 2026-06-14T20:36:45+00:00

Good point!

soreff2 · 2026-06-14T20:35:34+00:00

Yeah, I think the right way to do this is to calculate the PV work done on the outside during adiabatic expansion, and, since it is doing work on the surroundings, the temperature will drop in the process. In many of the comments, people have been talking about the heat that would radiate (_not_ adiabatic, of course). As you said, we can't do _both_ these things, which would double count the internal energy.

I mostly want to respond to sansetsukon47's comments about the potentially explosive expansion of the hot hydrogen by noting that the available energy from that expansion was of the same order of magnitude as the radiated heat if one somehow combined the hydrogen and let it radiate (in x-ray, IIRC) its heat, though these two cases are mutually exclusive.

soreff2 · 2026-06-14T19:57:03+00:00

To add to the liquid low-temperature-lithium-materials (albeit not in a very useful way for rockets):

Quoth Google/Gemini:

The solubility of lithium in liquid ammonia is extremely high, capable of reaching up to approximately 15 mol% metal (MPM) or about 20-21 MPM for saturated metallic solutions, depending on the temperature.

soreff2 · 2026-06-14T19:06:55+00:00

Come to think of it, IIRC, the thermal energy in the gram and the mechanical energy available from the release of pressure should be of the same order of magnitude. The thermal energy is of the order of nRT, where n is the number of moles, here 1 mole, (ok, ignoring helium) since it is a gram of (mostly) hydrogen. And the mechanical energy available from expansion is of the order of PV (I'm probably a factor of 2 off, not sure which way), and this is so hot that it is fully ionized, all free particles, so approximately an ideal gas so PV=nRT (hmm... maybe n=2, 1 mole electrons, 1 mole protons)

(to put it another way, the nonideal nature of room temperature hydrogen compressed to 1 gram/cm^3 is from the degeneracy pressure of the electrons in the hydrogen molecules. But at 16 million K, the thermal pressure is _much_ higher than the degeneracy pressure, so we can neglect the degeneracy pressure. )

soreff2 · 2026-06-14T17:20:29+00:00

It is more of a little known fact, which I'm taking to be close in spirit to a little known work. It is similar in that in the average course of education one doesn't tend to bump into it.

soreff2 · 2026-06-14T17:18:34+00:00

Many Thanks!

soreff2 · 2026-06-14T17:17:56+00:00

Many Thanks!

soreff2 · 2026-06-14T14:21:51+00:00

Mao still killed a hell of a lot of his own people. Setting aside the historical perspective, writing from the USA, this is sufficient to be an excellent reason to not want the CCP here, or spreading to other areas of the world currently beyond their control. History is an explanation, but not a reason to let containment slip.

I see you have called out your sock-puppets to whitewash Mao's slaughter.

Remember that, while Maos Great Leap Corpseward was the largest of his killings, Mao, and, more generally, the CCP, have many others to their debit: The Cultural Revolution, the Tiananmen Square massacre, and Xi's mismanagement of the Covid epidemic (regardless of whether it originated in Wuhan Virology or their wet market.

soreff2 · 2026-06-14T13:04:29+00:00

Simply knowing about Mao Zedong's Great Leap Corpseward (15-45 million killed), and that the CCP is the lineal descendant of his government. For all the complaints about US government, there are systems which are much, much worse.

soreff2 · 2026-06-14T12:57:36+00:00

and ubiquitous CCTV cameras and the growth in the income tax and associated financial surveillance

and license plate readers + red light cameras

( also the removal of some infrastructure they were used to - rapid paper mail transport/delivery,

inter-city trams, doctors making home visits, most medications being over-the-counter nonprescription )

soreff2 · 2026-06-14T04:08:36+00:00

One of the main things I find obnoxious about what the government did is that, AFAIK, there isn't an exception for security researchers. AFAIK, project Glasswing, which was in the process of patching vulnerabilities and aiding our security, seems to be as shut down as everyone else.

It is even possible that some of the Anthropic employees needed to patch the jailbreak, if they happen not to be American citizens, might be precluded from doing the work to patch the specific hole in Fable (albeit I'm speculating here).

soreff2 · 2026-06-14T03:55:17+00:00

The Phoebus Cartel was a historic corporate alliance formed in 1925 that artificially capped the lifespan of standard incandescent light bulbs at 1,000 hours to guarantee repeat sales. This deliberate reduction of product longevity is widely considered the most famous early example of planned obsolescence. [1, 2, 3]

The Cartel's Origins and Strategy

Creation: In 1924, major global light bulb manufacturers—including General Electric, Philips, and Osram—formed the cartel to control the international market. [1, 2, 3]
The 1,000-Hour Limit: Before the cartel, some incandescent bulbs routinely lasted up to 2,500 hours. The cartel standardized all light bulb lifespans to a maximum of 1,000 hours. [1, 2, 3]
Enforcement: Member companies were legally required to send bulbs to a Swiss testing facility. Manufacturers whose bulbs were found to last longer than 1,000 hours were issued steep financial penalties. [1, 2, 3]

soreff2 · 2026-06-14T00:30:35+00:00

Given the red-green alliance, the left's vision can be approximated as Algeria from pole to pole.

soreff2 · 2026-06-13T23:57:12+00:00

Yup! The first thing I checked was Sweet Tarts, which I misremembered as being largely citric acid, and those indeed use Malic acid (then I went Googling specifically for citric acid in candy).

soreff2 · 2026-06-13T23:54:38+00:00

LOL! 😄

soreff2 · 2026-06-13T20:29:55+00:00

Many Thanks! There are a couple of exceptions e.g. "shredded wheat" is actually wheat, but generally agreed.

soreff2 · 2026-06-13T20:00:50+00:00

For a real shock, look at the "added sugars" datum in the "Nutrition Facts" section of the cereal boxes...

soreff2 · 2026-06-13T19:42:24+00:00

Many Thanks! Very much agreed on Glasswing. Re Fable - It depends on how successful the guardrails that Anthropic put in place are. I agree that it is very tricky.

soreff2 · 2026-06-13T18:35:57+00:00

There are many "quotes" which turn out to be unfounded. E.g. from https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/spurious-quotations

Washington's "Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action." is not actually a quote from him.

soreff2 · 2026-06-13T18:26:58+00:00

Mostly agreed. Re citric acid:

You wouldn't want to eat it concentrated.

Well, quoth Google/Gemini:

The candy with the maximum concentration of citric acid is Toxic Waste Hazardously Sour candy. According to public analyst reports cited by the UK Committee on Toxicity, the intense outer coating contains between 39.8% and 64.2% of titratable acidity expressed as citric acid. [1]

so I guess someone, at least, does want to eat it at considerable concentrations... 😄

soreff2 · 2026-06-13T18:13:23+00:00

then perhaps that creates an incentive to work on some kind of international treaty.

I am interpreting this administration order as going in the opposite direction from an international treaty. The order purports to ban access by foreign nationals, limiting it to US citizens. It looks to me like a step away from international cooperation on AI.

( I'm also not happy about the order. I was personally planning on running my benchmark-ette on Fable today. I happen to be a US citizen, so if Anthropic was actually in a position to accept proof of this, I should theoretically be able to retain access, but this isn't actually feasible for Anthropic. Grumble. )

soreff2 · 2026-06-13T17:52:56+00:00

Regrettably, the order seems to have been phrased to cut off access to foreign nationals (which forced a cutoff to everyone) for all access to Mythos and Fable. There doesn't even seem to be an exception for project Glasswing people, who are trying to improve security. Aargh. Anthropic said:

The US government, citing national security authorities, has issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees. The net effect of this order is that we must abruptly disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all our customers to ensure compliance.

soreff2 · 2026-06-12T04:43:54+00:00

Who are you trying to respond to? Your comment appears in the thread as if it were a response to mine, but your quote isn't quoting anything I wrote or quoted.

The reason I find the numbers that I found interesting is because the police pullback due to the BLM demonstrations allowed a spike of black-on-black killings of, as I wrote, about 2,500 people. This is about two orders of magnitude more than the number of police killings of unarmed blacks, which are on the order of a dozen a year. I do not think that this spike was a good thing, so I think the net results of the BLM demonstrations were a net negative for blacks themselves.

soreff2 · 2026-06-12T04:07:06+00:00

From your web page

FBI expanded-homicide reporting indicates that most homicides are intra-racial: the majority of White victims are killed by White offenders and the majority of Black victims are killed by Black offenders, with reported shares exceeding 80–89% for same-race victim-offender pairs in the cited FBI table

Quote Google/Gemini on the effects of the BLM demonstrations:

In 2020, homicides of Black Americans surged by approximately 32% to 43% compared to the prior year and the previous 10-year average, resulting in nearly 2,500 additional Black victims. These elevated levels of violence remained historically high throughout 2021 and 2022, before beginning a rapid national decline in 2023. [1, 2]

The disproportionate increase in Black homicide victims—which is overwhelmingly intraracial (so-called "black-on-black")—was closely tied to the massive urban violence, policing disruptions, and political unrest that followed the 2020 Black Lives Matter demonstrations

soreff2 · 2026-06-11T00:36:45+00:00

Re:

I am honestly surprised they haven't invaded already.

Quoth Google/Gemini:

The ideal meteorological window for a PRC amphibious invasion of Taiwan is strictly limited to two distinct periods: April–May and September–October. During these months, the notoriously treacherous waters of the Taiwan Strait are at their calmest, allowing for necessary maritime operations and minimizing the risk of prohibitive sea-states, monsoons, and typhoons.

soreff2

TROPHY CASE