The Lounge's "Random Questions That Don't Need Their Own Thread" Thread

[BA-Forums]

QUESTION:

Should I buy some uranium ore on Amazon?

Link to uranium if you want some too :)

[AstroWolfie]

new page!

[BA-Forums]

it seems like a good idea as i am about to enter element collection and because of the fact that i got that bug, and I can't sleep

[TheSaint]

9 hours ago, DDE said:

It's also worth pointing out that two-handed pistol grips are a relatively new development, and before WWII the classic "duelling" stance was prevalent

Well, back before WWII, bolt-action rifles were prevalent too. We don't use those anymore either. There's a reason why Jack Weaver kicked everyone else's asses in the Leatherslap matches.

My dad shot duelist or cup-and-saucer his whole life. And he went to the NRA state matches back in the 60s. That was how I learned to shoot handguns when I was a kid. When I started shooting with my LAPD buddy in the 90s he was all, "Dude, what the hell?" He taught me Weaver stance, and it was like night and day. (Now my buddy I go shooting with is all, "Weaver is old school, old man. You need to learn isosceles!" But I'm a bit old to start undoing 30 years of muscle memory. When I start wearing body armor I'll start worrying about isosceles stance. LOL)

8 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Yes, back then you had muzzle loaded pistols dual wielding made some sense, also the first revolvers was technically muzzle loaded in that you loaded each chamber with gunpowder and bullet with an percussion cap on the rear. Reloading them would take minutes.  Still if you are using two revolvers I imagine dropping one and drawing the other is more practical.

And, see, in my mind, having to rely on a brace of flintlock pistols across my chest makes dual wielding even less appealing. If the idea behind dual wielding is to use my abundance of ammunition to my advantage against a greater number of opponents, then drawing two six-shot revolvers and firing both makes a bit of sense, especially if I've trained to shoot with my off hand. But if all I have is four or five shots from four or five single-shot pistols (which may or may not actually fire when the trigger is pulled), that is not what I would call an abundance of ammunition. I really need to make every shot count. Remember, "You can't miss fast enough to win."

8 minutes ago, BA-Forums said:

QUESTION:

Should I buy some uranium ore on Amazon?

Link to uranium if you want some too :)

We have some of that. (Not that exact one, but some uranium ore.) Wife bought it on Amazon for an experiment in physics class at the homeschool co-op  a couple of years ago. It's not as exciting as you think it is.

[BA-Forums]

5 hours ago, TheSaint said:

We have some of that. (Not that exact one, but some uranium ore.) Wife bought it on Amazon for an experiment in physics class at the homeschool co-op  a couple of years ago. It's not as exciting as you think it is.

Good to know.  Any safety tips if I do buy some? And are there any good element collection forums out there where I can get better information?  Thanks!

that sounded like an email lol

 

[StrandedonEarth]

On 2/27/2024 at 2:31 PM, AstroWolfie said:

how do people dual wield weapons? I see these a lot in video games/movies and tv

As others have said, dual-wielding only really happens in entertainment media. Because, it's cool.

The only fiction that touches on reloading while dual wielding (that I know of) is The Gunslinger, who relies on years of training and practice to reload his revolvers, cartridge by cartridge. One line from the book stands out, which my mind somewhat paraphrases into a compact, standalone line (compared to the wordier quote in the book) "And still his fingers did their trick..."

Stephen King admits that Roland was inspired by Clint Eastwood, of course...

Edited February 29 by StrandedonEarth

[DDE]

11 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

The only fiction that touches on reloading while dual wielding (that I know of) is The Gunslinger, who relies on years of training and practice to reload his revolvers, cartridge by cartridge.

They tried addressing that in the Jolie Lara Croft movies with pre-positioning of spare mags and even a reloading backpack.

[kerbiloid]

On 2/28/2024 at 8:54 PM, BA-Forums said:

Should I buy some uranium ore on Amazon?

Better buy some uranium glass, to frighten the guests.
 

Spoiler

On 2/28/2024 at 9:02 PM, TheSaint said:

Well, back before WWII, bolt-action rifles were prevalent too. We don't use those anymore either.

Just yet, just yet.

Spoiler

[DDE]

14 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Just yet, just yet.

"Am I joke to you?"

[AstroWolfie]

explain?

[DDE]

26 minutes ago, AstroWolfie said:

explain?

Soviet 73 mm rounds for the BMP-1's main gun and the closely related SPG-9 tripod-mounted recoilless smoothbore (with a bigger initial charge) are two-stage, with most of the velocity delivered by a finned rocket stage. This leads to somewhat finicky behavior, since the rocket is prone to steering into the wind, et cetera. Nothing that the users of RPG-7 aren't familiar with (its rockets also have two stages, but the sustainer stage is tractor-type). By contrast, BMP-2 fires a regular 30x165 mm, and the BMP-3 adds a low-pressure cannon firing a T-55's 100 mm HE rounds or missiles.

A Warhammer 40k boltgun is commonly understood to use a two-stage projectile too, but rotation-stabilized. The IRL Gyrojet was only equipped with a rocket motor, and because of that it had trouble picking up initial speed - one could simply put a hand in front of the barrel and stop the rocket. And 40k characters love to trade shots at cinematically close ranges.

[AstroWolfie]

thanks for the info, I was wondering about the gif below.

[AlamoVampire]

This for any moderator or parent or anyone in charge of employees or teachers.

if your child, student, employee or forum member breaks a rule which route do you choose and why?

1. Punish your child, student, employee or forum member with 0 consistency from instance to instance a refuse to say why they were punished.

2. Be consistent in punishment, explain what they did wrong and give steps or help on how to rehabilitate the behavior to be avoided in the future.

If you wish to know where this question is coming from please read my post in the negative things thread from the other day. I just want to know if im crazy or not.

152003062024

[DDE]

13 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

if your child, student, employee or forum member breaks a rule which route do you choose and why?

...am I on a mission to actively sabotage the entire workspace?

[AlamoVampire]

13 minutes ago, DDE said:

...am I on a mission to actively sabotage the entire workspace?

Not really. Im just curious to see how normal or abnormal the refusal to communicate alderon games is displaying towards me and others is.

052303072024

[Fizzlebop Smith]

I loved the attention to detail in a few of the passaged from the various gunslinger books... There are couple of times where King actively describes the complicated mechanics of Roland Reloading.
He practices the act with coins and bullets dancing across his fingers.

Such a great homage to the spaghetti westerns with a dystopian fantasy theme. 
I consume a ton of media and books, Roland of Gilead is one of my favorite tropes / archetypical heros. The non edge-lord redemption arc.

[SunlitZelkova]

I’m probably going to get a very specific class of answers by asking a forum of science buffs, but here it goes.

Is the future predetermined?

Some say history is not inevitable. But the words of a random historian on Reddit have me questioning that: “People made the decisions they did because they were influenced by a variety of factors, and therefore that is the only way it could have happened because those factors could not be changed,” to paraphrase.

But if history is inevitable, doesn’t that mean that by extension the future is predetermined and inevitable? Because once upon a time 1962 was the present day, but if what happened between 1963-1973 was inevitable, doesn’t that mean that what happens in the future (2025-2035) is inevitable too?

Ironically from a philosophical POV I’ve already come to the conclusion what happens now is predetermined by something in the past. But now I’m asking from an academic, historical/scientific POV.

Because one of my hobbies is writing alternate histories for myself to prove the world could have been a better place and people have the power to make good decisions, but it’s only now I realized that doesn’t mix well with my philosophical beliefs (the revelation was about a week ago).

But what about from a materialistic historical/scientific POV?

Because it’s kind of only interesting if the alternate histories can be realistic to some degree, and if everything is predetermined they are pure fantasy no matter how small the change. In which case I’d rather abandon those projects and just focus on researching real life stuff (in other words, shy away from history to a great extent).

[ColdJ]

7 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Is the future predetermined?

From me, the short answer is NO.

The long answer: The world is full of individual human beings that can make choices at random, but because you can't skip back 5 minutes and change your mind, you don't see what a different choice in that moment would have done to change future events. And also because of the need for large groups of humans to try to force others in to their very narrow world view, we often feel that our available choices are limited. Then take the ability to look at the past and see what previous choices wrought. Unfortunately a relatively small amount of the worlds population actually make use of this ability and the others just keep blindly making the same choices over and over, even though a quick look back would show them the likely outcome. If the majority would look back then the world of humans would probably be a much more peaceful place. For example, there is a military/political group who have many times in the past attacked a certain ethnic group because they see them as a threat to their own belief system. And every time they do, the damage to their own group is far worse than what they cause to the other. They fail to learn from the past and keep making the same choice and losing out because of it. The other group actually take note of the past and have prepared themselves ahead for the next attack, and so have a stronger position. The failure of the first group is not predetermined by a fixed fate but rather by the inability to learn from the past due to their narrow world view.

Science fiction is another good source of possibility. Writers with imagination have proposed many things that have eventually come to pass. Just being able to post on an international forum through an interconnected world wide communications grid is one of those things. Didn't exist when I was born but had been put out as an idea before me. And along with good they have prophesied the bad. If the majority of the world took notice and cared how what they create will affect us all in the long term, then alot of advancements that have been popping up lately would be halted before they become a problem we can't turn back from.

So not predetermined, but rather likely due to the world populations majority being unable to make dramatically different choices to what they do as a matter of tradition.

[SunlitZelkova]

In answer to my own question, I think it is really an open ended question. I still find the deterministic argument compelling, but on the other hand, I’ve found out about this book called The Dawn of Everything. It proposes that instead of each generation being constricted to one or very few choices because of certain environmental factors, choices made throughout history are instead highly creative responses to whatever the conditions may be at the time. It also proposes that the notion that history is inevitable and evolves to a certain point (for example, the idea that things like the atom bomb and internet were inevitable), are holdovers from Enlightenment era philosophy. They propose the reason things have been so samey recently (wars and empires, just different names) is because we have forgotten how to be creative and make decisions based on the conditions of the time instead of past experience/tradition (which points to @ColdJ’s response).

During my brief schooling in anthropology I was taught to look at bias and ethnocentrism/centrism of ideas. Perhaps we (really I) need to be aware that the people who write history and record it are not immune to distorting the story and getting it wrong because they too are a part of history and cannot “stand aside” from it all.

I bet one day we’ll look back on deterministic theories of history in the same way we look at geocentrism and creationism.

[magnemoe]

3 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

In answer to my own question, I think it is really an open ended question. I still find the deterministic argument compelling, but on the other hand, I’ve found out about this book called The Dawn of Everything. It proposes that instead of each generation being constricted to one or very few choices because of certain environmental factors, choices made throughout history are instead highly creative responses to whatever the conditions may be at the time. It also proposes that the notion that history is inevitable and evolves to a certain point (for example, the idea that things like the atom bomb and internet were inevitable), are holdovers from Enlightenment era philosophy. They propose the reason things have been so samey recently (wars and empires, just different names) is because we have forgotten how to be creative and make decisions based on the conditions of the time instead of past experience/tradition (which points to @ColdJ’s response).

During my brief schooling in anthropology I was taught to look at bias and ethnocentrism/centrism of ideas. Perhaps we (really I) need to be aware that the people who write history and record it are not immune to distorting the story and getting it wrong because they too are a part of history and cannot “stand aside” from it all.

I bet one day we’ll look back on deterministic theories of history in the same way we look at geocentrism and creationism.

The atomic bomb was in inevitable as it become more an more clear it was possible with the increased knowledge of atomic physic. 
It might have come later and we could gotten nuclear reactors for power production first, who get nukes first also has an huge effect so say it mildly. 

Internet could have been different but I guess something like it would evolve but it could have started much more centralized. 

So much is random outcome, example WW 1 was pure chance it started. Now tensions was raising and it was an naval arms race but an WW 1 in 1925 would be very different. 
Soviet union was also pretty much chance with Germany sending Lenin to Russia. 

Who longer back you go the more things changes, no Napoleon  as an example. 
Or to throw an total curveball, someone invent movable types in ancient Rome and make an profit selling printed books, he probably had to invent books to as with early prints you printed say 1000 copies of one page then set press up for next page, but possible and it would change everything. 

[kerbiloid]

13 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Is the future predetermined?

Of course, in infinite possible ways to go to.

Like the past is predetermined in infinite possible ways to come from.

The time is also just a co-ordinate axis, about which two states of the system are compared to each other as "was" vs "became".

As the Universe includes all possible coordinate axes, so any possible referential axis is a part of the Universe, so the Universe can't change its states, and thus it includes everything possible as given, in form of a hologram.
As any point of the hologram, describing any "present" contacts with technically infinite amount of othe points, this means that every state can follow infinite ways, and could be reached by inifinite ways.
Also it means that nothing can be created or destroyed in th Universe. Your focus is like a laser beam on CD, can move to/from any neighboring point, and you can't know, where it came from.
Just different ways have different probabilities.

This also means that mathematics is universal, the hamiltonian mechanics is universal, the mathematical part of physics is universal, and you can always predict both future and previous trajectory of a thrown stone in the timeline trajectory you prefer/forced to mean as real.
This in turn means that any physical system has its predetermined (in the chosen time line trajectory) past, and this is applicable to objects, atoms, particles, physical process, chemistry, metabolism, biology, and finally paleontology.

So, in any world with living beings there should be fossils of their ancestors.

[AstroWolfie]

question: how do they train MWDs? I know it's at an air force base, but how? Is there a specific regimen they follow, and why they also have 2 first letters in their names (for example, jjeb or vval)

[ColdJ]

54 minutes ago, AstroWolfie said:

question: how do they train MWDs?

Question: what is an MWDs?

(Not everybody knows what you know and so may not have a reference point on which to make a conclusion)

[AstroWolfie]

military working dog

[kerbiloid]

2 hours ago, AstroWolfie said:

military working dog

17 hours ago, AstroWolfie said:

jjeb or vval

Vval is probably to let the dog pronounce it: "Vvaff! Vvallll! Vvaff!"

But a dog able to pronounce /dzhdzh/ I'm not able even to imagine...