IrritableOcelot

joined 2 years ago
[โ€“] [email protected] 9 points 2 weeks ago

This gives strong "Lovecraft describing things he doesn't understand as noneuclidian" vibes.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

๐ŸŽถ Saturday night and we in the spot, don't believe me just watch ๐ŸŽถ

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

WELL ACKSHUALLY its a clay tablet, you just press into it with a little stick, then its fired...

Gotta love the low-quality-copper memes

[โ€“] [email protected] 21 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

While I agree that publishers charging high open access fees is a bad practice, the ACS journals aren't the kind of bottom-of-the-barrel predatory journals you're describing. ACS nano in particular is a well respected journal for nanochem, with a generally well-respected editorial board, and any suspicions of editorial misconduct of the type you're describing would be a three-alarm fire in the community.

I will also note that this article is labelled "free to read" -- when the authors have paid an (as you said, exhorbitant) publishing fee to have the paper be open access, the label used by ACS journals is "open access". The "free to read" label would be an editorial decision, typically because the article is relevant outside the typical readerbase of the journal, and so it makes sense both from a practical perspective (and more cynically for the journal's PR) to make it available to everyone, not just the community who has institutional access.

Also, the fact that the authors had a little fun with the title doesn't mean its low-effort slop -- this was actually an important critique at the time, because for years people had been adding different modifications to graphene and making a huge deal about how revolutionary their new magic material was.

The point this paper was trying to make is that finding modifications to graphene which make it better for electrocatalysis is not some revolutionary thing, because almost any modification works. It was actually a useful recalibration for expectations, as well as a good laugh.

Edit: typo

[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

I think its because while its under water it doesn't have a chance to diffuse into a larger volume of air -- normally farts are pretty dilute by the time it makes it to anyone's nose.

[โ€“] [email protected] 24 points 1 month ago (1 children)

My favorite overheard undergrad story:

I was walking past the lecture hall right after an organic chemistry midterm, and there was a cluster of 4-5 students talking about the exam. One asked about question 8b, and another one said "you're not supposed to mix nitric acid and ethanol, that makes TNT, right?" I had to stifle a chuckle as I walked by.

So close, and yet so far! Nitrated acetone is explosive, and TNT (trinitrotoluene) is also made with nitric acid, but toluene is a much more complex molecule than acetone. If those undergrads could figure out how to turn acetone into TNT efficiently, they'd get a Nobel!

[โ€“] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago

Lol I was trying to play Dragon Age games a couple months ago, and the EA app is so terrible that I couldn't get them to run on windows. But on Linux in the proton sandbox? No problem, worked right out of the box. ๐Ÿ˜‚๐Ÿ˜‚

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Why is that article so hard to read? Its not grammaticaly wrong but the sentences are structured so oddly...

[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

A big part of the NIST's job is providing standard samples so everyone can measure accurately. From weights of ingredients, to determining exact compositions of food, pharmaceuticals, drinking water, etc. its all measured relative to a NIST standard. Every scale you've ever used was calibrated against a weight that several steps back was ultimately calibrated against a NIST standard. Without a good standard, it's basically impossible to accurately measure anything.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The Liberation trilogy by Rick Atkinson is also a really good in depth look at the war after 1942. Told mostly from the american perspective, but very very thorough.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

More like 0mgMg

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Came here to say this...

 

To deal with all this Intel CPU disaster, I've been having to manually check MSI's website for mobo updates. It occurred to me that keeping BIOSes and other drivers that aren't delivered through your OS's update manager of choice is such a pain, and it's common knowledge that a lot of critical BIOS updates just don't get applied to systems because folks don't check for updates unless there's a problem.

Thinking about that, I realized that it would make life a lot easier if you could just have section in your RSS reader for firmware updates, and each mobo manufacturer published BIOS update announcements as an RSS feed. All your updates are in one place, and you're notified promptly! Of course, this would also apply to NVIDIA drivers, so you can get automatic updates on Windows without having to download Geforce NOW bloatware, but of course that's very intentional on NVIDIA's part.

Does anyone know of other easy ways to passively keep track of BIOS updates?

 

OK, y'all. I'm trying to find a book I read many moons ago. I feel like it was by Diana Wynne Jones, but it's not in her bibliography. Massive spoilers incoming, obviously, but I can't remember what the spoilers are for.


The book starts on an island nation in the south of the world, with a rigid code of conduct which one of the main characters is being disciplined for breaking. The main characters leave on a quest to the oppressive and powerful kingdom in the north, and its revealed that one of the other main characters is the crown prince of the evil kingdom in the north, and can use their magic. If I recall correctly, his use of that magic makes dark veins stand out under his skin, and he has to fight against it controlling him. There's some kind of time limit, I think if he uses the magic too much, it'll take him over and he'll become the new ruler.

To gain some advantage over the evil kingdom, they visit an abandoned city, break into some kind of temple, and have an encounter with some kind of deity, which might then take over one of the characters?

Later in the story they make it to the evil palace, and there's a plotline about multiple children of the evil king trying to kill this guy, so they can inherit the throne. I think the evil palace is embedded in a mountain somehow.

Anyone who can set me on the right track, it'd be much appreciated!

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