For Questions That Don't Merit Their Own Thread

[kerbiloid]

No Soviet V-2 family → No R-7 in that time → ...

No Soviet V-2 family → No Wassefall family → No R-11 in that time → No R-12/14/16 in that time → ...

Britain is still pro-American → British airdromes are still available for US → ...

... → No motivation to found the grotesque Atlas → No Atlas in that time → No motivation for other US ICBM progress → USAF is happy with bombers (especially since no R-7 that time).

***

So, it's not that important, whose Von Braun is, but whose Groettrup is. 

Maybe. As the US stopped failing the race when Von Braun took part.

Edited November 26, 2022 by kerbiloid

[K^2]

On 11/25/2022 at 4:25 PM, SunlitZelkova said:

How dependent was the development of spaceflight on German research?

If US simply didn't get their hands on it, the mere existence of V2 and Soviet interest in it would have been enough to get the spies working, and I'm pretty sure the time lost would be minimal. Maybe a year or two at worst.

If German research didn't exist at all, it's not clear how long it'd take for everyone to realize the potential. Still, I don't think it'd be a lot more than a decade lost even in that case, since the jet propulsion programs existed outside of Germany, and the rising nuclear threat would push both the US and the Soviets to look at the ways to chuck nukes longer distance. It's very easy to imagine that without the V2, nobody would think that building rockets to push conventional bombs would be worth the expense. With nukes, even if the rocket is very expensive, ability to launch something hundreds of kilometers and drop it from altitudes that prevents any sort of intercept with these day's technologies would make it an absolute must-have technology for any nuclear power. Which means something like V2 would get worked on, developed into longer range ballistic missiles to try and push them intercontinental, and that naturally leads into space flight.

[steve9728]

Just an impulsive angry question: why humans haven't exterminated mosquitoes

[Gargamel]

16 minutes ago, steve9728 said:

Just an impulsive angry question: why humans haven't exterminated mosquitoes

Collateral damage.   
 

There isn’t an obviously good reason to keep them on the planet, but getting rid of them completely might disrupt the ecosystem in ways we can’t predict.    Plus, we might end up taking out other species that we want to keep around.  
 

Not that we haven’t, and are still trying to, get rid of them.    The Panama Canal project is a good example of this.   

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

17 minutes ago, steve9728 said:

Just an impulsive angry question: why humans haven't exterminated mosquitoes

They benefit the environment.  Lots of stuff eats them.

Past efforts at eradication have been harmful way beyond intent.

[kerbiloid]

1. Mosquito larva. The fishermen love it for fishing.

Spoiler

2. Frogs. They love it too, for themselves.

P.S.
Either the mosquitos should be GMOdified, or humans should be. To make human smell disgusting for flying gnats.

P.P.S.
Interesting fact. Afai-just-r, the mosquitos can't get drunken when they've sucked blood of a drunken human, because they (mosquitos) have special ferments which split any random liquid they've sucked.

What if chew a handful of mosquitos before a feast? Can you then drink twice more and stay sober?

Just imagine: drank two liters of whiskey, face covered with blood, and sober. A real party brilliant.

Also sitting, hunting mosquitos on other guests with a toothpick and eating like a cherry from cocktail.

[Rutabaga22]

What do GPU drivers do?

[Gargamel]

54 minutes ago, Rutabaga22 said:

What do GPU drivers do?

The overly simple answer from a non computer engineer is that they allow the GPU to talk to the OS.  All hardware requires some sort of software to enable communications between them. 

 

[StrandedonEarth]

1 hour ago, Rutabaga22 said:

What do GPU drivers do?

As Gargamel said, I’m going to word it a little differently: drivers tell the OS how to talk to the relevant hardware, and/or translate between them. 

Edited November 28, 2022 by StrandedonEarth
Autocowrecked

[adsii1970]

9 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

They benefit the environment.  Lots of stuff eats them.

Especially when they are in the larvae stage. Tadpole food!

 

[kerbiloid]

7 hours ago, Rutabaga22 said:

What do GPU drivers do?

Make you buy a new version of Windows to be compatible.

[steve9728]

16 hours ago, steve9728 said:

Just an impulsive angry question

Reason why: Yesterday I was involved in an online meeting. It was a cross-departmental meeting around 70-80 people. And... I just show the people how to slap myself twice by no reason...

After the meeting my minister asked me if I needed psychiatric help... 

[AtomicTech]

Could you use algae on the moon for life support?

[adsii1970]

32 minutes ago, UXW-20 said:

Could you use algae on the moon for life support?

You may laugh, but NASA has been using algae in various experiments since Skylab to determine this very thing. There have been various STS and ISS missions where algae continues to be the subject of such experiments for this very purpose.

[wumpus]

10 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Make you buy a new version of Windows to be compatible.

Currently that's the CPU "drivers".  Microsoft only includes the thread optimizations to balance Intel CPU "P-cores" and "E-cores" on Windows 11.  They must have been bored with GPU drivers and start playing  with CPU issues to force new editions of Windows.

[DDE]

2 hours ago, UXW-20 said:

Could you use algae on the moon for life support?

There are no significant obstacles why it wouldn't work on the Moon. Soviet BION-series underground ECLSS tests were fairly promising, if a bit restrictive on the culinary front.

[Gargamel]

If you guys like this thread (and obviously a number of us do), and listen to podcasts, Dear Hank and John (Hank Green of SciSchow and John Green author of The Fault in Our Stars) is a good one to check out.  I wouldn't be surprised if Hank is a member here on the forums, and probably loves this thread already.    But the show is basically this thread, in podcast form.   They get random questions from the listeners and they try to answer them.  It's a not very serious, semi comedic, Q/A podcast, but with serious answers to questions.  It's great for just relaxing and listening while driving. 

[Nazalassa]

23 hours ago, Rutabaga22 said:

What do GPU drivers do?

As above, plus (at least for Linux) there can be several drivers for the same GPU, some made by community and some made by the GPU's producer. The former is generally less powerful than the latter.

If your GPU is old enough, its producers won't support it anymore, and thus you won't be able to get the proprietary driver, so you have to use the community's one, which is generally less powerful, so the system will behave like if the GPU was less powerful. It's annoying.

From a true story with nvidia :(

[RKunze]

1 hour ago, Nazalassa said:

As above, plus (at least for Linux) there can be several drivers for the same GPU, some made by community and some made by the GPU's producer. The former is generally less powerful than the latter.

If your GPU is old enough, its producers won't support it anymore, and thus you won't be able to get the proprietary driver, so you have to use the community's one, which is generally less powerful, so the system will behave like if the GPU was less powerful. It's annoying.

From a true story with nvidia

Actually, that depends strongly on the GPU vendor. AMD, for instance, contributes strongly to the open source drivers, and normally there is no reason to go to the hassle of installing the proprietary driver for an AMD GPU. Intel has middling to decent open source support as well (although Intel GPUs suck for anything other than basic office type stuff, as I can testify because I'm stuck with one for KSP gaming for now and therefore have to miss out on all the visual mod goodness). Nvidia, on the other hand, is a completely different story - they actively sabotage open source support for their GPUs.

TL;DR: Don't buy nvidia GPUs for Linux boxes. That company actively works against you, don't reward them for it.

[ARS]

As steady stream of radiation and particles continuously emitted from Black Hole as Hawking radiation, there would be a point in time where black hole's mass loss would eventually caused it to cease to exist and die. However, as black holes also moves through universe, assuming it keeps feeding from stars and planets (devouring their mass), is it theoretically possible for black hole's lifetime being continuously extended? (at least until there's nothing left to devour)

[Gargamel]

11 hours ago, ARS said:

As steady stream of radiation and particles continuously emitted from Black Hole as Hawking radiation, there would be a point in time where black hole's mass loss would eventually caused it to cease to exist and die. However, as black holes also moves through universe, assuming it keeps feeding from stars and planets (devouring their mass), is it theoretically possible for black hole's lifetime being continuously extended? (at least until there's nothing left to devour)

I’m tempted to split this one off into its own thread already, it should be a good discussion.   
 

This doesn’t directly answer your question, sorry, but it’s closely related and you’ll probably find it interesting.  
 

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

15 hours ago, ARS said:

As steady stream of radiation and particles continuously emitted from Black Hole as Hawking radiation, there would be a point in time where black hole's mass loss would eventually caused it to cease to exist and die. However, as black holes also moves through universe, assuming it keeps feeding from stars and planets (devouring their mass), is it theoretically possible for black hole's lifetime being continuously extended? (at least until there's nothing left to devour)

I think there is perhaps too much weight given to the thought that a black hole devours all that it encounters.  From what I have read, a 'wandering BH' is probably more likely to fling stars away than capture them.  IIRC it would take a 3-body interaction to capture a star - like one of a binary pair - with the other tossed away.  SMBH 'feed' themselves because of a combination of tidal forces and friction slowing down stars and other material in their disks and by other bodies within changing the trajectories of nearby objects in the deep well. 

But a lone star going SN and leaving a BH, even if it is diving through a density of stars in its orbit around a SMBH should still follow the rules of orbital mechanics.  Meaning that the conditions must be just right for it to capture another star and gain its mass.  And I'm thinking those conditions are rare. 

Edited November 30, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[kerbiloid]

We should finally clarify the question.

As everything in the Universe is orbiting orbiting something, what is that thing the superfast interstellar rogue objects are orbiting around.

Say a hypermassive black hole just has whipped past the Solar System.
Can we be sure that it will never return for the next attempt.

If it won't, then how can all the Universal matter be finally sculpted into something big and bad, like a Universal Blackhole?

If it will, what's her reference body, orbital period, and eccentricity?

[sevenperforce]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

As everything in the Universe is orbiting orbiting something, what is that thing the superfast interstellar rogue objects are orbiting around.

Well, interstellar rogue objects are orbiting Sagittarius A* and the rest of the galactic core directly, but I don't think that answers your question.

Objects which are ejected from their galaxy of origin are still technically orbiting that galaxy, just on the outgoing leg of a hyperbolic trajectory. Until they get close enough to something for their orbit to deviate so that they're now on a hyperbolic trajectory around THAT thing, this condition remains. 

[Rutabaga22]

What are galaxies orbiting?