He/him

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 14th, 2023

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  • The big question then becomes: “is that behaviour inherent to all systems like this, or just this one?” Like, if you go to the store, buy a basic sprinkler, and then test it and it behaves exactly opposite to how you might expect it to. Or it does something completely unexpected, like phases into another dimension and starts pumping strawberry jam. Your next step shouldn’t be to say “Oh, weird, I guess that’s that.” You’d start knocking down variables. Is it the same with every sprinkler or just this one? Does the amount of suction applied affect it? If I replace the water with something else does the outcome change?"

    If you’re doing research like this, you’re kind of expected to do the same sort of elaboration even if the result of a basic experiment conforms precisely to your hypothesis, because the question isn’t if any given sprinkler setup behaves in this way, it’s about whether this is a universal phenomenon across all similar setups. Because there’s an xkcd for everything, it’s this.


  • I think it’s also fair to say that “too cold” is generally more livable than “too hot”. It’s quite a bit easier to generate and conserve heat than to ward it off, and even a planet that is so cold that its atmosphere has precipitated into snow could theoretically be survivable with habitat domes or the like, much like a proposed moon base. “Too hot,” on the other hand, can potentially be hot enough to melt basically anything we send there, which is why there’s a lot more focus on colonizing Mars right now than Venus.