Pete W

@reirab - here's something that seems to represent the overall situation ... pbs.twimg.com/media/… ... to the earlier assertion that the typical US household is massively wealthier than its peers. That claim is true at the top end only. In the middle, the US is not far from the developed country average (dotted line). For the low end, which argue is the true measure how well the system is working (I.e., palaces don't translate into national power), the US is lagging, too.

re: the chart of OECD adjusted disposable household income numbers.... the US figure is pretty much the same as the ENTIRE median household income from the 2020 census (68k ish), so something there doesn't seem right to me. I think it might be a mean vs median issue (I.e. "per capita" is a mean, and as the old stats teacher said, "mean is not a robust measure of central tendency")

@reirab - 2024 rankings of Median Wealth per Adult (USD), in order from #1 on down: Iceland, Luxembourg, Australia, Belgium, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Denmark, Switzerland, Canada, Netherlands, UK, France, Norway, Japan, Taiwan, Italy, Spain, Qatar, Malta, Sweden, United States ... worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/…

@phoog - you appear to be mistaking the metaphor for the meaning. the point in question, about common law systems vs civil law, is that common law creates an extra degree of freedom beyond the legislative process. this extra degree of freedom lies outside of prescribed and systematized process by which legislatures make laws, and is often at the discretion of an individual judge or a small panel of judges. At times some extremely contrived results happen eg interpretation of constitutional amendment freeing slaves to justify corporate personhood. IMO it's contrary to rule-of-law concept.

@phoog - written means via a legislative process, which produces a durable piece of information

@JonathanReez - dominated is past tense. Median income not much different from wealthy EU countries, but the difference is woeful cost-inefficient services in the US (ie health, education, transportation, law, housing). It means typical quality of life is better elsewhere. Reflected in health and edu stats. Militarily, the US Navy's Carrier group had to unceremoniously flee after a week or so exchanging fire with the Houthis. Suez semi closed. Bases in Iraq held hostage. Fled from Afghanistan too, after US + local allies spent a decade losing on the kill ratio there vs Taliban (see wiki)

@JonathanReez - regarding the latter statement, while that's obviously true, it's also stated from a perspective of extreme situations. Which is not the case most of the time. Most of the time rules are useful, or at least there is a clear opportunity for useful rules to exist. I.e. arrangements for mutual benefit to provide means other than violence to resolve disputes, enforce justice and safety ... So the question of attitude a society has toward such things in situations short of dire emergency is I'd say pretty significant ... [steps off soapbox...]

Yes - as you can see the US attitude to rules can become extraordinarily malleable. Witness the so-called rules based order - which I always found somewhat akin to a Chicken-based McNugget (I.e. bearing little resemblance to the namesake). The whole episode is entirely on-brand, if you ask me

In this case, we're not talking a "piece of paper" law, but rather a court ruling setting a "precedent". This a key feature of the common law system at work - which countries who inherited their legal system from England have. In this system, laws as they are intended to work, are most definitely not confined to what is written

👍

@AndrewJackson (flagging so you get notified, hopefully - still not sure how these chats work)

For making tea, surface tension falls vs temperature, but not dramatically. About 20% less from room temp to boiling.

So it seems that with stainless, whatever size these holes are, is just on the edge. I can imagine a different material thickness, and a more hydrophobic material, and smaller holes if that's the case, would give quite a bit more resistance to water

Anyway, I repeated your experiment with a cylindrical teapot strainer my SO has in the kitchen. It's stainless steel, about 6-7cm or so diameter, holes on bottom and sides, and holes look like about .7mm (but it's hard to judge scale with things I have around the house, I had to use a penny). It behaved not like you described, but more like what I'd expect. When first placed in cold tapwater, it floated. A gentle push made it sink. Then once it had been wetted, it was no longer able to float.

No prob. I guess you could play with hole size, and edge sharpness, just for experimentation. Also, was there a lot of dish soap making foam, or just a little?

Ok. So to clarify, where is the air getting stuck?

(I'll be back in a bit)

Can you just make a screenshot of a section view? (and add it to the original question)

I'm going by what I imagine is happening based on your description and the one photo. So might be worth the experiment

That your device's functional issue would be resolved, if there were a way to make the air/liquid boundary break free from the holes

Yep. Also, if you want to confirm it's really a surface tension effect you can try "using" your device with soapy water

No prob

Hmm. The micro geometry - texture, roughness, sharp edges near holes - would also come out different in stainless steel. And this would change how much the air-liquid interface (or entire bubbles) can "grip" in practice. A formed and then polished or even electro-polished stainless part would be quite smooth

If this is just a prototype, then maybe all you need to do is get the surface to be temporarily more hydrophilic. Or if it's just the weight of the part overcoming the same surface tension force, just add a temporary weight to represent what it would be if it were made from stainless

fantastic. Then no worries about final product. What you describe sounds just like the effect of surface tension. This is related to hydrophobic/hydrophilic. I tried to give a qualitative description here: engineering.stackexchange.com/questions/58463/…

plastics tend to be more hydrophobic. But also your observation that this behavior changes when "new" or "clean" is relevant. If so, it would be about whatever is coating the surface also. And the weight of the part of course. Can you zoom in on the holes?

👍 ok lets leave it there. I think you did a good and sober job presenting them :-) I have to go get ready for dinner - Hope you have nice evening.

They should have you walking houses for the campaign!

<sigh>

And any action is justified to stop that happening, right?

Yeah... I don't find that super compelling. Democrats have screwed up plenty of things too.

Oh I dunno. I guess I took the opposite path. Used to volunteer for campaigns, especially primaries. Local elections even. From my vantage point, since about 2016 or so (even during the primaries) everyone's just lost their minds, and never recovered.

yeah I'm seeing this as a very poor range of choices indeed

Neither, thank you very much

although ofc there is now no alternative to this, since Trump is running again

which is going to be pretty costly IMHO

also he's left Trump's policies on Iran and China largely unchanged

Not a fan

AFAIK, Biden was historically: 1. Strom Thurmond's pet Democrat , bipartisan on 80s-90s crime laws 2. corporate lobby 3. pro Israel 4. shut down any progressive movements within D party 5. top within Congress helping sell Iraq war

No contradiction there

Anyway I hope you're right. As you can tell I'm not holding my breath

Trump was way cheaper

I meant Biden

Yeah. You'd think being AIPAC's #1 historical investment would get you some respect...

One would hope. It won't happen under either Biden or Trump tho, so at least 4 more years of it getting worse :-(

The US however also has to eat the consequences. Not so sure they can pull off the same level of self delusion

Probably not, unfortunately. I think the last 5 months is something there's no way to take back. Either one goes all in on whatever story they tell themselves to justify it, or it breaks down and the brutality of it becomes inescapable. Prob most Israelis will go with the former.

Netanyahu, I suppose, will personally take the blame when the dust settles

The Israeli right is doing better than ever

anyway it's a lose/lose situation, that was engineered IMO by Israel, thinking they'd squeeze out a win/lose out of it. Oops.