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Interesting Items...

I knew something like this had been across my desk some months ago.

Meanwhile, I didn't notice COP26 even mentioning, let alone discussing, the politically intractable truth that the only sustainable way for humankind to become sustainable is to reduce the population to sustainable numbers.
 
Black Hole said:
reduce the population to sustainable numbers.
Click to expand...
Nothing like stating the breeding obvious!
How do you convince any country to reduce the population? You and I can see the problem. I can’t see an obvious solution. Those I can think of are not palatable ones.
 
EEPhil said:
Nothing like stating the breeding obvious!
How do you convince any country to reduce the population? You and I can see the problem. I can’t see an obvious solution. Those I can think of are not palatable ones.
Click to expand...
I have long had the belief that giving cash incentives to those willing to have voluntary sterilisation rather than the present system of rewarding the serial breeders with additional state benefits would be better for us all. It would help people out of the poverty trap and help to give the kids they already have a better life. No doubt a lot of drug addicts would jump at the chance to get some cash too and prevent kids being born into the toxic environment of drug abuse. . If nothing else at least the gene pool would improve. Sadly though capitalism relies on an ever growing population and without this the state pension would collapse. On the bright side though it is estimated that China's population will half by 2100 and with sperm counts dropping all over the globe due to pollution and estrogen levels in drinking water rising we may not need to do anything about population numbers.
 
It's hard to see how, with the genetically built-in imperative to reproduce, any such programme can be imposed without massive consequences to mental health. Population can only reasonably be limited by famine, war, and disease (and our scientists keep defeating the latter).
 
trog said:
No doubt a lot of drug addicts would jump at the chance to get some cash too and prevent kids being born into the toxic environment of drug abuse. .
Click to expand...
There's a new idea, how about ENFORCING the CURRENT drug laws before anything else?
 
2022 is an interesting year for fans of Roman numerals - MMXXII
It would appear to be only the second time there have been three pairs of the same symbol, the last being 1800 years ago in 222 - CCXXII
The next time it happens will be in 180 years time in 2202 - MMCCII
and then the unique 4 pair one 20 years later in 2222 - MMCCXXII

(I don't count letters with bars over the top for 5000 etc.)
 
V̅ apparently i.e. V with a bar, the bar indicating multiply by 1000.
Otherwise dates end at 3999. Will our flash storage still be working then I wonder?

(This is the letter V followed by U+0305 - perhaps I should try counting sheep...)
 
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Xmas gift-toy, a pair of magnetic balls (oo-err missus). Mystery: what are they made of?

Description: 30mm diameter, weight 70g (I make that a density of 4.95 g/cm³). Appearance is mirror-polished but dark grey, and very hard like a steel ball bearing. Metallic rather than ceramic. They are magnetic enough to suspend one through at least an inch of wood.

My first thought was the neodymium-iron-boron super-magnet alloy, but the references say that has a density of 7.55. I suppose the balls could be hollow – if anyone knows an easy way to measure moment of inertia I could find out, but it seems unlikely. Also, neodymium (I read) is supposed to tarnish quickliy.

Bright ideas?
 
I have verified the weight by independent means, so it's not like the scales are off by 33%.

Apparently the production method for NdFeB magnets is sintering, so I guess there could be voids in the matrix, but surely not accounting for a third of the volume! Also, apparently, these things are plated, so the polished surface would require the sintering to be pretty much complete.
 
Just looking around I found A316 stainless magnetic doorstops which from the photos must have the magnet encased in the steel. Aha, I thought.
But A316 has a density of 7.99 ... Ho hum.

However it does suggest the balls could be made from more than one material.
 
Magnetite has the right sort of density, but I don't know how practical that would be to form into solid polished spheres nor how strong the magnetism is.

I have seen 30mm spheres of NdFeB quoted as having 20kg lifting capacity, and these are nowhere near that strong.
 
Never managed to solve the magnetic balls thing.

Here's another one on a geographic theme: just saw an Apple Watch advert where (supposedly) the trail biking wearer had crashed and the watch phoned in an SOS. However, the synthesised voice gave the location in latitude and longitude to 0.1 degrees, and then said the estimated search radius was 41 metres.

By my rough estimation, 0.1 degrees is a span of about 5 miles!
 
FWIW my phone gives the location to the nearest second. Could the watch be the same and they’ve just cocked up the advert?
 
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