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Comment Re: "far too small to generate any lift"?? (Score 4, Interesting) 106

That's how I read it. It should say it has no thrust.

A typical jet turbofan airframe has two engines that each have a generator shaft taking turbine energy and making electrical current. It then has a whole 'nother turbine engine used on the ground and in some other flight legs called the APU; this exhausts out the tail cone usually, and can start engines or provide extra hydraulic power if needed, but is slow to start just like the main engines.

For power loss emergencies, a small spring-loaded fan pops into action super fast, called a Ram Air Turbine or RAT. It can only make enough electrical power to reboot key systems like engine FADECs or avionics, often only on one electrical channel instead of all channels. It's only a turbine, not a thrust-producing fan. It's a pinwheel toy in comparison to the APU and even the APU cannot produce significant thrust.

Comment Re:Excellent (Score 1) 213

Difficult is not equal to impossible. Heat can be used to boil working fluids, which can be used to drive turbines, which can create energy, which can in turn be used to run AI chips, which give off heat, which can then also be harvested to boil working fluids...Not really a perpetual motion machine, but the inefficiency in the system can be used to suck more heat out of the heat pumps anyway. Inefficiency in this case is a feature.

Comment Re:"Abstraction: Towards an Abstracter Abstract" (Score 1) 111

What we need is a 2nd study, using 400 students, separated into four groups:
1. Using Google ONLY by looking at the 3rd page of results (the first two pages are now taken up with Gemini AI and targeted advertising).
2. Using ChatGPT Only.
3. Using inventory computers in a large metropolitan library
4. Using old fashioned card catalogs and books.

I wonder if we chose a significantly esoteric subject, with a 100 question exam given after a week, if any useful clustering could be detected.

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