Centrist, progressive, radical optimist. Geophysicist, R&D, Planetary Scientist and general nerd in Winnipeg, Canada.

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  • 4 Posts
  • 178 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • Depends on the city. And who you are. I’m a big white dude with a geophysics degree so the circles I run in tend to be coloured by that.

    I lived in Edmonton a decade ago, and it was great as a young professional. However, because the city is full of oil money, you really have to work hard to impress anyone with your career there. They’re all like “yeah, whatever, everyone at this bar is throwing down $100s and you’re just one of them assholes”, so you have to be pretty self-aware to date there. But going to a “drink and draw” event at an art gallery will work wonders ;)

    Currently in Winnipeg. The arts scene here is great. Met my long term partner here (online dating during COVID, even – “do you want to go on a socially distant walk in the park together?”). She is more hipster than I so I basically ride her coattails now in the art scene. We went “power couple” for our first two years – two houses because that’s how affordable it is.

    I have lived, worked, or studied in seven provinces and three territories now. I joke with my friends from elsewhere that when I moved to Winnipeg, I bought a garage and it came with a free house. My quite decent three bedroom, finished basement, double garage was $286k.

    Well, it’s cold in winter and very flat topographically, but whatever – I lived in Yellowknife so this is nothing ;)

    Photo just outside Winnipeg on the frozen lake – hiking to find cool ice ridges. Just gotta lean into winter :)








  • Hey, maybe it is true and they’ve been using this location as their central reserve equivalent. Announcing this is clearly intended for the locals, to encourage them to storm the place so Israel doesn’t have to, regardless of whether it is true. Combined with their announcement that they won’t target it, it seems like they’re encouraging people to go there. But instead it was evacuated. If it is a safe spot with no gold, why would they evacuate it? Anyway, the mind games are interesting…



  • Well, she certainly planned this. Snowmobile to location. Big winter boots in the hole with her. Insulated liner to lie down on. Hole deep enough to hide from the wing. Probably just outside the frame is a snowmobile, shovel, and her snowsuit.

    Source: lived in the arctic for almost a decade. This doesn’t seem that foolish in May when the sun is nice and warm but the snow is still out.





  • So to maintain stable orbit (from my understanding) you will need to counteract that with a constant antinormal force, or else you’ll get pushed out of L1 and then go flying off.

    You’re absolutely right, assuming the craft is on the L1 saddle point. The craft can, however, sit slightly sunward of the saddle point in a halo orbit. It wants to fall towards the sun (and enter a solar orbit) due to being on that side of L1, but you set it in the position it needs to be to balance the force of sunlight. There will be quasi-stable points in a halo orbits around the sun-facing side of L1 which could sustain a whole lot of these buggers.

    KSP is great, but it only does two body physics (unless you’re using the Principia mod – never tried it). So you cannot simulate things like lagrange points there. The patched conics are a great first order teaching tool though, and KSP is great for that!




  • Yes, I even once got a B+ in thermodynamics, decades ago. I was proud of that B+ – one of the hardest courses I’ve ever taken.

    Yes, AC. It uses energy, adds heat into the total system, and you cannot fight entropy. However, you can mitigate heat gain in other places. You trade local effects for net zero global effects.

    Simple example: AC running off of solar. It increases heat by decreasing albedo (solar panels are dark), but if you paint another area white, you can have a neutral effect in terms of total energy captured by the earth. But you can have a net zero heat gain and still have AC.

    Obviously you’ll have a harder time balancing this equation if you’re using non-renewable energy sources.