I fully agree. It’s more the frustration that it now takes so much time and resources to make even a tiny bit of headway.

My favourite example of why pure research is useful, however, is the laser. When it was invented, they had no clue what it could be useful for. It was the classic “solution looking for a problem”. It was a fun quirk of quantum mechanics that allowed thek to function. Now, they are critical in multiple areas, but for business and research.

There’s a particular particle, the kaon, which can be created. This particle is highly unstable, and so, decays rapidly into other particles. Ever so often, it doesn’t decay down the normal route but instead decays into a pion. This is extremely rare (6 in a billion).

In physics, we have what’s called the “standard model”. It’s our best guess as to how physics works at the fundamental level. It’s incomplete, however, with multiple slight variations. This decay pathway is interesting because it is quite sensitive to differences between these models. By measuring the energy and ratio of the resulting mess, we can disguard some variants of the model (their predicted energy is too high or too low).

By using a large number of little measurements, like this, scientists can home in on the most accurate “standard model” variant. This, in turn, informs work on a deeper understanding of physics.

Basically, a decade’s work to put a single new point onto a graph. A point that only theoretical physicists care about, and might, or might not be useful down the line. Welcome to modern physics.

I strongly suspect all solutions will either be invalid, or be limited to the speed of light.

The universe seems to have a lot of weird quirks (the speed of light being 1) what they have in common is that they make time paradoxes impossible. This points to some deeper physics causing these disparate effects. Anything travelling faster than C can be configured as a time machine, and so create paradoxes.

It’s definitely not an easy experiment, it’s an order of magnitude easier than the other ideas though. It might even be within the realms of current equipment.

For those who are confused. It’s an experiment to see if gravity is smooth or lumpy. Relatively assumes it is smooth, quantum mechanics says it is lumpy. By knowing what is happening, we can tell which is more wrong. Both seem hyper accurate in their realms, but neither allows for the existence of the other.

Effectively, 2 pendulums are put close together and left to swing. Relativity says they will slowly move into sync. Quantum mechanics says they will move together in fits and starts. By checking at the end, they can see if the syncing is lumpy or smooth. They will also have to run it a huge number of times, to pull any difference out of the noise.

Previous ideas for experiments relied on forcing 2 masses into a diffuse state, then letting them entangle with each other. Getting matter into such a state is hard however, let alone keeping it there for long enough to work. The new experiment dodges around this problem.

I used to think that. Unfortunately, you’ll be proven wrong with time. I really did have a lot of energy, when I was younger. I’m now having to be ever smarter with what I have, just to tread water.

Unfortunately, it’s not a useful one. While we know approximately where it is, we don’t know how deep the gravity well is. That gravity well slows the passage of time, just like the earth does. Without an exact mass, and mass density, we can’t calculate the correction factor.

It’s not too bad. Relativity says that no frame of reference is special.

• On earth, a second looks like a second, but a second on the moon looks too quick.

• On the moon, the second looks like a second, but a second on earth looks too slow.

Both are actually correct. The simplest solution is to declare 1 to be the base reference. In this case, the earth second. Any lunar colonies will just have to accept that their second is slightly longer than they think it should be.

If it helps, the difference is tiny. A second is 6.5x10^-10 seconds longer. This works out to 56 microseconds per 24 hours. It won’t affect much for a long time. About the only thing affected would be a lunar GPS.

We thought the same about Brexit…

When we vote, we need to make sure the message is loud, clear and painful.

The lib Dems, unfortunately, relied on us votes being rational. They gave up most of their agenda to get a vote on changing away from FFTP. Unfortunately, enough people used it as a protest vote against them.

Don’t measure by just breeding, measure by how many grandchildren they have.

An animal that has 10 babies, but they all die, doesn’t pass on its genes. A wolf that dies in its den, causing some of its offspring to die is hurting its own genetic heritage.

It’s also worth noting that genes can be selected for at the tribe/pack level. You don’t need to breed, so long as your sisters/brothers/cousins/parents breed.well enough to compensate.

At the extreme, you have things like bees. A normal bee is sterile. It’s completely reliant on its specialist brothers and sisters to propagate its genes.

We do, GMT.

This is a relativistic correction. Time on the moon runs very slightly faster than time on earth. This means that time on the moon will drift ahead of time on earth. By using a slightly longer second, lunar time will stay in sync with earth time.

Earth sees lunar seconds as too fast. The moon sees earth seconds as too long. Both are completely true. (Welcome to relativity)

Atomic clocks don’t use atomic decay. They used the frequency of the light emitted by a very specific energy change, within an atom, under very controlled conditions.

The frequency of light will look the same on the moon. However, an observer on earth would see a very slightly different frequency from the moon clock.

Life attempts to propagate its genes. Just look at salmon, or bees. Both are willing to die to help the next generation.

Leaving a corpse in a den could kill your offspring via disease. Recognising that survival is no longer viable, and acting to protect them makes complete sense.

Something that might be related is the burst of functionality that mammals seem to get, just before dying. In pack animals, an otherwise crippled animal can get up and leave the den. Biologically, this is to get the dead body away from the den site.

Something similar can happen in humans. A dying patient will suddenly perk up and seem to make a miraculous recovery. Nurses unfortunately know that this is false. The patent will burn out and crash soon after. Patents in this state apparently get a feeling of impending doom. This is likely what drives other mammals from the den/nest site.

What they are seeing might be related to this. The brain gives up on survival, in order to try and not risk the health of family members. Often the damage would be too severe, and so the patient doesn’t wake up. They just get a burst of neural activity as priorities suddenly change.

We actually use very little of our muscles full strength. In fact most of thee initial strength gain of weight lifting isn’t actually an increase in muscle, but of control. Under enough adrenaline the limiters come off. 5-20x normal is completely possible.

The catch is the damage. Our tendons and supporting muscles are not built for the forces. Dislocations and tendon damage are severe, if full power is used. It also damages the muscle itself. A lot of the overhead is to allow for sustained functioning. Burning it all at once works, but it can’t be sustained without destroying the muscles involved.

Basically, the body self protects. When required, emergency power can be unlocked, for a price.

An encryption scheme is only as strong as its weakest link. In academic terms, only the algorithm really matters. In the real world however, implementation is as important.

The human element is an element that has to be considered. Rubber hose cryptanalysis is a tongue and cheek way of acknowledging that. It also matters since some algorithms are better at assisting here. E.g. 1 time key Vs passwords.

The purpose is to access the data. This is a bypass attack, rather than a mathematical one. It helps to remember that encryption is rarely used in the abstract. It is used as part of real world security.

There are actually methods to defend against it. The most effective is a “duress key”. This is the key you give up under duress. It will decrypt an alternative version of the file/drive, as well as potentially triggering additional safeguards. The key point is the attacker won’t know if they have the real files, and there is nothing of interest, or dummy ones.

Hiding it would work. You just have to make sure you don’t miss any.

As for the danger. There are levels of exposure. You could leak something damning, but that could be played off as a 1 off. You might also be sitting on a huge amount of paperwork that proves it’s endemic. That paperwork might also expose others who wanted things changed, but don’t want to be outed. In this case, an initial leak can test the waters. The additional info can be rolled out, if it’s needed, or the results justified.

E.g. Initial leak proves they did something nasty. The additional info massively backs it up, but also implicates a VP in its gathering. You might not want to show that hand until later, either to protect them, or to gather more info on their reaction.

One of the less mentioned aspects is that a dead man switch should be difficult, if not impossible to detect and neutralise. If you are to the level of being unalived, you’re likely also a target for significant directed hacking. Such a dead man switch should be as resistant as possible to this. A simple email could let them detect and disable your dead man switch.