[ShortcutToMoncton]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

I used to be Facebook friends with Jawbone but he unfriended me at some point. Must have been sick of dog and car pictures.

Naw, that guy is just a well-known asshole

[subego]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

Mom threw a bit of a fit and sent me links to the Bible Answer Man when I said I wanted to be cremated, because now my body can't rise again when Jesus comes back.

I’m not really religious, and picked cremation, but there’s that little voice in the back of my head which wonders if that’s the right move.

Sort of a version of “go to the light when you die” versus “don’t go to the light when you die… it’s a trick”.

[dav]

Originally Posted by subego 

I’m not really religious, and picked cremation, but there’s that little voice in the back of my head which wonders if that’s the right move.

I choose to be cremated, but I think it's a balance between what's best for the living and the environment.
To be embalmed in a tomb with a headstone may be comforting for the living as they have a memorial to pilgrimage to, but not the best for the environment. To be thrown in a chipper and sprayed across a field may be good for the environment, but not so appealing to the living. Cremation gives you a memorial (urn) or you can choose a special location to spread the ashes, and it's probably a little better for the environment. Spiritually, I don't believe it matters.

[subego]

I’ve instructed my ashes should get tossed in the Gulf of Mexico off Key West, so at least whoever does it gets a decent vacation out of the deal.

[Laminar]

Does your will allocate funds for the transfer of the ashes?

[subego]

You know, I don’t think it does. I should change that.

[ghporter]

At the moment, my wife and I are “up in the air” about whether to have our ashes tossed into the Atlantic from Key West, or into the Pacific from Seattle/Juneau/Skagway. But our arrangements DO cover that.

Making “those” arrangements was full of asking questions that were not at all comfortable. But having someone knowledgeable about the process and options to ask made it a whole lot easier.

[subego]

I wish I understood why, but I much prefer the Atlantic to the Pacific.

[ghporter]

I got to ride an actual PT boat out of Key West and into the Atlantic. It was the boat they used in PT109 and McHale's Navy. The TV folks converted the boat to diesel engines; the original engines were Packard 3A-2500 aircraft engines that took 100 octane aviation gas. Supercharged, intercooled, dual-magnetoed, these engines could push the boat up to 50kts. And the hull design was super: no wake. None. Riding on that boat was a thrill.

On the other hand - and other coast - my wife and I took a cruise out of Seattle to the Alaska Inside Passage. It was a whole different experience from any of our sea trips, before or after. We went as far north as Skagway, stopped in Juneau, and cruised up the outer part of the Tracy Arm Fjord. Breathtaking views, SO MUCH SKY, and (in June) sunset at around 10PM local just made the whole trip magical.

So we love Key West, but we also love the Northwest Pacific Coast. Thus we don't yet know which side of the continent we want our ashes to settle on.

[subego]

I’ve had a much narrower view of the Pacific. Never been farther north than Santa Barbra.

[subego]

Tapioca or no tapioca?

[Thorzdad]

You mean in general? I like tapioca pudding. Homemade. Not the gelatinous premade stuff.

[subego]

I’m thinking more in cases where it’s optional. Like a smoothie.

The pudding weirds me out. Don’t really like pudding in general for whatever reason.

[subego]

My dad says he’s basically hit the wall in terms of Netflix and Prime content. What streaming services should I sign him up for? Hulu and?

He doesn’t really watch series, and he loves his TiVo, so AppleTV is sorta out.

I don’t watch TV at all, so I’m a bit lost at sea.

He has HBO. Should he get HBO Max or whatever it’s called?

[Thorzdad]

In what way has he hit the wall? Seen everything or just can’t find anything? It can be pretty damned frustrating finding stuff. The algorithms quickly pigeonhole you and feed you the same shit. I go to friends’ homes and their Netflix listings are way different than what I get. You have to arbitrarily search for something unusual to start seeing new (to you) stuff.

Hulu’s probably the obvious next choice, I guess. They’re doing more original stuff, but it’s still a whole lot of network series.

Disney+ is kind of nice. Star Wars, MCU, and, of course, boatloads of animation.

Peacock has been great for the olympics. I get it free through comcast, though. Not sure I’d pay for it.

[subego]

That he’s seen everything. However, right now he’s limited to the TiVo client, which I doubt is giving him the best search tools. I’ll definitely look into that.

My dad loves sci-fi but can’t stand fantasy, so Star Wars and superhero stuff isn’t his bag. Even Star Trek is a little too soft for him, though he was rapt as teenager watching it in prime time.

He also seems to have limited interest in serials, which mightily cuts down his options.

To put it another way, everything that’s huge right now he doesn’t like.

[reader50]

So he only likes standalone hard sci-fi movies? Not a lot of those on any network. Have you tried introducing him to The Expanse? That's about as hard SF as they get. If he bites, problem solved for at least a month.

[subego]

How hard?

No FTL?

[reader50]

You haven't watched? That limits what I can say.

Space battles involve inertia, and railguns. No beam weapons as of S4, which is as far as I've watched. Ships have to flip-and-burn at the halfway point of journeys, so they usually approach destinations tail-first, decelerating. Near as I can tell, the only tech assumption made at the beginning is that we invent an extraordinarily efficient reaction drive. As mass-efficient as an ion drive, but at high thrust levels. Gravity comes from ships accelerating continuously, or by centrifical rotation (stations usually).

Power for the engine comes from inertial-confined fusion reactors. Accelerating at high Gs carries a cost for the crew inside. As do hits on the outside of the ships.

From what I can see, none of our future tech is actually impossible. Even that engine - it's efficiency is super-high, but not impossible. Laws of physics appear to be applied well.

Be warned it's an ensemble cast, and it takes awhile for individual story lines to start crossing. He should give it at least 4 episodes before forming an opinion. Or giving up.

[subego]

Ooooh… I’m impressed.

[subego]

Just out of curiosity, what do they use to fuel the reactor, and what do they use as a reaction mass?

Please let ice be involved.

[reader50]

The characters generally don't explain tech for our benefit. After all, it's everyday for them. So the tech mostly exists in the background. Note: computers do not speak aloud. The AI revolution has come and gone, and cost lots of jobs. People don't like AI. So computers respond to voice commands, but are programmed to never speak. So even the computers don't explain tech details. Display screens sometimes show details though.

Inertial fusion is ultimately hydrogen pellets. Not sure of the details. I'd guess water for reaction mass, but don't recall it ever being specified.

edit - it wasn't until season 4 that I realized they were using inertial confinement. Though I'd seen pulsing on engineering displays before that. They assume the audience is intelligent.

[subego]

Thanks!

I pitched him on it yesterday. He was intrigued, but the prospective commitment is a hurdle.

[subego]

Totally different question. When did we universally decide “savory” was a taste? I just learned of this a week ago.

I also learned that apparently MSG is to savory as quinine is to bitter, or citric acid is to sour.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

As opposed to just the specific herb? Hasn’t it always been? Sweet and savoury?

[subego]

I had always been taught the tastes, as in what taste buds can detect, were sweet, salt, bitter, and sour. I had never heard anyone include savory until this week.

[Thorzdad]

Umami

[subego]

Interestingly, a word I had heard long before. There’s a restaurant here named Umami, but I had no idea what it meant until this week.

[subego]

Never driven a motorcycle.

Am I correct the throttle is a twisty thing on the handlebar?

Do you get into a situation where the proper throttle requires awkward wrist bending?

How is that dealt with? Do you just let go of the throttle and then grab it again anticipating how much twist you need to impart?


As an aside, what made me think of this was that Happy Days episode where the Fonz discovers the motorcycle that was alleged to be used in a purse snatching had the throttle on the same side as the purse was snatched, thus showing the accused was innocent.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by subego 

Am I correct the throttle is a twisty thing on the handlebar?

Yep, right side as standard, but some older bikes, and especially British bikes initially used a throttle on the left side, as was the case with the Fonz's '49 Triumph.

Do you get into a situation where the proper throttle requires awkward wrist bending?

Yes. It varies bike to bike - the amount of throttle twist required to go from closed to fully open depends on the geometry of the throttle grip and actuator at the carbs/throttle bodies. Some will go wide open in 1/4 turn, some take more than that. The shorter the throw, the twitchier the throttle becomes - good for fast response, bad for precise modulation.

How is that dealt with? Do you just let go of the throttle and then grab it again anticipating how much twist you need to impart?

Basically yes. Knowing you're about to go full throttle, you rotate your wrist upward and essentially "wind up," then grab the grip and rip it all the way down. You can also kind of "walk" your hand around the throttle, maintaining its current level but repositioning your hand in either direction to put it in a better position for what you want to do.

[subego]

Awesome! Thank you!

Another question. How does an “engine brake” feel on a motorcycle relative to a car? Do they decelerate faster or slower?

[Laminar]

Again it depends on the bike. But as the vast majority of bikes are manual transmissions with no mushy torque converter in the way, they're already going to be a bit spicier. Engine braking force is also increased in more highly-strung engines with higher compression running at higher revs, which describes a lot of motorcycles. Some bikes come with a Slipper Clutch, which is designed to reduce the severity of the engine braking force. It's possible to lock up the rear tire on a bike with engine braking alone, which can get hairy. I have a video somewhere of me doing it on an old CB550, I should see if I can dig that out.

edit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ccFFMPPyz8

On each downshift before I pull back into the driveway you can hear the tire chirp due to engine braking. Proper rev-matching would help that, but at this point I'd only been riding bikes for a few months and hadn't figured that out yet.

[subego]

Interesting! Thank you!

I’m even one step further removed because I don’t know how to drive a manual. Unlike motorcycles, I’ve tried it a few times, but I definitely don’t know how.