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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 17th, 2023

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  • The UK is a lot closer to that (though still has its issues). One of the main differences is the base mentality. America is “police by force”, the UK is “police by consent”. Our normal police don’t even carry guns. The mentality change this creates is huge. They default to trying to deescalate things, and dealing with things calmly. This makes people a lot more responsive to their orders, when required.

    Though to note, our officers aren’t push overs. Most are fully capable of controlling someone aggressive. We also have armed response. Any mention of a gun involved, and they come in armed and trained to the teeth. We also have a mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years for an illegal firearm.


  • Just noticed a slight typo, fixed now. Also, at that point, most of the tests are useless and distinguishing the differences.

    It’s also quite weird. To me, it’s completely normal. It actually took significant mental training to match up with how others think. I knew I was quick, but not that quick.

    Unfortunately, it’s also a coping mechanism (adhd + autism + a few more quirks). My brain handles certain tasks abnormally. E.g. I can’t read emotions intuitively. I have to brute force it with general intelligence methods. I also have memory issues, again, compensated for with brute calculations.

    It’s a bit like being terrified of riding vehicles. You learn to cope. You then get slightly surprised when people complain how hard marathons are. You jog the 15 miles to work and back everyday! It’s not that hard. You develop the skills because you need them.

    Intelligence (particularly IQ) is also only a subset of being smart. I know people far smarter than me. Their IQ might not be at the same level, but they can leverage it massively more than I can. I’m a hot rod, amazing on a 1 mile track, crap on normal roads.


    1. Yes, I even have the paperwork to back that up. (99.7 percentile)

    2. No, I’m also a classic example of the difference between intelligent and smart. I’m a 1000hp engine in a reliant Robin van. Immense power, but limited in my ability to apply it to useful tasks.

    3. I’m the main character in my story. I know, logically, that I’m just another speck of humanity to others, but my ego can’t function in that state, so it doesn’t.

    Edit: apparent an extra 9 slipped in.




  • Being ready for anything doesn’t mean planing for everything, that’s impossible. They’ve likely planned for the obvious. They also have the resources ready to go to adapt to an unexpected situation.

    A swordsman is t ready to block every conceivable blow. They, instead, prepare to react. If it’s a known attack, they can fall back on a planned move. If it’s abnormal they can react by improvising, using the skills they already have.

    Oh, and the swordsman’s issue isn’t the lack of plan, improvisation is a key skill. The issue of the inability to read the opponent. It throws their instincts out. E.g. an attack looks like a faint, since it would leave the attack open to a lethal counter, even if it connected. An expert would never use that. A beginner might.



  • Then I spend about 30 minutes forcing myself to do whatever task until it no longer is forced.

    Ok, HOW do you “force yourself”? I can do it for tightly aligned tasks, for a short period, but burn out rapidly. Back at university, I managed to induce heart arrhythmia pushing myself this way.

    It also doesn’t help with the initiator issue. HOW do you get yourself moving in the first place? I can reliably do it a couple of times a day, but day to day life needs more than that for basic maintenance.

    Oh, and don’t get me wrong, I’m functional, but it runs me at my mental limit all the time. Parenting pushed that to the next level. I’m permanently riding the knife edge of burnout.





  • That wouldn’t work. You would need to change the orbital sizes, bonding forces (EM strong and weak, at least), and flow of time exactly in lockstep. Any deviation would show up in quantum mechanical experiments. None of these appear to have simple relationships to each other. It would be a huge new lump of physics to allow this to happen.

    The more likely explanation is that space has a very slight tendency to expand. It would need intergalactic (not just interstellar) distances to be detectable. We also know that (very strongly suspect) that space expanded rapidly in the very early universe. Space then collapsed into a cooler, more stable state. It was initially thought the expansion tapered off to zero, but it might be slightly positive still.


  • I sometimes get some amusement with people with this attitude. Just play the ‘How’ game.

    Basically, ask them, as earnestly as possible, HOW do you focus? You’ll likely get some rote answer, that’s when you start digging. Acknowledge the obvious bit and drill into the difficult bit. They will quickly be left stuttering with a “you just do it” type response. See how long you can keep it going.

    The more honest, earnest and even slightly desperate you are, the funnier it becomes. They just told you they have the secret to fix your life, but now won’t share it. WHY won’t they share?!?





  • A modern nuke is FAR from the “bang 2 rocks together” designs that were first designed. For a start, most are fusion devices. Fairly exotic reactions are used to make a small amount of fusion material to go critical. This creates a shaped charge on a fusion core. The compression wave sets fusion happening, which releases 95% of the energy. Most of Russia’s arsenal is of this sort.

    The downsides of these is the use of exotic elements. They often have a short half life, e.g. tritium, with 12.5 years. This means they decay. Even worse, some of the byproducts will actually poison the reaction. E.g. Rather than producing a flood of neutrons, they absorb them.

    If any of this chain fails, then your fusion nuke becomes, at best, a low yield fission nuke. More likely, it becomes a dirty bomb. It’s still nasty, but not the city destroying terror weapon it would be intended as.