There actually exists a study done in Japan, combining both a survey of crematoriums and experimental tests using a crematory retort and sample medical device batteries.

The results found that the device explosions were audible, but did not damage the experimental crematorium. In the survey, however, 92% (in 2012) and 51% (in 2013) of questioned crematoriums reported "damage" from medical device batteries. The cause for this discrepancy is unclear; it's possible those answering the questionnaire considered scorching, scratches, or metal residue to be "damage", while the test only looked for "structural damage".

30 phone batteries is a lot more than 8 medical batteries, but it's still not a whole lot. Compared to, say, powerbank or scooter batteries, which can go up rather more spectacularly, the effects are more limited.

tl;dr - it'd probably be noisy and some refractory bricks might need replacing, but it probably wouldn't blow up the retort.

A Lazy Gun:

A Lazy Gun is roughly half a metre long, 30 cm wide and 20 cm tall. On the front are two short cylinders that end in black lenses. A sight extends from the main body, as do two hand grips. A metallic strap allows the Lazy Gun to be fired from the waist. On one hand grip is a zoom control and on the other grip is a trigger mechanism. The Lazy gun is massy but light, and weighs three times as much when turned upside down. The Lazy Gun is the only weapon known to display a sense of humour.

To fire the Lazy Gun, it is pointed at the target, zoomed in, and then the trigger is pulled. What happens next is unpredictable. When fired at humans, many different things may occur. An anchor may appear above the person, giant electrodes may appear on either side of the target and electrocute them or an animal may tear their throat out. Larger targets such as tanks or ships may suffer tidal waves, implosion, explosion, sudden lava flows or just disappear. When fired at cities and other such targets, thermonuclear explosions are the norm, although in one instance a comet crashed into the city.

It is. People have pointed out that if you don't have the precognition and super-reflexes of a Jedi, a sword with a massless blade is actually really easy to hurt yourself with.

Back when I used to mod Reddit, starting maybe a year or so ago we'd occasionally get users who would be inexplicably targeted by the auto-filter.

The accounts weren't new, weren't shadowbanned, weren't using any filter-triggering words (that I could guess at), and an examination via Pushshift didn't reveal any kind of spammy behavior. Nonetheless, their posts would get silently removed by the site-wide filter, and frequently we wouldn't even know until they modmailed us.

Now I can't help but wonder if this was a result of a beta-test of something like this. Something they had done had invisibly lowered their "Reddit credit", leaving us as confused as them.

Not Republican myself, but work with a lot of them. I'm seeing a few different camps right now. I can't really speak for exactly how many fall into each, but can only give estimates based on my subjective experiences:

• The "Leopard-Facers": The ones who've suddenly woken up to the fact they elected a moron and a bully. These tend to be foreign policy hawks, and may have only voted for Trump reluctantly. Probably the smallest group.

• The pure Trumpists: A mix of people who thought the US should be isolationist anyhow, just don't like Zelensky in particular, or just are too invested in the vision of messiah-Trump. Obviously they're thrilled. Very vocal, but I think also somewhat fewer. Maybe I just hope they're fewer.

• The cognitive dissonancers: Probably the greatest number. There's a lot of different views under this umbrella. Some of them were buying into the idea "he's just blustering for a better deal"; some thought the message was on-point but the display was inappropriate; some actually support Ukraine but can't bring themselves express any actual opposition to this shitshow. Broadly speaking, they're all squirming - struggling to reconcile the appeal they feel for his persona or other actions he's taken, with their opposition to his foreign policy and this in particular. Yet not able to accept reality like the Leopard-Facers.

Really glad I'm not the first to come here and say this. We're "firing" programs now? Come on.

Bows are actually incredibly hard to use. When you see a "draw weight" of the bow, this is the force you need to exert to pull it back to its full draw. 40-50lbs is considered normal, I believe, while the English Longbow - famous for its use in the Hundred Years' War - had a draw weigh of at least 80 pounds, with some scholars suggesting even 50% greater numbers than that. Imagine lifting a weight that heavy each time you wanted to loose an arrow!

Bows, then, require extended training to use properly. Not just strength training, although professional archers were jacked, but in how to properly employ the weapon. The dominance of early firearms had much to do with not just their absolute performance - at times, they were actually outperformed by bows in absolute terms - but by that their effective use could be broken down into simple actions which could be easily drilled into new recruits.

If we're talking about modern guns, this effect is much exaggerated. Guns can take some getting use to, sure, and modern bows have added features for ease of use. But guns are, honestly, shockingly easy to use for what they can accomplish.

Well, I mean I guess after a long day or working really hard it can get a little achey and-

But my lower back will randomly act up, sometimes it gets so bad that I about black out from the pain.

No. Holy shit, no. Not normal at all. Go see a doctor ASAP. If you're ever in debilitating pain for no obvious reason, that is a colossal flashing "go see a doctor now" sign.

They don’t understand how to use a search engine effectively anymore or how to rapidly filter through large amounts of information to find answers

This bit, at least, may be at least as much a fault of the environment - the increasing awfulness of search results these days. It used to be you could search a specific issue (e.g., "borked.exe high CPU usage" or "how to partition a drive") and your first results would be relatively well-written sites run by actual tech people. More recently, though, it feels like:

• The first 5-8 results are near-identical "help" sites that are 40% introduction, 40% basic troubleshooting steps, 15% "download our app!", and 5% actually useful tips.

• There are tech site results listed... but they're from 2016, a different software version, maybe even a different OS.

• "Okay, so, to fix this problem you first need... [SIGN IN TO CONTINUE READING]

• If you're very, very lucky, you'll find a Reddit (or now, Lemmy) thread on the issue.

I'd consider myself pretty technically savvy, and even I find it frustrating to search for IT info or fixes these days. The newest problem is AI-written answers cooked up for you on the spot, which are frequently completely unhelpful yet pushed to the top of the results.

Absolutely nothing.

For reference, here's footage of a 5 Megaton nuclear device being detonated underground. No global eruptions, and hard for humans to even feel further from the epicenter - although, seismic monitoring by precision instruments is a known way of monitoring for secret underground nuclear tests.

For further reference, the 2011 Tohoku earthquake off the coast of Japan - the one that unleashed powerful tsunamis - released a staggering 3.9x10^22 Joules, or around 9.3 million megatons of TNT. While this did cause local devastation, it also failed to meet Project Vulcan's goal.

3D CAD software. There are a few options out there (FreeCAD, LibreCAD, etc) and Blender is a thing that exists for more artistic 3D modeling. But they simply don't hold a candle to the features and capabilities of the paid packages, which typically have costs in the 4-to-5-digit range. And I'm not talking the crazy high-end simulation options - those I understand, they're hard - but basic modeling features.

Hell, I'd even settle for a CAD package that had some solid basic features and had a reasonable purchase cost. Unfortunately the few providers have the industry by the throat, and so your options are "free but terrible" and "you need a mortgage to use this".

At one point I really, truly believed that the internet and social media would be a turning point in human interconnectivity and cultural understanding. The ability to just... talk to someone on the other side of the planet, at will? When we know that exposure to other beliefs and cultures is superb at punching holes in hatred and misunderstanding? Surely this would lead to great things!

Yeah, that was a miss.

Exposure to other is still a fantastic way to grow understanding. But the internet and social media were not a highway to it, and as the "wild west" era of the internet faded and we instead got corporate-governed, algorithm-driven siloization of views, my views on the value of social media changed sharply.

It's an interesting thought, but according to the article, it's not even clear that the fungus is absorbing radiation or befitting from radiation. Actual photosynthesis-via-radiation hasn't been demonstrated; it might simply be taking advantage of the absence of other species due to high radiation, or the radiation is triggering a stress response.

Beyond that, I'm not sure this fungus would have a better protection-per-ton rating than, say, water (which is an astoundingly good radiation shield). But, it might point us towards ways of developing plants which are radiation-tolerant, theoretically opening a path to growing food in orbital or lunar-surface environments.

It may not be an exact comparison, given changes in both popular media and US culture, but Huey Long (1893-1935) is possibly one of the closer comparisons.

A wildly popular populist demagogue, Long similarly set about expelling political opponents from the government system following his election and engaging in political maneuvering and strongarming which ultimately got him impeached (though, like Trump, the effort collapsed before before long). His efforts included setting up Louisiana state boards which directed the distribution of state money to political allies, a move to deny hostile newspapers "official printer" status, worked with a businessman to create an oil company which profited from public lands allotted to it, produced his own newspaper which published positive stories, and other similarly totalitarian moves.

However, it must also be noted that unlike Trump, Long actually achieved many populist goals, such as dramatically expanding the road system and increasing school enrollment. He was hostile to Roosevelt's New Deal, claiming it was actually insufficiently populist and overly friendly to businesses, but also was highly isolationist and opposed to US involvement leading up to World War II.

Long was assassinated in 1935 by the son of a political opponent. Most believe he was shot by the assassin, though some believe his bodyguards accidentally shot him in confusion after the assassin missed.

This. It says, "I acknowledge you are upset, and accept blame."

It's not as dumb as you make it out. The issue isn't that GPS is really, really good at what it does; it's that it's also incredibly vulnerable to disruption and spoofing. And due to the particulars of how GPS works, we can't entirely fix that. We can do some things to ameliorate it, but a lot of those aren't suitable for smaller things that use GPS today.

The other thing is that GPS largely replaced a tremendous number of other navigation aides and techniques, including other radio-navigation systems like LORAN-C.

See, this one I like, because it's one of those "man, I know the writers didn't mean it that way, but it makes sense... and it's horrifying!" theories.

The Falcon is so good, because for decades it has essentially had the crippled, half-dead "ghost" of a droid locked inside its computer systems, unable to fully die yet clearly devoid of her true consciousness.

Technically you don’t need it, but it makes it a little easier for the developers and the users.

For that matter, if you poke around in some games' files, you can find the actual game.exe and launch it directly from there, bypassing the launcher. You just bypass the authentication and compatibility checking as well.

Now this is the good stuff I look for in a Tech community.

"...can I join too?"