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Comment Re:This whole concept has always bothered me. (Score 1) 70

The Sun, all stars, galaxies, formed by ordinary matter self gravitating into a volume where it's components interact with each other. With ordinary matter that implies a confining pressure produced by gravity, and a resisting pressure from the particles interacting with each other and not being able to share the same volume.

As a "RetiredChemist", you should recognise that situation from deriving the "Ideal Gas Laws" from Newtonian dynamics of particles and Van der Waal's expression for the volume of gas molecules (as opposed to the volume occupied by the gas under NTP, STP or whatever. REmember that lecture.

The thing about normal matter is that it's particles self-interact, leading to them having a consistent distribution of particle energies. And that means a gas of normal matter has a temperature, and it will radiate some of that energy away if it's temperature is greater than the ambient (currently 2.8-odd K ; the CMB temperature). Otherwise, it will collapse in volume under the influence of gravity - as you suggest - until it's internal temperature rises to the point that it starts to radiate it's thermal energy. Yadda, yadda, normal star formation theory, and on a bigger scale the same process for galaxies.

But with dark matter particles not (or very rarely) interacting (DM)particle on (DM)particle (and little from (DM)particle on (NormalM)particle), they just pass through your volume under consideration and out the other side, only responding to the gravitational force very slowly braking them as they ascend from the gravity well and into inter-galactic space. Then they slowly descend back into the middle of the galaxy, picking up speed from the gravitational field ... and pass through the middle of the galaxy without interacting with other DM (or NormalM) particles to shoot out the other side.

According to the -CDM model, DM does clump with matter - at the galaxy or galaxy-cluster scale. But it doesn't stick to other DM as well as "NormalM" does, so it hasn't (yet) condensed into dark galaxies etc.

Re-do your "Ideal gas law" calculations with a much smaller Van der Waals volume and much weaker electrostatic reaction between gas particles, and you too will reproduce the slowness of clustering. You could manage this when you were an undergraduate ; you can do it now.

Comment Re:Or, as always... (Score 1) 70

So that would explain the new human-lethal bird flu strain.

If this flu acquires human-human transmission (which other bird flu strains have developed at various times ; it's obviously not a difficult thing to acquire), how is RFK Jr going to deal with it? Vaginal douches and Ivermectin? horse tranquilizer to overdose?

Comment Re:Windows are cool but (Score 1) 26

The "lifeboats" aren't there for years on end. They come and go with cargo and/ or crew. (Tiangong isn't operated with permanent crew, so they have mothballing and de-mothballing procedures. Meh.) So the exposure profiles you suggest are not really correct.

so it must have been an extremely small object which is why they wouldn't have picked it up on radar and maneuvered out of the way which is normal practice.

I believe the relevant dimension for being "trackable" is around 1cm. Above that, trackable ; below that, much much harder to track. It's probably related to radar wavelengths.

I'm not sure exactly how that compares to a SuperMan-esque "speeding bullet", but phrases like "Glock 9mm" (I've just read the 'Killing Eve' books - Eve's service weapon) sort-of give an idea. I'm not sure it can be translated in to American domestic units though - somewhere between "sometimes lethal" and "always lethal".

FWIW the windows on this Chinese craft are triple layer, and the impact only cracked the outer one,

Various experiments over the decades with high-velocity impacts show that the most effective (per unit mass) protection scheme is to have multiple layers of material, separated by "stand-off" layers. This effectively spreads the initial impact over a wider area of the next layer, without propagating fractures between layers. Which would suggest an obvious design modification.

I never tried to take notes, but a fair number of commercial aircraft I've flown on have displayed a small (1~2mm diameter) hole in the lower corner of their exterior windows. I've always taken these to be ports for pressure-equalisation between the outer "protection" layer of PMMA, acrylic, or whatever, and the actual pressure vessel window. I'm not sure that all aircraft windows do this - unpressurised aircraft certainly don't - just the rip-tab for evacuation.

Comment Re:Windows are cool but (Score 1) 26

Desirable to see outside, I'd agree - for your various reasons. "Need" on the other hand is a much steeper challenge.

But considering the relatively low stresses encountered when on orbit, and the presence of five robotic arms already on the station, the option of fitting a protective cover while the "lifeboat" is docked would be one to consider. 3 magnets and a metal (aluminium, or titanium ; or even a tough polymer composite) plate would do it, if there are conveniently located ferrous metal nodes on the exterior of the spacecraft.

Dock "lifeboat" (since it has other uses than "life saving in crisis", I am uncomfortable with calling it a "lifeboat", but "meh") ; transfer crew and/ or cargo ; install porthole shield(s) ; do other stuff ; remove shields as part of the "prepare for launch" checklist.

As a seafarer all my working life, I'd be comfortable with procedures like that. It's not as if real world lifecraft don't also have launch procedures. Which everyone is trained to carry out, by the book, following the diagrams printed on the lifecraft themselves. It's a manageable problem.

Comment Re: Windows are cool but (Score 1) 26

The fracture toughness quoted for that material is about 3 times higher than that for soda glass. Which is "better". But not compellingly better. Replacing the porthole with a metal panel matching the rest of the skin, and maybe a CCTV external port for communication between ground crew and contents of the spacecraft would probably be better value for money.

Which is a parameter everyone pays attention to. It might not be an overwhelming factor, but it is considered.

Comment Wasted resources and money (Score 3, Interesting) 52

Just imagine the cost of this over the course of a decade. The utility seems to have borne the brunt of the work, having to analyze and filter this data multiple times per year. That cost would have been passed onto customers - I'm sure it's appreciated that everyone's power bill was just a bit higher to fund this fishing expedition by law enforcement.

Then of course the investigators would be tied up digging through the 33,000 "tips" this data produced. Literally, law enforcement had to review 33,000 potential customers who met this profile, checking them for warrants or other known crimes giving them some excuse to surveil or even search that residence. Pretty extreme when you think about it - and that is just to catch people growing weed of all things. Not the dangerous drugs killing people or contributing to the homeless population on so on.

Finally, the fact that this generated so many potential leads shows how stupid the concept is in general - the "profile" they were going after regarding power usage. I can think of a hundred of other things that would cause higher power usage 24/7 that has nothing to do with growing weed.

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