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Cake day: September 6th, 2024

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  • WoodScientist@lemmy.worldtoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlWhy would'nt this work?
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    2 months ago

    It would work, but only in the impossible world where you have a perfectly rigid unbreakable stick. But such an object cannot exist in this universe.

    Pick up a solid rigid object near you. Anything will do, a coffee cup, a comb, a water bottle, anything. Pick it up from the top and lift it vertically. Observe it.

    It seems as though the whole object moves instantaneously, does it not? It seems that the bottom of the object starts moving at the exact same instant as the top. But it is actually not the case. Every material has a certain elasticity to it. Everything deforms slightly under the tiniest of forces. Even a solid titanium rod deforms a little bit from the weight of a feather placed upon it. And this lack of perfect rigidity means that there is a very, very slight delay from when you start lifting the top of the object to when the bottom of it starts moving.

    For small objects that you can manipulate with your hands, this delay is imperceptible to your senses. But if you observed an object being lifted with very precise scientific equipment, you could actually measure this delay. Motion can only transfer through objects at a finite speed. Specifically, it can only move at the speed of sound through the material. Your perfectly rigid object would have an infinite speed of sound within it. So yes, it would instantly transfer that motion. But with any real material, the delay wouldn’t just be noticeable, but comically large.

    Imagine this stick were made of steel. The speed of sound in steel is about 5120 m/s. The distance to the Moon is about 400,000 km. Converting and dividing shows that it would actually take about 22 hours for a pulse like that to travel through a steel pole that long. (Ignoring how the steel pole would be supported.)

    So in fact, you are both right and wrong. You are correct for the object you describe. A perfectly rigid object would be usable as a tool of FTL communication. But such an object simply cannot exist in this universe.




  • The president is also openly corrupt, by orders of magnitude more. That crypto scheme for one is just a blatantly obvious bribery mechanism. Sure, the justices serve for life. But if a president is willing to directly violate explicit court orders, he could easily decide not to leave office as well. He could issue an executive order saying, "in my opinion, the two-term limit doesn’t apply because <bullshit reasons.> And then when the court rules against him, just ignore their ruling. A lawless president is a president for life.

    Ultimately, philosophically, I don’t see why a president that openly defies the law should enjoy the protections of the law. Want to be lawless? Then you can be an outlaw. Those who live by the sword should die by the sword.
















  • Exactly. Their ONLY virtue is convenience. Either you’re there for a prescription and buy something because you’re already there, or you’re just looking to do a quick stop. They’re basically a glorified convenience store that happens to have a pharmacy attached. Their prices are high, but they do have convenience on their side. You don’t have to walk across half a mile of parking before getting to the front door. You don’t have to walk into a giant warehouse store that corrals you into shopping in a giant counterclockwise loop. Walgreens does have the convenience option over shopping at a big grocery store.

    And this is what is so bone-headed about these locking cases. Again, their ONLY advantage is convenience. If they’re going to slow things down by putting a bunch of barriers between me and the things I want, I might as well just spend the same amount of time, go to the full-sized grocery store, and save some money.


  • Because it’s clearly being banned, not because of privacy violations, not because of the nefarious impact of a foreign government, but because of the content that is shared on it. It is the only major social media platform with a strong pro-Palestinian viewpoint on it. And the people in Congress have been caught on camera explicitly stating this is why they want to ban it.

    I hate Tiktok. I don’t use it. Never have. But I still don’t want to see the US turn its internet into the Great Firewall of China 2.0.

    The leaders in Congress cannot stand the idea of there being a social media platform that is popular in the US that isn’t hosted in the US. Why? The answer is simple - control. All the US social media platforms are heavily influenced by the US government. Hell, most of them openly contract with the NSA. Facebook is an NSA contractor. These platforms get a ton of money from the US government. And despite what conservatives bitch at in regards to “being censored,” the real censorship is against anything that doesn’t advance US power and influence. Outside of Tiktok, the major platforms heavily censor pro-Palestinian messages and stories. Go to r/worldnews and post anything other than “Palestinians deserve to be vaporized,” and you’ll be banned within 5 minutes. It’s literally that bad. Even when outright bans aren’t in place, the platforms will severely down shift any pro-Palestinian content and keep it out of peoples’ feeds.

    “Beware of he would would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master.”