cubinator

The alternative being a block of concrete, I'm happy with this.

Whoa, careful with that thing. That number is actually: 3917304582087029692147728044171089760950424084125686069059508381199504609389882632127112355377910312953829620701456326342329404338652102673165480530227323202319914472463017784324372938386523411208875809621604922052852388601382957776123746691321400855392638776536531837638766863973328312013550671220374934047273172825840356485223449215586337390186263633051465574690888131325961708932272178867739643862015396533315153599710099691959780126498295684516149506821376725270456711583208655956001534468625758811915469405139025729867856680289353707296169482446436687257083148164542597198674049082568024783037535386355783874171928776755228941348467870782924902174648306576712265941643831246765525202496102831289214857496493880128904300262598655679506113991573649411829499689175907538115677534817680438649382786747577631862981305488787287362142915650466694420742880914118187122843380125039068462171761133518972701369467046932199024559954382649161850826854749671253818212352000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 Anyway, the next prime is 491.

I essentially memorize the cube beforehand, and then when I am not observing it I can swap the quantum superposition of the pieces. A little bit of that too! ======== https://teachkidsengineering.com/solve-rubiks-cube-blindfolded/

I can now solve a 2x2x2 Rubik's Cube blind with fair consistency!

Not yet.

And back on track with 431!

Does the booster really need cooling after landing? Sure, the engine bells are hot and the rocket just spent some time in supersonic wind, but right after that it spends a bunch of time in regular wind which tends to be cooling.

There's been some rocket surgery going on lately...Cosmonauts cut into the Soyuz orbital module down to the pressure vessel to take a look at that hole we saw some months ago. With a knife.

Figures.

My afternoon snack involved a giant water bug, among other assorted crispy critters, as part of the activity in my entomology class. An unusual flavor to end the semester's classes on, certainly. Almost spicy? Ultimately quite palatable, but god help you if you try to chew the tough wings to swallowable bits in a reasonable amount of time.

I dunno, from what I've seen and heard about asteroid and moon regolith, I bet it would do some funny stuff if you mixed it with water. It'd turn into some kind of weird mud, maybe you could harden it in a kiln...Well we know if you let it sit for 4.5 billion years chances are it'll turn into something sentient so we have that.

So intriguing. I feel an existential connection to asteroids the more we learn about them. These objects hold the materials - the dust, the water, the minerals and organic molecules - which came together and by some force of the universe eventually became us. We are as connected to these asteroids in our star system as to the food we eat. As an aside: This is always my favorite thing to hear from a scientist. We're coming full circle in the most spectacularly beautiful way I can imagine. Some people will return to eating insects from ceramic dishes, in brick houses, some in pyramids perhaps, most of their working time spent on survival needs. It sounds primitive, and it will be compared to what they will hopefully become, but they will be not in the habitable river valleys of Earth but in the vacuum of space, the Moon, attached to asteroids, and on Mars. The beginning of civilization on Earth will repeat itself in a new way in space.

What's this "clay" material like? Is it rocky, but with similar composition to clay? If you got it wet, would it be malleable like Earth clay?

When I hear File Select - Super Mario 64, I expect to learn something. That's why I listened to it for three hours in the background of calculus videos today.

The doodle I made today during my calculus lecture should speak for itself: I will love Star Wars until I become one with the Force. I take almost everything Yoda has said as advice for my own life and mindset.

"All right I've been thinking. When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade! Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I DON'T WANT YOUR DAMN LEMONS, WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THESE?! DEMAND TO SEE LIFE'S MANAGER. MAKE LIFE RUE THE DAY IT THOUGHT IT COULD GIVE CAVE JOHNSON LEMONS! DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? I'M THE MAN WHO'S GONNA BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN! WITH THE LEMONS! I'M GONNA GET MY ENGINEERS TO INVENT A COMBUSTIBLE LEMON THAT BURNS YOUR HOUSE DOWN!" -Cave Johnson

Not for integers, it seems. The other leg has to be sqrt(3)/2 of the hypotenuse to be a right triangle.

AAAAAAAAAA! So 8-12 weeks then

Oh, nice, I can read a bunch of space stuff in French here! Thanks for sharing!

43 Of course this is the thing that we decide is absolutely important.

38°15′00.5″N 122°24′38.9″W Chances are you'd know this place if you went there. I'm putting this through a translator, and if it's the tragedy of Darth Plagueis I'm going to flip a figurative table. [one translation later] ...well, no tables will be flipped today.

Alcubierre/warp drive seems at least plausible if you had obscene amounts of energy (say, a large antimatter engine, like in Star Trek). I don't see anything obvious in relativity that says it absolutely can't happen. You might end up with some weird time jumps happening, though, and it's still dubious whether we can get/manufacture enough antimatter and store it adequately.

I just saw Dragon!! Easily visible even in the city. Trailing ISS by ~20°

Yeah probably. I see more of them all over the place. I'll be very curious when I go there to find out whether I really can see some stars and planets in daylight as I suspect...

Is it just me, or is that a moon in the bottom right? It's in four pictures... (the camera was pointed to the sky, this was taken on Sol 4. https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/multimedia/raw-images/?order=sol+desc%2Cdate_taken+desc&per_page=50&page=0&mission=insight)