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Joined 29 days ago
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Cake day: May 11th, 2026

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  • I’ve been watching a lot of Sarah Paine videos so I’m going to try to recall her argument from memory here. I think it’s a pretty interesting take.

    Russia also never benefitted from maritime thinking like the rest of Europe who had unrestricted access to the 7 seas while Russia’s were frozen 8 months of the year or easily blockaded. Seeing your neighbors fail and lose land is by definition a win for a nation that can’t get beyond its own borders without neighbors extracting tolls and rents for trade, or blocking you entirely.

    England and the rest of Europe could trade with the world freely and embraced liberal values for a long long time. It became their culture, and England even spent exorbitant amounts of money policing the high seas. We’re talking a larger percentage of their GDP per year than the US spent on the war on terror during their peak. Iirc it was as high as 12% of their tax revenue? The West African squadron was a giant money sink.

    And England didn’t do it to extract tolls or rents from other nations, but to prevent piracy as a whole since lost and stolen goods (especially ships) were a massive setback to the wealth of their trading partners, and by extension themselves. They also fought against slavery which harmed competitors using unfair labour (from their perspective) and to force liberal reform aligned with their own values (more better trade, less slave policing)

    That’s a mindset that only exists with unrestricted access to the sea. When you’re penned in by neighbors that liberal attitude gets you killed or invaded so continental powers are more paranoid.


  • They decided not to change their rules to allow these unhealthy stocks in. They have to do the full process instead of skipping the line to make pensioners into bag holders as opposed to Altman and friends.

    They’re not blocked but they’re never going to be healthy enough to be added before they implode.

    If I smother OpenAI to death by denying them oxygen for 5 minutes did I “block” the entry of air into their lungs, or did they just not breathe for 5 minutes?



  • iocase@lemmy.zipto196@lemmy.blahaj.zoneTrains rule btw
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    15 hours ago

    In order of most frictiony to least frictiony

    Stiction (stationary object you forced to move)

    Rolling

    Sliding

    Which is why ABS exists. When you lock your wheels up your coefficient of friction tanks and your stopping distance can double or more depending on conditions. ABS unlocks your wheels sometimes so you can at least steer, unlike a skid. If you know how to pump brakes properly a skilled driver can beat ABS handily.

    There’s also the fact that couplers have these hard rubber disks that act as springs and shock absorbers (railroading is kind of caveman-like in its solution to things) so when you try to pull a train it might look like you’re moving but you’re just taking the slack out. If you don’t you can bust a coupler from shock loading, so you can’t cheat physics that way (how I move heavy furniture around by myself personally so you would think it applies to trains)

    As a result you take the slack out of a train and make the cylinder part of the boiler until:

    A) she moves!

    B) your wheels slip!

    Once it’s moving it’s easy going.

    As for why an electric engine can’t keep hauling overloaded it’s because it’s above 100% rating. It can only do that for a short while or things start melting and letting out magic smoke.

    A steam locomotive can haul anything it can get moving since it’s lower friction once rolling, and requires less drawbar force.





  • iocase@lemmy.ziptoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.worldEast Asia
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    6 hours ago

    I watched a heartwarming short of a guy getting stopped by the police in Mongolia for using a wind sail powered horizontal bike thingy.

    2 locals also showed up on a moped

    Top comment:

    “It’s nice to see all 5 people in Mongolia meet up to see how OP’s bike works”








  • iocase@lemmy.zipto196@lemmy.blahaj.zoneTrains rule btw
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    19 hours ago

    It’s a railroader saying. Steam makes 100% torque at a dead stop so if it can start moving it can haul it.

    So it means if our little train gets going nothing can stop it.

    For comparison a diesel-electric locomotive makes 300% torque at a dead stop so it can move things it cannot haul for long distances. The motors would catch on fire or you would burn out your electronics.

    Another railroader saying that sounds like a tautology is

    “Steam can’t start a load it can haul. Electric can start a load it can’t”