Fun Fact Thread! (previously fun fact for the day, not limited to 1 per day anymore.)

[darthgently]

5 hours ago, miklkit said:

Moving the goalposts.   First it is scarcity and then it is inflation.  Actually 2019 seems to be a high point in production as it went down 1% in 2020, 2% in 2021, and 3% overall in 2022.  Still, 3% = 718%?  Inflation is at a 40 year high while corporate profits are at a 50 year high. 

Didn't move the goal posts.  There are multiple goalposts.   It isn't simple.  There was an avian flu, millions of hens euthanized. There were fires at facilities.  There was scarcity for a time.  But the main reason the price increased was increased transportation cost.   Sales ≠ Profits.  If both costs and sales go up, it doesn't mean profits go up.

But really, your rage on this is off-putting.  Converse with yourself. I'm out

[DDE]

Igor Sikorsky built a rubber band-powered coaxial helicopter when he was twelve, and he kept at it until the Kiev aeronautical exhibition of 1909, where this thing literally failed to take off.

[DDE]

They swapped the inscription on the Sputnik stele to French when de Gaulle visited Baikokur in 1966.

[tater]

 

[kerbiloid]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odeillo_solar_furnace

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

Its personnel

 

 

[darthgently]

Solar furnaces are interesting.  But issues of keeping the mirrors clean, buffering energy peaks to fill energy gaps (night time) and not frying rare birds midflight need to be addressed more fully.  There has been progress in some of these.  The bird issue remains recalcitrant

[Hyperspace Industries]

On a completely different note, the worlds biggest mining dump truck uses 1300 litres of diesel per 100km and is powered by two sixteen cylinder engines which make power for four electrical motors, 2300 horsepower worth of power, from each engine.

[miklkit]

NASA official sworn in on a Carl Sagan book.  https://www.alternet.org/nasa-official-carl-sagan-book/

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

4 hours ago, darthgently said:

The bird issue remains recalcitrant

 

[magnemoe]

9 hours ago, darthgently said:

Solar furnaces are interesting.  But issues of keeping the mirrors clean, buffering energy peaks to fill energy gaps (night time) and not frying rare birds midflight need to be addressed more fully.  There has been progress in some of these.  The bird issue remains recalcitrant

Agree, I say they looks much more promising in space, you can build huge lightweight mirrors, simply have the metal you melt float at focus and don't have to worry about birds.
At least in the medium term, long term I don't trust pigeons. 
And don't ignore robots. 
http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2100/fc02028.htm

[DDE]

The 1918 Soviet orthographic reform collapsed "миръ" (peace) and "мiръ" (world, society) into the homonym "мир". This has become the subject of wordplay. Sometimes it's of the benevolent kind, such as the Soviet slogan "миру мир" (мир to мир, using dative), or indeed the bame of the space station. Sometimes it gets darker, as in the Radio Yerevan joke "There will be such a struggle for мир that no stone will be left unturned", or the seemingly more recent and rather... topical quip/patch slogan "We need мир. Preferably all of it."

[darthgently]

Tech is providing governments ways to attempt to centrally plan the world economy.  I can't find a single success story of a centrally planned economy.  Decentralized emergent economies are antifragile and a natural extension of evolution

[kerbiloid]

40 minutes ago, darthgently said:

I can't find a single success story of a centrally planned economy. 

The Kerbals.

[darthgently]

3 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

The Kerbals.

I've never seen the Kerbal economy as centrally planned.  I'm not sure how to measure it's success either.  A true conundrum 

[kerbiloid]

2 minutes ago, darthgently said:

I've never seen the Kerbal economy as centrally planned.

There is only decision maker in KSP, the player.

[darthgently]

4 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

There is only decision maker in KSP, the player.

But the price is all the kerbals are then mere serfs/sockpuppets.   Multiplayer will add a bit more emergent solutions from other players I suppose.  But if all but the dictator/player is a sockpuppet I'm not sure any realistic bar for success can be met

[magnemoe]

2 hours ago, darthgently said:

I've never seen the Kerbal economy as centrally planned.  I'm not sure how to measure it's success either.  A true conundrum 

Most strategy games has an central planned economy run by you. Pharaoh was an exception as you just allowed shops to open but if it was not an customer demand it would close up. 
This might force you to design the city around it more so then it got larger. 

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

 

[darthgently]

3 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Most strategy games has an central planned economy run by you. Pharaoh was an exception as you just allowed shops to open but if it was not an customer demand it would close up. 
This might force you to design the city around it more so then it got larger. 

Ok, but game economies aren't real economies.   Maybe computer games are behind so many people wanting to play Sim Earth IRL with everyone else relegated to sockpuppetdom.  Who knows?

Edited April 14, 2023 by darthgently

[Maria Sirona]

*Ahem*

May i remind you that parts are made by companies

[kerbiloid]

Probodobodyne Systems, Symphonic Protonic Electronics, Zaltonic Electronics, etc.

[Maria Sirona]

5 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Probodobodyne Systems, Symphonic Protonic Electronics, Zaltonic Electronics, etc.

Exactly.

[DDE]

13 hours ago, Maria Sirona said:

*Ahem*

May i remind you that parts are made by companies

This is easily parried by many planned economies retaining corporate structures for ease of management.

[steve9728]

In Qingdao, people use plastic bag to hold the fresh beer

https://shanghaimetalcorporation.wordpress.com/2014/09/09/only-in-china-drink-beer-straight-from-a-plastic-bag/

Edited April 16, 2023 by steve9728

[TheSaint]

56 minutes ago, steve9728 said:

In Qingdao, people use plastic bag to hold the fresh beer

https://shanghaimetalcorporation.wordpress.com/2014/09/09/only-in-china-drink-beer-straight-from-a-plastic-bag/

That's horrible.

There are three acceptable ways to drink beer: bottle, draft, and straight out of the cask.