troyunrau

Posting this one despite not being a resident of Ottawa. Because I'm somewhat of an ice guru, having been involved in the construction of many ice roads, runways, etc.

There is a rule of thumb in ice safety engineering called "Gold's Equation". Expressed in metric, it goes: w=4h² where h is the thickness in cm, and w is the weight it can sustain in kg.

The equation has been used safely for decades, but there are several variations on it.

(1) It assumes that your measurements are made manually, and that there is some statistical variation that are not captured by the exact locations of your measurements. If you have something that can do continuous measurements (like a GPR), you can use 7 as your factor instead of 4, as you've got better info about the thinnest spots.

(2) It assumes the ice is clear ice (also called blue ice). White ice is treated as only contributing half to thickness because it is weaker.

(3) It assumes the load isn't static. If a load is parked on the ice for 12 or more hours, you treat that load as weighing twice as much.

With all of this in mind, what usually happens is: you go measure the ice. If it passes w=4h² at the outset for your required load, you kind of just accept and move on. But if it doesn't pass, you start looking for ways to get your load approved -- hire a GPR and scan, or spray water on the surface to build more white ice faster, etc.

30cm, as per the article, will handle loads of up to 3600kg. Which is a lot, particularly when compared to skaters. But a Zamboni full of water or a snowplow or something could be risky. Bring out a GPR and truly find your thinnest spots and maybe you can get 4200kg approved. Etc.

This is likely a non-story, for those of use versed in ice safety. But it was worth my time to type it out :)

A

I don't think I've ever seen it wild. Very cool

Personal anecdote. I run a small business with a business partner (co-owner) and we have no employees. We need an employee. I'm personally a huge fan of employee-owned companies.

But from a hiring perspective, it is mind bogglingly risky for us to hire someone and just automatically stake them. Like, what if it's the wrong person? How do we claw back control? Do we risk dilution sending the company in another direction?

It's just so much easier just to pay someone and not have to deal with the complexity. And therein lies the rub.

Probably should be launched with a trebuchet

Hot take. But put it in the context of the year it was aired, not today. Star Trek (and sci fi in general) was suffering from being perceived as "blue babes and laser guns".

This episode was thoughtful if taken as standalone. And TNG really was about taking the episodes more or less independently. The season long story arcs and such didn't exist. People weren't binge watching. So the world building was less important than the specific hypothetical moral quandary of the week. Like, they are almost like Asimov short stories with a shared cast.

It wasn't until a few years later that serialized TV even really became a thing -- Twin Peaks probably was the first here, but Babylon 5 would have a good claim (and DS9, Buffy, and others were coming together then too). So the style of storytelling on TNG S2 is different.

Divorce the story from Star Trek and the setting and evaluate it as a sci fi ethical quandary. And in that framework, it is a remarkable episode.

Also, Brent Spiner played it well :)

Depending on the carrot, the skin can be significantly more bitter. And sometimes peeling can be quicker than trying to scrub dirt out of particular lumpy carrots.

YMMV

I want to take the little one on the right and put it in a teacup.

def bathroom(customer): return False

Unpopular opinion (largely discredited in anthropology circles): cold weather encourages resourceful behaviour and improves human cooperation. In climates where you can survive winter outdoors, homelessness is not as detrimental to continued existence. Three walls and no roof is fine in a slum in Florida, but harder to pull off in Minneapolis.

This societal coordination which is required to survive winter leads to more orderly and more socialist civilizations. Because hairless apes have no business being in that climate. So it is human ingenuity that is selected for -- and that includes development of systems of cooperation.

If I extrapolate, our space faring descendants will face much bigger hurdles, but ideally will develop even better systems to deal with it.

Bonus picture. Me doing arctic exploration.

Neat

The premise here is that Trump loses but refuses to back down, attempting to forcibly claim victory. If Trump legitimately wins, there is a different path. Then...

Assuming multiple systematic failures occur simultaneously, including any of: actual voter fraud, fraudulent electors, congress refusing to certify, a captured supreme court acting in favour of Trump, or actual insurrection on or before Jan 6th.

I actually expect the US Military to step in. Every member is sworn to uphold the constitution. But if the constitution has been discarded, then I'd expect them to step in to restore it.

Failing that, the US likely fractures and we leave the Republic phase.