(editing to fix exponents as the carats disappeared) I’m digging into the pure math here because I’m suspicious of whoever came up with that estimate. Not in a malicious way, but in plain theoretically inaccurate way. 2 million years does not sound reasonable. If total distance wasn’t involved, it sounds reasonable just from a self-duplication standpoint. For the number of self-duplication cycles, 2(to the 37) is approx 140 billion and 2(to the 39) is approx 550 billion, which covers our galaxy’s estimated 100-400 billion stars. Add an iteration for the initial launch and you figure the range is 35-40 iterations. That allows 50,000-57,000 years average per cycle to travel to the next star. Then, you figure if we can build one self-replicating probe, we can build 4 or even 8 to start. 8 (to the 13) is 550 billion, same as 2(to the 39) right. So now, we’re talking up to 150,000 years per interstellar trip. Voyager 1’s steady interstellar speed would cover the ~4ly gap to Proxima Centauri in ~40,000 years. As it sits now, though, it still hasn’t even reached 1 light-day from Sol. While we should have better thrust tech now, it’s probably still within an order of magnitude due to Voyager’s excellent use of gravitational slingshots in a rare planetary arrangement. Smells OK so far.

But hold on. The galaxy is not linear, it’s circular (for the most part), which means we have to consider 2D area, not a 1D line. Even though we’re squaring the probes, the area covered is going up by a square as well. As far as distance goes, the squares cancel each other proportionately. So we do have to look at one linear consideration: distance to the other side. At about 105,000ly across and Earth sitting approve 26kly from both the nearest edge and the galactic center, it’s about 87,000ly to the other side. Covering that distance in 2 million years would take a speed of 0.0435c - 29,000,000mph, or 700x that of Voyager. But I guess no thing’s wrong with 20 million years of exploration or 200 million years, in the grand scheme of the universe, dropping the required interstellar speed to just 7x that of voyage. Make it 2 billion years and ti’s attainable with current technology, with 0.7x Voyager being about 28,000mph.

Regardless, I still have major doubts about this theoretical probe’s ability to slow at the next star, find suitable solid resources, stop to mine them, distribute its payload, manufacture 2 new probes (or 1 new and prepare itself), and be able to launch 2 probes with enough speed to escape the current system. Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 have escaped the heliosphere as of 2012 and 2018, respectively.That is all we’ve sent so far. That’s all we have in motion so far. Escaping our planet is such a major hurdle that of the ~200 probes sent beyond Earth’s gravitational dominance, only 2 have left the solar system. And while 28kmph sure sounds a lot like escape velocity from Earth, the peak speed was achieved at the time it left - over 90,000mph. That is a substantially greater amount of thrust to leave. That’s not the velocity needed to leave Earth, that’s the velocity needed to make sure it leaves the sun. After that is where the probes used slingshots to gain meaningful speed to reach the heliopause within our lifetimes instead of stalling in some Plutonian orbit.

So, as to why we’re not flush with probes, I think it comes down to the basic concept that such a trip far exceeds not only a life time, but all human concepts of time. The oldest known hominin tool is about 3 million years old. The oldest wooden structure, about 500,000 years. Jewelry, 150k years, cave paintings, 65k, and written history is just 5,000 years old. To complete this expedition in 2 million years means it’d exceed the the existence of our species in its entirety. At 2 billion years, it’d exceed the time that Earth has had multicellular life.

Even with all that said, it’s be a one-way trip, a one-way message. The first few iterations of replication would likely exceed any type of life as we know it on Earth. It may not even remain in any kind of historical record. Humans may be gone. Surviving life likely will not be sentient/intelligent enough to receive any kind of return message, if they even had the technology and the knowledge to know what to listen for. Just a message from the core would take 26,000 years to reach Earth - and we’re back to the law of squares where the message beam will be expanding, and weakening, with a squared ratio to distance traveled. We’re struggling to communicate with Voyager as it is.

So, the question is: why bother? Conceptually easy task with no tangible payback. It’d only satisfy some manifest destiny, likely of religious or nationalist origin. That doesn’t exactly resonate with the general science community and it’d be extraordinarily difficult to get governmental funding to support a life-spreading probe with their little, universally-meaningless flag attached.

Feels like they’re asking for a decapitation strike to catalyze the next phase

I wasn’t aware of that equality=matriarchy perception. I haven’t dove into the actual human ancient Greeks much, so thanks for that added info for me to seek out at some point. I had some inkling after finding out about the mythological Amazons

You don’t have to learn about it because the information is definitively trivial, in that it has no bearing on your life, despite your schooling probably giving you tests on it. However, it is useful to know because it’s still part of pop culture. The stories vary because 1. It was written a long time ago, 2. It’s been translated and intentionally mistranslated/altered/rewritten for social engineering reasons, and 3. It never happened. Let me throw out a disclaimer: this is not chatgpt, I just used Assassin’s Creed Odyssey as a springboard into actually seeing what the whole story was. As a never-evil player, I felt bad doing the monster hunts, especially for Medusa.

Medusa was either very sexy or very monstrous. Maybe she was sexy, then became monstrous at the time of her serpentine perm. The unclear appearance comes from trying to reconcile three parts of the story: Zeus raped her so she was probably sexy, Athena punished her for it with the snake hair/stone vision thing and might have wanted her to go unloved, and Perseus has to be heroic so killing a sleeping beauty would be evil. Zeus and Medusa’s offspring was born upon the beheading, as Pegasus (yes, the flying horse) burst from her corpse. So sometimes she’s a centaur, too.

So where does it fall in pop culture? Well, some people like to use “Medusa” as an insult to some types women being reclusive, being ugly, or being ruthless. But on the other hand, some groups of (primarily) women have taken her image as a powerful symbol to represent something from their past, a part of the myth that is present in all retellings: sexual assault. Greek myths love revolving around warriors slaying beasts, but you can argue she wasn’t a beast and was simply living in a distant place, wishing to be left alone. Perseus went after her anyway. There’s very real parallels here with SA, misogyny, violating consent, and other such unfair interactions.

But again, this is all based on mythology, not historical facts. The meaning has been changed a thousand times and will be changed until the end of humankind.

Anyway, on a related note, something I was totally unaware of until a few years ago, was that the Amazon women were a Greek myth. It had nothing to do with South America. The myth existed without knowledge of that rainforest because they’re totally unrelated. Amazon women were just a warrior group in the mythology. Apparently, when Europeans explored the area and found tall women, they figured it must be the Amazonians. That sounds like a bit of a normal total fuck up by the Europeans, on par with Columbus thinking he landed in India, maybe even with a cool respectful undertone ([X] doubt), but inr reality, the Amazons failed in nearly every tale. They were never meant to be a feminine icon. They failed because they were written to claim men had greater success in all feats.

Or at least that’s one interpretation. Or one interpretation of the latest set of rewrites.

Serpentinnitus

I will always be amazed by the drive to cross oceans, especially in the arctic where death seems so much more likely. We still lose ships to the sea. How many additional people died simply from being off in their guessed direction by a few degrees? How many were lost at sea due to weather or not enough supplies? How many people does it take to reach and establish a viable colony? How bad did conditions have to get in the starting colony for a hundred people to say “alright, I’m gonna head out” and raft across the the unending horizon, head out for days, probably still see the land they left, still not see land ahead, and continue? Did they even have a choice by then or was it driven by the current?

I scream, for I do not know. Thank you for coming to me Ted questionnaire

And then there’s dumb devices like flashlights that may not have the resistor that negotiates a basic rate with C ports, barring it from charging. A-C cables work because they still allow 500mA without negotiation

Something that may help, if you do end up doing this manually, is utilizing alt+click to highlight in the pdf. It’ll select in a box shape instead of reaching the end of each line like a paragraph. Each line will then get pasted as separate rows in excel. It doesn’t split into columns, so you still have to go with individual vertical selections. It also will break apart multi-line entries like I saw in the description field on your sample, so this will have to be highlighted individually normally. But at least it adds a little speed to those triple coordinate items. Maybe.

It depends on what’s useful to know.

A microwave is a heating device. It’s not useful to know you’re using a 7a microwave on its own. Is it 120v or 220v? What’s important is the wattage, as an indicator of how much heat it can put into food in a given time. A 700w microwave is going to take longer than the instructions say but could be a 3.5a euro oven or a 7a north american oven.

With lights, wattage ignores the change in voltages as well. But it relied upon the tungsten incandescent being ubiquitous. The socket type defines the voltage, so you just want to know if it’s a soft 25w reading light or a 100w for a garage bay. But now, with the prevalence of fluorescent and then LED lights, wattage has become almost irrelevant. They usually list actual wattage in pale text and “incandescent wattage equivalent” in bold. I’m happy to say I’m finally seeing bulbs state actual lumens now, which is what really matters to the end user. LED lighting is now the least of your electric bill worries.

With a car battery, you’re seeing the options in a later stage of market uniformity. Cars used to very commonly have 6v systems, so the 12v system was distinct. Large trucks use 24v (though I think with dual 12v batteries). But for you buying a car battery, just about all passenger cars are 12v. It’s a specific size like “group 65”, so it’s a 12v of certain size and terminal placement. You do have some options for amperage, listed as CCA. You can’t give more amps to the starter, but rather the battery lasts longer per charge and drops voltage less when under load.

But, you will actually see amps listed on power tools. I guess they traditionally had very little export, so the voltage is constant for the market. You can compare amps and take a good guess how two saws will compare. Even still, many tools now list actual specs like rpm and torque

A high amperage device is not what’s at risk. The wiring is. With defined voltages (by way of plug type), devices can’t draw extra amperage, but you can certainly ask the wires for more amperage than they can safely provide. Fuses and circuit breakers do not protect the device, they protect the wires from burning off their insulation, shorting, or catching fire.

But as a caveat, a 120v device plugged into a 220v source will draw too many amps for the device.

Nobody is mentioning Vietnam? That’s the source of boomer complaints IME. France “abandoned” the US and the industrial war machine convinced the American veterans that it was France’s fault that the greatest military in the world couldn’t defeat communist Vietnam.

Honda goldwings use the starter motor run backwards and engage to the transmission directly for a reverse gear

I just wanna get this straight. OP posited that e-bikes are motorcycles. Your argument is they are not motorcycles because your local ordinances prohibit them.

JFC

No, I’m talking about non-registerable electric bicycles with pedals as intended by the post. I’m not talking about highway-legal electric motorcycles like Zero. Yes, you can buy illegal vehicles. People do. The laws are not enforced in the US. So if a law bans highway-speed bicycles but no one is around to enforce it and users continually break this unenforced law, then the distinction about the safe versions of e-bikes being woefully slower than regulated motorcycles is moot. The actual e-bike user base has demonstrable overlap with highway-legal motorcycles.

I’d bet a dollar it saves one traffic light and I’d bet a second dollar she lives within a quarter mile of the south end of the road. Opened for the relief of the most minor of conveniences.

You can buy e-bikes on amazon that weigh more and travel faster than a Honda Cub, a registerable motorcycle. They’re in Grom territory. This idea, at least in the US market, that they’re fitting into the two classes of safe e-bike is disproven with 30 seconds of observation in any city or adjacent suburb. The only riders pedaling are the leisure riders in parks.

Fortnine has two videos on the topic, one of the 60mph e-bike and one of converting a Cub to EV, making it faster than stock.

Remotes need to stop being wobbly little things with slick matte surfaces. Flat bottoms, glossy grips. I’m not trying to do a full claw game simulation

You lose focus on boring things that don’t have mental stimulation such as information or pleasure. You are distracted, therefore you are squirrel. Parrots have been recorded making tools, not just using tools. Therefore, they are human.

Humans are the only ones writing it down, spreading the most thorough forms of communication the planet has ever seen. That’s your superpower.

It’s fine. To add to it, I couldn’t edit my own comment yesterday to highlight why I went in a different direction. Now I have. It’s not the first time I’ve been called AI because I write lengthy things about topics in which I’m knowledgeable. Xkcd.com/3126

I didn’t say you or your question was stupid. I explained why that assumption isn’t right