did you guys know that there are people on twitter right now earnestly arguing that a kpop group’s upcoming album needs to be boycotted because it is secretly meant to be celebrating a basque separatist movement. they are entirely serious
LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOO
do note that this will probably mean US phones will follow this standard as well, as manufacturing streams are much easier to maintain as streamlined as possible, and having two separate standards like this makes it more of an expensive hassle for a company
this is also known as the Brussels Effect, where a regulation in one part of the world (usually the EU) results in new global standards.
please let this jump to laptops and tablets and everything else
Source (the one screenshotted at the top of the post):
"For "portable batteries" used in devices such as smartphones, tablets, and cameras, consumers must be able to "easily remove and replace them." This will require a drastic design rethink by manufacturers, as most phone and tablet makers currently seal the battery away and require specialist tools and knowledge to access and replace them safely.
Apple has already been forced by the European Union to change from a Lightning port to a USB-C port on iPhones, with the iPhone 15 expected to be the first to make the switch. Now it seems Apple will need to figure out how to allow access to the battery inside future iPhones, as will every other smartphone manufacturer.
The new rules also stipulate strict targets for collecting waste and recovering materials from old batteries. The percentages for each increase at set intervals between now and 2031, at which point 61% waste collection must be achieved and 95% of materials must be recovered from old portable batteries. There will also be minimum levels of recycled content used in new batteries required, but only "eight years after the entry into force of the regulation.""
-via PCMag, June 16, 2023
alright. in my tepidly professional opinion* here are the actual major red flags with the titanic submersible
first, stuff that people are clowning on that isn't actually a red flag at all
using starlink satcoms for their overall [surface] communications
- i know it's fun to clown on elon musk but starlinks are like. Fine. they work fine as satcoms. this is not the issue. none of these problems would have been solved if they'd been using KVH or somebody else instead
- also these have fuck all to do with the tiny sub, since radio waves physically do not penetrate water enough to be useful for communications lol
the stupid game controller to steer
- it's actually super common to use COTS (commercial off the shelf) parts like that instead of some bespoke steering system.
- they're easily replaceable if they break, they're designed to be integrated into larger systems, and you don't have to do a huge amount of design work before you can even steer your thing
- here's one example of this. but it's pretty common
that being said. here is the fucked up design stuff that i notice
Where The Fuck Are The Chairs
- if you don't have seats inside your vessel, you don't actually have a way of securing passengers during rough movement. i suspect that this makes it very dangerous or difficult to ascend quickly in an emergency.
they have had known issues with communication
[source: the independent]
- i will grant that underwater communications is not an easy problem to solve unless you're physically running telephone wires
- but this is fucking unacceptable lol
[source: the independent]
- ignore the video game controller thing
- i presume that they mean "messages in the form of text, sent via an acoustic signal", not "they are literally using cell phones to text each other" because obvs cell phones (and most radio) would not work
- it's actually extremely unclear to me what system the sub and the mothership are using to communicate. idk if this is a "technology reporting hard" issue or if these people are being deliberately cagey. anyway they're probably using some form of underwater acoustic communications, but what specific form it takes idk
- regardless, the fact that they've had problems with this system in the past is a red flag
- and the fact that their sub has apparently no internal navigation system is also a red flag. "not having GPS" isn't really, since GPS doesn't really work underwater (you need radio 😔), but they should have some kind of internal navigation-- at the very least "here is my speed and heading and based on that my expected position is here on a map"
in a power failure situation, they would have been SOL
[source: the independent]
- "everything is done with computers" = "nothing works in the event of a power failure"
- it seems like AT THE VERY LEAST in the event of a power failure, you need to be able to drop your ballast and ascend quickly.
- it is not clear that they had the capability to do that
something weird going on with their pressure hull
[source: nbc]
while it is "normal" for structures that are exposed to regular massive changes in pressure to have fatigue (imagine bending a piece of metal in and out over and over, eventually it will break-- you want to catch and replace that before it happens), it's weird to me that
- the vessel's depth rating was downgraded
- without any public statement about what repairs were done, it nevertheless went back to the 4000ft depth less than a year later (in 2021)
they obviously have no "black box" system or any way to locate a missing vessel
- most boats are required to have this! because most boats are required to be registered with and inspected by various authorities!
- these guys deliberately skirted that rule by launching off a boat rather than from a port and therefore avoiding the need to get registered or inspected. lmao!
[source: nyt]
Company Culture Is The Killer
complete disregard for safety is really what killed these people
[source: the independent]
obviously if this is your CEO your company culture is totally fucked. beyond saving. you do not have a regard for human life.
for reasons unknown they didn't flag the authorities that the vessel was missing for hours and hours
[source: the independent]
not that it likely would have helped to save these people if they had been alerted earlier, but it shows a desire to cover up mistakes
and like. obviously. you should get your shit inspected. nobody taking paying passengers anywhere should be allowed to be their own safety inspection authority.
the original sinking of the titanic was what led to SOLAS (safety of life at sea) rules being instituted. they've been updated several times since then, but they don't yet cover submersibles like this, since they are relatively new. it's likely that this incident will cause a new interest in updating the rules. as they say: every regulation is written in blood
*i'm a mechanical engineer who works in the maritime industry, but not like, a particularly related section of the industry-- i do shit with cargo containers mainly. no further info on my credentials will be given since i have no desire to doxx myself on tumblr dot edu. i've tried not to say anything too wrong or out of my depth in this post but my opinion is "guy with an engineering degree who reads news articles" level of informed. so take your maximum grains of salt
"A submarine has gone missing" : Oh jeeze, I hope they find those people.
"A submarine visiting the wreck of the titanic has gone missing" : Well, that's a little ghoulish but I can't blame folks for a morbid curiosity, especially at a monument to white man's hubris.
"An experimental cobbled together submarine visiting the wreck of the titanic has gone missing" : Well at this point y'all were just taking your lives into your own hands and also how is 'slapped together submarine' a legal thing that's real.
"An experimental cobbled together submarine full of the absurdly wealthy visiting the wreck of the titanic has gone missing" : Okay now this just feels a little too on point someone has to be joking with me.
They want air-conditioning in the vans so they don't die from heat stroke.
I haven't found anything saying the drivers want people to boycott Amazon, btw.
Yeah no, I'd imagine the drivers would want as many orders to pile up as possible
WHAT is that one poem (?), abt a modern worker contemplating the numerous forgotten who were actually responsible for all the ‘great’ deeds of history
found it!!
A Worker Reads History Bertolt Brecht
Who built the seven gates of Thebes? The books are filled with names of kings. Was it the kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone? And Babylon, so many times destroyed. Who built the city up each time? In which of Lima’s houses, That city glittering with gold, lived those who built it? In the evening when the Chinese wall was finished Where did the masons go? Imperial Rome Is full of arcs of triumph. Who reared them up? Over whom Did the Caesars triumph? Byzantium lives in song. Were all her dwellings palaces? And even in Atlantis of the legend The night the seas rushed in, The drowning men still bellowed for their slaves. Young Alexander conquered India. He alone? Caesar beat the Gauls. Was there not even a cook in his army? Phillip of Spain wept as his fleet was sunk and destroyed. Were there no other tears? Frederick the Great triumphed in the Seven Years War. Who triumphed with him? Each page a victory At whose expense the victory ball? Every ten years a great man, Who paid the piper? So many particulars. So many questions.
So I just went through three notebooks to find this, because I knew it was there.
I was at the ROM, about six years ago, at a special exhibit on Babylon. And there was a brick, formerly part of a palace. And Nebuchadnezzar, the one who built the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, had had his name in cuneiform stamped on every single brick, to emphasize that he had built it.
And on this one, a workman had carved his own name, Zabina’, into the block too, in Aramaic. Here’s the brick. It’s 2600 years old.
billionaires on their £200,000 submarine ride to the titanic wreck when the guy moves his xbox controller the wrong way and a window cracks
imagine telling literally one titanic passenger, from literally any class, that a submarine of people touring the wreck site disappeared, and these people paid $250,000 for a ticket, which is more than a first class ticket on the actual ship
Me: Listen, so this submarine of tourists -
Titanic Passenger: What do you mean, wreck? The ship sinks?
Me: Yes. Anyway, about this submarine-
Titanic Passenger: The “unsinkable” ship sinks????
stop saying "gen z brought back bush-era purity politics" i grew up in the bush era and even then people weren't saying that you're a sex addict for having boring marital sexual congress in the same house as your children. this is just plain unhinged
Literally almost every millennial I know has a memory of accidentally walking in on their parents or hearing their parents having sex. It's fucking normal. Human beings have sex. Your parents fuck. Get over it. Being weird about it isn't healthy.
I really loved Robert Evans’s response to this
I walked in on my parents fucking once, I quietly closed the door got some water and watched cartoon network till I fell back asleep. Yall are pussies.
When a fire mage becomes a chef
Apparently I've been going to the wrong Korean restaurants.
Toni Morrison? Alice Walker? Zora Neale Hurston? Ralph Ellison? James Baldwin? Lorraine Hansbury? Maya Angelou? Octavia Butler? Langston Hughes? Bell Hooks? Many many many many others? Go fuck yourself you lazy, anti-intellectual asshole
Nothing makes me want to call math fake as much as the Monty Hall problem. Not even 0.999999... equaling 1. Yes I understand the proof yes it technically makes sense but I just hate the Monty Hall problem so, so much.
Is that the game show one with the doors?
Correct. The basic scenario is that there is a car behind one door and a goat behind two doors, and you don't know which is which but the game show host does. If you pick the door with the car, you win the car. The host let's you pick a door, then opens one of the two doors you didn't pick, revealing a goat. The host then offers you one last chance to switch your pick from your original door to the other remaining closed door.
The Monty Hall problem states that you should always switch your pick, and that by doing so you will double your chances of winning the car.
Which, intuitively, that's nonsense. Your choice has no actual impact on the reality of the situation. You're guessing blindly the same as before, it's just now that you have a one-in-two chance of guessing the right door instead of a one-in-three chance.
EXCEPT
During your first round of choosing, you had a 1/3 chance of guessing the car vs a 2/3 chance of guessing a goat, if you were only allowed that one guess. But once it's narrowed down to two doors, one with a goat and one with a car, you're now guaranteed to get the exact opposite outcome of what your original guess would have been if you switch. So if you stick with your first choice, you still have a 1/3 chance of getting the car and 2/3 chance of getting a goat. But if you switch, then suddenly that becomes a 1/3 chance of getting a goat, and a 2/3 chance of getting the car.
It's bullshit and I hate it so much.
I understand it but i hate it, like the maths is right but logically it just doesn't click
See, you understand my pain.
#why doesn’t choosing the same door you already chose have the same effect? that’s what I want to know#like does math not agree with the sage advice of ya authors that not choosing is also a choice?
The trick to it is that you're technically playing two games in a row, and the second one is the only one that you actually have to win.
In the first game, you have two chances to lose (picking a goat) and once chance to win (picking a car). Worse-than-even odds. But the important thing is, you don't actually get a prize for winning this first game. It's just set-up for the second one.
In the second game, sticking with your door is basically saying "I think I made a lucky guess in the first game, I'm sticking with that decision." Switching doors is saying "I don't think I got lucky in the first round, so I'm going to change my decision." You are gambling on whether you won or lost the first game, and what wins or loses you the prize is guessing correctly whether you were lucky in the first game. And because the odds of the first game were worse-than-even, guessing that you lost the first game is the safer bet, because you probably weren't lucky.
The really painful part of it is that our brains want to interpret it all as one game, where you've basically got 50/50 odds no matter what you do. That's what our every instinct is screaming at us should be happening, because the physical endgame is two closed doors, only one of them with something we want behind it, which has been there from the start. But it isn't one game with 50/50 odds. It's two games in a trenchcoat, and their combined odds are skewed.
“You are gambling on whether you won or lost the first game” is in fact the only time the Monty Hall problem has ever made even a shadow of sense to me, and I think you should get an honorary PhD in math or maybe philosophy for writing it down.
That's actually very flattering, especially considering how long I've wrestled with this thing, thank you.
go-drink-the-kool-aid-deactivat
Ok but lets be honest id be happier with a goat
OH
"You can't be a lurker on tumblr." Yes, you absolutely can. I've been quietly reblogging things since 2014 and I haven't interacted with anyone in years.
I think kafka’s diaries are the strongest evidence that journaling is not necessarily good for your mental health
it's because he didn't use washi tape
