Category: science

IKEA Furniture Sucks!

On By JohnIn science, sociologyLeave a comment

Somebody the other day was talking about Walmart/Target/flat-pack furniture and insisted that if you want “quality furniture” then you’ll have to buy from _______________ [fill-in some fine-furniture purveyor].

“Oh, I’ve bought their stuff before and it’s complete crap. Breaks. Falls apart. Gets destroyed before you’re done putting it together…”

Uh-huh… do you know why IKEA furniture falls apart?

It’s not because it’s made from cheap particle board.

You don’t want to hear the answer and you won’t like it.

Are you ready?

Are you sure you’re ready?

You.

You are the reason everything that you assemble from IKEA falls apart. You do the assembly. In several ways, it’s higher quality material than is used in the construction of “builder-grade” cabinetry.

2^128

On By JohnIn science, sysadminLeave a comment

Or, put another way, two to the power of one hundred twenty-eight.

2 128

“So, Mister Smarty-Pants, how much is that?”

340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456

Or, if you like it written out, it’s [takes deep breath]…

Three hundred forty undecillion two hundred eighty-two decillion three hundred sixty-six nonillion nine hundred twenty octillion nine hundred thirty-eight septillion four hundred sixty-three sextillion four hundred sixty-three quintillion three hundred seventy-four quadrillion six hundred seven trillion four hundred thirty-one billion [gasps for air] seven hundred sixty-eight million two hundred eleven thousand four hundred fifty-six.

How much is that again?

That’s how many unique objects can be theoretically addressed on the internet.

I’ll stick to non-routable IPv4 on my private network, thanks.

There

On By JohnIn human condition, science, sociologyLeave a comment

And now, for something completely different.

Ever notice that elevators have more buttons than floors they stop at?

You might think that the fewer the floors, the fewer the buttons. You’d be incorrect. The fewer the floors, the more buttons it would have, up to a ratio of 5:2 (buttons:floors).

Consider a building with two floors — there are commercial buildings (even some private homes) that have an elevator that only services two floors. But why so many buttons?

At a minimum, there would be buttons for 1, 2, Door-Open, Door-Close, and an Emergency Call button.

An elevator in a two-floor building really only needs to have ONE button. And that button would be labeled:

There

You know which floor you’re on — and the elevator will even tell you (sometimes verbally) which floor you’re on.

It would never make sense to be on the first floor and have a button that says “1” (or First, or similar). Likewise, if you’re on the second floor, then why would you have a button that says “2”?

It need only have a single button that says, “There”.

If I’m on One, then I want to go There. If I’m on Two, I want to go There.

But what if you want to hold the door open?

Consider in the case that you wish to hold the door open. It already has safety interlocks that prevent it from closing on somebody. They may be IR-emitters or even a physical safety bar with a microswitch to indicate that there’s a hand in the doorway.

Just wave your hand in the doorway.

But what about to tell it to close? What do we do then, Mr. Genius?

Easy. Just wait.

So, that’s three buttons out of five that we’ve eliminated.

I know what you’re thinking, “Surely, we can’t get rid of the Emergency Call button!”

Want to bet?

We already do the same thing with iPhones. If you press the Sleep button repeatedly, it’ll display emergency information or, in some cases, call your emergency contact.

In an elevator? We just push the There button repeatedly to do the same thing.

Oh, you didn’t mean to call help?

Press the There button to continue there.

And Now for Something Completely Different

On By JohnIn psychology, scienceLeave a comment

I’ll just leave this here for now.

…

No, wait.

Let’s do this.

For people who’ve said repeatedly lately that it’s just imagined or made-up or (insultingly? amusingly?) that it was “swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus.”, I’d like to underscore a statement from early on in the Executive Summary:

“…a majority [of sightings] were registered across multiple sensors, to include radar, infrared, electro-optical, weapon seekers, and visual observation.”

Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

It’s probably overlooked, but an operative word there is “and” — all of them at the same time.

That said, of the 144 sightings they’ve captured between 2004 and 2021.

Of those 144 sightings they’ve collected, they have identified with conclusive certainty, the staggering total of…

ONE.

And it was a weather balloon.

However, that still leaves 143 observations yet to be verified. And of those, there are 18 that appear to demonstrate advanced technology. Their words, not mine:

“In 18 incidents, described in 21 reports, observers reported unusual UAP movement patterns or flight characteristics.”

Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

Also, by “unusual”, what it means they move in a manner in which absolutely no known aircraft could possibly move within our understanding of physics: changing direction instantaneously; going from a few thousand feet to 80,000 feet in a few fractions of a second, not showing any indication of exhaust.

What the report doesn’t say, but I think clearly infers, is that there is no known or even classified technology that the US Government has or knows of that has any unusual UAP movement pattern capabilities.

This is, quite clearly, something that is only a glimpse of what will eventually be possible in the far distant future of humanity.

Go read the whole report. It’s only a few pages.