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Comment Re:Ideal Capacitors not the Problem (Score 1) 81

The literal definition of a parallel circuit is one where the circuit divides and the current is split between two components - look it up. That is not possible if your circuit consists of two capacitors and nothing else. If there is not more than one path for the current the circuit is not parallel. This is not a physics vs. engineering definition, it is THE definition of what parallel means.

Comment Re:Selection Bias, Safety Net (Score 1) 79

But will it?

Yes. Name one main-stream science, engineering or medical degree from a decent university that was not helpful in getting a job 10, 20 or even 30 or more years ago.

A system which was once useful has basically become a ponzi scheme which serves no real purpose other than making colleges richer.

No it has not. What has happened though is that you now have a lot of for-profit private colleges setup to rip people off without providing them with a decent, or even useful, education. You also see established institutions suffering from government funding cutbacks adding some programs that prioritise profit over education. You are also starting to see institutes starting to prioritise social issues over education. However, the basic value proposition of university is still very much there it's just that, like many things in today's world, social and financial pressures are corrupting it in some instances.

Now all that knowledge is widely available to anyone on the Internet

That's a nice idea but I've yet to meet anyone with e.g. a good grasp of physics who achieved that by teaching themselves from the internet. I have met several people who _think_ they have a good grasp of physics from teaching themselves but invariably they have gone off the rails somewhere because it's easy to misunderstand or misread things when teaching yourself and you need to have someone challenging and correcting those misunderstandings when they occur as well as checking that you have reached certain standards. There are very good reasons why we do not let someone just read a lot of medical texts and then start practicing as a doctor.

Comment Re:Let's ride this crazy train (Score 1) 149

If we judged morality based on how moral people feel they are then the least moral person would probably be someone like Mother Theresa because their standards are so high that they never feel that they meet them while people like the Taliban, Stalin and Hitler would be highly "moral" because they followed their own internal twisted morality without regard to anything else leading to what the rest of us regard as some of the most immoral atrocities ever commited.

Comment Re:Ideal Capacitors not the Problem (Score 1) 81

You're being more than needlessly pedantic

No, I'm being appropriately pedantic for a physics question. When you have a capacitor charged to 100V and another is connected in parallel to it the usual implication is that this too will be charged to 100V since connecting something in parallel implies the same pd across the device. If the capacitor were already disconnected from the external power then parallel and series have no meaning since they would both be the same as your circuit now consists of just two capacitors.

Thus, in specifying parallel the question is either saying that the EMF is still connected or, at worst, it is heavily implying it.

Submission + - Neo-Nazi admits to Nashville electricity grid bomb plot (jpost.com)

Bruce66423 writes: 'A Tennessee neo-Nazi pleaded guilty last Tuesday to a plot to use an explosive kamikaze drone to attack a Nashville electrical substation, the US Justice Department Public Affairs Office announced.

'Columbia resident Skyler Philippi in July 2024 told a “confidential human source” about how attacking interstate electrical substations would “shock the system,” later expanding in an August 2024 manifesto that he sought to attack “high tax cities or industrial areas to make the k**es lose money.”

'FBI Counterterrorism Division Assistant Director Donald Holstead said in a statement that the plan “had the potential to knock out power to thousands of American homes and to critical facilities like hospitals.”

'Just before Philippi sought to implement his plan in November, the sources participated in a Nordic ritual with Philippi, in which they recited a prayer and discussed the Norse god Odin. The neo-Nazi promised that “this is where the New Age begins” and that it was “time to do something big.”'

Fans of Neil Gaiman's 'American Gods' will be less than surprised at the appearance of Odin in this...

Submission + - Gen Z Leads Biggest Drop in FICO Scores Since Financial Crisis (yahoo.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Gen Z borrowers took the biggest hit of any age group this year, helping pull overall credit scores lower in the worst year for US consumer credit quality since the global financial crisis roiled the world’s economy. The average FICO score slipped to 715 in April from 717 a year earlier, marking the second consecutive year-over-year drop, according to a report released Tuesday by Fair Isaac Corp. The average score dropped three points to 687 in 2009.

Gen Z borrowers saw the largest drop, not only this year, but of any age group since 2020, with their average score falling three points to 676, the Montana-based creator of the FICO credit score said. FICO scores are a measure of consumer credit risk and are frequently used by US banks to assess whether to provide loans. The scores typically range from 300 to 850. The credit scoring agency attributed the recent overall drop to higher rates of utilization and delinquency, including the resumption of reporting student loan delinquencies — a category that hit a record high of 3.1% of the entire scorable population. [...] While the overall average score dropped, the median FICO score continued to rise to 745 from 744 a year ago, indicating that a large drop in scores at the low end dragged down the average.

Submission + - China Is Sending Its World-Beating Auto Industry Into a Tailspin (reuters.com)

An anonymous reader writes: On the outskirts of this city of 21 million, a showroom in a shopping mall offers extraordinary deals on new cars. Visitors can choose from some 5,000 vehicles. Locally made Audis are 50% off. A seven-seater SUV from China’s FAW is about $22,300, more than 60% below its sticker price. These deals – offered by a company called Zcar, which says it buys in bulk from automakers and dealerships – are only possible because China has too many cars. Years of subsidies and other government policies have aimed to make China a global automotive power and the world’s electric-vehicle leader. Domestic automakers have achieved those goals and more – and that’s the problem.

China has more domestic brands making more cars than the world’s biggest car market can absorb because the industry is striving to hit production targets influenced by government policy, instead of consumer demand, a Reuters examination has found. That makes turning a profit nearly impossible for almost all automakers here, industry executives say. Chinese electric vehicles start at less than $10,000; in the U.S., automakers offer just a few under $35,000. Most Chinese dealers can’t make money, either, according to an industry survey published last month, because their lots are jammed with excess inventory. Dealers have responded by slashing prices. Some retailers register and insure unsold cars in bulk, a maneuver that allows automakers to record them as sold while helping dealers to qualify for factory rebates and bonuses from manufacturers.

Unwanted vehicles get dumped onto gray-market traders like Zcar. Some surface on TikTok-style social-media sites in fire sales. Others are rebranded as "used" – even though their odometers show no mileage – and shipped overseas. Some wind up abandoned in weedy car graveyards. These unusual practices are symptoms of a vastly oversupplied market – and point to a potential shakeout mirroring turmoil in China’s property market and solar industry, according to many industry figures and analysts. They stem from government policies that prioritize boosting sales and market share – in service of larger goals for employment and economic growth – over profitability and sustainable competition. Local governments offer cheap land and subsidies to automakers in exchange for production and tax-revenue commitments, multiplying overcapacity across the country.

Comment Re:Poor Boeing. (Score 1) 37

The overnight flights are one thing. The problem I have is on the westward flights across the Atlantic which are day flights: they take off in the morning and land in the early afternoon. I've often had the window partially open on those flights, especially if you are flying over Iceland or Greenland and the weather is clear since the view is spectacular and exposure to sunlight is the best way to minimize jet lag.

I rarely, if ever get questioned by cabin crew when I'm doing that and even when I am questioned I explain I'm looking at the view and they just ask that I close the window when I'm finished which I do. The problem is that with the 787 cabin crew now will refuse to let you open the window at all on daytime flights. Part of the problem may be that with a mechanical blind I can open it enough to see without having to open it entirely but on the 787 it's either all or nothing and the windows are larger too.

Comment Evidence Suggests Otherwise (Score 1) 25

More light directly translates into lower crime rates and higher social activity and human happiness.

Really? The article points out that the amount of light we generate has more than doubled since 2011 and somehow I don't feel that human happiness levels have increased or that crime has decreased and while perhaps social activity has increased a fair amount of that seems to be people protesting about how unhappy they are so I'm not sure it helps your claim.

Comment Ideal Capacitors not the Problem (Score 1) 81

The problems with the question you stated have nothing to do with ideal capacitors. Your first problem is that you have 'x' as a charge to start with and then as an energy at the end. Then there is the problem that if your first capacitor is charged to 100V and a second is placed _in parallel_ with it that too will be charged to 100V, not 9.1V since connecting something in parallel implies that you are connecting it to an external EMF such that the potential difference across the components is the same as opposed to in series when the current through both is the same.

I am guessing that what you meant to say is that the initial capacitor was charged to 100V and that the _energy_ stored was 'x'. Then you disconnect the original capacitor from the external voltage and connect the new capacitor across its terminals and now the voltage drops. I'm not sure that the AI will do any better with the corrected questions but at least you will have given it a question that it is possible to answer.

Comment Rate of Warming Matters (Score 1) 41

Yes, coral has survived a far warmer planet but that warming happened at a much slower rate than today's human-induced changes and that could definitely cause problems for coral since it is a not incredibly mobile and will take time to migrate and it is not clear that it can migrate quickly enough. However, that suggests that some of the damage could be mitigated by transplanting coral ourselves and it would be nice to see mitigation strategies like this explored by the experts instead of just the doom and gloom.

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