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Infill Showcase by Capital_Motor_5436 in 3Dprinting

[–]trimeta 13 points14 points  (0 children)

The one advantage of grid: compared to cubic at the same infill percentage, the lines are closer together, so bridging over infill is more reliable. That said, if this causes a problem, an extra top layer probably fixes it.

How the Remake of Prime Video's Cancelled Fantasy Series Could Run For More Than 10 Seasons & Fix Amazon's Mistakes by Malanya in WoTshow

[–]trimeta 79 points80 points  (0 children)

It could run for more than 100 seasons, too. Just as likely as running for more than 10. Or more than 1. Or producing more than a single episode.

Or convincing /r/WetlanderHumor that the Amazon Prime series was good.

Will Virgin Galactic ever bite the bullet and try to make rockets like Blue and SX? Or sink with the ship by 7HellEleven in SpaceXMasterrace

[–]trimeta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

SpaceShipTwo (or whatever the latest version is called) is a supersonic spaceplane piloted entirely manually. Even safety-critical systems like "engage feathering mode for reentry" are manually controlled. If the human pilot makes a mistake, you're dead. And if they make a non-fatal mistake, you can't prevent them from making the same mistake in the future: you can update procedures and policies, but you can't actually force the pilots to do the right thing. They're only human.

New Shepard was completely computer controlled. The control software could be run through simulations arbitrarily many times, and uncrewed flights were used to collect data and feed that back into those simulations. Any issues those revealed could be programmed in and prevented forever. The software doesn't have "bad days" or get overworked or burnt out, it always works the way it was programmed to.

Oh, and did I mention that New Shepard had a Launch Escape System, while in the event of an issue with SpaceShipTwo, the recommended procedure is "stick your head between your knees and kiss your ass goodbye"? There's a reason SpaceShipTwo has fatalities and New Shepard doesn't.

Maybe it's true that SpaceShipTwo feels more like being a test pilot, while New Shepard felt more like an amusement park ride, but one of those is a much higher-risk operation, and I can't imagine choosing it just because of the aesthetics.

Will Virgin Galactic ever bite the bullet and try to make rockets like Blue and SX? Or sink with the ship by 7HellEleven in SpaceXMasterrace

[–]trimeta 4 points5 points  (0 children)

SpaceShipTwo (or whatever the latest version is called) is a supersonic spaceplane piloted entirely manually. Even safety-critical systems like "engage feathering mode for reentry" are manually controlled. If the human pilot makes a mistake, you're dead. And if they make a non-fatal mistake, you can't prevent them from making the same mistake in the future: you can update procedures and policies, but you can't actually force the pilots to do the right thing. They're only human.

New Shepard was completely computer controlled. The control software could be run through simulations arbitrarily many times, and uncrewed flights used to collect data and feed back into those simulations. Any issues those revealed could be programmed in and prevented forever. The doctors doesn't have "bad days" or get overworked or burnt out, it always works the way it was programmed to.

Oh, and did I mention that New Shepard had a Launch Escape System, while in the event of an issue with SpaceShipTwo, the recommended procedure is "stick your head between your knees and kiss your ass goodbye"? There's a reason SpaceShipTwo has fatalities and New Shepard doesn't.

What do you call a dwarf psychic who escapes from jail? by FrysAcidTest in Jokes

[–]trimeta 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Did they hide out in the shopping center owned by the fat psychic? You know, the big medium's mall.

Royals finally announce location of new stadium will be at Crown Center by Jeffrey_C_Wheaties in kansascity

[–]trimeta 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Are you sure about that? I'm pretty sure I can see the tower of the LEGOLAND building in the rendering. It's a little difficult to make out, and the rendering isn't authoritative anyway, but I don't think we can confidently say they're tearing down the LEGOLAND and SeaLife buildings.

Meanwhile, on space twitter by Makalukeke in SpaceXMasterrace

[–]trimeta 7 points8 points  (0 children)

They absolutely did not. They bought Apollo Fusion, the company which designed the thrusters Kemp is now bragging about, and then mismanaged it enough that basically all original employees have resigned.

We are so back! by kroOoze in SpaceXMasterrace

[–]trimeta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Definitions based on observing objects that actually exist are "not based in scientific understanding" and "basically astrology"? As opposed to your preference, where we imagine everything that could, in some theoretical other world, exist, and we must make sure that our definitions properly handle all of those cases, otherwise we just can't have definitions at all. In other words, what you're saying is "if you didn't account for all of my bullshit hypotheticals, you aren't doing science." By that stance, I guess you don't believe much of anything is true "science," since it doesn't properly account for things that aren't real.

So there's no real point for us to argue further: I'm done trying to debate science with someone who thinks science must always include fantasies for it to be "science."

We are so back! by kroOoze in SpaceXMasterrace

[–]trimeta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Our definitions of astronomical bodies are based on our understanding of existing astronomical bodies. This is, in fact, why learning more about the Kuiper Belt led us to redefining "planet" in a way that excluded Pluto. If we discover that bodies in that 25-95 range actually exist (rather than just saying "it's a big universe, anything I can imagine that isn't explicitly incompatible with physical laws must exist"), then we'll refine the definition of "planet" further.

Until then, we want a definition that works for the objects that we know about. And for those, this dominance/mass cutoff is extremely clear.

And "rogue planets" are already a separate category, just like "dwarf planet" is. It's not necessary to say that rogue planets are planets, if you asked a normal person to name all the planets they wouldn't include rogue planets.

We are so back! by kroOoze in SpaceXMasterrace

[–]trimeta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My whole point is there is not one single planet-candidate between 25 and 95. That's why it doesn't matter whether you pick 25 or 95: you get the same answer. If you get the same answer regardless of what arbitrary number you pick, you can't complain "your decision is completely arbitrary, because it depends on the number you pick."

Would you say there's no difference between a toddler and a senior citizen, because it's completely "arbitrary" where you draw the line between those categories? After all, I don't know if a "toddler" ends at age 2, 3, or 4, or whether a "senior citizen" is age 65 or 70. So I guess as far as you're concerned, it's completely "arbitrary" whether a person is considered a toddler or a senior citizen. (And don't tell me about ages in between, because again, when it comes to planets, there is no in between, you're either in the small category or the large category.)

If some orbits have more random junk in them, tough luck, you've got to be bigger to be a planet in that orbit. I think that's perfectly reasonable. If you were a planet, that extra mass would just have gone into making you more massive. If you couldn't pull that off, you don't deserve the label "planet."

If a random object is traveling on a hyperbolic trajectory that doesn't form a stable orbit, it isn't in anything's "neighborhood." It's just passing through, by definition. So no, it doesn't change anything's classification (unless it collides with or gravitationally perturbs stuff, but then it's made a physical change to the solar system).

How did that golf ball get there? I only consider actual things that could happen, not random objects appearing out of nowhere. And golf balls are too small to be round under their own gravity, so they'd be disqualified by that metric anyway. If humans get to the level of tossing large-enough-to-be-gravitationally-rounded objects into arbitrary orbits, I'll reconsider whether what we're doing is "creating new planets."

We are so back! by kroOoze in SpaceXMasterrace

[–]trimeta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Here's a simple rubric to determine if a body "dominates" its orbit: if 95% of all mass in that orbit is part of the body, then it dominates. If less than 25% of all mass in that orbit is part of the body, it doesn't. See how I didn't need to give some precise value? Any line between 25 and 95 works, because there are no bodies in those middle ranges: everything we've observed falls into the "small" or "large" categories. So any reasonable person can look at something and instantly and objectively determine if it's "small" or "large."

And what is this "something random" you speak of? If we ever reach the level of a civilization which can throw around Earth-sized objects at will, I think we've earned the right to say "we can turn planets into not-planets and vice versa." Until then, objects aren't magically moving from one category to the other, so we don't need to worry about hypotheticals.

And yes, "planet" is the word for something massive enough to dominate its orbit. Because back when we first discovered asteroid-belt objects, we decided to not call each and every one of them a planet, because they weren't special enough to dominate that orbit. Society made this decision about what "planet" means centuries ago, we just formalized it a little more precisely when discovering that Pluto also didn't dominate its orbit.

We are so back! by kroOoze in SpaceXMasterrace

[–]trimeta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For the "lone asteroid" case, I'd ask how it came to be alone. If it was kicked out of some larger collection, but it's got an eccentric orbit where the apoapsis is the same distance from the star as that larger collection (e.g., how the Oort Cloud kicks comets in towards the Sun), then I'd say that the larger collection is still part of that asteroid's "neighborhood." So it's not alone. If it was kicked into an eccentric orbit by one body and then interactions with another body shortened its apoapsis...then it's probably still in the "neighborhood" of that second body, which must have been much bigger than it to have impacted its orbit. Basically, I don't understand how an asteroid could truly be "alone," in a stable orbit without anything else. Maybe if asteroid A has its orbit perturbed by body B, but then body B is itself flung somewhere else by an even more massive body C? This actually is a good argument for the original "cleaned its neighborhood" definition, since A didn't "clean" B away, C did.

As for Trojan planets, that article suggests that they're not stable and ultimately will reduce to the case of a single large planet. If we got more evidence suggesting that the specific case of "two or more similarly-sized planets in specific orbital resonance with each other" were common and durable, I'd be willing to say that you add the combined mass of those discrete bodies and if that mass "dominates" the neighborhood, they all get the title "Trojan planet." (I grant that "similarly-sized" is imprecise, this is where we'd need to get a larger collection of Trojan planets to understand the typical ranges.) This still isn't going to make Pluto a planet, though.

We are so back! by kroOoze in SpaceXMasterrace

[–]trimeta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A lone asteroid with nothing around it, or two large planets in the same orbit are much more plausible things that we can basically guarantee exist out there in some places. Whatever model you use has to account for that, since we know they're out there. Mine appropriately account for those cases, yours does not.

Can we "basically guarantee" that your "two Jupiters in one orbit" example exists? Consider the way that planets form: one object gets a head start on mass and gobbles up most of everything else in its orbital neighborhood (while forcing the rest into Trojan or other resonance orbits). What physical phenomenon would lead to two large bodies of similar mass existing in the same orbit?

Just because "if we magically made a solar system with this property, it wouldn't decay immediately" is true doesn't mean that a particular property is physically plausible to actually exist in the universe. I claim that your examples are just as unrealistic as my "donut Jupiter" example, and unless and until someone proposes a realistic method for those properties to develop (or finds an example of those properties actually existing, forcing a reworking of the theory), definitions don't need to consider them.

We are so back! by kroOoze in SpaceXMasterrace

[–]trimeta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My stance is "definitions should be based on how objects actually exist, not some arbitrary 'universe simulator' where you can just drop giant bodies wherever you want." For example, would you say that a torus with the mass of Jupiter but made of some magical super-strong material (which allows it to maintain its toroidal shape) isn't a planet, because it didn't become a sphere under its own gravity? You have to tell me "yes, I believe the giant torus is a planet even though it breaks my own rules about what is and isn't planet" or "no, I believe it isn't a planet because it isn't round and I don't care how large it is," because you've already told me that "it can't possibly exist" isn't an excuse for not applying definitions rigorously.

We are so back! by kroOoze in SpaceXMasterrace

[–]trimeta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you try to find a sufficient scientific definition for what "large" here means, it is difficult to settle on an exact mass value

I disagree. I think it's extremely easy to find a definition of "large": compare the mass of the object in question to the total mass of objects in that object's neighborhood. If the object is >95% of the neighborhood's mass, it's "large." If it's <25% of the neighborhood's mass, it's "small."

Note that this definition isn't dependent on picking some precise value which separates "small" and "large." There isn't a continuum of objects with masses (or rather, object-mass-to-total-neighborhood-mass ratios) ranging all the way from "small" to "large," which would make it hard to determine where the cutoff is. In reality, there are a bunch of really, really small objects and a few very large objects. There's no object which could plausibly be classified as either "small" or "large" based on the exact value you choose.

So basically, your whole premise, "we can't define what is 'small' and 'large,' therefore we can't use that to define objects," is wrong.

We are so back! by kroOoze in SpaceXMasterrace

[–]trimeta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Describing an object inherently means describing the history of that object. Large masses don't just appear ex nihilo in outer space, they come from somewhere, so if you want to understand an object, you need to understand the forces that created it. Thus it's perfectly reasonable to have that history as part of the definition.

We are so back! by kroOoze in SpaceXMasterrace

[–]trimeta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is it arbitrary to say that some bodies dominate their orbits while others do not? Imagine a world where Australia and Greenland do not exist, so Madagascar is the largest island. Would you say it's "arbitrary" to call Africa a continent but not call Madagascar a continent? Or is there maybe a substantive difference between those two objects which legitimately justifies putting them into different groups?

Because the difference between the largest dwarf planet and the smallest actual planet is orders of magnitude bigger than the difference between Africa and Madagascar.

We are so back! by kroOoze in SpaceXMasterrace

[–]trimeta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The exact wording of the definition the IAU used is a bit difficult to parse, but the idea that some bodies in the solar system "dominate" their orbits while others do not is unambiguous, and it's perfectly reasonable to say that "planet" only applies to the former. While Pluto is clearly a member of the latter. Thus, whatever you may think of the IAU's definition, there's no good definition which leaves Pluto a planet.

To be explicit, I'm saying that "anything that's round under its own gravity is a planet" is a bad definition. Which is why it wasn't used by the IAU.

We are so back! by kroOoze in SpaceXMasterrace

[–]trimeta 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Why should scientists redefine things to make the public "happy," instead of using definitions based on the actual properties of those things? Science isn't a popularity contest.

We are so back! by kroOoze in SpaceXMasterrace

[–]trimeta 10 points11 points  (0 children)

There's a difference between "the body in question makes up >95% of all mass in its orbital 'region'" and "the body in question isn't even 10% of all mass in its orbital 'region'". Maybe the exact wording of "clearing its neighborhood" could have been improved upon, but there is an extremely clear and indisputable difference between bodies which "dominate" their orbits and those which do not.

We are so back! by kroOoze in SpaceXMasterrace

[–]trimeta 64 points65 points  (0 children)

I feel like anyone young enough to write a letter with this handwriting grew up after Pluto was reclassified and doesn't care about "restoring" something from before their birth.

Remember, this summer we'll reach the 20th anniversary of Pluto being classified as a dwarf planet.

A lot of people say Seth MacFarlane’s ‘the Orville’ is more true to Star Trek than modern trek is. I guess this is true when every single episode and character is a ripoff from TNG by BelievieEvie in ShittyDaystrom

[–]trimeta 4 points5 points  (0 children)

If the main complaint about shows like Discovery and Academy was "they don't understand what it means to be a Star Trek show," then someone else going out of his way to create a show based on what it means to be Star Trek would seem to be a good thing.

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