@JPhi1618 - DO IT!!! :o)

RE the IT job market: Ace tech kid graduates with all the accolades and top of his class. Scores an interview with a top coding firm and blows confidently through every exec interview, one by one. He figures he's a shoe-in for this well-paid position; only one more interview. In comes the old crumbucket HR Director, who states "I only have one question for you. What would you say is your greatest weakness?"

Kid stumbles for a moment, and says quite plainly "My honesty." HR guy grumbles and says "What, I asked you what you thought your greatest weakness was. Kid repeats in a confident tone, "I am sure it's my honesty."

HR guy gafaws again and says, "That makes no sense. I don't think honesty is a weakness."

Kid shouts "I don't give a @$&^@ what you think!!"

Hahaha

@JPhi1618 weirdly, most watches, including the Apple Watch, do not reliably pick up my heart rate. The new Fitbit is the only one that does

Apparently their dual colour laser sensor thing is needed for some people

@Ceshion not necessarily stronger...in fact there are good arguments for less of a requirement on physical strength in bones and muscles

@Ceshion I suppose enhanced radiation resistance would be necessary for space travel

Actually, if you wrap the water tankage around the living space, you can greatly attenuate the radiation threat. You need a fair amount of water but then you also need a long haul spacecraft so we might as well wish for both unicorns at once.

@RoryAlsop I guess I was more thinking in terms of organ function and overall durability/longevity

and the ability to replace parts since if you break your arm here you can spend a while resting and it'll heal, but if you break it out in space you instantly become a liability unless you have a large enough group to pick up the slack

and, additionally, structural reinforcement for things like your brain to resist the effects of high acceleration

and better/different solutions for circulation for the same reason

A lot of those human factors issues are solved if you can maintain fairly steady acceleration. If you had a magic ship that could accelerate at 1g for a whole day, that’s a delta V of 864000 meters per second (or about 2 million mph). That simplifies a lot of the logistics enormously.

Real life moment: why do people force you to call them a liar to their face? “I never heard you say anything about Java 9!!!1!” “We talked about this in many meetings. I put it in all the release notes and the build summary write-ups. We talked about this during the last live test. You were sitting right next to me.”

Earth humans can be very tedious.

@BobCross I think that's the only sensible way to do it. You start in Earth orbit, keep accelerating constantly up to the halfway point, then turn the ship round so the engines are pointing forward, and keep decelerating for the second half of the journey, until you drop into the orbit of your destination planet.

I do think 1g is too low of an acceleration though

1g is good for the humans though

yes, but you'd get there so slowly

You're going to get there slowly anyway ;)

hence why reinforcement would be advantageous, you could get there faster (relatively speaking) without damage

You have a top speed of 671 million mph regardless of how quickly you acceleration

I mean I realize it's going to be a long trip either way unless we figure out a much, much better energy solution, but we could at least do a little better

well, of course

probably quite a bit less that that in practice

It depends where you're going too

start with Mars and it's not too bad

but accelerating quickly (again relatively speaking) to .5c (assuming we have much better energy production), traveling, then decelerating quickly, would get us there a lot faster

interstellar gets somewhat more complicated

well yeah, but Mars isn't exactly inhabitable

survivable, maybe, but not inhabitable

minor issue ;)

I was thinking Proxima b to start with

according to a random physics forum, 520 days to get to 0.9c

so just under 3 years to accelerate to that speed and decelearate

how far to proxima b?

I would think the energy requirements for that would be too far beyond what we're close to in this lifetime

but it's 12 light-years

so 24 years if you were able to average 0.5c

right

I was trying to figure out how to calculate time given a maximum accel/decel rate and speed limit, but I also have to work so can't go digging and there's nothing on it immediately on google

I can do one or the other, but not both

so at 1g, that's a year and a half to get up to speed, about 20 years travelling, and another year and a half to slow down again

(either acceleration or deceleration, I mean)

roughly

that doesn't seem right, you wouldn't be averaging .5c since you'd be traveling under .5c for 3 of the years of travel in that case

(but that is exactly why I'm having a hard time calculating it)

since you'd need an acceleration/deceleration curve that averages out to .5c

dummies.com/education/science/physics/…

gives a distance of 378232125833013m while accelerating to 0.9c

or 0.0399 light years

if I've got the maths right

and would take how long?

275038955s

that's starting from 0m/s though

so about 32.5 years to travel

anyway

that was fun

so we still end up with the

physics police are a lot stricter than earth police about speed limits issue

but here's my thinking, back to the original point

32.5 years of a normal human's life is a pretty big chunk of it

if you live for 500 years because of the machinery you have, it's not as big a chunk

Continuous acceleration is surprisingly effective, even at low g. Remember that 1g steady acceleration gets you to a nominal 0.5c in a year. Yes, it’s more complicated with special relativity but you’ve already postulated a magic source of reaction mass....

suppose so! so really high acceleration actually only speeds up interplanetary travel

Also, time dialation applies to the people on board this magic ship. They age slower than the universe around them.

which is still useful, but less so

hm, I wonder how much of an effect that would be

and actually I miscalculated a little, since the acceleration time would be 8 years each direction

rather, accel/decel

There's also the key thing to consider - it doesn't actually need to be successful. Just go on the 'B ark' principle

yeeeaaaah but wouldn't it be better if it was?

There’s an equation for it. Lorentz factor. It’s about 15% at 0.5c

It’s an inverse square root relation. Gets more significant suddenly. It’s a factor of two at 0.75c and a factor of 3 at 0.9c

so we'd be traveling at .5c for 23.9 years plus accelerating and decelerating for a total of 17.5 years, so... more like 37? ish? years from the point of view of the travelers?

There’s an example like that on the Wikipedia page. You have to know who’s frame of reference you’re looking from.

@BobCross I tried reading Einstein's theory of relativity. It starts of nice and simple, then gets really complicated!

of course all of this is back of the napkin because we're not taking into account the distance each planet is traveling during that time, for one, and I'm sure other factors I'm not personally aware of

basically I'm not actually an expert on interstellar travel theory

but I like to think about what could get us there

and if we don't have more speed then more time is acceptable

@Ceshion We need to ask @Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2, going by his avatar at the moment...

@Ceshion ahh - understood. Yes that makes sense

Or in more seriousness, it's make a good question on Space.SE

@NickC definitely

Currently anything outside the solar system requires an ark, so the actual acceleration you can manage may be less important

So, the Santa that we've been going to for the past 5 years just died.

@NickC I am really interested in higher physics but when they mentioned the concept of spacetime I suddenly got a headache...

You can't say that - you need spoiler tags dude @JPhi1618

Ha, sorry! We're not sure if the kids will notice or care. Oldest is 5.7.

They aperantly got a replacement santa, so we can still go. Sad tho.

@Myself I managed to get a year of quantum and astrophysics in at university because I had managed to be educated to 2nd year level through my school. It was fun, but the maths did get a bit brain frying

@JPhi1618 you have a child who is 5.7 years old? That's precise :-)

@RoryAlsop We got back some standard test scores, and that's what they labeled her, so I'm sticking with it.

They know better than I do.

I round my kids ages to the nearest integer. And I tend to work mine out from first principles as I never remember

Once you get to numbers this high it's difficult

So I find current unix time, subtract my birth time and then convert back into years, days, minutes etc

(Not really - just in case anyone thought I was being serious)

@RoryAlsop, heh, my birthday is easy to calculate based on the current year, so I never actually remember how old I am. I always think what year it is and figure it out.

... I count epochs

The Precambrian was fun ;-p

@RoryAlsop All hail our emperor, the great old one!

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 thinks that tire manufacturers are lying, dirty cheats.

Nah - that's Cthulhu @Myself

@JPhi1618 I quite like Bridgestone. They keep my car on the road rather well

@RoryAlsop Surely you got to know him :)

Yeah, but he keeps stealing the drinks

So we don't invite him over any more

@RoryAlsop Just getting his attention for later. Wanted to argue about the tire grading tests they do for treadwear.

@RoryAlsop Ask the Norns to teach him a lesson

@JPhi1618 how do they do them? I don't think I have seen anything that describes the process

@Myself he just keeps sending shoggies back to bite me

@RoryAlsop Kinda interesting. TLDR of the wiki article... They buy a "standard tire" from the government, then they take a fleet of cars and drive a 7200 mile circuit of roads in West Texas and compare the wear of their tires to the standard.

I assume you read goominet.com/unspeakable-vault

@RoryAlsop, link in that answer.

@RoryAlsop probably because he's scared of you

speaking of tires, wouldn't different tires affect a skid pad test? i.e. the lateral g measurement with the stock tires could be wildly different from a different tire?

@RoryAlsop, I can't believe they do 7200 miles on public roads. Thats 120 hours at 60mph (typical average highway speeds).

@Ceshion I think the manufacturer has to use OEM tires. The tires they plan to sell on the car as standard equipment.

I don't think we have treadwear in the UK... I won't swear to it, but I have never seen it. Although my purchasing criteria do not include wear so it may have passed me by

I require lateral grip in wet and dry, and excellent braking. Everything else is irrelevant to me

But you folks in the US expect 100k+ mile lifespan whereas I change my tyres every service (so 10k) or sooner if I need to

@RoryAlsop The one here is government run, so its totally possible there's not a Euro version.

I'd far prefer grip over longevity, but maybe that's because my first vehicle was a motorcycle where that's pretty much par

And 50k miles is more of what people want. Unless you're a long-haul trucker.

@Ceshion yep. Grip wins - it's a safety item. Lifespan is just a cost piece (which is important if you are a trucker, yes)

@JPhi1618 The current Euro one does wet grip, fuel economy and noise

I am always surprised when people buy tyres that are cheaper than half a tank of petrol and complain about any that are more expensive

@RoryAlsop exactly. it's the only thing stopping you...

My argument to people "If it's raining and a child runs out in front of you, will your budget ditchfinders stop you as quickly as decent tyres"

@NickC Ok, noise is a good one. The US does grip and a temperature/speed rating.

Yup - when I chat to young lads about car modding (happens a bit as I tend to have cars popular with boy racers) I point out that I first do tyres, then brakes, strut brace, then shocks...and only then power upgrades

@RoryAlsop the old saying... Don't cheap out on anything that connects you to the ground.

The point being that stopping better allows faster speeds more safely

@RoryAlsop exactly.

That, and you don't really need power to get better, tighter feeling handling.

@JPhi1618 exactly. However we are petrolheads so we get that :-) normal folks do seem to see it as a cost.

@RoryAlsop Yep. hence the child in the road argument, that tends to get through better to normal people

I'm not gonna lie, I try to get tires that will last a while because most of my driving is boring highway stuff.

@JPhi1618 It's always a balance...

If I had cooler places to drive, I might start spending more.

@NickC I like that. It would work with grown adults. I still have challenges explaining to kids why it is good - I usually do it by demonstrating cornering

Well, that and it's hard to find sport tires for the minivan..

@JPhi1618 I'm now picturing BA's van squealing round a corner in a typical A-team chase

@NickC Searched for "A-Team Chrysler Pacifica" and was not disappointed...

Google is getting pretty clever. And sarcastic. That's when you know AI is getting a little too good - when it starts mocking you.

Can somebody recommend a nice pick set? Amazon only leaves me the choice between some 99 piece sets made from Chinese flower wire and €60 glorious German picksets (made of gas turbine blades during a full moon night by a secret clan of mad Westphalian toolmakers, hardened with dragonfire and blessed by a Tibetan priestess)

@Myself, does it have to be from Amazon?

Well, I guess you are in Europe?

Bosnianbill gave these a good review: madbobpicks.co.uk/Ghost-Pro-Lock-Pick-Set-p/gh-001.htm

@JPhi1618 I prefer Amazon as the shops in Italy have limited choices and delivering from Germany costs more money

Have you looked around on banggood.com? I see picks on their recommended a lot (and some crap too).

@JPhi1618 That's an interesting site, thank you

banggood.com/…

Lockpicking lawyer had a good review of those. Out of stock, but something to start looking from.

@Ceshion actually, that sort of thing is an optimizing problem in the target motion analysis domain. A gradient search “guess and check” methodology will produce a useful approximate intercept solution pretty quickly. ... In other news, I am a huge nerd.

@JPhi1618 I assume you are into lockpicking?

Good page: lock-lab.com/tool-zone/commercial-picks-tools

@Myself I've been watching some youtube videos lately, but never bought any picks. I've used some home-made tools to get in to some locks as a learning exercise. I want to get into it more.

I will try it, thank you

@JPhi1618 - Its not that I think tire manufacturers are dirty rotten scoundrels, it's just that you can't get two in a room together to have a consensus.

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2, heh yea. I was surprised when I re-read it with your comment in mind.

If they let the manufacturers do their own testing, its not going to be apples to apples.

I guess, each one would cheat as much as possible, meaning the numbers are still comparable?

I think we can trust a manufacturer against itself for decent treadlife ratings. Another good measure is the warranty. If they off a 70k mile warranty, you should bet it's too g to last longer than a tire with only 40k

Well, last longer than their tire with a 40K... I still don't think you can compare between manufacturers.

They assume that X% (a higher number) will never think about the warranty after the purchase and will never make a claim.

I think you should take a holistic approach, also into taking account reviews from consumers.

Tires go round and round.

The wheels on the bus...

@JPhi1618 I wasn't specifically looking at the warranty, but rather just the idea of the warranty longevity.

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2, so, your opinion, do you think that you can even kinda compare the ratings from brand to brand? Would you not care if a Bridgestone was rated at 700, and a Dunlop was 500?

(random brands)

(lets say they are the same price)

I don't know. I have opinions about certain brands which I won't buy. This taints my view of them, so it factors into the mix. I'm sure others have their opinions as well. Personally I probably wouldn't be comparing Dunlop or Bridgestone in the first place, because I wouldn't even be looking at them. I'm very opinionated about tires. Very few brands I'd even look at in the first place.

It doesn't mean my opinion is right for everyone, but it does work for me.

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 Same for me. Since virtually nobody has a real possibility to test a wide selection he has to resort to other methods: gut feeling, price or test results from other sources. As for me I buy only Michelin

Michelin sux, Pirelli 4 ever!

(joking)

Michelin's are great tires for the most part, they are over priced for what you get, though (IMHO).

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 Indeed - I think some of the mid-range brands are better in that respect than the big names

Just as good in terms of grip, but much cheaper

I also find it depends a lot on the car in question - tyres that are good on one might be less so on anohter

My current favourite is the UniRoyal Rainexpert - mid-range in price, but gets much better reviews than a lot of more expensive tyres, for a car like mine

bearing in mind that I live in the UK, and we have a lot of rain...

@NickC You "could" be right, I don't know. I guess it is something psychological: I won't save on the tires. If something happens I would never forgive me to allow this for trying to save 40$/€

@Myself Me neither, but I also don't subscribe to more expensive == better

I go on reviews, recommendations etc rather than just price

@NickC yep.. I've used some relatively expensive tires that were simply dreadful.. Pirelli P6000s anyone? :)

No idea what to do with the new battery charger question... Is that even on topic here? Barely if at all.

Oh well. I'm going in with an answer.

I'm a Michelin man

I quite like Kumhos and Hankooks as well

@Zaid you should get some exercise then!

I set myself up there, didn't I?

;)

I was thinking the same thing.

We have a michelin man baby... so many chub rolls.

@JPhi1618 that’s a good baby. Lots of skin for that skeleton to grow into.

I had those babies. Solid packed pumpkins!

@BobCross Yep, our first one was in the 99th weight percentile, and has stayed in the 90s for height.

Current baby is in the 90s as well.

They grow into it tho! Tall and slender.

Our second guy was quite the chubs. It looks like his height is going to top out a little less than me. That still makes him a tall strapping lad. No longer the chubs!

@NickC & @Ceshion - I think I need to confer with my interstellar colleagues. I'll have to get back to you ;-)

Speaking of which, the wife sent me to work with the Xmas candy that she wanted out of the house. OMG. I am going to explode.

@BobCross, doesn't she realize what's going to happen?

@BobCross - The idea behind this is so everyone else at work explodes ... you aren't supposed to personally eat it all.

"Oh sure, honey. I'll put in the break room for everyone... " hordes it all in desk drawer

She has red hair so she was clearly sent by the devil.

My Daughter-in-law has red hair ... I'm sure my son agrees with you most days, lol.

TIL: I live in hell. (all redheaded females at my house)

@JPhi1618 - Get OUT! Get out NOW!!!

They keep being sweet and making me food!

Well, that's not a bad tradeoff.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@JPhi1618 Dude. I just explained the whole “explode” problem. You’re basically doomed. Devil wimmin!

amazon.com/gp/product/B00DGRRVDI

We were talking about tires earlier today. Funny thing was, I was actually at the tire shop having a new set put on my truck during that exact time.

Does not fit my car. Ergo, dumb and bad. 😉

They had the truck up on the lift and was inspecting things. The wheels weren't spinning freely as you'd expect (brakes were dragging). So, I've ordered a new set of calipers. These are rebuilt ones, but were cheaper than new OEM ones. They have new guide pins in the caliper brackets, which I would have had to purchase as well.

@BobCross - It would only be dumb and bad if you actually purchased them for your car ... now, if you saw fit to order me the set, I'd have been Merry Christmas to Paul :o)

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2, I guess I just have it on my brain, but the product image, without me reading any words, looked like some kind of robot Santa Claus.

@JPhi1618 - That's hilarious! Since you mention it, I can see it, lol!

My eyes saw that first, and I stared at it for a minute before I read any words. Very confusing there for a second.

"it doesn't have a Cadillac converter"

Well there's your problem!!

It's not going to run like the Cadillac of cars without one of those.

@JPhi1618 - As opposed to a Lincoln converter or a Chrysler converter?

Man, there's no performance in those... Gotta have the Cadillac.

@JPhi1618 - Absolutely.

I just really don't know how people can post stuff of such low quality. I mean when in your life would that be OK?

I know I've said it before... it just baffles me every time. Not the catalytic/Cadillac part, - the question as a whole.

I wonder when people put information (or lack thereof) into a question, if they should really be working on their own cars.

Some people admit they just want to know what's wrong, but they plan on taking it to a shop.

That I have no issues with.

And if you think that's bad, you should see some of the super-low quality electrical questions on DIY.

Actually, I don't have an issue with someone working on their own car, just worry about them hurting themselves.

@JPhi1618 - Oh, I've seen some of them (may have written one as well).

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 Ha, nice.

What's a waste spark design? more than the needed plug fires?

like 2 at a time?

means the spark plug fires on TDC regardless of stroke

(or near TDC, realistically)

Right, ok. Makes sense.

Those poor, wasted sparks. Never seeing the beauty of internal combustion.

You'll see one coil, with two spark plug leads going out of it.

On the Bonneville in question, there'd be three coils.

Ok. Old GF had a Saturn I think was like that then. 4 cyl with two coils.

It's not a bad idea, but I like coil-on or coil-near setups with one-for-one (coil to cylinder). Just looks better, lol.

One of them crapped out. Engine would idle, but car had almost no power at all.

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 Yup. Coil-on is very clean. I do like the look of properly routed plug wires laying over valve covers tho...

@JPhi1618 - absolutely

superchevy.com/how-to/engines-drivetrain/…

Is that random knowledge or in response to something?

Cool diagram, anyway.

@motosubatsu, nice "give up password" answer over on Workplace. workplace.stackexchange.com/a/103720/40682

I wonder if the employer could use the "everything you worked on using company property is ours" argument to force you to open it. After all, what would you be hiding on a work computer anyway?

@JPhi1618 thanks :)

@JPhi1618 that one's sketchier..the IP rules apply to what you do on company time (generally)

really the only sensible approach an employee can take is not to have anything on a work device that you aren't happy for work to see

I guess if you didn't have a laptop at home, you might take advantage of the work laptop for more person reasons...

But its not yours, and there shouldn't be any expectation of privacy.

@motosubatsu, where do you live? I notice you have starred comment about having Thanksgiving dinner once, so not in the US...

@JPhi1618 I'm UK based :)

Ok, cool. Certainly a lot of you guys around.

@JPhi1618 to be fair to them, that might be an autocorrect issue rather than them not knowing, a lot of people post from phones...

@JPhi1618 yeah I think we are probably one of the biggest SE demographics after US

@NickC Yea, I know. It was the gammar and format of the question as a whole that makes me wonder.

@JPhi1618 also remember that a lot of our users aren't native English speakers

Well, I do keep that in mind.

@NickC <cough> @Myself <cough>

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2, I know... We're infested with them. Rory too.

ROFL!

At least they're not unfairly taxing us like they used to.

@JPhi1618 every system that we use at work forces everyone to acknowledge “this is not your computer. You are at work. This is our computer. Don’t put your personal stuff on here. Seriously, what is your problem? Use your own computer!”

@BobCross That's good. I wonder if the newer generation has more of a problem because of all the appliance computing devices they use?

@JPhi1618 they don’t seem to. The olds are the people with the major issues. “Back in the old days, we had stupid situation X, Y and Z. Those were the days!” 🙄

Hmm, yea. Now that I think about it, "kids these days" might automatically assume they shouldn't do personal stuff on it if they're used to picking up any ol' device laying around to work on.

Exactly. The reverse is usually the problem: don’t do work on your personal machine because OMG the hammer will come down.

That said, I did get the bigger phone so I could google for software engineering blogs (blocked by firewall).

@BobCross - There is so much they don't allow through at my work. There's a process to allow them to open the site, but it's prefaced by "as long as it's work related" or some such.

@BobCross all our do similar

@motosubatsu - Same same ... everything is prefaced by "If you're on here, we own you."

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 yeah..ours do it at login so that by logging in you are agreeing to it - I imagine yours is similar

Yup yup