It’s hard to decide which simple machine system to invest in. DeWalt makes a great lever and inclined plane, but I hear Milwaukee’s wheel-and-axles are really good.

I think Randall really gets my life.

Amazing

That’s fair. Nearly everything at that scale is up for interpretation. I find that nothing in physics works the way it intuitively seems like it should.

Get it just right, and yeah, lower latency. It’s not likely to change the bandwidth though. 😉

"refractive index”

Not to split hairs here, but that’s also kind of the same thing.

Like what does “refractive” mean? Does it mean moving slower or bouncing around?

Exactly, at least that’s my understanding!

That is not the speed of light through fiber. That is the speed of light bouncing at diagonal angles as it travels through fiber.

It appears to travel slower because it’s not traveling in a straight line. But I promise, every individual photon is traveling at exactly c. Photons emmited simultaneously will not all arrive at a destination at the same time, but this isn’t because they’re traveling at different speeds, it’s because they’re taking different paths, reflecting and refracting slightly differently.

It’s an awesome comment, it totally could have been the hover text.

Our moon is definitely the most important body in the solar system after the sun and earth. There’s a good chance life is only possible on earth because of the moon.

The thing is, here on earth, we have this wealth of life and diversity, but we only have this diversity because we have a diversity of elements to work with. On most planets, we don’t see this diversity of elements, the same proportion of heavy elements have to be there somewhere, but we don’t see them on the surface. We’re pretty sure that this is because on other planets we don’t see plate tectonics. The process of plate tectonics churns and mixes the earth, it brings heavier elements that would normally be trapped underground back up to the surface.

The crazy part, is that we’re not 100% sure why we have plate tectonics, and why all the other planets in our solar system don’t. But a leading theory is that plate tectonics are sustained by the tidal forces of a very large moon.

If this interpretation is accurate, we really owe so much to the moon. Its continued gravitational force on the earth is what has made everything (life, intelligence, society, technology) possible.

Also, in a Drake equation/Fermi Paradox context, the perfect moon may very well be the extremely rare event that makes the earth truly special.

Desktop screen time is more often intentional.

The omnipotent being in question may not enjoy this programmer’s ploy to wish for more wishes.

It’s technically quite clever, but depending on who you’re asking, it could be dangerous route to take.

You should consider taking it apart and seeing how the buttons work, things like how large the spring is, what the actual electrical contact mechanism looks like, if there are guide tracks on the side of the button that allow it to press down evenly instead of tilting to one side or jamming.

If you know how it works, then even if you don’t find the exact same part from the exact same manufacturer, you’ll still be able to find something that works the same way and feels just the same, you may even find it cheaper or locally.

I’m a strong proponent of taking things apart.

I read “Alright let’s see pictures of your super nice rack”

And then I clicked before bothering to read the rest of the sentence.

Was not disappointed though.

Valued by my friends and family? Yes, very much so!

Value by society? No, not so much, but it’s mutual.

You know what… I’ve never seen this before, but I fully endorse this solution. This is mostly what we already have in place, but favoring consistency rather than flattering Roman emperors.

For those who didn’t know,

• August - named after Augustus Caesar
• July - named after Julius Caeser

Also, a few others are named after Roman gods. It’s cool, but not super relevant to anyone today.

How does this line up with lunar cycles? Is the solar year closer to 12 or 13 months?

Edit: I decided to answer my own question. It turns out there are about 12.4 lunar cycles per solar year, so it does fall right between 12 and 13, meaning that (in my opinion) both 12 and 13 months seem like reasonable systems.

Unfortunately it also means there’s no way to really sync the months with the year perfectly.

A side note on the solar year/lunar month not lining up… I know that planets in a star system tend to fall into resonant orbits, so you’ll often see common ratios in planetary orbital periods, making occultations more common (when planets all line up). But I actually don’t know how this relates to a planet’s moons.

Can confirm, these are excellent lessons.

If you don’t show up, you get fired.

When you’re 19, this is a valuable lesson.

Well, to my exceedingly untrained eye… this all seems to be in order. Great work here. You really made an open and shut case out of it. I guess we’re all leaving the office early today, first round’s on me!

The same toy, smashed.