Jacke

Quantum Mechanics is an incomplete Quantum Theory. Because it is background dependent and doesn't include Gravity. The space-time of Special Relativity is assumed as its background. It requires a macroscopic non-quantum observer to see values as a result of the "quantum waveform collapse" to make any sense. General Relativity is an example of a background independent theory (for at least what's included in the theory). There is no assumed coordinate system. Its components, masses and space-time, affect each other. The distribution of masses determines the shape of space-time and the shape of space-time determines how masses move. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Background_independence All the attempts to make a theory of Quantum Gravity lack something (in many cases, many somethings). The best books to read to get a grip on this at a simple level have been written by Lee Smolin, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Reborn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein's_Unfinished_Revolution Now, for a fictional story, I think trying to make a fictional extension or replacement of Quantum Mechanics isn't the best idea. Rather than express it as "willing suspension of belief", I phrase it as "willing extension of belief". Depending on the genre, you get to extend what's believable and real in your story. If you spend that effect on making a fictional version of Quantum Mechanics, you're using up story space for something that's window dressing. Does an author care about the details of internal or external ballistics. Not usually. They just have a gun that shoots, if loaded and in working order. The closest likely thing to those would be worrying about someone in the story who hand-loads their own ammo, especially if overloaded and the round bursts the breech. That's what you should worry about. Not the Quantum Mechanics, which will confuse some readers and irritate others. But what do you want to do, story-wise. I'd say try to avoid introducing new particles. That's been the problem with many particle physicists since the last true correct advance, the Higg's Mechanism and its particle. Far too many conjectured particles in the literature. What do you want to happen in your story? Express it in simple, inter-personal terms, because stories are about the interaction of people in their environment. Closest thing to what you're intending is what the late Isaac Asimov did in his fantastic story, "The Billiard Ball". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Billiard_Ball Note that Asimov had one of the characters create a machine that flattens space-time. He talks about the real physics known surrounded such effects but doesn't spend much time trying to explain how the machine makes that happens, because that level of detail doesn't matter to the story. He just uses existing physics to decide what a likely outcome of that would be.

Years ago, a friend who've I'd known for a long time started going down a dark path due to problems in her life and how she felt about them. I could see how bad it was for her, but I didn't know the words to say to her to help. After a phone conversation that spooked me, I called 911 on her. She didn't talk to me for months. Then she did a bit. Then a few months later, she killed herself. I've left out details that make things even worse than what it appears to be. I wouldn't call her problems temporary. They had real causes, but what I think got to her was the growing feeling that they couldn't be dealt with to get her some sort of relief. I've talked about her a lot with another friend of hers and we both agree she should have seeked help to relieve those root causes. But that must have felt to her to be beyond what she could do. I agree, people in pain should seek help. You may feel the pain untreatable, but with help, maybe it can.

The Viking Age was know for an upswing in population and much more trading, raiding, and eventually emigration. Not any particular warming of the climate. (There was one around ~1200 I believe, but it was minor compared to what we've got now) There were glaciers then. All sorts of things end up in glaciers because they were dropped on the glacier and eventually covered by snow which eventually became ice. If those glaciers get to the sea, then all those things in them are lost. That was the case with many glaciers in Norway. But like elsewhere (like the Canadian Rockies), glaciers are retreating and dropping their contained items at the exposed foot of the glacier. In Norway, there's a combination of ice that had items from ~800 or so that didn't go to the sea and is now retreating, thus providing the artifacts.

The people who read the KSP forums are only a fraction of the KSP playerbase. I imagine ObsidianAnt's video will potentially reach more people who are interested in KSP. Who likely have forgot about KSP2, since they didn't buy it and there's been nothing significant done. Bug fixes are important (I'd like to see another 1 or a dozen bugfix releases for KSP1), but they aren't progress but fixing what shouldn't have broke. And putting out the message on KSP2 is important to put pressure on the devs to do something, communication and progress. Some players who've given up on KSP2 likely did go back to KSP1, others probably didn't. I can't remember the details of what ObisidianAnt said; from what you've said, I'll assume he focused on those who left KSP completely. That is a significant issue. No matter what happens, some of them will never be back. As I mentioned above, I'd like to see more bugfix releases for KSP1. It's an easy measure that would generate some goodwill at a crucial time.

Indeed.

This lack of communication is being noted far and wide. Among other things.

Any sufficiently out-there woo-woo by a true-believer is almost indistinguishable from satire.

Wow. If this keeps up, everyone will have to use Godot.

I started KSP in v0.25. It had very wobbly joints. I finally fiddled enough and manually flew a rocket to orbit. Once. It was one of the worst gaming experiences of my long life. Thereafter, I used MechJeb as it's Ascent Autopilot had a finer hand in those days and I didn't have to deal with this stupidity. Later, as those stupid wobbly joints were tightened up, I discovered manually flying a rocket to orbit was much easier and enjoyable. In KSP 2, fix those damn wobbly joints. Find a solution perhaps better than in KSP 1. Maybe what KJR mod uses, which is I think making what appears to be a single joint actually a ring of 3 joints. Or something. Soon.

You may have wanted to just make a humorous comment. However, to those who think this could be real, it ain't. Zero Point Energy can't be used for anything beyond the Casimir Effect and AFAIK it can't be used to extract nothing. As for the related concept of Dark Energy, it currently stands upon research that used Supernova ranging over a small area of the sky and could be a complete analysis artifact, ie. it ain't there. You can't use quarks any more than you can use electrons, except by using the forces that influence them. Which are well understood with no fancy-pants energy mojo.

AFAIK, Bill has been advised by his lawyer not to say anything about the matter. Back to what @Superfluous J said in his posts, what most people want out of KSP is a simple space simulator. As people play the game, they learn more about real astronautics and rocketry. And they know better Isp comes from propellant choices and engine design, not some silly RPG MacGuffin. So they want the game to do things like that. Many of those late game systems I've never really played with, but I went over them a few years ago. They are rather silly and gamey and not in a good way. We would expect better for KSP 2. Though it seems some of the basics are being difficult enough. Per ardua ad astra.

Because the Registry is a number of external files, within the program, this is technically IO. Because it's the Registry, that IO is likely done through a special API to send keys and values to the Registry, likely with flags about addition or updating or something. Whatever. When you have to code it, you look up the API and be sure you know what to do. Even when you've done it before. When you're doing IO, you have to code very carefully. Because it's very easy for the smallest error in the code--whether regular file IO or Registry changes--to produce masses of garbage in either the IO streams (standard input, output, error, open files, specials) or via a special API to the Registry. Similar problems with dynamic data structures, especially those mapped or written to files. All this code has to be as simple as possible so the programmers can be sure it does what's needed and not acting like a bunch of monkey trying to reproduce all of Shakespeare.

Source code is written in a language that makes it easier to understand what the program is doing and to modify it. Source code isn't really simplified. It's often much more complex to give programmers the tools to write what the program does in a way that's easier to understand, but in execution is much more complex. Compilers are the programs that take source code and turn it into object code, much closer or actually the instructions the machine hardware uses. The complex structures in the source code like data structures, programming loops, conditionals, etc. are made into simple but more wordy structures in the object code. It is possible to write object code directly. But that is only done now in limited cases. Compilers are a whole 'nother area of Computing with lots of fiddly bits.

Not to defend the costs of SLS.... There is no commercial market for beyond GEO. And no crew-rated commercial rocket that has a good C3. Don't mention Starship, as its C3 isn't good, without a LES will never be crew-rated, hasn't even flown successfully once, and the usual pacing element, the engines, are not in good shape. So, for the United States, for crew-rated beyond GEO, it's SLS or nothing right now.

Sorry your day is so bad. I heard stories from a close friend who's mother developed dementia. I didn't understand the true depths of it until my mother developed it. From its onset to her passing was 8 years, during which she was in a nursing home. My father passed away a few years before her and it was all on me. Midnight calls every time she fell, though fortunately nothing really came of them. It had a bad effect. I'm glad your injuries were minor. You're going to have to change how you work with that tool to prevent it falling on you again. Some Personal Protective Equipment might be in order too. This tragedy is all too common with young workers. I went many years in the Canadian Forces and it was with a lot of safety standards and a bit of luck I never had a serious injury. Safety standards are truly written in blood. My story. I was out earlier tonight. As I was walking around my home, I saw what at first I thought was a cat running away from me. But I quickly noticed it had a broad bushy tail. It stopped by my door and turned around to face me. There was plenty of light which was good. I spent my time bashing the plants besides the path to make noise. Eventually the skunk decided to turn around and wandered off. When I went in, there was no smell, so the skunk must have felt safe. Looks like a burrow was dug underneath my step. Which means a call to the landlord tomorrow.

Despite many accidents over the years, the largest sources of threatening radioactive exposure remains the same: Radioactive material going up the flu of coal-burning plants (which exceed what's allowed for nuclear power plants because it's "natural" radioactivity). In some regions, radon gas leaching from the ground from the radioactive decay of uranium ores in some locations. The problem with Fukushima is TEPCO went cheap on risk management when they did their threat assessment and didn't build a high enough sea wall. The Tohoku Electric Power Company didn't skimp when they designed the Onagawa nuclear power plant and it was even closer to the landfall of the tsunami. https://thebulletin.org/2014/03/onagawa-the-japanese-nuclear-power-plant-that-didnt-melt-down-on-3-11/

Except when you hit the limits of the superconductor and it stops being a superconductor.

However things work out for LK-99, it's likely to be limited in its applications because it's a ceramic and even if a superconductor at high temperatures, it's likely not to have a high current limit before its superconductivity breaks down. Unless it's cooled to lower temperatures. Because, as the video below points out, that's the same for the high-temperature (liquid-nitrogen temperatures) superconductors we've known about for 30 years or so. Thunderf00t has a bit of an attitude in his videos, but he does point out something important. Liquid-nitrogen temperature superconductors have been around for 30 years, but have virtually no applications use. The current LK-99 material has the same drawback as them: they're made of ceramics who's material properties (fragility, can't be connected after manufacture, easily driven out of superconducting over a certain current or by magnetic fields) are far from ideal as opposed to the alloy wires currently in use, including for liquid-helium temperature superconductors. So even if there's a form of LK-99 that's a high-temperature low-pressure superconductor, it being a ceramic will limit its applications. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3hubvTsf3Y

This Twitter post from Sabine Hossenfelder is spot on.

As I said elsewhere: Until there's a full process published that allows independent recreation and it's recreated, it's a fake.

It's better than making it a drinking game and just "taking a shot". Because I think no one's liver would survive that. I also agree with you on KSP versus KSP 2, especially this.

Pseudo-science hat trick.

I really wonder at what will be the merged corporation's name.

Everything I've read and watched says carbon composites are bad in compression. And the failure isn't due to exceeding a compressive limit but the point at which the hull buckles in some manner. There is also very little if any indication of the failure before it fails. It's likely they were just going through their dive when the hull failed and destroyed the submersible.

It ain't going to take much sea state to capsize that vessel, being so high out of the water.