kengr

Yesterday's post got me thinking about various forms of communication from science fiction.

The "paired devices", non-interceptable is not uncommon and usually tied to quantum entanglement or the like.

Another one I've seen plays games with "phase velocity". This is a concept from waveguides where the phase velocity (speed at which changes of phase move thru the guide) is higher than the "group velocity".

This results inn a system where you can't communicate across a link until a signal from you has reached them. Once that happens, you can (in fictional theory) send messages to them FTL. They have to send a signal back to be able to send the other way.

This has some fun limitations, such as it being essentially useless except between "fixed" stations. and it taking a long time to set up any sort of network.

If you have FTL *travel*, then you can cheat and place relay station at some convenient distance apart and send signals to start links between *them*. Speeds things up a lot but requires a lot more infrastructure.

There's also the question of *how* much faster than light your signals travel.

Next one is a weirdie. Dirac radio,

With normal EM communications, a signal travels thru space like a ripple across a pond. The ripples spread at the speed of light.

With Dirac radio, the signals act like raising or lowering the level of the pond uniformly. So they are instantaneous. Of course there are a *few* problems. Like where does the energy come from? And what happens if several transmitters are operating at the same time. These are pretty much handwaved away.

Obviously *everyone with a receiver gets the signal at the same time, and it's not directional.

James Blich who was the first aothor to use it, came up with some other interesting effects. :-)

And then there are the "simple" ideas where the signal (of whatever sort) just travels FTL (buut not at infinite speed) and drops off with distance. And can have direction finding.

Can't think of any others at the moment.

Space Shuttle Challenger lost
1986-01-28 1638 UTC

Saw yet another link for a "glitter bomb" vid and I got to thinking. Glitter gets *everywhere* and is notorious for being next to impossible to completely remove. So I got a couple ideas.

Using glitter as a "carrier" for a curse or spell effect.

"Rainbow goo" (as opposed to "gray goo") scenario: self-replicating glitter

I have this image of groups of people (tribes?) on an Earth-like world, but with *hugely* longer days.

They are always on the move, though they can stay maybe a week or so to hunt or harvest before they have to move on.

Probably two sets. The Sunrise people who are always advancing near the sunrise line and the Sunset people who are always heading towards the sunset.

This is going to require that there be a more or less continuous band of land around the planet at their latitude(s).

I'm not sure how bad mid-night and mid-day would be but almost certainly not easily survivable.

My current guestimate is that the day would be around 3 earth-years long.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Resources?

The recent court decisions forcing Trump to pay for SNAP benefits have implications that I'm not sure most people recognize.

In particular his "request" that the courts tell him where to get the money.

This is actually a *major* red flag. He wants the courts to spell it out so he can use their logic to mess with other funds that h's been holding back (illegally!) and redirect money to things he wants.

So that "innocent request" is apt to become a *major* problem if the courts don't treat it like the trap it is.

Thanks top the 100+ temps a couple months ago, I learned that there are limits to the stability of "shelf stable" milk.

The room I was storing them in wasn't air conditioned and the cartons that were in there have curdled. They still taste and smell ok, but but they look like very thin cream of wheat.

Still work (mostly) for cooking, and cereal, just very very odd.

Stumbled across this on youtube.

Shatner works fairly well as Archie, doesn't he?

I bought a swivel chair a few years back. The arms broke early on. But it was still usable. Months back, one of the 5 legs broke. It was still usable, just required a bit of care.

Yesterday, when I moved it, the broken leg wound up at the back. A while later I went over backwards. Hit my head on something on the way down. No serious damage but I wound up on my left side. And between the furniture and stuff around me and the very much unpadded carpet I had great difficulty getting back up. After at least 15 minutes, I managed to contort myself to roll onto my hands and knees. My knees were *not* happy. On that flo0r my weight *hurt*.

But once I was on my hands and knees, I was able to grab onto things and stand up.

I deliberately turned the chair so the leg stub was in the front (I'd sat that way many times with no problems. About an hour later, it tipped forward and slid me onto the floor.

Again I was on my left side on the floor. Managed to finally get up still took at least 10 minutes.

Ugh. More sore knees and a few more scrapes.

The chair is now sitting in the hall waiting for fayanorato help me haul it down to the dumpster. And I've order a new chair, this one is rated for 700 pounds (the old one was rated for 450). It'll be her in a week or so.

I also now have my cane next to my desk because with it I should be able to lever myself upright a lot more easily.

Months with no problems and then I got dumped twice in one day. Still sore in places.

Got a couple bags of apples a few weeks back. Recently I've noticed that the seeds are sprouting inside the apples.

I've never seen this before. The apples are otherwise fine.

WTF?

(and no, I don't mean in the veterinary sense, though that might be a good idea too :-)

After reading yet another story about the harm corporate profit seeking has caused (especially in the health industry) I've come to the conclusion that we need some new rules for them

First and foremost, a corporation *must* have an *explict* purpose other than "make money for the shareholders".

Second, that purpose must not be contrary to the public interest.

Third, that purpose must override the profit of the shareholders. Not that the shareholders must do things to further the company's purpose that will cost them money, but rather, they may not vote for things that get them more money at the *cost* of the company's purpose.

So "cost-cutting" measures that impair the ability to carry out the purpose of the company are out. If they are necessary to keep the company going, that's different.

Fourth, we probably need something about excessive profits. Like that cancer drug that costs around 25 cents a dose, but is sold at around a thousand dollars a dose. And contrary to the usual pious claims about paying for research on other drugs, it ain't going into that. It's going to stockholders and corporate officers.

I can hear the screams now. Especially from insurance companies. Too bad, so sad.