This is what has always made it hard for me to go beyond the Newtonian physics. The only thing I know and use daily that relies on relativity is GPS and having looked into the equations on how it accounts for this it seemed to me that I could not discount that the equations account for some arbitrary consistent (or random) error, not relativity specifically. All experiments I have run never needed precision beyond Newtonian physics, but I am not at the end of my career yet so maybe relativity will become relevant some day. I will be looking forward to it if that is the case...
You could well live your whole life without needing anything more than Newtonian Physics. For most of us, relativity is a fun thought experiment. If you want to grapple with it, special relativity is the answer to "how can the speed of light be constant regardless of the speed of whoever is measuring it?" In his "vulgarisation" books, Einstein explains it with nothing more sophisticated than trains and stopwatches.
General relativity is more complex and quickly goes in complicated mathematical weeds but is just as profound from a philosophical point of view, which is that things do not merely affect other things around them, but instead change space-time itself. You can see with a couple of clicks observations of phenomena predicted by it, like black holes and gravitational lenses. It’s interesting to think about even if you are not directly affected.
Once upon a time most households had a small particle accelerator, used daily. While the the electrons in the cathode ray tube (CRT) traveled at relativistic speeds (something like 0.1-0.3 c, from what I can tell), people did not need need to know about special relativity to change the channel on their TV.
That said, those effects would have been small, and likely handled in practice as "some arbitrary consistent (or random) error."
Thank you for the nice read. I empathize with many of your points, we are standing on the shoulders of giants. I refute on the claim around "our greatest societal ills". I think there is a difference between confident communication and being listened to. I have many a times said confidently "I don't know", as I have made decisions on low confident bets but leant into them with all my heart. Sometimes it paid of and sometimes it did not. It has served me well in my career and in life. As a scientist at heart I still agree that too often confidence is given too much weight and the quiet voice in the room should also be heard. However, we should teach everybody to communicate confidently even if they sometimes communicate wrongly. Of course we should not confuse confidence with credibility and accept that we know little for sure and are all just trying our best with the very limited understanding we have of our universe.
Corn, albeit not an animal has been pretty successful in terms of number of individuals. Their bi-pedal underlings have cleared swathes of land and take meticulous care of their well-being so they can bask in the sun undisturbed.
I mean it does add like a millisecond of unnecessary delay that wouldn't be there if it took the most efficient route. It's not much, but it does add up!
Having skimmed the article I understand the title. While I agree on some level I wholly disagree on another: to me "dependency cooldown" is a way to automate something as old as time: the late-adopter-laggard. Although I am a tech-nerd and like the latest stuff. I have almost always let other people try it out first. I've missed out on some things because of it but if you are more conservative in your actions it just happens naturally. I think it is OK to have a dependency cooldown, in fact not everybody should update to the newest stuff right away. It's good to have cascaded updates. See the crowd-strike incident in 2024. If some people want to be later in the chain so be it. They will also miss out on important security updates by their cooldown time. I'd advocate for the feature despite never having used it. So "collectively rational" in my mind.
I take issue with the expectation that a business should take on the additional liability and risk of immediate adoption, just because this person on the internet thinks so. I’m doubtful they are going to pay the millions in liabilities that could result when something gets exploited, so it makes it hard to care what they think about it.
The problem is making it a default (or even popular). If everyone tries to move themselves later in the chain, you just moved detection later in the chain as well
Yes. But also infection with a malicious package. I don't want anybody to be hacked and also don't want everybody to be hacked at the same time. If I am managing multiple software components with different levels of reliability requirements I certainly would stagger updates and updates to dependencies using "dependency cooldowns". I don't fault anybody for using them. As it stands I am very conservative with dependencies/updates in general and not using "dependency cooldowns" yet.
What do you mean by "IPR focussed design"? IPR = Intellectial Property Rights? So they should keep making designs but not compete with their customers?
Do both. It's not like other companies don't do the same, Microsoft sell surface as well as Windows. Samsung sell tech to Apple and compete with Apple.
it has been such a godsend flying out of Frankfurt where they have the new scanners and you don't have to empty out your bag anymore. So much smoother. Then I fly back and get all annoyed at the other airports. I was told Oslo airport is holding out until it becomes regulation to use the new scanners. Security-Theater is still what it is. It is super weak imho, despite never having seriously attempted a heist or trying to get contraband on a plane. I miss the good old days where you handed your luggage to a guy just before boarding the plane.
Germany has a very sad and weak airport security story. The security personal are hired and paid by the state (Land), and thus the state plans their capacity and workflow. The airport owner (i.e. FRAport) has no say in their internal work organization, as it is basically contracted out policework. For whatever reason, most german Airports I regularly use, use the same machine and broken workflow: There is only a limited amount of containers to put your stuff in to go through the x-ray, and the machine itself has an integrated container-return system using conveyors. As a result, each machine has only a single small table with a container dispenser to serve passengers. On that tiny table, only 2-3 people at the same time can get undressed, get water out of their handlugagge etc. Waiting passengers behind them are blocked.
I contrast that with my experience in Spain: Several meters before the machines, there is a large amount of unoccupied, huge tables with containers stacked everywhere, so everybody can get undressed and pack their stuff into the container trays at their pace of choice. Staff assists and tells the rules to individuall travellers. Once you are done sorting your stuff into the containers, taking off your belt etc - only THEN you take the containers towards the x-ray conveyor line. So there is hardly any blocking the line. Instead of a container-return system, a single human stacks the containers past the scan and returns them to the beginning. This is so much more effective.
Classic example of government run workflows: No one cares to optimize the workflow, and the one who would benefit from a speedup (the airport and the airlines) in terms of increased sales, have no say in the process.
Interesting. I can only speak for FRAports Terminal A where the Lufthansa flights go and they use the new bag scanners where I just need to get rid of my coat and belt to be scanned by the infamous "Nacktscanner". The first time I went through I thought liquids were allowed from all airports in the EU until I found out it was bag scanner dependent. Smaller airports are usually OK because queues are short and then I have the time to walk TSA through each individual item personally. FRAport has started adopting the "snake-through-duty-free" before the gate (pioneered by Stansted as far as I can tell) which is criminal in my opinion (it's not as bad as Stansted yet). Commercial workflows are thus not always better when the optimize time customer has to spend "not buying" overpriced meals and consumer garbage.
Exactly. Plus belts, watches, removing phone/wallet/headphones from your pockets etc. And taking Laptop OUT of your luggage onto separate trays, your liquids into a clear plastic bag, etc. Very often, during that process, the staff members recognize people having liquid containers with more than 100ml capacity (shampoo, hair gel, etc.) and can tell the people that they can't take it aboard etc. I happen to fly frequently to what are busy tourist destinations, and especially older people seem to be completely unaware of any regulations what you can and can't carry along - even though those regulation have been in place for 20+ years. That is very time intensive.
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