Stack Exchange
log in

alephzero

 Discussion on answer by Buffy: When t…

Imported from a comment discussion on academia.stackexchange.c...
alephzero
Apr 12, 2023 15:31
"And it would constitute copyright infringement precisely because its plagiarism." No. It would constitute copyright precisely because it was a copy. You can infringe copyright by copying verbatim the derivation of the solution of a quadratic equation from a textbook. Nobody would attempt to claim that was "plagiarism," I hope. You can't "plagiarize" something that everyone working in your field was taught in high school!
 

 Discussion on question by PyRsquared:…

Imported from a comment discussion on bicycles.stackexchange.c...
alephzero
Oct 19, 2021 15:35
A personal anecdote about "non-standard" lights and high-vis reflectors: I was driving through the village I live in one night when I saw something that looked like a yellow McDonalds sign waving about in the air in front of me. I was still trying to figure out what it was when I nearly collided with the rear of a black horse, with a saddle cloth edged with high-vis reflectors. The high-vis made the actual horse invisible at a distance. (Horse-riders are common in the village, so there was nothing unusual about a horse being ridden after dark)
alephzero
Oct 19, 2021 15:35
Do you really expect every car driver to slow down to 10mph just because you are dawdling along on a bike? Of course they shouldn't drive dangerously close to you, but you don't "own the road" any more than they do. If you don't want to annoy them, try riding at a more normal cycling speed in traffic. And IMHO flashing lights should be made illegal for anything except emergency vehicles - they create more visual confusion than improved visibility.
 

 Discussion on question by Alex Cannon…

Imported from a comment discussion on mechanics.stackexchange....
alephzero
Oct 5, 2021 19:45
When you have removed the load limiter and spent time in hospital with broken ribs and punctured lungs caused by your seat belt, you might want to change your mind about load limiters. Just saying. Your skull is a lot harder to break than your chest. Peer-reviewed papers have reported up to 85% reduction in injuries in real-world crashes, when load limiters are installed.
alephzero
Oct 5, 2021 19:45
It was a paper about injuries not deaths, and it was a study of road accidents in France (Renault were one of the first manufacturers to introduce load limiters). Sample size was about 350 crashes with, and 350 without limiters. BTW do you realize how high seat belt loads on your chest are without load limiters? You are talking numbers like 1500 pounds or more. I would say even if you avoided chest injuries in a high speed crash without a limiter, you would most likely have a broken neck (which could leave you as a quadriplegic for the rest of your life, if that's your preferred outcome).
 

 Discussion on answer by Dave: At the …

Imported from a comment discussion on skeptics.stackexchange.c...
alephzero
Sep 29, 2021 18:54
@Harper-ReinstateMonica "Or will they be literally bringing coal to Newcastle?" The UK has been doing that for decades already. See statista.com/statistics/370921/…
alephzero
Sep 29, 2021 18:54
@WeatherVane In many parts of the UK, coal has been gone as a domestic fuel for decades already. The first UK Clean Air Act restricting coal usage was passed in 1956.
alephzero
Sep 29, 2021 18:54
... another (non-obvious) problem with heritage steam trains is the amount of disruption caused by illegal trespassing on railway property by sightseers. One notorious set of incidents in 2016 resulted in a single heritage train operation causing 8 hours of disruption to 59 scheduled services.
alephzero
Sep 29, 2021 18:54
@Harper-ReinstateMonica There are about 6,000 registered narrow boats in use on UK canals, but the number of coal fired (and steam powered) boats that are actually used (i.e. not just displayed in museums) can probably be counted on the fingers of one hand. Heritage steam trains are increasingly problematic to operate aside from fuel considerations, since even if their top speed is high their acceleration is too slow to mix with modern commercial rail traffic without disrupting timetables. Importing one train-load of coal per year from say eastern Europe isn't going to destroy the planet!
 

 Discussion on question by el-cheapo: …

Imported from a comment discussion on workplace.stackexchange....
alephzero
Sep 28, 2021 23:37
@mcalex I disagree - at the end of the day trust is the only thing that matters, whether the project is a success or not. Do you think the OP will get any more "trust" on the next project they are leading, after this one? Even if the targets are deleted, most likely people won't believe they have been deleted but that the OP has just stopped overtly talking about them.
 

 Discussion on question by Aak: Can I …

Imported from a comment discussion on travel.stackexchange.com...
alephzero
Sep 28, 2021 22:35
If the only access to money that you have is £25 in cash, somebody might well wonder how you plan to fund you stay in the UK. £25 won't even pay for one night in the cheapest hotel you can find, for example.
 

 Discussion on question by Tom: How to…

Imported from a comment discussion on travel.stackexchange.com...
alephzero
Sep 25, 2021 05:25
My experience in in "multilingual" environments like the Netherlands is that hotel staff, shop assistants, etc just keep saying "Hello" in different languages until they get a response, and carry on from there. The fact that young people who have learned English in school are likely to be more comfortable using it than older people is a good one.
 

 Discussion on answer by Adam Coville:…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
alephzero
Sep 23, 2021 15:09
You have ignored the energy cost of creating the infrastructure to make your estimates possible. For example, 400m commuters using public transport with 40 per bus: assuming one bus can make 10 useful commuter journeys at each end of each working day, that requires building 1m buses, and in a country like the USA where the road infrastructure has been left to rot for half a century, a lot of new road construction - and more expensively, bridge construction. (Buses are heavier than cars, and therefore damage roads faster than cars).
 

 Discussion on question by Bhagwad Jal…

Imported from a comment discussion on philosophy.stackexchange...
alephzero
Sep 23, 2021 08:50
If your only definition of consciousness is "it is something that I know I have, therefore it exists," it is beyond any rational discussion until you can formulate some notion where everyone can be sure they are talking about the same concept. Otherwise, consciousness is no more in the domain of physics than invisible unicorns.
 

 Discussion on question by Popiko123: …

Imported from a comment discussion on workplace.stackexchange....
alephzero
Sep 22, 2021 16:35
If you don't mind everybody knowing that "you are the weirdo who leaves those 'anonymous' notes around the office", go right ahead. If you do something as peculiar as this, don't expect to remain anonymous for long.
 

 Discussion on question by jimjim: Why…

Imported from a comment discussion on engineering.stackexchang...
alephzero
Sep 14, 2021 16:47
You don't say what country this plug is for, but UK USB plugs don't have this problem. The USB ports are either on the bottom of the mains plug (where the power cable would be if there was one) or the front, and with up to 4 USB ports on one plug, since UK plugs (type G) are bigger than some other national standards. (Coming from the UK I never think those wimpy 2-pin plugs that fall out of the socket if you even look at them are safe for anything.)
 

 Discussion on answer by Michael Harve…

Imported from a comment discussion on ell.stackexchange.com/qu...
alephzero
Sep 9, 2021 07:36
@MichaelHarvey In English technical writing, it is an international standard that "shall" signiifes a requirement - i.e. something MUST occur something or MUST be done. "Will" signifies a statement of fact. Given the increasing prevalence of the technical use of English, "I shall be 20 years old next month" now sounds odd - it implies that the speaker has to do something in order to become 20 years old next month! "I shall be 20 years old next month" is as unidiomatic as "I must become 20 years old next month" IMO.
 

 Discussion on question by Nahian Rifa…

Imported from a comment discussion on workplace.stackexchange....
alephzero
Aug 30, 2021 12:49
PIcking up the OP's mention of Eid, and the OP's profile information, the cultural relationship between "managers/supervisors" and "workers" can be very different in the Middle East than in the West. Possibly that is part of the problem . (I don't condone the actual behavior of the manager here, though).
 

 Discussion on question by BSD: I want…

Imported from a comment discussion on diy.stackexchange.com/qu...
alephzero
Aug 29, 2021 15:42
"Wood construction is standard" might be true where you live but it is certainly not true everywhere. Aside from centuries-old historical buildings that have survived, you won't find many in the UK or most of Europe, for example, simply because all the forests had already been felled for timber centuries ago. (And if somebody wants to claim that transporting trees 1000 miles to build houses is somehow "eco-friendly" they are entitled to their opinion IMO.)
 

 Discussion on question by Robert Long…

Imported from a comment discussion on law.stackexchange.com/qu...
alephzero
Aug 26, 2021 22:02
@RobertLong Do you really think a supermarket records the sell-by date and product manufacturing batch codes of every can of beans it sells, in case somebody complains later? For a store like Argos, a set of earbuds isn't a high-value item that makes you a "valued customer" they want to retain! You just learned the hard way what is the real purpose of these "insurance" products: to make more profit from gullible customers.
 

 Discussion on question by hellofriend…

Imported from a comment discussion on physics.stackexchange.co...
alephzero
Aug 26, 2021 00:16
@Gert I would rather change "force pairs" in my comment to "internal force pairs" than bring in nonlinear angular accelerations to confuse the OP even more - but you are right of course.
alephzero
Aug 26, 2021 00:16
@hellofriends IMO this won't be resolved until you stop describing everything as a "word problem" and start doing some math.
alephzero
Aug 26, 2021 00:16
@hellofriends The statement of Newton's second law applies to point particles which have no rotation by definition of what "point particle" means. In general, rotating rigid bodies have non-zero, but equal and opposite, force pairs between every pair of particles in the body, but the net force on each particle is not zero. That is why reason I'm not sure what you mean by "net force of zero."
alephzero
Aug 26, 2021 00:16
@hellofriends You know what you think the equations are supposed to mean, but I'm not sure that you think what I think they mean. You really need to define what you mean by "zero linear acceleration" here. It is obvious that the linear acceleration is different at different points on a rotating rigid body.
 

 Discussion on question by Lord Ratte:…

Imported from a comment discussion on money.stackexchange.com/...
alephzero
Aug 24, 2021 17:00
Wait until a major credit card company accepts bitcoin, and let them do the currency conversion (and take their own commission) at the market rate. This works fine for every other currency worldwide, so if bitcoin wants to be classed as a "currency" it had better not be an exception.
 

 Discussion on answer by Jpe61: Is it …

Imported from a comment discussion on aviation.stackexchange.c...
alephzero
Aug 23, 2021 08:37
@jamesqf Not many motorists, hikers or horse riders are going to climb or descend 12,000 feet in 15 minutes. The safety mechanisms in the spray might not be designed to handle repeated and rapid air presssure changes.
 

 Discussion on question by DrMcCleod: …

Imported from a comment discussion on academia.stackexchange.c...
alephzero
Aug 21, 2021 02:34
Don't over-think this. It doesn't usually mean more than "leave guns and knives outside the door" (both literally and metaphorically). It is also HR-doublespeak for "a meeting where gullible employees can give the company enough information to fire them, without realizing what they are doing."
 

 Discussion on question by Neil Meyer:…

Imported from a comment discussion on workplace.stackexchange....
alephzero
Aug 18, 2021 03:28
"Years of preparation to get to the point where you can do Web development" seems like a red flag and misunderstanding how software development actually gets done. Once your career progresses beyond the entry-level stage, you will probably be spending less than 50% of your time actually "writing code," and maybe as little as 20%. The rest of your working time will be interacting with other people.
2
 

 Discussion on question by Coconut: Ca…

Imported from a comment discussion on academia.stackexchange.c...
alephzero
Aug 12, 2021 23:48
@Buffy If depends on the field. In engineering it is absolutely standard to cite the exact version of industry standard analysis software like Nastran, Abaqus, Ansys, etc. (There is no realistic chance that an academic researcher is going to write their own code to compete with commercial software written by teams of literally hundreds of PhD-level developers)
 

 Discussion on question by kutschkem: …

Imported from a comment discussion on christianity.stackexchan...
alephzero
Aug 10, 2021 14:42
@OneGodtheFather You are over-complicating this. If someone self-identifies as "Christian", then most likely they have a personal opinion about who are fellow-Christians and who are the spawn of Satan. There is no logical reason why that personal opinion has any rational basis. Don't forget that people who have never read the Bible in their lives and don't even know what "theology" is may self-identify as "Christian".
 

 Discussion on question by Edwig: Accu…

Imported from a comment discussion on workplace.stackexchange....
alephzero
Aug 10, 2021 05:21
If this is an international consultancy company, figure out a way to get John out of the loop. For example offer him the "promotion carrot" of spending 6 months on-site with one of your key clients. Alternatively, give yourself the job of spending 6 months on-site with a client, and leave the rest of the kindergarten to do whatever they like (or whatever John likes) while you sort out your own career path.
 

 Discussion on answer by Ben Crowell: …

Imported from a comment discussion on politics.stackexchange.c...
alephzero
Aug 9, 2021 06:05
@Ray If Trump says that hydroxychloroquine and household bleach are treatments for Covid, (and he did publicly promote both of those remedies) would you take them instead of being vaccinated? If he then changes his mind and promotes a different remedy (e.g. vaccination) does his promoting that have any more credibility that his earlier advice? Even a fool is right sometimes, if only by pure luck.
 

 Discussion on question by Nick K: How…

Imported from a comment discussion on engineering.stackexchang...
alephzero
Aug 7, 2021 21:41
@DKNguyen The tangential speed of the OP's disk rims is about Mach 0.5. Unless they are proposing to run the device in a vacuum chamber, the motor power to generate the artificial tornado that will be created is of the order of megawatts. (And those megawatts will all end up as heat, somewhere in the system....)
alephzero
Aug 7, 2021 21:41
@NickK You really don't have any idea what you are proposing to do here. Unless you have a project budget of the order of \$10m to \$100m, just forget about it. My day job involves testing jet engine rotors, so I do have some idea - but what you are proposing is 100 times bigger than anything I have ever worked with.
alephzero
Aug 7, 2021 21:41
What @DKNguyen said. As an example of what a much smaller mass can do, I know of an accident where a large railway diesel engine was being tested (by professional engineers.) The flywheel came loose from the crankshaft with the engine running at about 2500 RPM. It went through the side of the engine, through the brick wall of the test building, across about 1km of railway sidings, through several fences and two more brick walls, and finally stopped inside the kitchen of someone's house. Make this device at your own risk!
 

 Discussion on answer by Matthew: Are …

Imported from a comment discussion on christianity.stackexchan...
alephzero
Aug 7, 2021 14:26
Did the GOAoA article even mention the LDS? (And by their definition, the historical person Jesus of Nazareth fits most of the requirements for a cult leader!)
 

 Discussion on question by Voxtenwatt:…

Imported from a comment discussion on workplace.stackexchange....
alephzero
Aug 6, 2021 06:35
The question is missing a critical piece of information: what is the OP's actual job? It makes a huge difference to the answer if they are the janitor responsible for keeping four offices clean and tidy, or the leader of a team that is providing some mission-critical service to the four projects.
 

 Discussion on question by Eagle: What…

Imported from a comment discussion on history.stackexchange.co...
alephzero
Aug 2, 2021 18:27
Ignoring the question of the original definition, glass weights were used in the middle East long before the Roman era. (Glass has the advantage over metal that it does not corrode, is tamper-proof, and unlike stone is easy to work with when melted). Archeological finds show consistent measurement units over long time periods and large geographical distances.
 

 Discussion on question by Asish: Is i…

Imported from a comment discussion on workplace.stackexchange....
alephzero
Aug 2, 2021 08:25
@NarasimhaSharma There is nothing in the question which says the OP is working in IT.
alephzero
Aug 2, 2021 08:25
In some industry sectors (e.g. call centers) this is absolutely standard and is done everywhere. There are many call centers in India, of course.
 

 Discussion on answer by anotherdave: …

Imported from a comment discussion on workplace.stackexchange....
alephzero
Jul 30, 2021 18:15
In the real world, you succeed at a task by doing it faster than your competitors, not better than your competitors. Very good advice from one of my mentors in industry: "if you have 2 weeks to complete a task that will take 4 weeks, what do you do? The wrong way is to work 16 hours a day instead of 8, and hope for the best. The right way is to spend the first 9 working days figuring out which 99% of the task isn't worth doing. Then do the remaining 1% on the morning of the last day, and leave early for the weekend."
 

 Discussion on question by JonathanRee…

Imported from a comment discussion on space.stackexchange.com/...
alephzero
Jul 29, 2021 14:06
It's considered "anathema" for the same reason that banging climbing bolts into rock faces anywhere you like just because you feel like doing it is also "anathema" - but on a different scale.
 

 Discussion on question by DJG: Is it …

Imported from a comment discussion on workplace.stackexchange....
alephzero
Jul 29, 2021 09:10
@JoeStrazzere I guess you have never worked on projects with a high level of security (aside from normal commercial security issues). If you are working on a project where you don't even have enough security clearance to know who the "customer" is, you certainly don't have clearance to know who is paying for it. (And since you don't need to know, you aren't going to get the security clearance any time soon either!)
 

 Discussion on question by Pascal Klei…

Imported from a comment discussion on workplace.stackexchange....
alephzero
Jul 27, 2021 21:52
Why are you surprised that things like "don't schedule remote shifts right before your vacation" are "questioned and cause frustration?" The rule says "management doesn't trust you to behave like a responsible adult employee". Most people's natural reaction that is "OK, if that's the way you feel I'll stop behaving like a responsible adult and see how you deal with it."
 

 Discussion on answer by Michael Seife…

Imported from a comment discussion on law.stackexchange.com/qu...
alephzero
Jul 23, 2021 18:04
@Nzall What's the problem "proving" the link? Leprosy has an incubation period up to 20 years. Kuru disease, more than 10 years. Even rabies can have an incubation period longer than one year.
 

 Discussion on question by JonathanRee…

Imported from a comment discussion on outdoors.stackexchange.c...
alephzero
Jul 22, 2021 11:15
There is a fairly broad class of "DIY safety questions" where the only correct answer is "if you personally don't know the safety issues associated with the procedure and you don't know how to evaluate the risks, then it is not safe for you to attempt to do it. This question is one of them, IMO.
alephzero
Jul 22, 2021 11:15
These type of canisters are perfectly safe - except when they aren't. I know somebody who blew out every window of his RV because of a defective one. He was also inside the van when it exploded, but he got lucky - just a few burned patches on his clothes.
 

 Discussion on question by John McSimo…

Imported from a comment discussion on academia.stackexchange.c...
alephzero
Jul 21, 2021 16:47
both the ones who copied the answers, and the one(s) who provided them - "Aiding and abetting" is just as much a criminal offence outside Academia as "committing a crime yourself". If the students are idiotic enough to think they can get away with something as blatant as turning in exact copies of the same project, they deserve a worse punishment than just "failing the course," and if your (so-called) academic establishment permits that sort of behavior, it would be entirely reasonable to close it down completely IMO.
 

 Discussion on question by Aadhavan: W…

Imported from a comment discussion on politics.stackexchange.c...
alephzero
Jul 17, 2021 19:11
Revolutionaries are not interested in "creating a better form of goverment." What they are interested in is "getting power and holding on to it" (which often really means "getting lots of money for themselves and keeping it". Actually, most non-revolutionary politicians have exactly he same objective, except that organizing violent revolution to get what they want is too much hassle so they don't bother to try that approach.
 

 Discussion on question by user216856:…

Imported from a comment discussion on workplace.stackexchange....
alephzero
Jul 16, 2021 19:28
People like going to meetings. The alternative is often to do some actual work. Your pay is the same either way, so no contest!