Spyke

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Problem?

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I disagree there - peer review as a system isn't designed to catch fraud at all, it's designed to ensure that studies that get published meet a minimum standard for competence. Reviewers aren't asked to look for fake data, and in most cases aren't trained to spot it either.

Whether we need to create a new system that is designed to catch fraud prior to publication is a whole different question.

space

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An Engineer Says He’s Found a Way to Overcome Earth’s Gravity

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Gravity and vacuum are not mutually exclusive - you always have to deal with gravity forces, although they become negligible pretty quickly when you get into and then leave orbits.

As to the specific claim, I suspect that the experiments they are currently doing (in vacuum chambers on earth) have gotten to the point that they are measuring the propulsion system producing more thrust than it's own weight (T/W >1), which would technically be enough thrust to overcome gravity. Even if it wasn't practically useful for actually getting to orbit, that amount of thrust on a reactionless motor would be incredible, and would totally unlock the solar system for us.

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Tesla braces for its first trial involving Autopilot fatality

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Those stats are misleading though. Autopilot only runs on highways, which are much safer per mile even for human drivers.

Tesla are basically comparing their system, which only runs in pristine, ideal conditions, against an average human that has to deal with the real world.

As far as I'm aware they haven't released safety per mile data from the FSD cars yet, and until they do I will remain skeptical about how much safer it currently is.

news

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United Airlines CEO says the airline will consider alternatives to Boeing's next airplane

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Believe it or not, but companies outside of Boeing and Airbus are capable of designing airplanes.

It's not just "good" regulation holding them back either - in 2017 Boeing accused Bombardier of "dumping" some CSeries planes because they sold them to Delta at below the retail cost (about a 30% discount). The CSeries was/is a good plane, but took an incredibly long time to get through certification so Bombardier had been losing money and was desperate to sell them. Boeing complained about this discount to the US International Trade Commission who imposed a massive fine on Bombardier. Because of the delays, Bombardier couldn't afford to fight the fine so they ended up having to give up a 50% stake in the design to Airbus for only $1. The year after, the fines were appealed and overturned, but the damage was already done. Bombardier has since completely sold their stake in the CSeries (one less competitor), and Airbus gets the renamed A220 series for a massive discount.

As an aside, I can't argue that the FAA doesn't do more good than harm in this space generally, but I'm the last ~5 years it's becoming clear to me that they have a massive blindspot for Boeing in particular.

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That gourmet luxury blend...

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If you're mixing things up in the kitchen, typically you try to be somewhat precise with ratios.

The difference in this case being that because the actual ratio of the blend is unknown, you don't actually know how it would crystallize. Technically they could even change up the ratio week to week based on the price of high-fructose corn syrup so you wouldn't even get consistency from it.

movies

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Hi I'm Will Ropp! Ask me anything!

Hi Will!

Now that you've tried out directing as well as acting, which side of the camera do you prefer?

Are there any things you've learned from the experience of directing that you think will help in future acting roles? Additionally, is there anything you would do differently about directing Kodar if you got to start over from scratch today?

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Elon hasn't successfully activated a satellite since March. Over 1200 inactive satellites according to space-track.org and satellitemap.space. Yahoo now reports SpaceX willing to sell shares.

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After a few years the orbit will degrade enough that it'll start to fall back to earth. At that point, the satellite will either burn up completely on re-entry, or partially and the rest will fall to earth.

Either way, each of these satellites will be completely gone from orbit after a few years.